It turned out to be a pipe dream, but while it lasted the Confederate invasion of Kentucky in the summer and fall of 1862 gave the Federal authorities a terrible nightmare. They feared losing the great expanse of Southern territory their troops had won through the capture of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson and Nashville, as well as the slaughter at Shiloh. They now controlled Kentucky, middle and west Tennessee, north Mississippi and north Alabama. Only after the dream ended in October did newly appointed General-in-Chief Henry Halleck realize that the Rebels had "boldly determined to reoccupy Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky and, if possible, invade the states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois while our attention was distracted by the invasion of Maryland."

It is somewhat surprising to think that the Don Quixote who formulated this impossible dream was General Braxton Bragg, who is usually depicted as a grim, dour, dyspeptic martinet who could never gain the love of his troops nor the respect of the Southern people, some of whom looked down on him as a pet of President Jefferson Davis. One officer branded him "self-willed, arrogant and dictatorial," and another called him "obstinate, haughty and authoritative" but asserted he was the best disciplinarian in the Confederate Army.

Bragg's swings in temperament might have been caused by his poor health. He suffered for years from fierce migraine headaches, poor digestion and rheumatism, all of which intensified his irritable personality. His black beard, streaked with gray, and sour disposition made the general seem much older, but he was only in his 40s during the war. William Russell, a British war correspondent, described him as a tall, "elderly" man "of spare and powerful frame," adding, "His face is dark and marked with deep lines, his mouth larger and squarely set in determined jaws and his eyes look out at you from beetle brows which run straight across and spring into a thick tuft of black hair."

A native of North Carolina, Bragg held the respect of other generals who knew that he had amply demonstrated his courage and fighting skill in the Mexican War. In the Battle of Buena Vista on February 23, 1847, Bragg's artillery fire stopped a Mexican attack and averted defeat. General Zachary Taylor, the U.S. commander, said Bragg's use of canister "saved the day." According to a popular myth, Taylor called for "a little more grape, Captain Bragg." Bragg recalled that Taylor actually shouted, "Give 'em hell!" Colonel Jefferson Davis, commanding Mississippi troops in the battle, admired Bragg for the rest of his life.

In April 1862, after Bragg had ably commanded a corps in the Battle of Shiloh, President Davis promoted him to the rank of full general, making him the fifth-highest-ranking officer in the Confederacy. On June 20, Davis gave him command of the Western Department, replacing General P.G.T. Beauregard, who had been the commander since the death of General Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh. Seeking medical treatment, the ailing Beauregard had slipped away to an Alabama spa -- without asking the president's permission. Furious, Davis sacked him and chose his favorite to take Beauregard's place.

Bragg confronted a tough strategic situation. The Federal troops, numbering more than 100,000, were based at the rail center of Corinth, Miss., and scattered all the way to Memphis. The outnumbered Confederates were concentrated at Tupelo, south of Corinth. Thousands of bluecoats, led by Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, were moving slowly eastward toward the rail center at Chattanooga, Tenn., repairing the vital Memphis & Charleston railroad as they trudged along. President Abraham Lincoln demanded that Buell rescue the loyal people of east Tennessee from Rebel rule. Constantly harassed by Confederate cavalry, the Yankees in the road gang moved so slowly that Lincoln complained, and Halleck warned Buell that if he didn't speed up he would be fired.

Colonel John Hunt Morgan, the notorious Rebel raider, staged a thousand-mile rampage across Kentucky with about 900 hell-for-leather cavalrymen, causing Union Brig. Gen. J.T. Boyle at Louisville, Ky., to warn Washington in July: "The state is in imminent danger of being overrun by Morgan and those joining him....There is a danger of an uprising of the traitors in our midst." Lincoln told Halleck: "They are having a stampede in Kentucky. Look to it."

It was to encourage just such a rebellion in Kentucky that Bragg began to devise his grand scheme for invading the state and carrying the Confederacy's frontier to the Ohio River. Since the wrecked Memphis & Charleston railroad remained as a barrier in Federal hands, there was no way the Confederates could go directly from Tupelo to Chattanooga. So Bragg devised a brilliant end run around Buell, moving about 35,000 of his troops by rail in an unusually long "V" formation. They went southward nearly the entire length of Mississippi to Mobile, Ala., crossed Mobile Bay by steamboat and then traveled by rail northward through Montgomery, Ala., then Atlanta and Dalton, Ga., covering 766 miles on more than half a dozen different railroads and arriving at Chattanooga by late July.

"Bragg had moved men farther and faster than troops had ever been moved before," one biographer wrote. "His strategic use of the railroad had reversed the direction of the war. Not only were Buell's flank and rear exposed; all Federal armies in the lower Mississippi valley were menaced."

Confederate Maj. Gen. E. Kirby Smith, at Knoxville, had about 12,000 troops in east Tennessee and assured Bragg that they would cheerfully cooperate in a parallel drive northward into Kentucky, the two armies moving about 100 miles apart. "My advance is made in the hope of permanently occupying Kentucky," Smith told President Davis on August 11. "It is a bold move, offering brilliant results."

"Everything is ripe for success," Bragg assured Smith on August 15 in a rare display of optimism. "Buell's forces are much scattered and from all accounts much demoralized. By rapid movements and vigorous blows we may beat him in detail, or by gaining his rear, very much increase his demoralization and break him up."

"Buell has certainly fallen back from the Memphis & Charleston Railroad and will probably not make a stand this side of Nashville," Bragg assured Maj. Gens. Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price, who were holding the line in north Mississippi. He directed them to overcome the Union armies there, "threaten West Tennessee with about 25,000 men," join him on the Ohio River and "there open the way to Missouri." Clearly "Old Porcupine" was mentally riding high, dreaming his impossible dream.

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