Braxton Bragg

Braxton Bragg
American Civil War
Rank	General, CSA
Born	March 22, 1817
Place of birth	Warrenton, North Carolina
Died	September 27, 1876
Place of death	Galveston, Texas
Battles engaged in	Shiloh Perryville Chickamauga Chattanooga

Braxton Bragg (born March 22, 1817, died September 27, 1876) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War.

Military education and service

Braxton Bragg was born in Warrenton, North Carolina. He joined West Point, graduating fifth in a class of 50 in 1837. Bragg was commissioned a second lieutenant in the US Army, serving in the 3rd Artillery. In the Second Seminole War, his unit was deployed to Florida as infantry, with Bragg commanding the army post at St. Augustine. Bragg served with distinction in the Mexican War, gaining a promotion to captain and brevet promotions to lieutenant colonel. His effort at the battle of Buena Vista saved Jefferson Davis' regiment, earnig Bragg Davis' friendship.

Bragg resigned from the Army in 1856 and became a planter in Louisiana.

Civil War

Pensacola to Shiloh

Bragg was a colonel in the Louisiana militia at the outbreak of the civil war. In February 1961, he was promoted to major general and became the highest-ranking officer in the state forces. By early march, he was commissioned a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army instead. Bragg was sent to Pensacola, Florida, and became commander of the District of West Florida. He was promoted to major general on September 12, 1861, and his command was upgraded to include Alabama. He spent most of his time drilling his troops, making them some of the best-trained in the Confederacy.

When Albert S. Johnston prepared to repel the Union incursions on the Tennessee River in early 1862, Bragg and two divisions of his troops were ordered to Corinth, Mississippi as reinforcements, where Bragg was engaged in instilling some discipline into the forces already assembled. He took part in the Battle of Shiloh on April 6-7, 1962, commanding the first wave of Confederate troops. When Johnston died at Shiloh and P. G. T. Beauregard, the second-in-command, took a leave of absence for medical reasons a few weeks later, Bragg was promoted to full general and placed in command of the army in June 1862, which became famous as the Army of Tennessee.

Kentucky Campaign

Kentucky had been a border state with strong pro-Confederate sentiments. At the outbreak of hostilities it had tried to remain neutral, but the neutrality had been violated by Confederate general Leonidas Polk's occupation of Columbus, quickly followed by Ulysses S. Grant's Union occupation of Paducah. Kentucky's pro-Union legislature had used Polk's actions as a pretext to end neutrality and declare allegiance to the Union. Yet when Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan returned from Kentucky after a July 1962 raid, he reported pro-Confederate enthusiasm.

Bragg decided to invade Kentucky with his army for several reasons. On the one hand, he hoped to recruit thousands of Kentuckians. For this purpose, his army would carry along an arsenal of spare muskets. On the other hand, he might catch his Union opponent Don Carlos Buell, commander of the Department of the Ohio, south of the Ohio river, cut his lines of supply, and force a battle under favourable circumstances.

In preparation, Bragg moved his army from Tupelo, Mississippi to Chattanooga, Tennessee, transporting his infantry by rail. He left behind two detachments under Sterling Price and Earl Van Dorn tasked with opposing Union efforts in east Mississippi, but without unified command. For his Kentucky campaign, he secured the cooperation of Kirby Smith, who would lead a second column of Confederate troops from Knoxville through Cumberland Gap, one of the few passes through the Cumberland Mountains.

President Davis had urged Bragg and Smith to cooperate, and Bragg ranked Smith, but there was no unified command structure; Smith would report directly to Davis and would only fall under Bragg's command when Bragg's and Smith's forces combined.

When Bragg advanced in August 1862 he enjoyed initial success, capturing 4,000 Union soldiers at Mumfordville and cutting Buell's line of supply; yet when Buell's army arrived in the vicinity, Bragg's supply situation turned out to be even worse. Meanwhile Smith had deviated from the plan and, instead of joining Bragg, had advanced deep into central Kentucky. Thus, Bragg moved from Mumfordville towards Smith in central Kentucky, with Buell in pursuit.

By early October Bragg was close to Smith's army and Kentucky's capital of Frankfort, where Richard Harris was to be installed as Confederate governor of Kentucky. The inauguration took place at Frankfort on October 4. Bragg decided to attend and left his own army under the command of Leonidas Polk.

By October 7, the Union forces were close to the Confederate army at Perryville, south of Frankfort. Buell's army outnumbered the Confederates more than two to one but included many green recruits.

Bragg had been deceived by a Union detachment which he took for Buell's main effort. He therefore ordered Polk to attack what Bragg assumed to be a small Union force at Perryville and then hurry to Frankfort to unite Bragg's army with Smith's for a combined effort against Buell. On October 8, Polk failed to attack until Bragg himself arrived, took command and started the Battle of Perryville. Bragg misjudged the Union position and was unaware of the location of several nearby Union corps, but Union passivity allowed Bragg to concentrate his entire army against a single corps, resulting in a tactical victory.

Smith urged Bragg to renew the fight with their combined armies. But by then Bragg's hope for Kentucky recruits had proved idle, his supply situation became worse, and he had received reports of the defeats of his detachments under Price and Van Dorn at Corinth and of the failure of Robert E. Lee's Maryland campaign at Antietam. Therefore Bragg believed that an isolated victory would provide few benefits, while a defeat or even too long a stay in Kentucky might endanger his entire army. Thus, he retreated towards Knoxville.

This retread sapped Confederate morale and led to dissension among Bragg's subordinates, many of whom (especially those from Kentucky, but also Polk and Hardee) blamed Bragg for the campaign's failure.

Post-Civil War career

After the war Bragg took several jobs in public engineering: As superintendent of the New Orleans waterworks, as chief engineer for Alabama and as a railroad inspector in Texas. He died in Galveston, Texas, on September 27, 1876.

Assessment

Bragg was known to his contemporaries as a strict disciplinarian, but also as an irritable person, with Grant recalling an anecdote where Bragg, after quarreling "with every officer in the army", even managed to get into a quarrel with himself. Worse, Bragg was quite outspoken about his negative opinion of others, making him unpopular with his subordinates and contributing to a breakdown of personal relations. His record as a general was decidedly mixed; he routinely failed to exploit the victories he won, tended to retreat after a draw, and at Chattanooga he suffered a major defeat. Yet he was often handicapped by his subordinates, and unlike Robert E. Lee, Davis would not allow Bragg a free hand at choosing them.

References

• Woodworth, Steven E., Six Armies in Tennessee: The Chickamauga and Chattanooga Campaigns, University of Nebraska Press, 1998. Takes a rather positive view of Bragg's performance.