Lincoln called it 'the most splendid piece of strategy I know of' — Rosecrans drove Bragg's entire army out of Middle Tennessee in nine days with barely 600 casualties.
The Tullahoma Campaign (June 24 – July 3, 1863) is one of the most underappreciated Union victories of the Civil War. In just nine days, General Rosecrans maneuvered Bragg's entire Army of Tennessee out of its fortified positions and back to Chattanooga — without a major pitched battle.
Rosecrans used an elaborate series of feints to convince Bragg his main attack was coming from one direction, while actually sending his forces through mountain gaps to cut Confederate supply lines. By the time Bragg realized what was happening, his position was already untenable.
The campaign's sharpest fighting fell to Colonel John Wilder's 'Lightning Brigade,' equipped with seven-shot Spencer repeating rifles — among the first infantry units in the war to carry them. Wilder's men seized Hoover's Gap so quickly that Confederate forces couldn't seal it, unraveling Bragg's entire defensive plan.
Confederate losses were mostly prisoners rather than killed and wounded — evidence that Bragg's army retreated rather than fought. Bragg himself told a chaplain the campaign was 'a great disaster.' Union total casualties were just 569, compared to 1,634 Confederate captured.
The campaign's success was almost completely overshadowed by simultaneous Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, which occurred during the same week. Lincoln praised it effusively, but the press and public barely noticed, transfixed by the dramatic battles in Pennsylvania and Mississippi.
The brilliant result had an ironic sequel: Rosecrans's confidence led him to pursue too aggressively into Georgia, spreading his army dangerously thin — and two months later Bragg caught him at Chickamauga and inflicted the worst Union defeat in the Western Theater.