Existing comment:
Moments of Decision:
September 20
A Deadly Delay -- 5am-9:30am:
By [Polk's delay] we have lost the opportunity of crushing Rosecrans and retaking Chattanooga... I am not responsible for it and will not bear it.
-- Gen. Braxton Bragg, CSA
General Bragg's battle plan called for striking the Union left at dawn. He selected his right wing commander, Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk, to carry out the assignment. Unfortunately, no one informed corps commander DH Hill, whose men had not eaten for nearly two days. At daybreak, nothing happened, because Hill was feeding his men. "Hour after hour passed," recalled one Confederate officer. "Various were the surmises as to the cause of the delay."
The Confederate right finally lurched forward at 9:45am, four hours after Bragg had intended the attack. The delay enabled the Federals to extend and strengthen their left, reducing Bragg's opportunity for success.
A Fateful Error -- 11am-1pm:
... the first thing I saw was General Rosecrans crossing himself -- he is a very devout Catholic. "Hello!" I said to myself, "if the general is crossing himself, we are in a desperate situation."
-- US Assistant Secretary of War Charles Dana
General Rosecrans's day began well. Troops had bolstered his left, breastworks protected his line, and he had correctly surmised Bragg's intentions, thus repulsing violent Confederate attacks against his left in the late morning. Suddenly, believing a gap had developed in his right center, the fatigued and mentally exhausted Rosecrans ordered a shift in troop positions to plug the hole.
Rosecrans had made a fatal mistake. No gap existed. The redeployment he had ordered, however, created a quarter-mile hole in the federal right center. Purely by coincidence, Longstreet's massed Confederates attacked precisely when and where the hole developed. In panic and chaos, the center and right of the Union line crumbled. Swept away in the rout were Rosecrans and four division commanders. |