September of 1863 Major General William S. Rosecrans was on a roll. He and his Union Army of the Cumberland had carried out a successful campaign in Tennessee against Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg in December of the previous year. After fighting a major battle at Murfreesboro (the Battle of Stones River) and maneuvering adroitly to force the Confederates out of Tullahoma and then Chattanooga, Rosecrans had driven Bragg’s army completely out of Tennessee and into northern Georgia.
But now Bragg was through retreating. He had received enough reinforcements, including troops from Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia under Gen. James Longstreet, to have numerical superiority over Rosecrans. He intended to make aggressive use of that advantage.
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