Chattanooga was an important for its key railroad junction. If the Union army could possess Chattanooga, it could allow its armies to strike south towards Atlanta and the Carolinas. It would also allow them to threaten Richmond, Virginia as a passage through southeast Virginia. The Confederate Army wanted to keep Chattanooga in its possession so it could continue to threaten eastern Tennessee and Kentucky with an invasion platform.
After the Battle of Murfreesboro, both Gen. William S. Rosecrans, with his Army of the Cumberland, and Gen. Braxton Bragg, with his Army of Tennessee, had stayed around the same general area during the winter months. In June, Rosecrans began to move his army towards Chattanooga with the purpose of pushing Bragg and his army out of the city. Rosecrans headed into north Alabama and swung across to north Georgia and back into Tennessee, approaching Chattanooga from the rear.
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