NOVEMBER 22, 1863:
Confederate
Military Intelligence suffers one of its greatest failures. General Braxton
Bragg, C.S.A., investing the Siege of Chattanooga, detaches the forces of
General Simon Bolivar Buckner C.S.A., and sends them north to aid General James
Longstreet C.S.A. in the Siege of Knoxville.
Bragg, already weakened by Longstreet’s earlier departure,
is left with only a skeleton force at Chattanooga. What Bragg does not know is
that he is about to be attacked by General William Tecumseh Sherman U.S.A., and
that Longstreet will have to retreat from Knoxville to aid him, with General
Ambrose Burnside, U.S.A. coming out of Knoxville in pursuit of Longstreet. In
the meantime, both Bragg and Longstreet will face attack from numerically superior
Union forces, while Buckner’s forces will be neutralized in transit, facing
enemies both ahead and behind along what is today the I-75 corridor.
