More Support for Gen. Bragg...This time in print!

Two rival newspapers located in Mobile, Alabama, had very differing views of our most "harmonious" commander. The pro-Bragg newspaper was the Mobile Daily Register and Advertiser and the anti-Bragg newspaper was the Mobile News. I give you all one of the rebuttal articles printed by the Register and Advertiser on Friday morning, January 16, 1863. Keep in mind that this is in reference to the recent defeats of the Army of Tennessee in Kentucky and at the Battle of Stones River (Murfreesboro), Tennessee.

Down on GEN. BRAGG- The Mobile News is very heavy on Gen. Bragg as a military leader generally, and particularly hard on him as it regards the General's Kentucky campaign and the battle of Murfreesboro. We give a specimen.

Jackson Mississippian.

The "specimen" extract copied by our Mississippi contemporary never appeared in the Evening News.

It is right hard on Bragg that he is not allowed to have defenders even in his friends. This journal, which has resisted the torrent of injustice and false popular clamor against a true soldier and patriot, is now taken away from him and made to be "very heavy on Gen. Bragg." The Mississippian will please correct, and do us justice. The opinion of this journal is that General Bragg has got more patriotism and military genius in his little finger than is contained in all the bodies and souls of nine tenths of the army of his [illegible].

As many of us know, Braxton Bragg had a lot of support in Mobile!!! Reading this extract should not surprise us, but I do believe it goes to show us that modern military historians do not give Bragg supporters credit where credit is due. How many individuals subscribed to this particular newspaper? I do not have the statistics, but I bet quite a few Mobilians read or listened to this paper being read, and not all of the influential persuasion, like Major General Jones M. Withers of Mobile (a definite Bragg Supporter).