Brig. Gen. John Milton Brannan

[jkBluesman]

Brig. Gen. John Milton Brannan (b. 1819, d. 1892). Being one of the heros of the Union defence at Chickamauga, Brannan was better known for his service as chief of artillery of the Army of the Cumberland. Born in Washington D.C., he graduated from West Point in 1841 and was assigned to the artillery. During the American-Mexican War he served as regimental adjutant of the 4th Artillery, won a brevet for gallant service at Contreras and Churubusco and was wounded in the fighting around Mexico City. After the war, Brannan stayed in the army and served in the southeast, which included fighting in the Third Seminole War. At the beginning of the sectional conflict of 1860, he was in command of Fort Taylor at Key West, Florida. Although the state seceded, no attempt was made to capture the fort. Thus Brannan held his post and was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers in September 1861. On January 11, 1862 he became commander of the newly created Department of Key West. Seven months later he was transferred to South Carolina where he received command of the District of Beaufort from which he organized small expeditions against plantations. He would see more fighting the next year when he was transferred to the Army of the Cumberland. Leading a division in the corps of Gen. George Thomas he fought in the Tullahoma Campaign. From September 19-20, 1863 his division was engaged at Chickamauga. Brannan’s division was the initial defending force of the Horseshoe Ridge on which Thomas managed to delay the Confederate attacks enough to save most of the army. When Gen. U.S. Grant arrived in Tennessee to relieve the siege of Chattanooga, he made Brannan chief of artillery for the Army of the Cumberland. He served in that capacity through the battles for Chattanooga and got in command of Gen. William T. Sherman’s whole artillery for the Atlanta Campaign. While Sherman started his famous “March to the Sea”, Brannan stayed with the Army of the Cumberland to defend Tennessee against Gen. John B. Hood’s invasion. Breveted to major general of the volunteer and regular forces, Brannan remained in the army after the war until retiring in 1882 at the rank of colonel. Ten years later he died in New York City, where he was also buried. However, his body was later reintereed at West Point Cemetery.

Ldr: 3
Tact: 4
Init: 4
Cmd: 3
Cav: 0

Teaches: Diggers, Hardy (just for the combination)

[jkBluesman]

I somehow got Brannan in the wrong column of my list. He ad already been done. I looked at the older bio which is pretty short. Maybe some parts of mine might be used to enlarge it so that my work was not a total waste of time, sorry.

[Gil R.]

If you want to fuse the two bios, I could give you joint credit. My priority, of course, is working on bios that are not yet in the game, but you obviously found more info, so it would be good to have the enhanced bio for Brannan. If you do this, just put your changes in boldface to make editing go faster.