Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign
The war probably could have been over in 1862 had Lieutenant Phelps destroyed the bridge at Florence. Not doing so provided a retreat for A. S. Johnston to move his men to Corinth and then to Shiloh

Murfreesboro
Civil War Tennessee

American Civil War
July 13, 1862

Confederate Heartland Campaign Map
A Very Violent Rebel: The Civil War Diary of Ellen Renshaw House
The Siege of Knoxville (November 1863) is covered and Sutherland's footnotes make for good history

On June 10, 1862, Major General Don Carlos Buell commanding the Army of the Ohio, started a leisurely advance toward Chattanooga, which Union Brigadier General James Negley and his force threatened on June 7-8. In response to the threat, the Confederate government sent Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest to Chattanooga to organize a cavalry brigade.

By July, Confederate cavalry under the command of Forrest and Colonel John Hunt Morgan were raiding into Middle Tennessee and Kentucky.  Perhap, the most dramatic of these cavalry raids was Forrest's capture of the Union Murfreesboro garrison on July 13, 1862. Forrest left Chattanooga on July 9 with two cavalry regiments and joined other units on the way, bringing the total force to about 1,400 men. 

The major objective was to strike Murfreesboro, an important Union supply center on the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, at dawn on July 13. The Murfreesboro garrison was camped in three locations around town and included detachments from four units comprising infantry, cavalry, and artillery, under the command of Brigadier General Thomas T. Crittenden who had just arrived on July 12. 

Between 4:15 and 4:30 am on the morning of July 13, Forrest's cavalry surprised the Union pickets on the Woodbury Pike, east of Murfreesboro, and quickly overran a Federal hospital and the camp of the 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment detachment.  Additional Rebel troops attacked the camps of the other Union commands and the jail and courthouse. By late afternoon all of the Union units had surrendered to Forrest's force.

The Confederates destroyed much of the Union supplies and tore up railroad track in the area, but the main result of the raid was the diversion of Union forces from a drive on Chattanooga. This raid, along with Morgan's raid into Kentucky, made possible Bragg's concentration of forces at Chattanooga and his early September invasion of Kentucky.

Result(s): Confederate victory

Location: Rutherford County

Campaign: Confederate Heartland Offensive (1862) Next Battle in Campaign Previous Battle in Campaign

Date(s): July 13, 1862

Principal Commanders: Brigadier General Thomas T. Crittenden [US]; Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest [CS]

Forces Engaged: Detachments from four Union units (approx. 900) [US]; equivalent of a brigade (about five cavalry units;  approx. 1,400) [CS]

Estimated Casualties: 1,040 total (US 890; CS 150)


Struggle for the Heartland: The Campaigns from Fort Henry to Corinth
The military campaign that began in early 1862 with the advance to Fort Henry and culminated in late May with the capture of Corinth, Mississippi. The first significant Northern penetration into the Confederate west


Blue Vs. Gray - Killing Fields
Relive the most vicious fighting of the Civil War, in which General Ulysses S. Grant forcibly reversed the tide of the conflict by paying with the blood of thousands. It was a desperate time for the Union DVD 		Tennessee State Battle Map
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72 Piece Civil War Army Men
Play Set 52mm Union and Confederate Figures, Bridge, Horses, Canon
  • 48 Union and Confederate Soldiers
  • 4 Horses, 4 Sandbag Bunkers, 6 Fence Sections, 3 Cannon, 3 Limber Wagons
  • Bridge, Small Barracks,
  • Scale: About 1/35th

Civil War History Book Club Reading Titles


A Boy Lieutenant: Memoirs of Freeman S. Bowley 30th United States Colored Troops Officer
A must read for High School and College African-American Studies
The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville
John Bell Hood rallied his demoralized troops and marched them off the Tennessee, desperately hoping to draw Sherman after him and forestall the Confederacy's defeat
Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay in Confederate Military History
The Army of Northern Virginia was able to compile a large number of impressive victories during the war. The Army of Tennessee was only able to win at Chickamauga, and even that victory proved barren strategically.
Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade
Forthright confessions of service years in the Army of Northern Virginia stand among the most sought after and cited accounts by a Confederate soldier. First published in 1893 and significantly revised and expanded in 1906

Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia
The Southern view of slavery as essential to the Southern economy is reiterated. Slavery was the great Southern irony, viewed as a foundation of white liberty. From that perspective, the Confederate soldier's choice was simply victory or death
A South Divided: Portraits of Dissent in the Confederacy
An account of Southern dissidents in the Civil War, at times labeled as traitors, Tories, deserters, or mossbacks during the war and loyalists, Lincoln loyalists, and Unionists by historians of the war
John Hunt Morgan and His Raiders
The "Thunderbolt of the Confederacy" John Hunt Morgan from Tompkinsville, Kentucky to Greeneville, Tennessee.
Men of Fire: Grant, Forrest, and the Campaign That Decided the Civil War
In the winter of 1862, on the border between Kentucky and Tennessee, two extraordinary military leaders faced each other in an epic clash that would transform them both and change the course of American history forever
Cozzens follows up his magisterial account of the Battle of Chickamauga, This Terrible Sound (1992), with an equally authoritative study of the Chattanooga campaign that followed it. Braxton Bragg (who sometimes seems unfit to have been at large on the public streets, let alone commanding armies) failed to either destroy or starve out the Union Army of the Cumberland. In due course, superior Northern resources and strategy--not tactics; few generals on either side come out looking like good tacticians--progressively loosened the Confederate cordon around the city. Finally, the Union drove off Bragg's army entirely in the famous Battle of Missionary Ridge, which was a much more complex affair than previous, heroic accounts make it. Like its predecessor on Chickamauga, this is such a good book on Chattanooga that it's hard to believe any Civil War collection will need another book on the subject for at least a generation.
The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles for Chattanooga

War in Kentucky: From Shiloh to Perryville
By mid 1862, Union gains in the Mississippi Valley and in Tennessee and Kentucky had brought the Confederacy to a point of strategic crisis. This valuable addition to the growing literature on the Civil War in the West tells how the Union then failed to press home its advantage while the Confederacy failed to force Kentucky into the Confederacy. The climax of these events was the little-known Battle of Perryville, in which a greatly inferior Southern force under Braxton Bragg managed a draw against Don Carlos Buell's Union army but also effectively terminated the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. McDonough has researched thoroughly and written clearly, making this book informative and accessible to a wide range of Civil War students.

American Civil War Documentary DVD Store
Stones River Tennessee
Stones River National Battlefield
Stones River was one of the hardest fought battles of the Civil War with casualties of 27 percent on the Confederate side and 29 percent on the Union side
Brother Against Brother: The American Civil War
Fort Sumter, to the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, Features battle reconstructions and depictions of army life, eyewitness accounts, period photographs and engravings, plus commentary and analyses.
Civil War: A Concise History
The best collection of Civil War visuals ever assembled in one 75-minute program. A breathtaking and first-hand account of the war. Great DVD Bonuses
The Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns
Here is the saga of celebrated generals and ordinary soldiers, a heroic and transcendent president and a country that had to divide itself in two in order to become one

Civil War Combat: America's Bloodiest Battles
The violent mayhem of the hornet's nest at Shiloh, the valiant charge on the sunken road at Antietam, the carnage in the wheat field at Gettysburg, and the brutal fighting at Cold Harbor
Civil War Journal - The Conflict Begins
These four programs from the History Channel series Civil War Journal cover critical aspects of the early days of the war.
Civil War Journal
Collector's Edition 4-DVD Set
Made exclusively for Books Are Fun. Discs include: · Stonewall Jackson · Sherman and the March to the Sea · West Point Classmates-Civil War Enemies · Robert E. Lee · Battle of 1st Bull Run · The 54th Massachusetts · John Brown s War · Destiny at Fort Sumter
Long Road Back to Kentucky:
The 1862 Confederate Invasion
The often-overlooked Western campaign of the war with a specific emphasis on Kentucky's involvement in the American Civil War.

Sources:
U.S. National Park Service
U.S. Library of Congress.

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