With the sieges of Vicksburg and Port Hudson ebbing to their conclusions and a good-sized fight shaping up in southeastern PA, #OTD CS Gen. Braxton Bragg is hunkered down behind entrenchments in front of Tullahoma, Tennessee, expecting an assault from the Army of the Cumberland.

Bragg’s arrival at Tullahoma was the result of skillful maneuvering by Gen. William S. Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland, who flanked Bragg out of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where his army had been holed up following the Battle of Stones River.

Bragg, who at first seemed determined to stand and fight, is counseled to retreat by his two chief lieutenants, Lt. Gens. Leonidas Polk and William J. Hardee. Hardee, having lost faith in Bragg as army commander, doubts the outcome of any battle with Bragg in command.

Polk had been spooked badly by the success enjoyed by U.S. Col. John T. Wilder’s marauding mounted infantry, who had ranged into the rear of the Army of Tennessee, threatening Bragg’s line of communications.

Unbeknownst to both Bragg and Polk, Wilder has finished his work, having damaged the Nashville & Chattanooga R.R. at Decherd, Tennessee, in Bragg’s rear, and has safely returned to Manchester, Tennessee.

Wilder does not lose a single man on his raid.

On the evening of July 1, 1863, the Confederate Army of Tennessee began withdrawing from Tullahoma. Bragg’s nighttime maneuver was well-executed, though his critics long maintained he had missed an “opportunity” at Tullahoma.

Upon learning of Bragg’s withdrawal, Rosecrans rapidly advanced his XIV and XXI Corps under major generals George Thomas and Thomas L. Crittenden.

Thomas’s lead elements will spar with CS Gen. Joseph Wheeler’s cavalry four miles north of the Elk crossings.

Following the crossing of the Elk, Bragg took up position in the vicinity of Cowan, Tennessee, and might have been trapped there by another of Rosecrans’s flanking moves, but was alerted to the danger by enemy negligence, and he began to move on the TN River.

By July 4, 1863, Bragg would be across the Tennessee River and retreating on Chattanooga.

Despite not having brought Bragg to battle, Rosecrans had recovered Middle Tennessee; Kentucky, too, was no longer threatened.

Rosecrans’s “bloodless” campaign of maneuver was over.