Prelude to the Battle
Federal Breakout from Chattanooga
In late November 1863, Union forces commanded by Major General Ulysses S. Grant successfully lifted Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston’s siege of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Union victories at the Battle of Lookout Mountain (November 24) and the Battle of Missionary Ridge (November 25) forced Johnston to withdraw thirty miles south near Dalton, Georgia.
Grant Promoted to Lieutenant General
After the Federal breakout from Chattanooga, President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to the special rank of Lieutenant General and placed him in command of all Union armies. Grant moved his headquarters to Washington, leaving his trusted subordinate, Major General William T. Sherman, in command of federal operations in the western theater.
Grant’s Umbrella Strategy
Upon arriving in Washington, Grant, along with Sherman devised a “total war” policy aimed at the Confederate military, transportation systems, and anything else abetting the Rebel cause. Grant’s primary military strategy was a coordinated effort to attack and defeat the two main Confederate armies in the field, Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia in the east, and Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of Tennessee in the west.
Sherman Moves South
On May 5, 1864, Grant launched his Overland Campaign against Lee in Virginia. Two days later, Sherman led three armies, the Army of the Tennessee, commanded by Major General James B. McPherson; the Army of the Ohio, commanded by Major General John M. Schofield; and the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by Major General George H. Thomas, out of Tennessee in pursuit of Johnston’s army in northern Georgia.
On May 7, 1864, Sherman’s forces approached the Army of Tennessee, entrenched near Dalton, in rugged, mountainous terrain on and around Rocky Face Ridge. On May 7 and 8, General George Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland tested the Rebel defenses with limited gains. Foreseeing little prospect for success through frontal assaults, Sherman sent General James McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee southwest, in search of a way around the Confederate defenders.
Action at Buzzard’s Roost
On May 9, elements of Major General George Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland attacked Johnston’s main line of defense at a gap in the mountains, known locally as Buzzard’s Roost Gap. Meanwhile, McPherson moved his army to an unprotected gap in the mountains farther south at Snake Creek. Leaving Thomas to demonstrate before the main Confederate line, Sherman moved the rest of his forces south through the Snake Creek Gap, threatening to disable the Western and Atlantic Railroad behind Johnston’s lines. In danger of being outflanked and having his supply line severed, Johnston withdrew twelve miles to Resaca, Georgia on the night of May 12-13.
Aftermath of the Battle
Although the Rebel defenders rebuffed Thomas’s army at the Battle of Buzzard’s Roost, the engagement accomplished Sherman’s objective of holding the Confederates in check as he successfully outflanked Johnston’s army.