David A. Powell > Quotes

“If Rosecrans wanted to establish a line on this encircling high ground, he would need a large number of men to do so. Troops would have to man the entire length of Missionary Ridge at least as far as Rossville, more troops would be needed to hold the two miles of valley, and then additional forces at the foot, on the plateau, and on the top of Lookout. In all, this line would require about 100,000 men to properly man all the necessary defensive works. In the immediate aftermath of Chickamauga, however, Rosecrans had at most 30,000.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign—Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle, September 21 to October 20, 1863

“the Federals who rallied atop Horseshoe Ridge did so of their own volition, and the initial gathering there had as much to do with individual tenacity and a stubborn unwillingness to admit defeat as it did with the presence of any general.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign—Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle, September 21 to October 20, 1863

“In 1880, “Garfield’s Ride” became a centerpiece of his campaign for the presidency, so much so that other witnesses later marveled at the mythology that sprouted up around the tale. In fact this mission, as noted by Garfield’s most reliable biographer, historian Theodore C. Smith, “although a creditable display of courage, involved no unusual risk.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave: The Breakthrough, Union Collapse, and the Retreat to Chattanooga, September 20–23, 1863

“Dowd reached this line shortly after the combined 27th/24th line crumbled, and though Walthall had ordered him “to hold my post till Hell froze over,” to Dowd it now looked like “the ice was about five feet over it.”
― David A. Powell, Battle above the Clouds: Lifting the Siege of Chattanooga and the Battle of Lookout Mountain, October 16 - November 24, 1863

“Ambrose Bierce heard the yell and described the effect it had on those occupying the dark gloomy woods: “Away to our left and rear some of Bragg’s people set up ‘the rebel yell.’ It was taken up successively and passed round to our front, along our right and in behind us again, until it seemed almost to have got to the point whence it started. It was the ugliest sound that any mortal ever heard.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave: The Breakthrough, Union Collapse, and the Retreat to Chattanooga, September 20–23, 1863

“The real problem was that in the space of a quarter of an hour, General Rosecrans set virtually the entire Union right wing in motion. He did so in the face of a powerful enemy already attacking his left wing, and who at that moment was preparing to attack his right wing.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave: The Breakthrough, Union Collapse, and the Retreat to Chattanooga, September 20–23, 1863

“Polk regarded orders as suggestions, to be routinely ignored if he had a better idea.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave: The Breakthrough, Union Collapse, and the Retreat to Chattanooga, September 20–23, 1863

“By the time the official reports were written everyone understood careers teetered on the brink, and great care was taken in the penning of those missives.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave: The Breakthrough, Union Collapse, and the Retreat to Chattanooga, September 20–23, 1863

“Union regiments counted officers as well as enlisted men as a matter of course, but Confederate formations often omitted their officers in their own accounting–”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign—Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle, September 21 to October 20, 1863

“September 19 bears the hallmarks of a large-scale meeting engagement, albeit one seemingly conducted with most of the participants blindfolded.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign—Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle, September 21 to October 20, 1863

“but if Leonidas Polk had left things entirely up to Daniel Harvey Hill, nothing at all would have been done.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave: The Breakthrough, Union Collapse, and the Retreat to Chattanooga, September 20–23, 1863

“Hotchkiss was not a scientific gunner, as his straight-ahead, charge-’em-and-to-hell-with-the-consequences manner so aptly demonstrated in Winfrey Field the evening before. Semple, by contrast, was a canny veteran tactician. Close range was fine—if you could get there and deliver accurate fire without getting shot to pieces first—but what Hotchkiss failed to grasp was that artillery was most effective when it delivered a converging fire.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave: The Breakthrough, Union Collapse, and the Retreat to Chattanooga, September 20–23, 1863

“Breastworks, however rudely and hastily constructed, would be a feature of Union battle positions wherever possible from now on.39”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave: The Breakthrough, Union Collapse, and the Retreat to Chattanooga, September 20–23, 1863

“The simple fact is that the Army of Tennessee never had sufficient military-grade transport to meet its needs, a problem that only worsened over time.”
― David A. Powell, Tullahoma: The Forgotten Campaign that changed the Civil War, June 23–July 4, 1863

“Bragg was a good strategist, a competent planner, a solid logistician, and demonstrably capable of turning civilians into first-rate soldiers through training and discipline. He was also a failure as a leader, incapable of inspiring loyalty among his subordinates or forging disparate personalities into a functioning combat command. He could be remarkably inflexible on a field of battle.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign—Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle, September 21 to October 20, 1863

