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With the losses at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July 1863, the Confederacy faced its darkest hour. By September, Confederate general Braxton Bragg was forced to evacuate Chattanooga as Union major general William S. Rosecrans ®anked his defenses.Pres.Jefferson Davis and Gen.Robert E.Lee sent Gen. James Longstreet to Tennessee to help Bragg shore up his forces. On September 18, the Confederates under Bragg attempted to cut off Rosecrans from his Chattanooga base at Chickamauga Creek in north Georgia. It was a tactical victory for the South and a lift for the Southern public. The South, however, had taken 18,454 casualties (and the North 16,170)—numbers they could not afford to lose. Rosecrans still had Chattanooga ,and Bragg would fail to follow up on his victory at Chickamauga.1 With Longstreet in Tennessee and Lee still suffering from the losses at Gettysburg,Lincoln and Maj.Gen.Henry Wager Halleck pressured Maj.Gen. George Meade to take direct action against Lee. Halleck, tired of hearing from Meade that Richmond and the Shenandoah valley were the army’s objectives, warned that “Lee’s army is the objective point.”2 Meade preferred to push Lee away from Washington and the Shenandoah Valley and back to the defenses of Richmond. After the Union loss at the Battle of Chickamauga, however, Halleck sent reinforcements west to Rosecrans, which removed the pressure for Meade to move forward. In the meantime, hoping to catch Meade out in the open and crush his army, Lee began his own ®anking movement on October 9 against Meade. Lee also hoped the movement would discourage further reinforcements of Union troops being sent west.3 Meade fell back and avoided Lee; and, at the same time, he was able to in®ict heavy casualties on A.P .Hill’s lead division that blundered into a trap at Bristoe Station on October 14.4 Around Thanksgiving Day, Meade attempted to turn Lee’s position to the east but ran into a ¤rmly entrenched Confederate position at Mine Run and was forced to withdraw across the 10 Orange,Virginia,to Petersburg,Virginia August 22, 1863–October 1864 A temporary gloom now spreads itself over the country . . . —William Cowan McClellan Rapidan River.5 Throughout the late summer and into the ¤rst week of December, both Lee and Meade attempted to turn the other’s ®ank and to drive each other back toward their respective capitals. What resulted was a continuation of the stalemate that had plagued Union operations in Virginia since the start of the war. Lincoln could not ¤nd a general who understood that Lee’s army was the target and not Richmond. Throughout late 1863 and 1864,William remained with the provost guard in Anderson’s division, and the 9th Alabama was still in Wilcox’s brigade of Richard H.Anderson’s division of A.P .Hill’s 3rd Corps.With Wilcox’s promotion to major general,replacing Dorsey Pender who was fatally wounded at Gettysburg, Col. John Caldwell Calhoun (or J. C. C.) Sanders was put in temporary command of the brigade. But on September 10, 1863, Abner M. Perrin was promoted to brigadier and assumed command of Wilcox’s brigade .6 Along with Wilcox’s promotion, the promotion of J. Horace King to colonel of the regiment led to a great dissatisfaction among the men, which contributed to low morale and a string of desertions continuing for the next year. The men had great respect for Wilcox, more than they would have for any other of¤cer, and Wilcox’s promotion was dif¤cult for the men to accept . King was one of several commanders of the 9th that the men did not respect. In the battles during the fall of 1863, the 9th was not directly involved in the actions at Bristoe (October 9–22); at Rappahannock Station on November 7;or at Mine Run (November 26–28).At the end of November the brigade went into their winter cabins about two miles from Orange Court House. William got a real morale booster when he received a furlough to go home in December 1863. His furlough was for thirty days, but it took him one week each way to travel to and from Virginia. In addition to visiting his parents,he stayed with relatives and friends while traveling through Alabama . Although he wanted to remain longer at home, William was concerned about overstaying his leave and arriving late back at the front. In March 1864, everything would...

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