August 7, 2025 • 25 mins
Noodles and I summit Lookout Mountain to explore the monumental conflict that occurred along its slopes.
Why is the subsequently named "Battle Above the Clouds" overlooked?
How is it significant in FULLY understanding the events of the American Civil War?
Let's find out!
Works Cited:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40575782?searchText=the+battle+of+chattanooga&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dthe%2Bbattle%2Bof%2Bchattanooga%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Abc390e4a72296881b8f8341aa523d433&seq=1
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40575782.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3Ab920b762dd06e7c71041cfb1c91c6ec1&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&initiator=&acceptTC=1
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/j.ctt2tt90p.13?searchText=important+battles+of+the+civil+war&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dimportant%2Bbattles%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bcivil%2Bwar%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A5a9978e079bb262d18be4f72bad3178f&seq=35
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/lincoln-promotes-grant-as-top-civil-war-general-march-10-1864-235790
https://www.history.com/shows/grant/interactives/ulysses-s-grant-battle-map
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMK79steT6A
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/grant-at-lookout-mountain.htm
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/november-24/battle-of-lookout-mountain
https://www.battlesforchattanooga.com/history
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/10-facts-battles-chattanooga
https://npshistory.com/publications/civil_war_series/9/sec7.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpeqJictmNQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoLrcWoGEnY
https://www.history.com/shows/grant/interactives/ulysses-s-grant-battle-map
https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/vick/significance.html
Noah and Noodles here!
We want to extend a heartfelt thanks to every listener of Backroad Odyssey.
Your support fuels our passion and inspires us to keep sharing stories and discover overlooked locations.
Follow each adventure visually at:
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Van Chattanooga, tennessee, a town
recently named America's firstnational park city.
Consider our earlier deep diveinto how and why.
But as great as the trails andthe parks of Chattanooga are,
the rich echoes of history foundthroughout the city also
(00:23):
require some attention.
Echoes of history foundthroughout the city also require
some attention, particularlythe many sites associated with
America's bloody andconsequential civil war.
Today, my dog Noodles and Ivisit such a site.
We summit Lookout Mountain andexplore the conflict that
occurred up and down its slopes.
We hike the trails, see thesights and dive into why the
(00:45):
subsequently named Battle Abovethe Clouds, which occurred on
the mountain, is overlooked.
We also ask ourselves why thebattles that occurred in and
around Chattanooga aresignificant and maybe essential
in understanding the largerpicture of the Civil War.
Finally, we'll attempt toconvince you why Lookout
(01:08):
Mountain and Chattanooga itselfshould be a welcome addition to
your travel bucket list.
Sound good, all right.
Safe travels.
Cruising down the street.
I wonder where this road wouldlead.
Street, I wonder where thisroad would lead.
So many possibilities.
Care to share what you think.
(01:31):
Oh, noodles, what do you see?
Backroad Odyssey, you willyourself upwards.
Each step, more labored thanthe last, dense fog renders your
(01:54):
eyes useless.
Still you climb.
The growing sounds of conflictdefine your path forward.
Your destination is the summitof Lookout Mountain, a peak
southwest of the recentlystarved-out city of Chattanooga,
tennessee.
Weak from dwindling rations,weary from the woes of war, you,
(02:14):
along with the Union Army whohad recently been trapped within
the city, tell yourselves witheach step that to secure
Chattoga is to inch closer tothe end of this terrible
conflict.
Both you and the Confederateforces above you know that
control over Chattanooga'srailways is essential in either
(02:38):
invading or defending the yetuntouched deep south of the
Confederacy.
Your pace quickens as you andyour weary division pierce the
sky.
It's just past 6.20 am, the sunis rising.
(03:06):
As we hike one of the manytrails at the base of Lookout
Mountain, just south ofChattanooga, I thought it'd be
fitting to start at the bottomand end at the summit, where
this event actually happened.
And in the show we've talkedabout Gettysburg, we've talked
about other grandiose, homericevents of the Civil War, but
(03:29):
here in Chattanooga, the variousbattles that happened in and
around the city are sometimesoverlooked.
They're seen as not significant, relevant or, dare I say,
interesting.
To that I say challengeaccepted.
Let's challenge this idea.
In my view, any war, anyconflict, history in general, is
(03:55):
a puzzle.
Some pieces might be larger,more complex than others, but
when you lose those small piecesyou miss the entire context,
you miss completing the wholepicture.
In Chattanooga, the battleabove the clouds are smaller
pieces today, but no lessessential or no less interesting
(04:19):
.
So let's get into it.
Context, then.
What is our context leading upto the battle above the clouds,
the battles for Chattanooga inlate November 1863.
(04:47):
The third year of the war haltsConfederate feelings of
invulnerability, justifiedfeelings.
Really, the South had until nowsuperior military leadership,
higher morale and strings ofcritical victories.
