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Chickamauga
In the centre Rosecrans and Bragg spent the first six months of the year, as it were glaring at each other. Nothing was done by the main armies, but the far-ranging cavalry raids of the Confederates under J. H. Morgan and other leaders created much excitement, especially "Morgan's Raid" (June 27-July 26), through Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, which states had hitherto little or no experience of the war on their own soil.
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At last the Army of the Cumberland advanced.
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At last the Army of the Cumberland advanced. Rosecrans maneuvered his opponent out of one position after another until Bragg was driven back into Chattanooga. These operations were very skilfully conducted by Rosecrans and his second-in-command, Thomas, and, at a trifling cost, advanced the Union outposts to the borders of Georgia.
Burnside and the new Army of the Ohio had now cleared east Tennessee and occupied Knoxville (September 2), and meanwhile Rosecrans by a brilliant movement, in which he displayed no less daring in execution than skill in planning, once more maneuvered Bragg out of his position and occupied Chattanooga. But he had to fight to maintain his prize, and in the desperate battle of Chickamauga on the 19th and 20th of September, Bragg, reinforced by Longstreet from Virginia, won a complete victory. Thomas's defence won him the popular title of the "Rock of Chickamauga" and enabled Rosecrans to draw off his men, but the critical position of the Army of the Cumberland in Chattanooga aroused great alarm.
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