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Missionary Ridge
After the government had decided to improve the Chickamauga
battle fields, and make of them a magnificent park, it concluded to extend the
work by beautifying the ground where the battles of Orchard Knob, Mission
Ridge, and Lookout Mountain,
of the “battle above the clouds,” were fought.
These battles took place just two months after the battle of
Chickamauga. Orchard Knob was taken November 23, Lookout
Mountain stormed the next day, and
on the next the Union Army climbed the precipitous western side of Missionary
Ridge, and ran the Confederates down the other. The war practically ended there. Along the top of this ridge the government has constructed what is called
“The Crest Road”, one of the finest government roads in America.
Only the day before Missionary Ridge
was stormed the famous “battle above the clouds” occurred, and the stars and
stripes waved for the first time from the point of Lookout.
When the battle began the mountain was shrouded in a heavy
mist, but the troops fought on. At noon the mist parted and rose like the curtain
of a theater, revealing to the watching thousands in the valley beneath an
awful panorama of war. Then like a
curtain it again descended, and the spectators saw nothing more of the dreadful
drama, which continued until after midnight. About one
o’clock in the morning the firing ceased, and the soldiers of the
Union Army discovered that the Confederates had fled during the night. Some more venturesome than others found a way
to scale the cliffs, and did so before daybreak. Those brave fellows belonged to the
Ninety-Sixth Illinois, commanded by Colonel Champion, but the flag that first
waved from the heights belonged to the Eighth Kentucky. The men of the Illinois
regiment sent down for their own flag, but it had been torn to threads by
Confederate shot, and the Eighth Kentucky, was not in tatters. Accordingly it was passed up to the men
above, and just as the sun came up in splendor over the North Carolina
mountains, forty miles to the east, and drove the mists from the towering crown
of Lookout, the flag was thrown to the morning breeze. Instantly the thousands waiting beneath to
learn the result of the night’s battle broke in one grand cheer for the Union,
and all the bands played “The Star Spangled Banner.”
Shortly after this General Grant and his staff, with other
officers of the Union Army, stood upon the spot, and a photograph was taken of
the group.
This old photograph was
recently discovered and developed by Schemedling, a Chattanooga photographer,
and in the cut herewith given an old Army man can pick out General Grant
standing to the left, and name most, if not all, of the men surrounding him.
G. Edmund Hatcher
Note:
The photograph mentioned in this
article is not shown. . Replaced
by another photo of Grant and staff
members from Library of Congress.
Intar Ocean
– June 9, 1895
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