On Friday, October 23 and Saturday, October 24, 1863 both the Confederate and Union leadership made important command decisions. While on a tour of the western states, President Jefferson Davis at Meridian, Mississippi relieved General Leonidas Polk from command of a corps in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.
Polk, who had quarreled openly with General Braxton Bragg, was assigned to organizational work in Mississippi, replacing General William Hardee; Polk, a personal friend of Jefferson Davis, later in 1864 would be restored to command but killed outside of Atlanta.
On October 24, General William Tecumseh Sherman formally assumed command of the Union Army of the Tennessee, replacing Ulysses Grant. In 1864 Sherman would assume command on all Union armies in the west and would eventually become the conqueror of Confederate Atlanta, Georgia.