Its spectacular. Its my real pleasure to introduce the next speaker. He is somebody you already know. You have heard him speak somewhere or on tv. He was born and raised in fredericksburg. He spent his career interpreting and preserving American Military history with the National Park service, the new york state government, Rensselaer County historical society, the Civil War Preservation trust, kentucky state parks and the u. S. Army. Do you think he is qualified to speak . He has written and spoken on various aspects of military history and leadership from 1775 to the present. He has published two books with the history press, the civil war at perryville and the Tullahoma Campaigns, and contributing to the emerging civil war bulldog and studied the 19411942 campaign released in late 2016. In september 2016, the u. S. Army published his volumes on the 1862 virginia campaigns as part of its series on the civil war. Last year at this event on friday night, i bought this book and by saturday night i spent , all night reading it. It is fabulous. This is the bataan book, highly recommend it. Last about chris, he is a great researcher. He knows an amazing amount of anything military, an excellent writer and most importantly of all, he is a really good guy who will share anything with you, the most important thing. He is getting ready to get married. Without further ado, chris. [applause] chris good morning, everybody. I see you all have drunk your coffee this morning judging by the energy by which you respond to me. Thats good news. Its great to be here. I have spoken at every single one of these. Every year the audience gets larger. Im not sure we can get much larger than this, but as far as im concerned, thats a great problem to have. If youre here for the first time, raise your hand. That also is fantastic. So welcome, and for the rest of you, welcome back. If you like what we do here, were doing a mini version of this in conjunction with my current employer, the mcarthur memorial in norfolk, on september 28 of this year called the reunion of blue and gray personified, looking at the mcarthur civil war ancestors, which are far more than you may think. There is information on that in your program as well. So i encourage you to take a look at that. How many people have ever been to tullahoma, tennessee . Thats actually a lot more than i thought. [laughter] chris how many of the rest of you know that there was a, before you saw the program, that there was a place called tullahoma, tennessee . Well, thats also really, really good. That must be a bunch of air force people in here because, the Arnold Air Force base, a lot of scientific testing, the old camp forest from the 1943 ma maneuvers. Thats really, really good. Im glad to see that. I want you to see if you can name this operation. It occurred in late june and early july of 1863. It drove a major Confederate Army back in defeat and secured a major Geographic Area for the United States. Are there any guesses in the room . And thats a rhetorical question because i know in this audience i will get many. I am, of course, referring to the Tullahoma Campaign of 1863. Thats where well send the next 45 minutes, 40 to 45 minutes discussing, is the Tullahoma Campaign. Now, the Tullahoma Campaign is june 24 to july 4 of 1863. So it is part of what turns out to be a very eventful series of weeks for both sides in the civil war. In many ways, it gets overshadowed, and we can discuss that, and i will touch on that a little bit later in the conversation. One other piece of logistics before we get going, did everybody get a copy, a hand copy of the map . Its the paper copy of this map, i dont expect you to strain your eyes looking at it all the time. Youve got your own copy. I will refer to it as we go along. The Tullahoma Campaign is fought between the army of the cumberland under William Stark rosekrans, 70,000 men ,and 45,000 men, the army of tennessee under the command of general braxton bragg. You can see the different corps that they will be deployed with. Rans will only bentley will ultimately take four, the cal valerie into the operation. Under gordon granger, alexander mccooks 20th court. George thomass and tommys core. Bragg for his part has two infantry corps under polk and william j. Hardy, plus cavalry under joe wheeler and some other detached elements. Some very prominent people here. A lot of them are familiar with each other because in many ways, this is the second round in the series of battles between rosekrans and bragg in middle tennessee, southeastern tennessee and northern georgia through the late fall of 1862 and all the way through the fall of 1863. This is round two in many ways between the two. To understand the story of understandwe have to the context in which its fought and the continuum in which its fought. Whatever campaign you are studying always remember that , its part of a continuum of the story of that particular campaign. A lot of times when you look at campaign histories, oh, it starts this day and ends this day, but you often forget that what has gone before sometimes overshadows and influences what has come. Having said that, let me know explained the context of tullahoma. Youve got to understand that context. From june 1863 back to early january 1863. January 5, 1863, when bragg leaves stones river, when he. Eaves the area of murfreesboro the yankees have more reinforcements and we have to withdraw. Bragg withdraws down southeast from murphreesboro, about 15 miles or so, to the area of the highland rim, the high ground that you see right there on the map, between murfreesboro and tullahoma. More to theient you map as we go. They will camp there and spend time in middle tennessee until the home operation begins in june of 1863. Almost immediately confederate press goes after general bragg. On new years eve, bragg had confidently predicted victorind anderson said we have driven the federals everywhere except on the extreme left and implied that rosecrans was