page_title: 33rd Alabama Infantry Regiment
section_title: The Siege of Chattanooga
hierarchical_section_title: 33rd Alabama Infantry Regiment / Chattanooga to Ringgold Gap / The Siege of Chattanooga
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Битва при Чаттануге 25 ноября 1863 г. English: Library of Congress print, cropped and color-corrected by Hal Jespersen. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/96502868/ TITLE: Battle of Mission [i.e., Missionary] Ridge, Nov. 25th, 1863 / Cosack &amp; Co. lith., Buffalo &amp; Chicago. CALL NUMBER: PGA - Cosack &amp; Co.--Battle of Mission Ridge ... (D size) [P&amp;P] REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZC4-4238 (color film copy transparency) LC-DIG-pga-00539 (digital file from original print) LC-USZ62-1266 (b&amp;w film copy neg.) SUMMARY: Battle of Missionary Ridge showing the Union assault during the 2nd day of battle; also shown, an insert of McCormick harvesting machine. MEDIUM: 1 print&#160;: chromolithograph, color. CREATED/PUBLISHED: c1886. CREATOR: Cosack &amp; Co., lithographer.
context_page_description: The 33rd Alabama Infantry Regiment was an infantry unit from Alabama that served in the Confederate States Army during the U.S. Civil War. Recruited from the southeastern counties of Butler, Dale, Coffee, Covington, Russell and Montgomery, it saw extensive service with the Confederate Army of Tennessee before being nearly annihilated at the Battle of Franklin in 1864. Survivors from the regiment would continue to serve until the final capitulation of General Joseph Johnston in North Carolina in 1865.
  In addition to the counties named above, the 33rd Alabama drew recruits from three modern Alabama counties that did not yet exist in 1862: Geneva County, which was then a part of Dale and Coffee counties; Crenshaw County, which would be formed from Covington and other nearby counties after the war; and Houston County, which then formed a part of Dale and Henry Counties.
  Initially assigned to the defense of Confederate forts in Pensacola Bay, Florida, the 33rd was quickly transferred to duty in the Army of Tennessee, where it saw its first significant action at the Battle of Perryville.
context_section_description: Following the debacle at Chickamauga and his subsequent failure to prevent the routed Union forces from escaping to Chattanooga, Bragg placed that city under siege after hearing that his foes had just six days of food remaining.  Entrenching his forces atop Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge overlooking the city and the Tennessee River, Bragg soon learned that he would be facing a new opponent: Ulysses S. Grant. Fresh from his victory at Vicksburg, Grant had been ordered to take command of all Federal forces in the region; his first action upon arriving was to remove Rosecrans and replace him with George Thomas, who had saved the Union army at Chickamauga. With 50,000 new reinforcements to assist him, Grant opened a so-called "Cracker Line" to the starving Federals in the city at the Battle of Brown's Ferry; here the 15th Alabama, another regiment recruited from the same part of the state as the 33rd, was driven from the field after being outnumbered and overwhelmed by attacking Federals.
  The 33rd Alabama dug in on the west end of Missionary Ridge on November 22, behind a vineyard at its base. Rifle pits were built, and guards rotated there every 24 hours; those not on guard duty set to work clearing all the vegetation from the west slope of the ridge, chopping the trees so that the tops fell toward Chattanooga, creating a natural barrier of tangled tree limbs. Matthews reports that the removal of these trees allowed the cold autumn breezes to chill the troops on the ridge, since the Southerners had nothing but small tents to break the wind. He reports gazing in wonder at the valley below him, where the campfires of thousands of Federal soldiers "[showed] picturesquely at night." A large siege gun was hauled up Lookout Mountain to shell the Union camps and Chattanooga; Matthews recalled that "... at the flash of the gun at night, some soldiers attracted out attention by yelling and watching the long flight and bursting of the shells, [which] were especially attractive to us while standing, squatting or sitting around our camp fires." He says that rations, which had heretofore been plentiful, were "short" during this time.
  At this point, Bragg chose to divide his army: Longstreet's 4,000 soldiers were ordered to move north to Knoxville to deal with a separate Federal force there under Ambrose Burnside.  On November 22, he ordered General Cleburne to take his division, including the 33rd Alabama, together with another division under General Simon B. Buckner to assist. Seeing movement in the Southern lines, General Grant ordered Federal forces to attack near a small rise called Orchard Knob; their success, though limited in scope, led Bragg to recall Cleburne (who was in the process of loading his troops onto their trains); he took up a position just behind his former works which had been occupied by other Southerners after their departure the day before.
caption: The Battle of Missionary Ridge. The 33rd Alabama fought here during the Battles of Chattanooga.
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