The Chattanooga Campaign by Ed. Steven E. Woodworth, Charles D. Grear (review)

In April 2009, the Southern Illinois University Press began publication of the Civil War Campaigns in the Heartland series, a collection of works focused on providing fresh interpretations and analyses of the most important battles and campaigns in the West. Two books have already been released—The Shiloh Campaign 2009 and The Chickamauga Campaign 2010—and this latest volume continues the trend by providing a quality and substantial study of a decisive campaign that occurred during the third year of the war.

The Chattanooga Campaign consists of ten chapter-length essays written by several previous contributors to the series. In the opening chapter, Alex Mendoza describes a “perfect storm of ineffectiveness” that plagued the First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia’s leadership in late October 1863 (18). By directing equal responsibility to Longstreet’s brigade and division commanders, Mendoza corrects the misconception that James Longstreet alone should receive blame for the Confederate defeat in Lookout Valley. Stewart Bennett’s essay focuses on the fighting in Lookout Valley as well; however, his essay details the battle through a Union lens. Although the “small yet intense fights within Lookout Valley”—Wauhatchie, Smith’s Hill, and Tyndale’s Hill—have been overshadowed by the fighting on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, Bennett’s essay establishes their significance in setting the stage for a Union victory during the campaign (48).

On November 24, 1863, Ulysses S. Grant, the newly appointed commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, initiated his plan to drive the Confederates from their positions surrounding Chattanooga. The chapters authored by Steven E. Woodworth and John R. Lundberg examine William T. Sherman’s assault on Tunnel Hill, which served as the primary attack against the Confederate right on Missionary Ridge. Similar to the first two chapters, these explore the fighting from opposing perspectives—Woodworth probes Sherman’s assault and Lundberg surveys Patrick Cleburne’s defense. Both authors view Tunnel Hill as a tactical achievement by Cleburne, who remained proactive and utilized the terrain to his advantage.

Correctly described in the introduction as “a tour de force of historical investigation,” Brooks D. Simpson’s essay scrutinizes the documented accounts of events that transpired on November 25, 1863 (3). Ultimately, Simpson determines two significant details regarding Union strategy that day. First, Sherman’s advance against Tunnel Hill remained the primary Union attack—not a diversion to draw Confederate troops away from the center, and second, the Union attack against the center of Missionary Ridge “was always part of the discussion, not a spur-of-the-moment decision undertaken in haste” (100).

On November 24, 1863, Joseph Hooker obtained personal redemption by capturing Lookout Mountain for the Union army. As Sam Davis Elliot indicates, historians—and even Hooker himself—have viewed the capture as the commander’s greatest contribution during the campaign. Elliot’s essay argues that Hooker’s capture of Rossville Gap on the following day, which “had the potential for much greater results” than the capture of Lookout Mountain, proved equally significant (127). Justin S. Solonick’s essay examines Cleburne’s victory on November 27, 1863, at the Battle of Ringgold Gap, where once again the commander employed battlefield terrain to his advantage, this time to save Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee. Solonick’s essay also serves as an important assessment of the effectiveness of Civil War rearguards, units the author justifies as having “contributed to the longevity of the American Civil War” (147).

In a study of Civil War–era media, Ethan S. Rafuse analyzes the coverage of events from the Union defeat at Chickamauga to their victory on Missionary Ridge within three Cincinnati newspapers. The newspapers “fulfilled their role of providing a connection between the battlefield and the home front well” (177). Charles D. Grear’s provocative scholarship on the increase of desertions by trans-Mississippi Confederates serves as an important study of the priorities and motivations of Civil War combatants. For many...