finished. We had this great victory and bragg is retreating, why is that, especially when the armies in mississippi and virginia are won great victories and holding their ground if not advancing. And so newspaper reports and editorials began to come out about general bragg and impugning the performance of the army of tennessee. And that causes general bragg to light a fuse, to plant ill seeds that will bear ill fruit, whichever analogy you want to use. On january 11, against the advice of his staff, he sends a message to his corps commanders, you advise me to retreat. Please publicly say so. Put it in writing. We had a conference about it, you told me about it and put it in writing, and let us stand together against a program coming from the press. Thats a close paraphrase. He also said something else. Lost the goodve faith and confidence of my generals, i will retire without a murmur. And by the way, please talk to your division and brigade commanders as well and get their opinions before responding. I dont care who you are and what organization you are. If you are a c. E. O. And you put yourself in front of your subordinates for a referendum on your fitness for leadership, and your conduct of operations up to this point, even if you win that vote of confidence, you can never command that same respect. Ok . This is a capital error on the part of braxton bragg. The replies are very quickly coming. Polk is on leave. He has a couple of lawyers in his corps. They take a look at this and say is bragg really asking us two , questions or asking one . They wait until late january to get back. But the other commanders get back and say, yes, we advise retreat. We are happy to say that, and by the way, we are convinced that a change in this army is necessary, unquote. [laughter] chris polk gets back at the end of january and writes back to bragg, the feedback we are getting, is this one request or two . Bragg says i only meant one , question in there. Tries to shut it down. Polk decides its a good idea to write to president davis, packages all of this correspondence which they provided copies for, sends a message to davis and packages it all up and says, we didnt give our response about the fitness of the command of the army, but our opinions coincide with those of the other corps. And when davis gets this, he is angry. What is this . And he says this, why bragg would submit himself to that tribunal is beyond me. He tells the commander of the west, jo johnson, replace bragg with joe johnston. Go to tullahoma and figure out what the heck is going on. So in early february, joe johnston arrives in tullahoma. He talks to the commanders, and they provide their very frank views. Bragg wanted to be relieved at this point, but he doesnt force the issue by resigning. What johnston finds is that the morale among rank and file is pretty good. They are feeling pretty confident about their next round against those dastardly yankees, and im sure those terms were used at least once by the listed people to general johnston. Among the commanders, he figures out some of that, but also people are putting on a pretty good face as well. Even though bragg maybe a , heskerous old codger still got the job, and they have to show some loyalty to their superior officer. So johnston writes a favorable report and disappears. You think it is smoothed over now, right . Now comes the time to do the paperwork and the battle reports for the battle just concluded. So just as these wounds are beginning to scab over, now it is time to refight the Stones River Campaign. How many have looked at the official records of Stones River Campaign . Has anyone looked at that besides drew gruber back there . This spills back into the open. Records are really interesting for two parts. Several of them allow their feelings about the emancipation proclamation to show up in their description of the enemy. They Start Talking about the emancipationist friends, and a whole bunch of other horrible language that shows up about the enemy that makes sense that these reports are written in february of 1863. But for our purposes, the big thing to understand is bragg who gets all of these reports and then writes his own, takes the opportunity, he cannot resist the opportunity in his own report to start striking back at those people and painting the people that were most against him in that referendum of sorts in january in the worst possible light. To the point, and i have seen this nowhere else in the official records, to the point when John Breckenridge of kentucky writes his divisional report, bragg writes an addenda and proceeds to use the polite equivalent of lie as much as he can and pointing out where breckenridge was wrong and at fault, and basically pins the whole failure of the battle on John Breckenridge. He doesnt really care for kentuckians anyway because of what happened in the Kentucky Campaign the year before, when he advised jeff davis in the fall of 1862, we must leave the garden spot of kentucky to its stupidity. Thats how he feels about the bluegrass state and the officers from, breckenridge is from lexington which doesnt help matters. Once again its put publicly this fissure that has opened in the high command. Jeff davis at this point decides to act. He tells johnston, go to tullahoma, take command and send bragg to richmond for consultation. I think we could all read between the lines on that. Bragg is out. Johnston is going to be in. Joe johnston, because of his, he later would pin it on an exalted sense of honor, does not like to be creating the impression hes pulling down a brother officer so he can take the job he really wants, which is army command in the field. So when he shows up, he has a convenient excuse not to actually execute the order. Why . Mrs. Bragg is with the army, eliza bragg, she has drunk some bad water and is down with typhoid. She cant travel for a few weeks. So johnston says mrs. Bragg cant travel. Bragg cant travel to richmond , then, so we are going to suspend