This feeling is reallychallenged in the summer of 1863
(05:08):
, when the Union wins twodecisive battles.
In July, the Battle ofGettysburg repels Lee's bold
invasion into Pennsylvania inwhat would become the last major
Confederate offensive in theNorth, what would become the
last major Confederate offensivein the North?
And almost simultaneously, theVicksburg Campaign under General
(05:32):
Ulysses S Grant asserts Uniondominance over the Mississippi
River, the nation's highway.
This effectively cuts theConfederacy in half.
Sugar, cotton and resourcessourced from west of the river
Texas, arkansas, missouri aresevered almost completely.
Each victory at Gettysburg andat Vicksburg lays the foundation
(05:55):
for two key events to happen.
First, it increases GeneralGrant's reputation as someone
who wins battles despite thecosts.
Before this point in the war,union generals had largely been
timid, reluctant to attack, butGrant was not.
The second thing that happensis a shift in Union focus.
(06:19):
After long years on thedefensive the North, with the
Western Confederacy isolated andNorthern invasions repelled
they look for a foothold onwhich to dismantle Confederate
strength in the deep South, anarea that until now had been
relatively untouched by Unionforces.
Where, you ask, would thisfoothold, this launching point,
(06:45):
be?
It is midday, 1.35 or so.
We're at Coolidge Park Again,sitting down at the banks of the
Tennessee River, overlookingdowntown.
Here are some questions I haveright now.
Why would Union and Confederateforces see Chattanooga as
(07:09):
strategically important at thispoint in the war?
There are a lot of other townsin the South, some closer to the
then border states, some morepopulous, and here's why.
And here's why, for one, it waskind of a critical railroad hub
(07:49):
and, as the war progressed,control over the distribution
lines that lead to and froChattanooga would be essential
in either defending or tearingapart the supply lines of the
Deep South.
And Chattanooga as a town isalso a location that's south
enough to be an effective basefrom which to launch operations
into and throughout the DeepSouth.
It offers access to thesouthern end of the Appalachian
(08:12):
Mountains, which offers accessinto Georgia and to the
Carolinas.
Eventually, this Chattanooga iswhere General Sherman launches
and supplies his infamous marchto the sea through that route.
But that's much down the road.
We're approaching right now thefall of 1863.
(08:35):
Gettysburg just repelled Lee,and Vicksburg, under General
Grant, launched him into thecommand of several armies in the
West.
Right now they're separate, butall these armies under the
control of Grant now have theireyes on Chattanooga.
(08:55):
But here's the twist.
Here is the twist, my friends.
The Confederates know thecity's importance too, and they
won't give up this positionwithout a fight.
The desire to controlChattanooga leads to the second
(09:17):
bloodiest battle of the CivilWar.
Upon seeing the advancing Uniontroops, not under Grant but the
more timid General Rosecrans,confederate Commander General
Bragg withdraws from Chattanooga.
But rather than retreating outof fear Bragg is going to be
heavily reinforced and Rosecrans, confident in the Army of the
(09:40):
Cumberlands' ability to pushBragg and the Confederates south
and secure Chattanooga for good, chooses to pursue Bragg south
near the town of Chickamauga.
Maybe overconfident, rosecransspreads his forces thin in
pursuit of the Confederates.
(10:01):
Days of confused fighting ensue.
Days of confused fighting ensue.
Dust and smoke envelop thethick woods in which they fight.
And on September 20th, a gapopens in Union defensive lines
(10:28):
and the Confederates choose tooccupy the heights around the
city, sealing off all but onesupply line.
The one supply line they leftundefended was nearly impassable
through the mountains.
So for all intents and purposes, the army of the Cumberland
(10:48):
would be starved out by Breg.
It was a siege, it was abarricade.
So there, the army of theCumberland waits, imprisoned in
the town they just captured.
(11:22):
It's late afternoon.
We're walking around theSouthside Historic District here
in Chattanooga and I can't helpthinking.
Walking around here, thesetroops, the Army of the
Cumberland, well-trapped, wereincreasingly starved and their
rations were crazy.
(11:43):
It was like 56,000, 57,000people, and each of them had
something like a small hardbread and a quarter pound of
pork or something like that.
It couldn't last and it wasgetting less by the day.
So, 56,000 men, all of themmalnourished and exhausted, in a
(12:03):
town where they could everysingle day look up upon the
horizon and see the reason fortheir suffering.
The surrounding mountainsbecame, I can only imagine, a
symbol for Confederate power andcontrol, and so for these men
(12:25):
to later have the opportunity totake back control, to scale
that mountain, that symbol ofsuffering.
That had to have made thematter much more significant and
personal.
Well, they undertook that.
But why does this become a siege, a starve out?
(12:45):
Couldn't the Confederates havecapitalized on the Union defeat
and retreat?
