page_title: William Rosecrans
section_title: Tullahoma
hierarchical_section_title: William Rosecrans / Career / American Civil War / Tullahoma
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the Tullahoma Campaign of the American Civil War.
context_page_description: William Starke Rosecrans was an American inventor, coal-oil company executive, diplomat, politician, and U.S. Army officer. He gained fame for his role as a Union general during the American Civil War. He was the victor at prominent Western Theater battles, but his military career was effectively ended following his disastrous defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863.
  Rosecrans graduated in 1842 from the United States Military Academy where he served in engineering assignments as well as a professor before leaving the Army to pursue a career in civil engineering. At the start of the Civil War, leading troops from Ohio, he achieved early combat success in western Virginia. In 1862 in the Western Theater, he won the battles of Iuka and Corinth while under the command of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. His brusque, outspoken manner and willingness to quarrel openly with superiors caused a professional rivalry with Grant that would adversely affect Rosecrans' career.
  Given command of the Army of the Cumberland, he fought against Confederate Gen.
context_section_description: Rosecrans's XIV Corps was soon redesignated the Army of the Cumberland, which he kept in place occupying Murfreesboro for almost six months, spending the time resupplying and training, for he was reluctant to advance on the muddy winter roads. He received numerous entreaties from President Lincoln, Secretary of War Stanton, and General-in-Chief Halleck to resume campaigning against Bragg, but rebuffed them through the winter and spring. A primary concern of the government was that if Rosecrans continued to sit idly, the Confederates might move units from Bragg's army in an attempt to relieve the pressure that Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was applying to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Lincoln wrote to Rosecrans, "I would not push you to any rashness, but I am very anxious that you do your utmost, short of rashness, to keep Bragg from getting lost to help Johnston against Grant." Rosecrans offered an excuse that if he started to move against Bragg, Bragg would likely relocate his entire army to Mississippi and threaten Grant's Vicksburg Campaign even more; thus, by not attacking Bragg, he was helping Grant. Frustration with Rosecrans's excuses led Halleck to threaten to relieve him if he did not move, but in the end he merely protested "against the expense to which [Rosecrans] put the government for telegrams."
  On June 2, Halleck telegraphed that if Rosecrans was unwilling to move, some of his troops would be sent to Mississippi to reinforce Grant. Rosecrans sent a questionnaire to his corps and division commanders in the hopes of documenting support for his position—that Bragg had so far detached no significant forces to Mississippi, that advancing the Army of the Cumberland would do nothing to prevent any such transfer, and that any immediate advance was not a good idea. Fifteen of the seventeen senior generals supported most of Rosecrans's positions and the counsel against advancing was unanimous. The only dissenter was the newly assigned chief of staff, Brig. Gen. James A. Garfield, who recommended an immediate advance, but historian Steven E. Woodworth opines that he may have been "most concerned with the [political] impression his statement would make in Washington." On June 16, Halleck wired a blunt message: "Is it your intention to make an immediate movement forward? A definite answer, yes or no, is required." Rosecrans responded to this ultimatum: "If immediate means tonight or tomorrow, no. If it means as soon as all things are ready, say five days, yes." Seven days later, early in the morning of June 24, Rosecrans reported that the Army of the Cumberland had begun to move against Bragg.
  The Tullahoma Campaign (June 24 – July 3, 1863) was characterized by flawless maneuvers and very low casualties, as Rosecrans forced Bragg to retreat back to Chattanooga. Tullahoma is considered a "brilliant" campaign by many historians. Abraham Lincoln wrote, "The flanking of Bragg at Shelbyville, Tullahoma and Chattanooga is the most splendid piece of strategy I know of." Union Cavalry Corps commander David S. Stanley wrote, "If any student of the military art desires to make a study of a model campaign, let him take his maps and General Rosecrans's orders for the daily movements of his campaign. No better example of successful strategy was carried out during the war than in the Tullahoma campaign."
  When Rosecrans' troops entered Shelbyville, they were able to rescue captured Union spy Pauline Cushman.  Cushman had been scouting the movements of Gen. Bragg when she was captured (Gen. John Hunt Morgan was one of her escorts to Gen. Bragg for questioning).   A military trial found her guilty; she was to be hanged as a spy.  Her rescue came just three days prior to her scheduled execution.  Rosecrans and Cushman went on to raise over one million dollars for soldiers aid at the 1863 Cincinnati, Ohio Sanitary Fair.  In contrast, Rosecrans had approved the courtmartial and hanging of two Confederate Officers, Lawrence Orton Williams and Walter Peters, on June 9, 1863 at Franklin Tenn after these two officers had disguised themselves as 
caption: Tullahoma Campaign   Confederate   Union
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