The Greatest Civil War Battles: The Battle of Lookout Mountain - Charles River Editors

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“Viewed from whatever point, Lookout Mountain, with its high palisaded crest, and its steep, rugged, rocky, and deeply-furrowed slopes, presented an imposing barrier to our advance.” – Fighting Joe Hooker

In late September 1863, the Confederates began laying siege to the Union Army of the Cumberland around Chattanooga in what would be their last gasp for supremacy in the West. Following the devastating Union defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga on September 20, the army and its shaken commander, General William S. Rosecrans, began digging in around the city and waiting for reinforcements to arrive. Meanwhile, the Confederate Army of Tennessee, under General Braxton Bragg, took the surrounding heights, including Missionary Ridge to the east and Lookout Mountain to the southwest, allowing them control over the vital rail and river supply lines needed by the Union forces in the city. Bragg planned to lay siege to the city and starve the Union forces into surrendering.

Having lost faith in Rosecrans after Chickamauga, Washington delegated Ulysses S. Grant with the task of lifting the siege by placing him in command of nearly the entire theater. Grant replaced Rosecrans with George H. Thomas, who had saved the army at Chickamauga, and ordered him to “hold Chattanooga at all hazards.” Thomas replied, “We will hold the town till we starve.” Meanwhile, President Lincoln detached General Hooker and two divisions from the Army of the Potomac and sent them west to reinforce the garrison at Chattanooga.

What followed were some of the most remarkable operations of the entire Civil War. Hooker and his reinforcements helped open up a vital supply line known as the “cracker line”, effectively ensuring that enough supplies could reach Knoxville. With that, preparations turned to a pitched battle between the two sides, and in a series of actions in late November, Grant sought to lift the siege and drive back Bragg’s Confederate army by attacking their positions on high ground.

Although the Chattanooga Campaign is mostly remembered for the Battle of Missionary Ridge, that climactic battle was preceded by the Battle of Lookout Mountain, which witnessed some of the most unique fighting of the war. Also known as the “Battle Above the Clouds”, on November 24, 1863, the Union and Confederate soldiers fought each other on mountainous terrain in heavy fog that obscured the battle lines throughout the battle, leading one soldier to call it “undoubtedly the roughest battle field of the war.”

By mid-afternoon, the heavy clouds had actually made the field dark, and with Confederate and Union commanders literally in the dark, Union soldiers under the command of Fighting Joe Hooker seized the summit of Lookout Mountain on their own initiative and compelled the Confederates to withdraw from what had seemed a daunting and impregnable defensive line. The Union victory at Lookout Mountain would completely alter the dispositions of the two armies and change Grant’s battle plan, all of which inadvertently helped produce the Battle of Missionary Ridge the following day. The successes at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge would save the day for Grant, and his victory in the Chattanooga Campaign is considered the last good chance the South had in the West during the Civil War.

The Greatest Civil War Battles: The Battle of Lookout Mountain comprehensively covers the campaign and the events that led up to the crucial battle, the fighting itself, and the aftermath of the battle.