Bragg, Braxton

Bragg, Braxton

(1817–76) soldier; born in Warrenton, N.C. He graduated from West Point in 1837 and served in the Seminole, Frontier, and Mexican wars. He left the army in 1856 to run a plantation in Louisiana; when war broke out Bragg commanded his state's militia. He led the Army of Tennessee into Kentucky in the summer of 1862 but withdrew after the inconclusive battle of Perryville in October. He won a smashing victory over Union forces at Chickamauga in September 1863; but his defeat at Chattanooga two months later cost him his command. Dour, irritable, and unpopular with his fellow soldiers, he later became a military adviser to President Davis. After the war, he served successively as public works commissioner in Alabama and as chief engineer of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.