Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to episode number 207 of our Civil War

Podcast. My name is Rich. And I'm Tracy. Hello y'all. Welcome to the podcast. As

y'all recall, when we left off last time, it was the summer of 1862, and Union

General Don Carlos Fuel was struggling eastward toward Chattanooga, repairing

the tracks of the Memphis and Charleston railroad as you went to use as his

supply line. But that rail line and fuel's tenuous link all the way back to a

supply base at Louisville, Kentucky proved to be especially vulnerable to

Confederate cavalry raids. And that coupled with fuel's natural cautiousness

meant that the Union advance toward Chattanooga slowed to a crawl. Taking

advantage of fuels, slow march eastward, Confederate General Braxton Bragg

shifted the bulk of his army from northern Mississippi to Chattanooga. Because

the federal had previously captured the rail hub at Corinth, the 30,000

rebels had to take a roundabout railroad journey to Chattanooga, which ended

up covering over 770 miles during the last week or so of July. But the movement

was successful and was one of the great strategic uses of railroads during the

Civil War. On the last day of July, after arriving in Chattanooga, Bragg met with

Edmund Kirby Smith, who commanded the Department of East Tennessee, and who had

come down from his headquarters in Knoxville for this conference with Bragg.

There was the potential for trouble here, since coordination between the two men

could prove difficult, due to the fact that Kirby Smith and Braxton Bragg were

both major generals. Bragg technically outranked Smith, but military protocol

dictated that Bragg wouldn't actually be able to issue orders to Smith, unless the

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