page_title: Lightning Brigade (US Army of the Cumberland 1863)
section_title: Second Battle of Chattanooga
hierarchical_section_title: Lightning Brigade (US Army of the Cumberland 1863) / Chickamauga Campaign / Second Battle of Chattanooga
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of battlefield core and study areas. The revised Study Area includes the lengthy Federal approach route. Core Area was expanded slightly to take in the entire area of bombardment.
context_page_description: The Lightning Brigade, also known as Wilder's Brigade or the Hatchet Brigade was a novel, for the US Army formation in the American Civil War, mounted infantry brigade in the Union Army of the Cumberland from March 8, 1863, through the November of 1863. Its regiments were nominally the 1st Brigade of MGEN Joseph J. Reynolds 4th Division of Thomas' XIV Corps. Operationally, they were detached from the division and serving as a mobile mounted infantry to support any of the army's corps. COL John T. Wilder was its commander. As initially organized. the brigade had the following regiments:|
  92nd Illinois Mounted Infantry: COL Smith D. Atkins
  98th Illinois Mounted Infantry: COL John J. Funkhouser, LTCOL Edward Kitchell
  123rd Illinois Mounted Infantry: COL James Monroe
  17th Indiana Mounted Infantry: MAJ William T. Jones
  72nd Indiana Mounted Infantry: COL Abram O. Miller
  18th Independent Battery Indiana Light Artillery: CAPT Eli Lilly
context_section_description: (August 21 – September 8, 1863)
  Having driven Confederate forces from middle Tennessee, the Army of the Cumberland paused to refit and replenish their units. Rosecrans did not immediately pursue Bragg and "give the finishing blow to the rebellion" as Stanton urged. He paused to regroup and study the difficult choices of pursuit into mountainous regions. 
  On August 16, 1863, Rosecrans launched his campaign to take Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Lighting Brigade (now with an added regiment the 92nd Illinois Mounted Infantry as of 10 July) played a crucial role in this campaign. Rosecrans ordered the  brigade to shell Chattanooga from the western side of the Tennessee River and skirmish with the main Confederate force in the city to divert attention away from the flanking column sent southwest of the city. The Lightning Brigade marched to a location northeast of Chattanooga where the Confederates could see them, reinforcing Gen. Braxton Bragg's expectations of a Union attack on the town from that direction. By August 21, the brigade had deployed along the Tennessee River to the east opposite Chattanooga. Wilder ordered the 18th Indiana Light Artillery (Capt. Eli Lilly's battery) to begin shelling the town. The shells caught many soldiers and civilians in town in church observing a day of prayer and fasting. The bombardment sank two steamers docked at the landing and created a great deal of consternation amongst the Confederates.
  Continuing periodically over the next two weeks, the shelling helped keep Bragg's attention to the northeast while the bulk of Rosecrans's army crossed the Tennessee River well west and south of Chattanooga. The diversion was successful, with Bragg concentrating his army east of Chattanooga. When Bragg learned on September 8 that the Union army was in force southwest of the city, he abandoned Chattanooga and marched his Army of Tennessee into Georgia. Bragg's army marched down the LaFayette Road and camped in the city of LaFayette.
caption: Map of Chattanooga II Battlefield core and study areas by the American Battlefield Protection Program
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