and although Bragg’s right was repulsed, he was else-
where successful, and by nightfall Rosecrans was in full
retreat. Bragg, however, failed to follow up his victory,
and allowed Rosecrans to retire on Chattanooga unmo-
lested. The Federals lost 16,351 men killed, wounded
or missing, and 36 guns; the Confederates lost about
12,000.” Although Chickamauga was no different
from many of the other battles in which thousands of
men died, in this encounter Rosecrans was blamed by
his superiors for pursuing Bragg with only a small por-
tion of his army, and he was relieved of his command.
He was posted to the Department of the Missouri,
where there was little fighting, and ended the war in
this position.
Following the war, Rosecrans waited until 1867 be-
fore he resigned his commission. He served as the U.S.
minister to Mexico (1868–69) under President Andrew
Johnson, and in 1880 he was elected to a seat in the U.S.
House of Representatives, where he served two terms. In
1885, the year he left Congress, he was named as register
of the U.S. Treasury, and he served in that post until
- Shortly before his death, Rosecrans was restored to
the list of brigadier generals in the United States Army.
He died in Redondo Beach, California, on 11 March
1898 at the age of 77. Fort Rosecrans in California was
named in his honor.
William Rosecrans’s legacy is an ambiguous one.
While he was known in the early part of the Civil War as
a tactician, his impetuosity and severe defeat at Chicka-
mauga ruined his military career. Perhaps it is because of
this that most Civil War histories mention his name only
in connection with this battle.
References: Lamers, William M., The Edge of Glory: A
Biography of General William S. Rosecrans, U.S.A. (New
York: Harcourt, Brace, 1961); Van Horne, Thomas Budd,
History of the Army of the Cumberland: Its Organization,
Campaigns, and Battles, Written at the Request of Major-
General George H. Thomas chiefly from his private Mili-
tary Journal and official and other Documents furnished by
him, 3 vols. (Cincinnati, Ohio: R. Clarke & Co., 1875);
Bickham, William Denison, Rosecrans’ Campaign with the
Fourteenth Army Corps, or, the Army of the Cumberland:
A Narrative of Personal Observations with Official Reports
of the Battle of Stone River (Cincinnati, Ohio: Moore,
Wilstach, Keys & Co., 1863); George Bruce, “Chickam-
auga,” in Collins Dictionary of Wars (Glasgow, Scotland:
HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 58.
Rupert, Prince (duke of Cumberland, earl of
Holderness, “Rupert of the Rhine”) (1619–1682)
English Civil War military leader
Prince Rupert was born in Prague, Bohemia (now capi-
tal of the Czech Republic), on 17 December 1619 (or
7 December 1619 [O.S.]), the son of Frederick V, king
of Bohemia, and his wife Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter
of James I of England; her brother Charles later became
King Charles I of England. Historian Patrick Morrah
explains: “This third son and fourth child, born to a
queen in her husband’s capital city, was given an impe-
rial name, Rupert, after his ancestor Rupert III, the one
member of the Palatine family who had worn the crown
of the Holy Roman Empire. Great rejoicings followed
his birth. A month later the news reached London, and
King James, though he officially denied the royal title
to his son-in-law, ‘joyfully asked for a large beaker of
wine and drank to the health of the new born prince in
Bohemia and of the new king and the queen his daugh-
ter.’ ” Rupert served as a soldier from his 14th birthday,
seeing action at the siege of Rheinberg (1633) under the
tutelage of William, the Prince of Orange, and at Breda
(1637). Captured at the battle of Vlotho (17 October
1638) during the invasion of Westphalia, which was part
of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), he was imprisoned
in Linz, Austria, for a period of more than three years.
Released for good behavior in 1641 if he promised never
to fight against the Holy Roman Emperor (i.e., Austria)
again, he joined his mother in the Netherlands.
In 1642, Rupert went to England, where his uncle,
Charles I, was in deep trouble. Years of fighting Parlia-
ment for control of England’s financial resources led to
a break between the monarch and the legislature, fi-
nally becoming a civil war in 1642. Rupert offered to
assist Charles, as historian John Charnock writes: “As
the nephew of King Charles [I], at the commencement
of that monarch’s troubles, [Rupert] came over to En-
gland, together with his brother Maurice, and offered
the only means of service in his power—his sword.” Ru-
pert was appointed general of the horse and given the
title of baron of Kendal. Charles also directed that Ru-
pert be allowed to act independently from Lord Lindsey,
the commander in chief of the Royalist forces. Given
this freedom, he led the king’s army to its finest period
in the early months of the war. Forces on both sides
admired Rupert’s boldness and dubbed him the “Mad
Cavalier.” He defeated the Parliamentarians at Edgehill
(23 October 1642) and took the city of Bristol after aRupeRt, pRince