Battle of Davis’s Cross Roads (Dug Gap)

The fight at Davis’s Cross Roads, also called Dug Gap, was a near-miss for the Confederacy in the days before Chickamauga. On September 10 and 11, 1863, Gen. Braxton Bragg had a Union division isolated in McLemore’s Cove in northwest Georgia but could not close the trap before it slipped away.

• DatesSeptember 10-11, 1863
• WhereMcLemore’s Cove, Walker and Dade counties
• CampaignChickamauga Campaign
• ResultUnion strategic victory

What Happened

After the Tullahoma Campaign, Union Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans pushed to force the Confederates out of Chattanooga, splitting his three corps onto separate routes through the mountains. His troops seized the gaps and moved into McLemore’s Cove, a valley between Lookout and Pigeon mountains.

Maj. Gen. James Negley’s division, backed by Brig. Gen. Absalom Baird’s division, was crossing the mouth of the cove on the Dug Gap road when Negley learned Confederates were massing at Dug Gap. He pulled back to Davis’s Cross Roads on the evening of September 10. Bragg ordered Maj. Gen. Thomas Hindman to hit Negley’s flank while Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne pushed through Dug Gap to strike his front, but most of Hindman’s reinforcements did not arrive and his officers decided not to attack that night.

When fresh Confederate troops came up the next morning, the two Union divisions withdrew under fire to a ridge east of West Chickamauga Creek and then to Stevens Gap, where they waited for the rest of Maj. Gen. George Thomas’s corps. The escape kept Rosecrans’s army intact for the much larger Battle of Chickamauga a week later.

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