Lookout Mountain
Battle of Lookout Mountain · November 24, 1863 · Chattanooga, Tennessee
19 contours at 25 m, traced from USGS 3DEP 10 m elevation data. Every 5th line is drawn heavier.
What happened
Part of the Chattanooga campaign that broke the Confederate siege of the city. Hooker's men took the slopes of Lookout Mountain in fog thick enough that it was written up afterwards as the Battle Above the Clouds.
Why the ground mattered
Chattanooga sits in a bend of the Tennessee River ringed by high ground, and whoever held Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge controlled the rail lines and the river together - which is how a Union army ended up besieged in a city it had just captured. The mountain looks unassailable and mostly is: the summit ends in a palisade of bare rock. The attack went along the bench between the cliff and the valley floor, the one shelf of ground wide enough to move troops across, and the defenders had spread too thin to hold it.
Images
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