Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Granger, Grant, and Grandpa
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The second day of the Battle for Chickamauga, Sunday, September 20, started out badly for the Confederates. Bragg had planned to resume at daybreak with an attack upon the Union lines, but again his subordinates failed to obey his orders and the fighting did not get underway until about 9:30. Like the day before, both sides seemed destined to fight the indecisive battle forever, but then there occurred an exceedingly fortunate stroke of good luck coupled with the kind of irreparable blunder that turns generals’ hair gray as well as turning the tide of battle. One division of Bragg’s reinforcements, Longstreet’s seasoned troops, finally arrived by rail. Detraining at Ringgold, they immediately set out towards the sound of battle. Meanwhile at Chickamauga, Rosecrans, the commander who had maneuvered his troops so masterfully the day before, lost track of where they were. An officer reported to him that Brannan’s division was not in line, when they were, in reality, hidden in a more defensible position in the nearby wood. Without verifying this erroneous report, Rosecrans moved another regiment in position to cover the "gap," thus creating a real hole in the line, and disaster for the Union forces. As luck would have it, Longstreet’s troops had just reached the field of battle and stumbled upon the hole in the Union line. Surging through it, they crushed the Federal flanks on either side. Thinking he was defeated, Rosecrans, with his Generals Crittendon and Alexander McCook fled the field with one-third of their troops, leaving Major-General George Thomas stranded and in command of the Union forces left behind. General "Pap" Thomas, the man of many nicknames, was about to earn himself another. Retreat for him was impossible. He had to stay and fight with what troops he could gather from the broken and scattered remnants of the Union Army. With characteristic determination, the six-foot tall, 200 pound former West Pointer organized a new line that was able to meet the fierce onslaught of Longstreet’s troops, thus earning Thomas a new name, "The Rock of Chickamauga."
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About the Book
This is the story of Henry Brown Annis, a man of his time who was caught up in the times. An everyday dirt and grunt Union Army soldier, Henry, like many of his contemporaries, wrote of his experiences in the Civil War, waxing poetic with what the Civil War historian, Bruce Catton, describes as the "embroideries and purple passages of many an author of the time," and at the same time documenting the mundane, grub details of a soldier’s existence. Throughout the memoirs, Henry’s devotion to his country, his sense of humor, and his compassion shine through. Henry enlisted in Company B, 96th Illinois Infantry on August 9, 1862. For nearly a year his regiment was relatively inactive, engaging in some minor skirmishes in Tennessee, and, according to his army record, Henry spent three months in and out of hospitals in Ohio and Kentucky. Then, in the later part of the summer of 1863, the 96th Illinois and Henry were ordered to southeastern Tennessee, near Chattanooga, where the Union and Confederate forces were gathering for a showdown. The regimental history of the 96th Illinois and Henry Annis’s military career revolved around this theater of action which, for the North, was an important turning point of the War. William Wood summed up the significance of the campaign when he wrote, "Chattanooga meant that the Union forces had at last laid the axe to the root of the tree." The way was opened for Sherman’s march to the sea. Writing of his experience some years after the end of the War, Henry assumes, and rightfully so, that his readers have a grass roots familiarity with the "Battle Above the Clouds." To fully understand Henry Annis’s experience, I have tried to put it into its larger context: The Chattanooga Campaign, which included the bloody, but indecisive "fracas," as Henry calls it, at Chickamauga, September 19 and 20, 1863. Its culmination occurred on November 23, 24, and 25 in the Battle of Chattanooga where the fighting took place on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. Using his memoirs and the official reports and correspondence documented in the volumes of Official Records and The Rebellion Record, I have attempted to retrace Henry’s wartime experience and reconstruct it in the larger context of his regiment, and of the battles themselves. I have also tried to trace the personal and military history of the man who told it the way he fought it, learn about his superior officers who controlled not only the outcome of the battles, but Henry’s fate as well. His experiences are clarified with both a micro and macro account of the battles and the interim siege, striving for an overall picture of this part of the Civil War and Henry Annis’s part in it.
About the Author
June Gossler Anderson is an award-winning essayist, newspaper columnist, and published author. The scope of her work ranges from historical non-fiction, to historical fiction, fictionalized memoir, short story, and children’s stories. Combining her love of history with her love of writing, June is a contributing writer for the history columns in the Anoka, Minnesota newspapers. In addition to Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Granger, Grant, and Grandpa, June has three other published books, The Shaman Stone: a multicultural mystery of supernatural proportions; The Flip-flop Year; a tale of teachers, tormentors, and tomatoes; and Shades of Childhood. Her published works, both print and e-books, can be accessed through her website; www.grannygirlpress.com.