commander). Bate commanded this division at the Battle of Missionary Ridge in November 1863. As a result of his service in the Chattanooga Campaign, Bate was promoted to major general on February 24, 1864. That summer, his division took part in the Atlanta Campaign, and saw action at the battles of Resaca, New Hope Church, Kennesaw Mountain, and Peachtree Creek, as well as the main Battle of Atlanta on July 22. At the Battle of Utoy Creek on August 6, Bate used a deception plan that foiled the main Union attack. He was shot in the knee in a skirmish at Willis' Grist Mill near Atlanta on August 10, and was bedridden in Barnesville, Georgia, for several weeks. Bate rejoined his division in time to take part in General John B. Hood's invasion of Tennessee in late 1864. At the Battle of Franklin on November 30, he lost nearly 20% of his division, and his horse was again shot out from under him. He commanded General Benjamin F. Cheatham's right flank at the Battle of Nashville two weeks later. Bate's division remained with Cheatham's Corps during the 1865 Carolinas Campaign, during which he saw action at the Battle of Bentonville in March. Bate and his men surrendered at Bennett Place near Greensboro, North Carolina. During the war, he was wounded three times and had six horses shot and killed beneath him. After the Civil War After the war, Bate practiced law in Nashville in partnership with Colonel Frank Williams. He remained active in politics, serving on the State Democratic Committee and the National Democratic Executive Committee in the late 1860s. He was nominated for the U.S. Senate in 1875, 1877, and 1881, and was an elector for presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden in 1876. Throughout the 1870s and early 1880s, Tennessee's state government struggled with debt, which had accumulated over previous decades as the state issued bonds to fund internal improvements and railroad construction. The Panic of 1873 decimated the state's property tax revenue, and the state defaulted on its bond debt in 1875. By the early 1880s, the state Democratic Party had split into two factions over how to resolve the crisis: those who sought full repayment of the debt at all costs to preserve the state's credit (known as the "high tax" or "state credit" Democrats) and those who believed full payment unfeasible and sought only a partial