the order for the time being. Until mid april, from the beginning of march to april of 1863, here is the situation in the army of tennessee headquarters in tullahoma. You have joe johnston, Supreme Commander in the west, nominally in command because he is the senior officer present. Braxton bragg is present. He has not been officially relieved from the army of tennessee command, even though he knows even though everyone knows he should be relieved, but he is still there. Who is in charge . I dont think they ever figured it out. Now, who is the one person that could referee all of this and cut that knot and solve the whole problem . Jefferson davis. The fact that Jefferson Davis does not is a severe indictment of him as a commanderinchief of the confederacy. Call it in my book, and i do not withdraw the comment now, dereliction of duty. Finally, when mrs. Bragg is ready to travel, its early april of 1863, getting on toward midapril of 1863. The problem is now, Joe Johnstons virginia wounds have flared up. Hes unfit for field duty. Finally, when he is fit for field duty in mid april, is anything else going on in the west that might demand his attention . Thats when u. S. Grant runs the batteries at vicksburg, and it becomes clear that the mrs. Be front is about to get really active, which of course it does, so johnston is ordered away with elements of braggs army to go encounter that, and they will ultimately be defeated at the battle of jackson in may of 1863. So where are we as an organization in the army of tennessee at this point . Do using this is a functioning, happy organization, ready to take the field a good team of leaders . No, emphatically no. The wounds begin to heal over again once johnston leaves and realizes bragg will be here and we have to Work Together and we have to continue to Work Together. The wounds begin to heal, but a few weeks later, the scabs are ripped off again. I invite you at some point to go look at the Kentucky Campaign official records. You notice half of the reports were done in the fall of 1862. The other half were done in the spring of 1863, and braggs official report on the Kentucky Campaign was done in the spring of 1863. It rips all those scabs back off again. And at this point, bragg, even though in 1862 he had no problem with polks decision to act on his own initiative and abandon the city of bardstown in 1862. It is1862, bragg decides in the best of the service, we are going to courtmartial polk. Gathers all of the evidence, gets everything together and at the last minute decides were not going to courtmartial general polk. Yeah, im hearing some chuckles in the background. Thats the only reaction you can have. And it would be you have to laugh because its a tragedy because so many mens lives will depend on this ability of this army to function, high command to function well, and you can see whats happening to it. Do you know when the last actual correspondence relating to the campaign was dated . June 20, 1863. So this is going on literally up to 96 hours before rosecrans moves for the Tullahoma Campaign. There is a letter in the peers bill official record in the perryville official records report between polk and hardy dated may 1863, and hardy tells polk, if you want to rip up the Kentucky Campaign, now is the time to do it. In other words, the impending courtmartial. Polk writes back and says, its not the time to do that, but youre absolutely right that we need to watch tullahoma as much as we watch murfreesboro. Now what does that mean, and why is that important . Why is that line important . Who is in murfreesboro . The federal army, the enemy. The army of the cumberland. You have to watch them. Theyre going to advance at some point and youre going to fight another battle with them. But who is into loma . Who is in tullahoma . Where is the army of tennessee headquarters . Its tullahoma. So what hardy and polk are saying, we have two enemies. We have an enemy in the front, but we have an enemy in the rear as well, our ostencible boss, braxton bragg. We will talk more about that as these seeds are bearing bitter fruit, and they will bear bitter fruit as the campaign progresses, and we will talk more about that as we get closer. Over in murphreesboro, all is not well with the United States forces either. After january 1860 three, doesnt move out of murphreesboro in force, although he will sendvar cavalry and parties here and there. Sometimes they get the better of the confederates, others times they dont. They will be in that area, and they dont move until june 1863. How does that look in washington, by the way . Second largest army in the federal service doesnt move for practically six months. It does not look good, does it . Rosecrans gets in trouble with washington. He can manage people below him, he can manage people around him, but one of the essential abilities of a leader is managing your relationship with your superiors. Rosecrans finds time to lecture the commanding general and the secretary of war about warfare. And what you think that does for them . How well do you think that goes down, especially in the wake of what George Mcclellan the year before . Although there is considerable evidence that rosecrans did not maintain the animosity against lincoln and stanton, but he is there in 1863. He is planning a campaign. I will say this. He does have a couple of points. The first point is that most of his cavalry needs remounts. Theyre not in very good shape. Most of them have just come back from prison, having been captured the previous year. But hes also got another problem, and this is something i think, would people consider the army of the cumberland, they neglect to point out this one thing, and that is this. How far is the army of the potomacs line of communication at any point in its career . 50 miles to washington, or to one of the river ports in eastern virginia. Ok . How about the army out in mississippi . They can rely on the United States navy going up and down the m