Eastern half of Sherman's map of Georgia.
1860 Census data is displayed on every county.
The legend indicates how comprehensive the data is.
All of the bounty of Georgia's agricultural & industrial output that flowed into the Atlanta & Dalton Arsenals & Depo's was shipped exclusively to the Army of Northern Virginia.
The Trans-Mississippi supplies flowed into the Atlanta depot. Large herds of cattle swam & trailed to Atlanta for slaughter & processing. The horns, hides, bones, hooves, tallow & even tail switches were collected for making paintbrushes.
In order to feed the Virginia front quartermasters from the Army of Northern Virginia came north along the N&CRR into Middle Tennessee. They outbid the Q.M.'s of the Army of Tennessee for hogs & corn.
After Stones River January 1863, the Army of Tennessee base was at Florence, Alabama. In Tennessee the army's depot was at Tullahoma.
Tullahoma was a rail road depot named after an Indian Chief. Unlike Atlanta, there was no industrial or food processing. It consisted of rail depot & little else beyond the miles of elaborate earthworks that surrounded it.
An abatis of felled trees extended to a depth of several hundred yards beyond the rifle pits ( trenches.)
Astride the Nashville & Chattanooga RR, a branch line connected Tullahoma to McMinnville on Bragg's right flank. All rail traffic funneled through the 2,200 foot long tunnel through Monteagle mountain south of Tullahoma.
Apart from the narrow gage "Goat Road" that brought coal to Dechard on the northern end of the Cumberland Tunnel, the mountain effectively blocked movement south & east of Tullahoma. In any case, the Cumberland Plateau was a food desert for man & beast.
Bragg's HQ is at Shelbyville in the center of bottom of this map. Tullahoma is 18 miles south along the N&CRR. Columbia to McMinnville, flank to flank of the Army of Tennessee during January to June 1863 is 71 air miles. The road miles in 1863 are a bit of a challenge. Over 100 is a good estimate.
Why does any of this Matter & What does it have to do with the question, "Why did Confederate Armies Starve in a land of plenty?
That is a very good question. The rail roads that connected the Army of Tennessee with the base in Northern Alabama was inoperative. Man & weather had conspired to destroy the roadbed, bridges & culverts. Braxton Bragg's engineers had neither the expertise nor the supplies to attempt to repair it. His army had to rely on wagons & animal motive power for all logistical support / distribution.
Middle Tennessee had been stripped bare by both armies during 1862. Army of Tennessee equines soon consumed what hay & pasturage was left. Like the men, the animals were dependent on logistics for sustenance.
Horses & mules have a 20 mile per day range. Day in & day out a team can go that distance while staying healthy. More than that & the animals will break down. They may or may not recover after a period of rest & care. In any case, the broken down animal was removed from service for weeks.
Two teams of horses or braces of mules consumed 104 pounds of grain & hay / day.
A wagonload of supplies that arrived at Columbia form Northern Alabama consumed 1,040 pound of food in the round trip to McMinnville & back. That is equal to the net of a wagon load of fodder. What that means is that a wagon load of fodder had to be transported to Columbia in order to transfer a wagon load of supplies to McMinnville. The round trip from the base in Alabama was on the order of 250 miles round trip added an additional 1,500 pounds of feed.
What this adds up to is Bragg's motive power consuming 2,540 pounds of feed in order to deliver 1,000 pounds / 38 daily rations to his eastern flank.
The (+/-) 10,000 equines in the Army of Tennessee & support elements required 260,000 pounds of feed / day. You are welcome to do the Carl Sagan sums that it required to transport that volume of feed for a month.
In anticipation of the Tullahoma Campaign beginning June 23, 1863 General Rosecrans had rail road engineering regiments supplied & ready to begin the repair of the Nashville & Chattanooga RR. By his order, all rail traffic southwards was exclusively reserved for fodder. Ammunition & rations were relegated to wagon / motive animal haulage.
You all might well be asking yourselves, what about rations, clothing, equipment & etc for the army. In a Herculean effort, the Army of Tennessee had been issued clothes, shoes & exchanged obsolete smoothbore muskets & cannon for rifles to a certain degree. As was his penchant, Bragg had managed to hoard a considerable reserve at Tullahoma. New white tents sparkled in the spring sunshine everywhere. The dark underside was that the wagons & motive power of the army was in a state of collapse. Inspector General reporting to Richmond were appalled.
The arduous hauls had broken down both the army's entire support element. In a land of plenty, June 1863 the Army of Tennessee had no meat issued. A plea to the bursting at the seams Army of Northern Virginia depot in Atlanta was answered with a gracious grant of 60,000 pounds of bacon… one day's ration delivered to Tullahoma on the N&CRR.
The answer as to why the Army of Tennessee suffered from a chronic lack of supply is three fold. An obvious one is the distortion of availability caused by supplying the Army of Northern Virginia regardless of the needs of Western Theater armies. Bragg's army had no rail road engineering assets capable of maintaining a link with its base. Ultimately, it destroyed the army's support element in a failed attempt to supply the army with wagons.
The great irony is that when the 500 year rain event slowed the Cumberlander's advance to a slow slog, Bragg saved his army by abandoning his elaborately fortified base at Tullahoma. Thousands of new tents were left standing, slashed to tatters. Thomas' men had out run their support, stuck in the kneed deep mud. Imagine how delighted they were to pass the Tullahoma works without a shot being fired to be greeted by the mountainous ration reserve Bragg had so laboriously accumulated.
Below Chattanooga, as they mustered for the advance northward to Chickamauga Creek, Bragg's army had worn out the clothing & shoe issue received in the spring. Their logistical element was barely functional. On the days before Hooker's attack on Lookout Mountain, the daily ration consisted of a canteen of whisky sweetened by raw sugar. A massive depot had been established at Chickamauga Junction. Distributing that bounty was all but impossible. Cumberlanders were delighted to feast on the Amy of Tennessee's rations once again.
On top of it all, Commissary General Lucius Bellinger Northrup was the Homer Simpson in charge of CSA army food supply… As Twain was fond of saying, "The difference between fiction & history is that fiction has to make sense."
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