The Tullahoma Campaign: The Beginning of the End for the Confederacy

The Tullahoma Campaign of 1863 is often overlooked and overshadowed by the simultaneous events of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The results of the campaign fought by Union General William S. Rosecrans and Confederate General Braxton Bragg were strategically more significant than Gettysburg and tactically equivalent to Vicksburg. For the North, Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland conducted a campaign of light attacks and aggressive maneuvers that drove the Confederate Army of Tennessee completely out of the state of Tennessee. The results of the campaign for the Union formed the starting point for General William T. Sherman's capture of Atlanta and his subsequent march to the sea. For the South, losing the Tullahoma Campaign and the ultimate retreat from the state of Tennessee proved to be too much from which to recover. With the loss of manpower, agricultural staples, the industrial base of the region and most importantly, the Chattanooga railroad center, the Tullahoma Campaign was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.