East Tennessee and the Civil War
On June 6, after defeating the Confederate fleet protecting the city, Union forces took Memphis, forcing Governor Harris and state officials to flee once again. Regrouping in the spring and summer, Confederates in Mississippi created the Army of Tennessee and placed General Braxton Bragg in command. Bragg and the East Tennessee commander, Kirby Smith, decided to launch a northern campaign by their two armies which, if successful, would regain Tennessee and bring Kentucky into the Confederacy.
After the battle of Perryville in October, the Kentucky campaign ended in failure.
Having been unable to elicit much support from Kentuckians, Bragg retreated into East Tennessee and then moved westward to Murfreesboro. Union forces, now under General William Rosecrans, consolidated at Nashville. Meanwhile, the Union Army of the Cumberland under the command of Rosecrans left Nashville to engage the Army of Tennessee to the southeast. After a lull on January 1 the battle resumed the next day, ending with the repulsion of the Confederate attack.
Unable to achieve a victory, Bragg abandoned Murfreesboro and retreated toward Tullahoma to winter quarters. In June Rosecrans resumed his campaign against the Army of Tennessee. In a series of flanking maneuvers, his Union army forced Bragg to abandon Tullahoma and retreat toward Chattanooga.
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By July 7 Bragg had entered the city itself, leaving most of Middle Tennessee under Union occupation. On September 8 the outflanked Army of Tennessee evacuated Chattanooga and pulled back into northern Georgia. Only valiant resistance from the troops commanded by George H.
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Thomas kept this from being a Union disaster. With the Union army once more in Chattanooga, Bragg decided that the best plan was to seal the city off and starve it into submission. By early October soldiers and civilians alike in Chattanooga were suffering from food shortages. To avoid disaster, President Lincoln named Ulysses S. Grant the overall commander in the region. Acting swiftly, Grant sent reinforcements to the beleaguered city and forced open a new supply line.
When he arrived in Chattanooga, he laid plans to assault the Confederates occupying Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. Meanwhile, Bragg quarreled with his generals and weakened his position even more by sending Longstreet and about one-third of the army on an expedition to retake Knoxville.
Tennessee in the American Civil War
The Confederates soon withdrew to Russellville and made winter headquarters; the following spring they returned to Virginia. All of Tennessee was technically under Union control. In the main action in the western theater shifted to Georgia, but violence in Tennessee became more widespread. Dozens of Confederate guerrilla bands, which had arisen earlier in West and Middle Tennessee to belabor Union patrols and harass Unionist civilians, continued to operate.
Forrest and other Confederate cavalry commanders attacked Union garrisons, disrupted railroad operations, destroyed or confiscated supplies, and took hundreds of prisoners. Civilian woes also continued to increase. In many counties government collapsed, and institutions such as churches and schools ceased operations.
Civil War | Tennessee Encyclopedia
As law and order declined, outlaw bands formed and terrorized communities, stealing livestock and food, burning houses, and murdering their owners. With ordinary commerce disrupted, commodities such as flour, sugar, salt, and coffee became so difficult to obtain that people searched for substitutes. Honey and sorghum molasses replaced sugar, while ground-up okra seeds and dried sassafras made do for coffee.
In Nashville and Memphis authorities had to cope with an influx of new residents, including numerous prostitutes, thieves, and gamblers. Andrew Johnson, former U. To suppress Confederate support, Johnson ultimately locked up the mayor and city council, closed four newspapers, and shut down the presses of the Methodist and Baptist churches. A major impact of the Union occupation of the state was the de facto end of slavery. Thousands of blacks fled plantations and farms and made for the Union army camps.
In August General Grant ordered the building of camps for the refugees, known as contraband camps, and by Clarksville, Pulaski, Hendersonville, and several other Tennessee cities had facilities where fugitives from slavery received shelter, army rations, clothing, medicines, and jobs. In Nashville some 2, black laborers, for example, helped build Fort Negley and other facilities to protect the city. Thousands more worked on similar projects around Memphis. In those who wished to fight for the Union were allowed to enlist in the army and navy.
Of the , African Americans who fought for the United States in the war, some 20, came from Tennessee. In September General William T. At Spring Hill, the Confederates almost trapped their enemy before miscommunications among the Confederate commanders allowed Schofield to escape to Franklin.
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In the battle of Franklin on November 30 the Army of Tennessee suffered some 6, casualties including 12 generals six killed and 54 regimental commanders. On the following day, Thomas resumed his attack, and the out-manned Confederates finally broke and retreated. The remnants of the once-proud Army of Tennessee did not stop until they had reached Mississippi.
Although sporadic cavalry raids and guerrilla attacks would continue until the spring of , for all meaningful purposes the war had ended in Tennessee. The war left much of Middle Tennessee in ruins, with the other two sections bearing deep scars as well, but it also brought enormous changes.
Because of the intensity of the struggle in East Tennessee, crucial institutions were deeply affected. Local government was forced to take on unprecedented responsibilities which further strained budgets already weakened by the disruptions of war.
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Ironically Unionists maintained considerable political influence on the local level during Confederate occupation and then used the state courts as one means of seeking revenge on ex-Rebels. Education on all levels was seriously disrupted by the war but recovered gradually once peace was restored. East Tennessee churches were fragmented as a result of the conflicting loyalties frequently found within congregations. One institution, slavery, did not survive the war.
Although blacks were only a small percentage of the East Tennessee population, at times all whites felt threatened by the freedom of the slaves.
East Tennessee and the Civil War
Initially all Unionists pledged loyalty to the Federal Government, but still maintained that slavery must be preserved. The disruptions of war and certain Federal policies such as the conscription of Negroes caused the de facto death of slavery by The slave issue, nevertheless, split the Unionist coalition, as Radicals sought the institution's end as a means of weakening the Confederacy and punishing Rebels.
Because most whites had little interest in uplifting the freedman, agencies such as the Freedmen's Bureau and Northern Benevolent aid societies met with a hostile reception; and a policy of segregation was instituted soon after the war as in the rest of the South. In the final analysis, it is evident, that with the exception of the slave experience, the Civil War in East Tennessee confirmed an uniqueness that the region had possessed for decades before the conflict and would maintain well into the twentieth century. Bryan, Charles Faulkner Jr. Skip to main content. Author Charles Faulkner Bryan Jr.
Committee Members John R. Haskins, John Muldowney, Leonard W. Abstract By the mid-nineteenth century, East Tennessee had evolved into an unique Southern region. Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as Included in History Commons.