The importance of the war in the West was not lost on the Confederatehigh command. Already three brigades of the Army of Northern Virginia,under Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood, had arrived by rail to reinforce Bragg.Lieutenant General James Longstreet, Robert E. Lee’s “Old Warhorse” andsecond in command, was due at any time with the balance of his I Corps.These veteran troops would give Bragg an advantage few Confederatecommanders would know during the war–numerically superiority. As theVirginia troops arrived, Bragg’s army swelled to 67,000 men, outnumberingthe Federals by 10,000.

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While Rosecrans convened his council of war at the Widow Glenn’s,Longstreet was searching for the elusive Bragg. Bragg unaccountably hadfailed to send a guide to meet him, and after a two-hour wait, Longstreetstruck out with his staff toward the sound of gunfire.

As they groped in the darkness, Longstreet and his companions were metwith the challenge. “Who comes there?” “Friends,” they responded quickly.When the soldier was asked to what unit he belonged, he replied withnumbers for his brigade and division. Since Confederate soldiers usedtheir commanders’ names to designate their outfits, Longstreet knew he hadstumbled into a Federal picket. In a voice loud enough for the sentry tohear, the general said calmly, “Let us ride down a little and find a bettercrossing.” The Union soldier fired, but the group made good its escape.

When Longstreet finally reached the safety of the Confederate lines, hefound Bragg asleep in an ambulance. The overall commander was awakened,and the two men spent an hour discussing the plan for the following day.Bragg’s strategy would continue to be what he hoped to achieve on the 19th.He intended to turn the Union left, placing his army between Rosecrans andChattanooga by cutting the LaFayette Road. Then, the Confederates woulddrive the Army of the Cumberland into the natural trap of McLemore’s Coveand destroy it, a piece at a time.

Bragg now divided his force into two wings, the left commanded byLongstreet and the right by Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk, the “fighting bishop”of the Confederacy. Polk would command the divisions of John C.Breckinridge, who had serves as vice president of the United States underPresident James Buchanan, and Patrick Cleburne, a hard-fighting Irishman.Also under Polk were the divisions of Benjamin Franklin Cheatham, StatesRights Gist and St. John R. Liddell.Breckinridge and Cleburne were under the direct supervision of anotherlieutenant general, D.H. Hill. Longstreet was given the divisions ofEvander Law and Joseph Kershaw of Hood’s corps, A.P. Stewart and WilliamPreston of Simon Bolivar Buckner’s corps, and the divisions of BushrodJohnson and Thomas Hindman.

Breckinridge and Cleburne were to begin the battle with a assault onThomas at the first light. The attack was to proceed along the line, witheach unit going into action following the one on its right. Bragg’s ordersubordinating Hill to Polk precipitated some costly confusion amongSouthern commanders as the time for the planned attack came and went.Somehow, Hill had been lost in the shuffle and never received the order toattack. Bragg found Polk calmly reading a newspaper and waiting for hisbreakfast two miles behind the lines. Polk had simply assumed that Bragghimself would inform Hill of the battle plan.

When the Confederate tide finally surged forward at 9:45 a.m., Thomas wasready with the divisions of Absalom Baird, Richard Johnson, John Palmer andJohn Reynolds. Breckinridge’s three brigades hit the extreme left of theUnion line, two of them advancing smartly all the way to the LaFayette Roadbefore running into reinforcements under Brig. Gen. John Beatty, whose 42ndand 88th Indiana regiments steadied the Federal line momentarily. Aredoubled Rebel effort forced the 42nd back onto the 88th, and severalUnion regiments were obliged to shift their fire 180 degrees to meet thethrust of enemy troops in their rear. Fresh Federal soldiers appeared andfinally pushed Breckinridge back.

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