The Battle of Chickamauga

The battle of Chickamauga took place near Chattanooga, and Chickamauga creek, the battle took place on September 18-20th 1863 and is known as being the second bloodiest battle with casualties higher than 34,000. The union leader for this battle was Major General William S. Rosecrans who was attempting to advance southward; the confederate leader for this battle was General Braxton Bragg who was attempting to prevent the Union from advancing farther south. The reason for the union wanting Chattanooga was because it was a major rail junction and gateway to the deep south, after a series of battles Rosecrans finally forced Bragg's to retreat back into Chattanooga where he reinforced thinking that that was the next place Rosecrans was going to attack and that is where he messed up because Rosecrans had considered that they would be defending Chattanooga so he moved his troops down around Chattanooga and was behind the enemy with the capability of attacking the enemy and the enemy territory. Instead of attacking Chattanooga from behind Rosecrans went through the enemy territory in split up groups, eventually Bragg found out about this and he was terrified but he also heard about the Union army being split into many groups so he sent after the separated troops but only attacked a couple times and missed many opportunities to attack which was one of the causes they did not win the battle, but Rosecrans had also made a mistake, he was lead to belive that there was a gap within his lines so he broke one of the other groups to fill this "gap" opening a real gap and the confederates used that to their advantage and led a massive attack. Finally both sides met fully at Chickamauga creek and a battle erupted, many people were killed or wounded and the battle finally ended inconclusive.