After the Battle of Stones River ended on January 2, 1863, Union Gen. William S. Rosecrans occupied Murfreesboro while Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg withdrew south to the Highland Rim to protect the rail junction at Tullahoma, his headquarters, and the roads to Chattanooga. In January 1863, Bragg’s Army of Tennessee fortified Tullahoma to protect the supply depot and headquarters, and the town also served as the army’s medical center with divisional and general hospitals. On the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, one of the most strategically important transportation corridors in the Western Theater, Tullahoma stood at the midpoint and served both Confederate and Union armies as a logistics center. Federal troops arrived there in the spring of 1862, but the Confederates retook the town in the fall and supplied their army at Murfreesboro by rail. Bragg fortified Shelbyville and Wartrace behind lightly defended mountain gaps. After months of delay, Rosecrans feinted toward Shelbyville on June 23, captured Hoovers and Liberty Gaps the next day, and a mounted infantry brigade captured Manchester on June 27. After the Battle of Hoovers Gap, Rosecrans gained the Highland Rim on Bragg’s right and threatened his line of communications. The Confederates concentrated at Tullahoma, but although Rosecrans planned to attack on July 1, Bragg retreated, and by July 7 the Confederates were in Chattanooga. The Confederates evacuated Tullahoma on July 1, and it then became a Federal supply depot and post. Tullahoma survived both war and occupation, and the railroad was reincorporated as the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, which remains an important transportation corridor.