The Chattanooga Campaign

        Following the Battle of Stones River, the armies of Braxton Bragg and William Rosecrans sat 30 miles apart in central Tennessee for six months, idle except for cavalry raids on each other's supply lines.  Bragg, who had been defeated at Perryville and Stones River, was now the most maligned general in the Confederacy. The soldiers of his Army of Tennessee resented his severe discipline, his officers questioned his competence, and the public despised him for his retreats. It was said that Bragg retreated whether he won or lost; a Confederate joke had it that he would never get to heaven because the moment he was invited to enter he would fall back.
        As winter changed to spring, Rosecrans, too, drew criticism--for his failure to take his Army of the Cumberland on the offensive. Despite goading from the Union high command, it was not until June that Rosecrans bestirred himself. When he did, to the surprise of many, Rosecrans acted with boldness and confidence. Maneuvering skillfully, he threatened to outflank Bragg and forced the Confederates to retreat again, this time to Chattanooga.
        Geography and the Southern rail system dictated that Chattanooga, an otherwise unremarkable settlement of 3,500 people, play a key role in the War. But when the Federal troops closed around this transportation hub on September 6, 1863, the Confederates evacuated it without a fight. Again Bragg was outmaneuvered and had to move his army south or risk being cut off.
        Convinced that the Confederates were fleeing, Rosecrans swiftly pursued them into Georgia. But rather than retreat, Bragg stood and fought at Chickamauga Creek , inflicting a stunning blow and sending the Federals reeling. Bragg declined to pursue the Union army. His men were exhausted and both sides had suffered heavy casualties--the Rebels lost 18,454 and the Yankees 16,179 in the bloodiest two days of the War. When Rosecrans' forces withdrew into Chattanooga, Brag bottled them up and severed their supply lines, imposing a state of siege.
       Now it was Rosecran's turn to be discredited. Remarking that the general was "stunned and confused, like a duck hit on the head," Lincoln relieved him of command and placed the perilous situation in the hands of the North's most trusted leader, Ulysses S. Grant. Losing no time, Grant launched assaults that cleared the Confederates for m their positions on the heights of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. The South would never recover from the loss of Chattanooga, which brought Bragg's dismissal and opened the gateway to the Confederate heartland.
Source:  "Echoes of Glory, Civil War Battle Atlas" published by Time Life Books.