We pulled past the wood-cut US Parks Service sign and onto the Cravens House grounds, a tour group pulling out as we pulled in, they leaving the white, single-story house, and its acreage, to ourselves. With our SLRs, we took shots of the cannon placed about the yard. Walking around the house, we found the porch. It was quiet; we were standing where generals and soldiers from both sides had stood, where a battle had once raged, overlooking the river and city below. Both sides found glory here, and standing on that porch it became obvious why.

It's the stuff of poetry.

~~~~~

By the coming of late November, 1863, the demoralized U.S. Army of the Cumberland had looked upon Lookout Mtn for over two months, a symbol of their defeat and frenzied retreat into Chattanooga following the bloody Battle of Chickamauga fought the previous September amongst the hills of north Georgia.

The victorious Confederate Army of Tennessee, a much-maligned but unquestionably brave force, had taken hold of Lookout, Missionary Ridge, and the surrounding valleys within days of that victory. They enveloped the city. Any U.S. attempts at re-supply were forced to drive over arduous mountain routes to the north, trails that proved simply impassable during rainfall and were left wide open to C.S. artillery as they neared the city, cannon that were more often simply aimed into the city, and into the desperate Union ranks. And the rains did fall that autumn, cold and driving.

These Yanks were under siege, starving, barely subsisting on a quarter of their standard rations; a few crackers per day. Horses and pack mules were often stolen, and slaughtered. Most just went hungry. And if their hunger wasn't enough, they could always look to the Rebel cannon fixed atop the dark crest of Lookout (described by a correspondent as "an everlasting thunderstorm").

And so, the fight that wrested Lookout Mtn from Confederate control, being in comparison a minor engagement (Union commander U.S. Grant himself called it an over-glorified skirmish, "one of the romances of the war"), was so much more than its reality.

It was the end to a season in hell.

TC on porch of Craven's House

The Cravens House from below





Dave on porch of Cravens House