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Might Have Become President

He was known as “the general of the
one mistake.” Had it not been for that
mistake, on the second day of the Civil
War battle of Chickamauga, Maj. Gen.
William StarkekRosecransiof Cincinnati,
Ohio, might have become president of
the United States.

In late summer 1863, Rosecrans was
perhaps the best—known general in the
Union Army. His bloodless capture of
Chattanooga, Tenn, the South’s most
important railroad center, had sent the
North into joyous celebration. The end of
the war seemed imminent.

But Rosecrans, goaded by an impa-
tient War Department, barely paused at
Chattanooga. With rebel Gen. Braxton
Bragg’s army in apparent disarray,
Rosecrans split his own army into three
wings and followed the retreating south-
erners into northern Georgia.

Bragg, however, was not in retreat. He
was lying in wait for his overconfident
opponent. On the night of Sept. 18, the
two armies blundered into each other
along the banks of Chickamauga Creek,
10 miles south of Chattanooga along the
Tennessee-Georgia border. The next two
days saw some of the bloodiest fighting
of the Civil War.

Rosecrans, who had never seen defeat
in his battles, had graduated fifth in his
West Point class, and become a success—
ful architect and engineer in Cincinnati.

When the war broke out, he was pressed
back into service.

Perhaps for the first time, Rosecrans
realized he was in a fight for survival in
the raging Chickamauga battle. Bragg
attacked the morning of Sept. 19, and all
day the two armies clashed in the deep
woods and underbrush,

The next morning an over-tired Rose—
crans checked out the Union positions.
After Brigadier Gen. Thomas Wood fail-
ed to move his troops as quickly as Rose-
crans wanted, Wood got a vicious public
tongue—lashing from his commander.
Rosecrans would come to regret that
outburst.

Later in the day, Rosecrans got a re-
port of a gap in the Union lines, and not
bothering to check the accuracy of the
information, ordered Wood to move his
troops there. Wood, fearing another re-
buke, moved quickly.

Ironically, at that same time 11,000
Confederate troops came crashing
through the woods at exactly the spot
that Wood had vacated. The result was a
rout of the Union troops.

Rosecrans’ beaten army was able to
retreat into Chattanooga, but the fiasco
led to Rosecrans’ downfall. President
Abraham Lincoln named Ulysses S.
Grant to head the Union armies in the
West, and Grant chose to dismiss Rose-
crans.

Two months later, Grant won the ad-
miration of the northern public when the

southern siege was broken. It was Rose‘-
crans’ plan for lifting the siege that
Grant had used, but he got no credit for
the victory. A broken man. he was trans-
ferred to unimportant posts and quit the
Army a year later.

Vindication came to Rosecrans 25
years later, at a battlefield reunion pic-
nic for Confederate and Union veterans
at Chickamauga in 1889. Ten thousand
men cheered Rosecrans as he stood atop
a table under the main tent. A news—
paper reporter wrote that “old veterans
cried like infants" upon seeing the old
commander.

Today, Rosecrans is the only com-
mander of a major Union army without
a monument anywhere. But at Chicka-
mauga, his name lives on, as a general
of undoubted ability who made one mis-
take, in the heat of battle, and paid for it
the rest of his life. — kt

America’s First, Largest
National Military Park

The story of Gen. William Rosecrans
is told at America ‘s first. largest and
most—Visited national military park.
Chickamauga-Chattanooga.

A quarter century after the end of the
Civil War. Americans raised money to
erect monuments, plaques and markers
to the pivotal fighting that took place in
the Chickamauga and Chattanooga
areas in 1863.

Now, says the Chattanooga Area Con-
vention and Visitors Bureau, efforts are
underway to clean and repair all of the
park’s 666 monuments, in preparation
for a major national celebration of the
park’s centennial in 1990. The monu—
ments were funded, designed and pla ced
by veterans from each state who fought
there.

Supporters envision a major program
— along the lines of the “Sa ve the Statue
of Liberty” project — to preserve the
memorials.

For more information about the im-
portance of the Chickamauga-Chatta—
nooga area to the Civil War, or other at—
tractions in and around Chattanooga,
contact the Convention and Visitors Bur—
eau at 1001 Market St, Chattanooga. "N
37401.