Born in Warrenton, North Carolina, Braxton Bragg entered West Point at the age of fifteen and graduated in 1837, ranked 5th in a class of fifty. Commissioned a second lieutenant in the Third Artillery, Bragg saw service in Florida during the Second Seminole War. In late 1837 Bragg became ill due to the climate in east Florida and spent most of 1838 recovering.
In 1845 the Third Artillery joined General Zachary Taylor and the Army of Observation posted at Corpus Christi, Texas. Known for his organizational skills as both a unit leader and a member of the Quartermasters Corp., Bragg also earned a reputation as a strict disciplinarian and his ability to turn raw recruits into well-trained soldiers. However, a lack of personal diplomacy left Bragg with few friends in the officer corps, and his heavy-handedness with his men led to two attempts on his life during the US-Mexico War.
On March 8, 1846, Taylor marched the Army of Occupation to the Rio Grande opposite Matamoras, Mexico where he established Fort Texas. Anxious to protect his coastal supply line, Taylor marched the main body of the army back to Point Isabel, whereupon the Mexican army in Matamoras, under the command of General Pedro de Ampudia, began a four-day siege and bombardment of Fort Texas. Bragg was brevetted a captain for his actions at the newly renamed Fort Brown, in honor of Major Jacob Brown who died of wounds suffered during the bombardment.
On September 20, 1846, General Taylor began the occupation of Monterey, Mexico. Captain Bragg, under the command of brevet Colonel John Garland, took part in the attack of the northeast section of the city. After heavy fighting Bragg managed to place his guns inside the city walls; Garland, however, found the position unsustainable and withdrew the force to a nearby complex of tannery buildings. After heavy fighting Mexican forces capitulated and withdrew from the city. Bragg received a commission as a brevet major for his actions at Monterey.
By the third week in February 1847, Taylor had advanced the army to the mountain pass at Angostura, near the Hacienda de Buena Vista, and came into contact with Mexican forces now under the command of General Antonio López de Santa Anna. On February 23 Santa Anna began a general assault on the center of a plateau held by the 2nd Illinois and 2nd Indiana volunteers. To their right Bragg’s battery was positioned with the 2nd Kentucky volunteers and Captain Thomas W. Sherman’s battery. During the course of the fighting, Colonel John J. Hardin, in command of the 2nd Illinois volunteers, withdrew into a narrow, steep-sided ravine where they received heavy losses. Hardin’s dilemma left a large gap in the U.S. lines that Taylor ordered Colonel Jefferson Davis and his Mississippi volunteers to fill. At a critical moment in the action, brevet Major Bragg arrived to support Davis. Firing three rounds at close range, Bragg’s artillery staggered, then collapsed the enemy advance, effectively ending the fighting that day. Several statements attributed to Taylor when ordering Bragg to Davis’ support became popular; one, “A little more grape, Captain Bragg,” became a campaign slogan for General Taylor in his successful bid for the White House in the 1848 election. Bragg received a brevet lieutenant colonel for his actions at Buena Vista.
After the US-Mexico War, Bragg served on the New Mexico frontier and then traveled to Louisiana, where he married Eliza B. Bliss in 1849, the daughter of a large sugar plantation owner. Bragg and his new wife became dissatisfied over living conditions stationed in the Indian Territory and Bragg resigned his commission in 1855, buying a sugar plantation near Eliza’s father. In 1861, Louisiana seceded from the Union and appointed Bragg as the head of the state military. That same year, Bragg became a commissioned brigadier general in the Confederate army, and in 1862, he was appointed to command the Army of Mississippi, which became the Army of Tennessee. Although he proved to be highly skilled in organizational matters, he lacked strategic planning, often blaming others for battlefield failures. After the fall of Chattanooga on November 25, 1865, Davis relieved Bragg of his command and made him a military advisor in Richmond, Virginia.
Bragg lost his sugar plantation during the war and afterwards became a superintendent of levies in New Orleans, then worked in an insurance office. In 1874 Bragg accepted a position as the chief engineer for the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad. Braxton Bragg died on September 27, 1876 in Galveston, Texas and is buried in Magnolia Cemetery Mobile, Alabama. The United States Army post at Fort Bragg, North Carolina was named in his honor. It was renamed Fort Liberty in 2022.
Bibliography
Bauer, K. Jack The Mexican War: 1846- 1848 Macmillan Publishing New York 1974
Brooks, Nathan Covington A Complete History of the Mexican War 1846-1848: Its Causes, Conduct, and Consequences The Rio Grande Press, Inc. 1849 rprt 1969
McWhitney, Grady Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat Vol. 2 Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991.
Winders, Richard Bruce Mr. Polk’s War; The American Experience in the Mexican War College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997.
Image Details
Title: General Braxton Bragg
Date: ca. 1861-65
Description: Photographic print; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA; LC-USZ62-4888
