Book Review: Without Bugle or Drum: The Battles of Vaught’s Hill and Snow Hill, Tennessee March-April 1863
Without Bugle or Drum: The Battles of Vaught’s Hill and Snow Hill, Tennessee March-April 1863. By Kevin B. McCray. Perrysburg, OH: Columbian Arsenal Press, 2024. Softcover, 159 pp. $20.00.
Reviewed by Scott Bumpus
Middle Tennessee, winter, 1863. Smoke from the battle of Stones River still lingers. Major General William S. Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland settles into winter quarters in an arc south of Nashville, centered on Murfreesboro. There he builds his supply base as he waits for the upcoming campaign season and his opportunity to press further south, his eyes on Chattanooga.
Before him to the south along a nearly 70-mile-long defensive line lies his foe, the barely 40,000-strong Confederate Army of Tennessee under the command of the irascible Gen. Braxton Bragg. They each set into a long period of relative inactivity, the longest for either army during the war. As March brings the first tinges of spring, that quiet will be broken as small skirmishes begin to pop along the front and flanks as each side struggles to glean the intentions of the other. Operating on the eastern flank of the armies, the Confederate cavalry command under John Hunt Morgan, fresh from his second raid into Kentucky, plies his craft on Federal supply lines and nerves. As the weather warms, Morgan hopes to exploit the perceived lack of coordinated and experienced Union cavalry and in turn hinder Rosecrans’ preparations in Murfreesboro.
Kevin B. McCray’s Without Bugle or Drum: The Battles of Vaught’s Hill and Snow Hill, Tennessee March-April 1863 is the story of two of those skirmishes that occurred along the meadows and ridges east of Murfreesboro that spring. As McCray states, “The skirmishes, or battles, of Vaught’s Hill (Milton) and Snow Hill (Liberty) in Middle Tennessee were not directly influential to the American Civil Wars outcome…” [p.11]. Be that as it may, McCray uses the engagements to showcase how cavalry was used, not only for reconnaissance, but also tactically during the war in the West. He illustrates how Rosecrans, virtually from scratch, built an effective cavalry force as well as the emergence of mounted infantry. McCray also details the problems experienced by Confederate cavalry in the region as they faced supply and command structure issues. Using these topics as context, McCray effectively sets the scene in the opening chapter.
While he uses the initial pages of the book to give context to what was happening with the armies during that period, McCray breaks his book down into two separate accounts: Vaught’s Hill and then Snow Hill. For each action, McCray uses ample primary source material from participants on both sides including not only after-action reports, but also contemporary diaries, letters home, and post-war memoirs. Though he does include modern road names as reference points for troop movements, there are only a small number of maps, often making it difficult and confusing to follow the action. As well, much of the combat is described as a list of actions, one event after the other. Though McCray is detailed on the action that takes place, he could have included more contextual support of why things were happening, as well as biographical information on the characters in the scene. However, at the end of each battle narrative, McCray includes a chapter for casualties and an Order of Battle that includes regimental histories with background and wartime record information. Also included are short biographies of the major players (both officers and enlisted) that played roles in the battle. While I found these sections to be interesting, I believe that had they been woven into the descriptions of the fighting, they might have added the necessary substance and context that was lacking. Because the Orders of Battle for both events were nearly the same, McCray’s structure of separating the two battles often resulted in him duplicating information. Descriptions of tactics and commanders that had already been touched on in the Vaught’s Hill narrative were often repeated unnecessarily in the Snow Hill section.
McCray closes his work with a valuable chapter on the weeks after the actions at Vaught’s Hill and Snow Hill and how they affected the events that would play out in the summer months. He ably ties Morgan’s failure to properly screen the flank of the army to Bragg’s inability to maintain his hold in Middle Tennessee, a symptom that seemed to plague Confederate cavalry in the western theater. He wraps up Morgan’s war record including his 1863 Ohio raid and his death in 1864.
The story of the war was made up of intertwining events and the brave acts of individuals. As stated earlier, while the actions at Vaught’s Hill and Snow Hill did not change the course of the war, they were days of enormous significance to their participants. To the families of the men who fell, their worlds were changed forever. I firmly believe that every story deserves to be told and every action be recognized. If for this reason alone, Kevin McCray’s book deserves attention, making it a welcome addition to any library for students of the western theater or mid-war cavalry action and tactics.
Scott Bumpus is a 6th generation native of West Tennessee and an amateur “armchair” historian. As a child, he fell in love with Civil War history on a family trip to Shiloh and from learning about his family connections to the period. Scott earned his bachelor’s degree in Radio-Television and another in Cinema-Photography from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He is also a partner in the family motorcycle business. Scott enjoys spending his spare time on Civil War battlefields, playing with his grandson, reading, and attending Civil War symposiums such as the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, the Seminar in the Woods at Chickamauga, and others. He is a passionate fan of Chicago Cubs baseball, music, and my bride Angie and our 3 kids. He currently lives in Mercer Tennessee.
