Tullahoma: The 1863 Campaign for the Control of Middle Tennessee

Dr Bradley's book, with Blood & Fire is excellent and was purchased as a gift for a civil war buff.

Hey, at $10 you can't go wrong! The previous review hit the nail on the head, as this is an oft overlooked campaign in Middle Tennessee. Volumes have been written on Stones River, but save for a volume or so on Hoover's Gap, how often do you read anything about the Tullahoma Campaign the helped determine the control of Middle Tennessee. Relic hunters are well aware of it, as it is a relic paradise, or at least in its hay day. I attended college and relic hunted in Middle Tennessee, and I found the book an education. I would preferred to have seen the text set differently, or at least the paragraphs spaced. Guess it is an old age/eye thing, and as always I would like to have seen more pictures, i.e. lesser known troops who fought there, the sites today, a few relics tossed in. On the plus side of that coin, I enjoyed the maps that broke down positons to a regimental level. Never-the-less, it is a valuable addition to your library. I would also recommend the author's "Nathan Bedford Forrest's Staff and Escort".

1863 is considered by many to be the turning point of the Civil War, with Vicksburg splitting the Confederacy in half & Gettysburg halting Gen. Lee's advance into Penn. But few history buffs know about the decisive Tullahoma campaign that pushed the (Confederate) Army of Tennessee out of Middle Tennessee following the bloody battle of Stones River. Yes, the Tullahoma campaign was relatively bloodless, with only a few hundred casualties suffered by each side. But, Union Gen. Rosecrans' army won a decisive victory by bold tactics that caught the exausted Confederates off-guard. The Tullahoma campaign was also the turning point for the Union cavalry in Tennessee. Rosecrans re-equipped his troopers with the latest repeating rifles & for the first time in the war they had the Confederate cavalry on the run. Twice during skirmishes around Tullahoma the Union cavalry successfully charged the Confederate cavalry with sabers! One of the main reasons the Army of Tennessee was defeated in this campaign was the bickering & lack of communication among the Confederate leadership. Gen. Braxton Bragg deserves a lot of the blame for this although the bickering even existed among their field officers! Although this book only has about 90 pages of text, it is a very detailed & fast-paced account of this important campaign. There are several maps that are very helpful in visualizing the road networks as well as the positions of regiments in the battles. This book is an absolute must-have for any Civil War buff studying the war in Tennessee.