William Rosecrans

William Rosecrans’ star was shining brightly and on the rise in September 1863. The 44-year-old Ohioan and West Point grad had returned to the army when the Civil War began, following a brief but successful career as a mining engineer, and quickly rose to the rank of general. Fearless in battle and beloved by his men, “Old Rosy,” as his men affectionately called him, won praise for his successes in the Western Theater, particularly after his victory at the Battle of Stones River. Touted as a hero by the press, Rosecrans was especially admired by his fellow Democrats, who were already seeing him as a future presidential candidate.

In June 1863 Rosecrans orchestrated a campaign that forced the Confederate army to evacuate central Tennessee. He pursued them into northwestern Georgia, and in September 1863, the two armies faced off at a place remembered by history as Chickamauga. It was to be the place when Rosecrans’s ascent would end.

The battle began on September 19, and the day closed with both armies badly bloodied but without either having gained a material advantage. The fighting resumed the next day and late that morning, during the heat of battle, Rosecrans issued a poorly worded and ill-advised order that would reverse the course of his career.

Wrongly believing there was a gap in his line, Rosecrans’ ordered the division commanded by General Thomas Wood to fill it. When Wood received the order he found it puzzling, but nevertheless pulled his men out of line and marched them toward the nonexistent gap, while himself creating one. As fate would have it, the gap created by Wood’s withdrawal was at precisely the spot where Confederate General James Longstreet was planning an attack. When Longstreet’s sudden and determined assault reached the Union position, his men poured through the gaping hole in the line, flanking the Federal army, and routing the bulk of it. A heroic stand by General George Thomas’s command saved the Federal army from complete destruction, but the Battle of Chickamauga was a crushing Federal defeat nonetheless—the worst Union defeat in the war in the Western Theater.

Following the debacle, Rosecrans was relieved of command and assigned to the Department of Missouri, where he would finish out the war. In the years that followed, he clashed with U.S. Grant and with his former staff officer James Garfield, both of whom rose to become President as Republicans, and both of whom were publicly critical of Rosecrans’s performance at Chickamauga.

Rosecrans moved to California after the war and served two terms in Congress, but was never seriously considered as a presidential contender, having never been able to recover from the consequences of his bad order, and bad luck, at the Battle of Chickamauga.

In 1889, however, 70-year-old William Rosecrans returned to Chickamauga, to participate in the ceremonies commemorating the 26th anniversary of the battle and the impending dedication of a national park on the site. Addressing a gathering of over 10,000 aging veterans, Rosecrans proclaimed, “Today survivors of the battle, both blue and gray, are assembled together to consider how they shall make this a national memorial ground.” The men roared with approval when Rosecrans added, “It took great men to win that battle, but it takes greater men still to wipe away all the ill feeling which naturally grows out of such a contest.”

William Rosecrans died in Redondo Beach, California at age 78, on March 11, 1898.