Lookout Mountain is an amazing place to discover nature, history and enjoy vistas reaching out to a claimed seven states. The Mountain is best explored on foot along its myriad of trails traversing the dense forest slopes of this quintessential Appalachian prominence. Surrounded to the north, east and on top by urbanity, it is easy to forget you are never far from civilization if not for the subtle roar of traffic on Interstate 24 far below.
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The battle of Chickamauga severely troubled the Federal Army of the Cumberland. Mainly due to a failure in command, the Army suffered a stiff rebuke on 20 September 1863 losing over 16,000 casualties. Routed, the force made its way back to Chattanooga thanks to the steady defense shown on Horseshoe Ridge by men scrabbled together by General George Thomas. Luckily, their antagonist, the Confederate Army of Tennessee suffered even more casualties in victory – over 18,000. More problematic for the Confederate commander Braxton Bragg was a large loss of horses for an army already suffering mobility problems before that epic confrontation.
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The Chattanooga section of the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park consists of several disparate sections separated by over a century of urbanity. Two of the lesser-known parts of the park lie at the northern end of Missionary Ridge – the Sherman and the Pennsylvania Reservations. These two reserves remember the heavy fighting of 25 November 1863 on Tunnel Hill. Tunnel Hill, so-called for the railroad tunnel for the Chattanooga & Cleveland Railroad. Here, the better part of the Army of the Tennessee, led by Major General William Sherman, with additional troops provided by the division of Jefferson C. Davis and the Federal 11th Corps hit the northern flank of Braxton Bragg’s Missionary Ridge position. The goal was to gain Tunnel Hill and roll up Bragg’s position from that end.
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REHERSAL TO GAIN THE HEIGHTS
The battle of Chickamauga over the last days of September 1863 delivered a severe blow to the Union Army of the Cumberland pushing that army back into the fortifications of Chattanooga while the victorious Confederate Army of Tennessee stood upon the heights surrounding the city – Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.
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Flying from the west into Atlanta, looking out the window it is hard to miss the waves of mountains sprawling in long ranks southwest to northeast not unlike a series of geographically arranged ribs. Chattanooga, Tennessee lies smack dab in the middle of these ancient ripples. And flowing right through the middle of the long mountain spines is the Tennessee River looping back and forth onto itself as it brushes through the city. The long ridges, extending for vast distances from Birmingham. Alabama in the southwest all the way to the northeastern edge of Pennsylvania in the northeast, represents a vast area once an ancient seabed that underwent uplift. Eons have worn down the region, though Lookout Mountain still rises 1,500 feet above the city below.
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Oregon, California and the western territories of the United States played little roles in the devastation seen in the East known as the American Civil War. In the era before transcontinental rail, the two Pacific states were simply too far away to matter much in the conflagration. To reach the far west, six months needed to come into play, whether the journey was overland or by sea – choice there of around Cape Horn or across the disease-ridden Isthmus of Panama. A surprisingly number of men with Oregon ties did play roles in the titanic struggles. Most of those men had military ties to the Northwest, spending time on duty in the 1850’s helping bring order and stability to the newly settling lands of Oregon, California and Washington Territory. The most famous soldiers who spent time in Oregon, one Ulysses S. Grant.
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