On September 11, 1863, Federal forces from Van Cleve’s Division of the 21st Army Corps of the Army of the Cumberland entered Ringgold from the west while Colonel John T. Wilder’s Mounted Infantry Brigade entered from the north. A few Confederate cavalrymen offered token resistance and fell back through Ringgold Gap. As Van Cleve’s men rushed into Ringgold, they encountered civilians trying to flee ahead of the advancing army, many having loaded their belongings onto a train that was captured along with large amounts of stores and Southern mail. Federal soldiers later recalled the confusion in town, with possessions being moved, letters scattered in heaps and at random, and fleeing inhabitants as troops smashed through fences and pressed into Ringgold from multiple directions. Wilder’s mounted infantry attacked along the road from the north on Tennessee Street at the same time Van Cleve’s men came from the west, firing at armed Confederates and trying to cut off their retreat through the streets. In his official report, Wilder blamed the untimely advance and milling about of Van Cleve’s men for preventing his troops from trapping the retreating Confederate cavalry. Van Cleve’s men then returned to their unit near Lee and Gordon’s Mills, while Wilder pursued the retreating cavalry through the gap and fought a brief skirmish with Confederate cavalry under General Nathan Bedford Forrest at Dick’s Ridge. Forrest fell back to Tunnel Hill, where he was reinforced by four regiments of Tennessee Cavalry, and the Confederates then drove Wilder out of the area. Five days later, on September 17, the Federals returned to Ringgold, but by then the Confederates had received massive reinforcements, and Longstreet’s newly arrived men easily drove them back to the west. During the next two days, thousands of Confederate soldiers passed through Ringgold from Catoosa Station, went through the gap, and continued on to fight in the Battle of Chickamauga.

Photo: David Tibbs

Photo: David Tibbs

Photo: David Tibbs

Photo: David Tibbs