“The Army of Tennessee was not the Army of Northern Virginia. Bragg was not Lee; Polk was not Jackson; and Hardee was not Longstreet.”
― David A. Powell, Tullahoma: The Forgotten Campaign that changed the Civil War, June 23–July 4, 1863

“For reasons that remain obscure, Ingraham’s body was never removed from the battlefield. After the war, the Reed family marked his grave with a proper headstone and encircled it with an iron fence.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign—Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle, September 21 to October 20, 1863

“Thomas’s deployment on the morning of September 21 encompassed less than one-third of the overall length needed to secure all of Chattanooga’s approaches.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign—Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle, September 21 to October 20, 1863

“In a single stroke an inexperienced Episcopal bishop became one of the senior generals in the budding Confederate army.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave: The Breakthrough, Union Collapse, and the Retreat to Chattanooga, September 20–23, 1863

“the men who rallied and initially held Horseshoe Ridge did so with little regard to tactical manuals. They simply refused to quit.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign—Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle, September 21 to October 20, 1863

“returned with several cases of .577 Enfield rounds. These provided for the roughly one-third of the 21st carrying the English muskets, but left the men armed with Colt rifles unsupplied. Necessity being the mother of invention, the men soon discovered they could force the rounds into the chambers of the cylinder, but that firing them burst the barrels; by affixing bayonets, however, the muzzles were reinforced just enough to prevent splitting.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave: The Breakthrough, Union Collapse, and the Retreat to Chattanooga, September 20–23, 1863

“In effect, the Tullahoma Campaign irretrievably cost the Confederate war effort the entire state of Tennessee.”
― David A. Powell, Tullahoma: The Forgotten Campaign that changed the Civil War, June 23–July 4, 1863

“By 1863, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia could no longer subsist on its own where it fought, drawing foodstuffs from the Carolinas, Georgia, and even East Tennessee. Beyond supporting local garrisons, those regions were reserved for Lee’s use.”
― David A. Powell, Tullahoma: The Forgotten Campaign that changed the Civil War, June 23–July 4, 1863

“Ultimately, the South cannibalized turpentine and brandy stills, sending purchasing agents amid great secrecy to seize or buy those stills wherever they found them. “Thus,” Broun admitted, “all the caps issued from the arsenal … during the last twelve months of the war manufactured from the copper stills of North Carolina.”
― David A. Powell, All Hell Can’t Stop Them: The Battles for Chattanooga—Missionary Ridge and Ringgold, November 24-27, 1863

“Chattanooga made Grant in a way that Vicksburg’s triumph had not. Within slightly more than a month of being given authority over the entire Western Theater, Grant erased the defeat of Chickamauga, saved the Army of the Cumberland, and routed Bragg.”
― David A. Powell, All Hell Can’t Stop Them: The Battles for Chattanooga—Missionary Ridge and Ringgold, November 24-27, 1863

“Once the final makeup of the brigade was set, it took about a month for Wilder to mount his entire command and Capt. Eli Lilly’s 18th Indiana Battery. Lilly was a pharmacist from Greencastle, Indiana, who went on to found one of the largest and most successful drug companies in the world.”
― David A. Powell, Tullahoma: The Forgotten Campaign that changed the Civil War, June 23–July 4, 1863

“Unlike Gettysburg, Chickamauga does not contain imposing statues of Thomas, Longstreet, or any other general officer.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign—Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle, September 21 to October 20, 1863

“Armies are not created simply by slotting units into tables of organization.”
― David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: A Mad Irregular Battle: From the Crossing of Tennessee River Through the Second Day, August 22–September 19, 1863

“When the battle did not go according to his plan, Grant adapted and modified that plan. A stumble in one sector met with success elsewhere, and Grant capitalized upon that success. This flexibility should not be dismissed lightly. Far too many commanders, when confronted by an unexpected reverse, responded with passivity—Braxton Bragg, for example.”
― David A. Powell, All Hell Can’t Stop Them: The Battles for Chattanooga—Missionary Ridge and Ringgold, November 24-27, 1863

“Bragg fumed that “with all his ability, energy, and zeal, General Polk, by education and habit, is unfitted for executing the orders of others. He will convince himself his own views are better, and will follow them without reflecting on the consequences.”
― David A. Powell, Tullahoma: The Forgotten Campaign that changed the Civil War, June 23–July 4, 1863