Braxton Bragg (March 22, 1817 – September 27, 1876), a native of North Carolina, was educated at West Point and became an artillery officer. He served in Florida and received three brevet promotions for distinguished service in the Mexican-American War, most notably at the Battle of Buena Vista. He established a reputation as a strict disciplinarian, but also as a junior officer willing to publicly argue with and criticize his superior officers, including those at the highest levels of the Army. After a series of posts in the Indian Territory, Bragg resigned from the Army in 1856 to become a sugar plantation owner in Louisiana.

During the Civil War, Bragg trained Confederate soldiers in the Gulf Coast region. He was a corps commander at the Battle of Shiloh and subsequently was named to command the Army of Mississippi (later known as the Army of Tennessee). Bragg fought in the Battle of Perryville, the Battle of Murfreesboro, the Battle of Stones River, a series of battles against Major General William S. Rosecrans, the Tullahoma Campaign, and the Battle of Chickamauga (the bloodiest battle in the Western Theater, and the only major Confederate victory). General Ulysses S. Grant defeated him in turn during the Chattanooga campaign.

Bragg was recalled to Richmond in early 1864, where he became the military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Near the end of the war, he defended Wilmington, North Carolina and served as a corps commander in the Carolinas Campaign. After the war, Bragg worked as the superintendent of the New Orleans waterworks, as a supervisor of harbor improvements at Mobile, Alabama, and as a railroad engineer and inspector in Texas.