With escape hopeless, Pemberton on July 4 surrendered Vicksburg. Not only did Grant capture an entire Southern army of 30,000 men, but the mighty Mississippi, from Minnesota to the Gulf, lay in Federal hands. The North had severed Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and most of Louisiana from the Confederacy.
As Grant was accepting the surrender of Vicksburg, Gen. Rosecrans and his Federal army of 60,000 men were pushing forward in middle Tennessee. Rosecrans forced Bragg’s army of 47,000 Confederates out of Tullahoma and across the Tennessee River. The Federals slowly began to envelop the key city of Chattanooga. Bragg, in fear of being flanked, retreated into Georgia. Rosecrans seized the strategic rail center, then started in quest of Bragg’s army.
This brought on the desperate battle of Chickamauga (September 19-20). On the first day Bragg attacked but failed to break Rosecrans’s line. That night Gen. James Longstreet arrived from Lee’s army with fresh Confederate troops. Bragg renewed the attack the following morning. After several hours of intense fighting, the Confederates pierced the Federal lines. Rosecrans’s right flank, and the general himself, retreated in disorder to Chattanooga. But the Federal left held fast until darkness ended the conflict.
[Illustration: Confederate troops at Chickamauga tried desperately to rout the Federal army, but a determined stand by blueclad soldiers under Virginia-born George H. Thomas, the “Rock of Chickamauga,” prevented a complete collapse.]
In the two-day battle of Chickamauga, 35,000 men were killed, wounded, or captured. Bragg’s victory, while complete, became hollow when he failed to pursue the broken and beaten Federal army. The Federals were able to reorganize and prepare for a new campaign. Grant soon arrived at Chattanooga and took command of all Federal operations in the West. Bragg’s Confederates took positions on the major hills overlooking the city.
From November 23 to 25, the Federals made a series of attacks on Lookout Mountain, Orchard Knob, and Missionary Ridge. In the end, and for the first time, Southern soldiers ran in mass panic from a field. Half-starved Confederate soldiers continued their retreat all the way to Dalton, Ga. Bragg was finished as a field commander.