Bragg, Braxton, 1817-1876

Braxton Bragg was a Confederate general during the Civil War.

Born on March 22, 1817, in Warrenton, North Carolina, Bragg attended the prestigious Warrenton Male Academy as a young teenager and then entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, at the age of 16. He performed well at the academy, reportedly due to an exceptional memory and good discipline, and graduated in 1837. His first military assignment was in Florida during the Second Seminole War, but he served as a commissary officer and adjutant, seeing no combat. He later commanded a company of the Third United States Artillery and was stationed at St. Augustine, Florida, and then Fort Moultrie outside of Charleston, South Carolina.

During his first few years of service, Bragg quarreled with other officers and proved outspoken. He wrote a series of essays in the Southern Literary Messenger criticizing army leadership. For this he was court martialed upon charges of disobedience and received an official reprimand and temporary suspension of rank. Despite this punishment, Bragg continued to be argumentative. This trait, along with his propensity for strict discipline and obedience to regulations, made him unpopular and the target of stories and rumors among fellow officers. In his memoirs, Ulysses S. Grant, who knew Bragg at West Point and in the Army in the 1840s, recalled hearing of an incident in which Bragg served as a company commander at an Army post, and was made acting quartermaster while his another officer was on detached duty. As company commander, Bragg submitted a formal request for supplies from the quartermaster’s office. As acting quartermaster, he rejected his own request, with a written note on the order explaining his reasons. Bragg, in his role as company commander, protested that his supply request was appropriate, to which he, as acting quartermaster, again rejected the request a second time. Bragg then elevated the matter to the post commander, who reportedly exclaimed, “My God, Mr. Bragg, you have quarrelled [sic] with every officer in the army, and now you are quarrelling with yourself!” While possibly apocryphal, the story reflected Bragg’s reputation among his army colleagues.

Bragg’s performance during the Mexican-American War, from 1846 to 1848, boosted his army career and reputation. He earned repeated promotions for bravery. His obsession with discipline served the American army well, as his troops were among the best trained on the battlefield. He was brevetted (honorarily promoted) to captain after the Battle of Fort Brown in May 1846, brevetted to major after the Battle of Monterrey in September 1846, and then again to lieutenant colonel after Buena Vista in February 1847. His actions at Buena Vista were especially celebrated, as Bragg positioned his artillery at a key gap in the American line and repulsed a larger Mexican force. Among those who admired Bragg’s actions during the battle was Jefferson Davis, who commanded a Mississippi regiment, but later became secretary of war for the United States and then president of the Confederate States of America.

In 1849, Bragg married Eliza Brooks Ellis, the daughter of a wealthy sugar planter from Louisiana. She followed Bragg to his next military assignments, but by 1855 the couple chose to pursue a life outside of the army. Bragg resigned from the army in 1856 and he and his wife purchased a massive sugar plantation in Louisiana. He managed the sugar cultivation and production with the same adherence to discipline, overseeing more than one hundred slaves on the property. He became active in Louisiana affairs, receiving an appointment as colonel in the Louisiana militia. Bragg initially opposed talk of secession in the south, but followed Louisiana into the Confederacy. He received a commission as brigadier general in the Confederate army in March 1861 and was promoted to major general in September 1861. His first assignment involved commanding Confederate troops at Pensacola, Florida. Later, he was transferred to the Army of Mississippi where he commanded a corps under Albert Sidney Johnston.

Bragg’s first major engagement during the Civil War was Shiloh, Tennessee, in April 1862. Although Confederate forces were forced to retreat, Bragg performed well at the battle and received a promotion to full general in the Confederacy Army only a week afterwards. He was given command of the Army of Mississippi, renamed the Army of Tennessee. His performance as an army commander afterwards in 1862 and 1863 had mixed results. At battles like Murfreesboro and Chickamauga, Bragg scored early tactical victories but failed to defeat his Union opponents. His brash personality and quarrelsome behavior aggravated subordinates, who called for his removal. However Jefferson Davis remained committed to Bragg and kept him in command of Confederate troops in Tennessee until November 1863, when Bragg offered his resignation following the Confederate defeat at Chattanooga.

Even without a field command, Bragg remained a powerful military figure in the Confederacy. He served as an advisor to Davis and proved an able administrator for the Confederate prison system and medical system. In late 1864, he temporarily commanded Confederate troops in the Carolinas and Georgia coastline. Initially successful, a Union victory at Wilmington, North Carolina, in early 1865 undermined his standing, and he spent the final months commanding a corps commander under Joseph E. Johnston. He surrendered to Union forces in early May 1865.

Bragg’s sugar plantation had been confiscated by federal troops during the Civil War, leaving Bragg and his wife homeless at the end of the war. The couple briefly lived in Alabama, but moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1867 where Bragg became superintendent of the New Orleans waterworks. When he lost his job to a Republican appointee, Bragg received an offer from former Confederate president Jefferson Davis to work for the Carolina Life Insurance Company. He left the job after a few months and undertook a series of other positions with public works and railroad companies in Alabama and Texas, many lasting only a few months before he resigned following disagreements with other executives.

Bragg died suddenly on September 27, 1876, in Galveston, Texas, possibly from a stroke or aneurism. He was 59 years old. He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama.

(Wikipedia; American Battlefield Trust; FindaGrave; C. E. Pitts, “Bragg, Braxton,” NCPedia; Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Vol. 2, 86-87)

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