One of the biggest what-ifs ofthe war is the following
question why didn't Bragg takeadvantage of the Confederate win
(13:06):
and pursue the retreating Unionforces swiftly and brutally,
given the importance ofChattanooga?
It's a fair question.
And I think, to start, theConfederacy actually suffered
more casualties than Unionforces, some 18,000 to the
Union's 16,000 casualties.
(13:28):
Bragg was then hesitant to riskfurther losses by immediately
pursuing a retreating enemy,even though he still had
something like 6,000 more men athis disposal.
The army was also low onammunition and the exhausted
troops would have to followunion forces through difficult
(13:50):
terrain.
But all of these reasons aretypical.
It's what happens to winningand losing sides of any war.
So did Bragg, no stranger to war, believe that strategically it
would be better to force a siegeof Chattanooga, starve them out
, while maintaining the better,higher position around the city?
(14:12):
Maybe, but here's my hunch.
Everyone, north and South, atthis moment 1863, has their eyes
on 1864 and the next election,on 1864 and the next election.
(14:34):
If President Lincoln is ousted,if policy towards peace changes
, some compromise is reached,maybe Bragg was biding his time.
Ultimately, though, withhindsight, historians, history
buffs, anyone who studies thisperiod during the war, see
Bragg's failure to pursue weakand retreating forces as a
missed opportunity.
(14:55):
He failed to capitalize on atactical win and consequently
allowed Union forces to regroupand eventually recapture the
city, only this time withadditional armies under General
Grant, who would, in time,coordinate the liberation of the
(15:18):
besieged city.
We are in the van about to drivesouth to Lookout Mountain, so
let's get into it.
Before you can coordinate anattack, you have to free up
supply lines, you have to havepeople not be starving, and
(15:38):
grant knows this.
Immediately he takes a ferrylanding controlled by confeder
Confederate forces andestablishes a new supply line
into the city, relieving thearmy of the Cumberland and
bypassing pretty much everythingthat the Confederates are doing
in stopping supply coming intothe city.
(15:59):
So, with the army of theCumberland now able to rest and
be fed and its general Rosecransrelieved of duty, replaced by
Henry Thomas and forces underSherman and Hooker, coming down
to Chattanooga.
Grant, with all of these forces, look to the heights around the
(16:22):
city and plans to finally takeChattanooga and place another
peg in the ladder leadingtowards the end of this terrible
, bloody conflict.
Right noodles All right Off toLookout Mountain In what would
become a keystone of Grant'smilitary thinking.
(16:44):
Three separate forces assaultin coordination the Confederate
position.
General Sherman would attackthe Confederate north, general
Thomas the center and GeneralHooker would take Lookout
Mountain to the south.
Three cohesive units working intandem would scale the heights
(17:07):
around Chattanooga and retakethe city.
It's November 24th 1863.
The intense fog allows Hookerand his men to advance towards
the fog-covered peak of LookoutMountain with relative ease.
Confederate cannons are useless, the slopes too steep to aim
(17:31):
properly.
Aiming is impossible in thedense blanket of white that
surrounds everybody.
The Confederates then seem tohave overestimated the
advantages of the high ground ofthe mountain.
The subsequently named BattleAbove the Clouds sees Union
troops scale the something like2,000-foot mountain at the
(17:53):
peripheral of Confederate lines.
The outnumbered Confederatesface down the approaching
onslaught of Union troops slowlyclimbing their way upwards.
Ultimately, 1,200 Confederatesand about 500 Union casualties
take place are reported in thefog of Lookout Mount.
(18:14):
By late afternoon, generalBragg abandons the position,
ordering the retreat of all theSoutherners around Lookout
Mountain in the hopes ofreinforcing his center at
Missionary Ridge.
A Union flag is placed upon thepeak, signaling redemption to
the once starved andmalnourished troops who had
(18:38):
daily looked up at the summit.
We made it.
We are at the summit, in whatcan only be described as
(18:59):
serendipity a little bit.
There's a deep, deep fogblanketing over where we're at
right now, at Point Park, theexact conditions present at the
battle.
Above the clouds.
I can only imagine it's a greatview of Chattanooga, but I
can't see anything.
Cannons just point outwardstowards this white void.
(19:24):
And here's the great dilemmafor the Confederates at this
moment they're left defending aposition meant to halt supplies
to a city that now has supplies.
The heights give them astrategic advantage when they
can see, which they cannot, andthe slopes make cannons and
(19:50):
firearms almost useless.
The fear, the anticipation youmust have felt as a Confederate
soldier sitting there 2,000 feetabove the ground.
You can't see anything, but youknow they're coming, they're
inching their way towards you.
I'll say this though theconflict here, along with the
(20:17):
Union victory on this side ofthe mountain, isn't as
strategically important as whathappens elsewhere in Chattanooga
, but I'd say the symbolism offinally retaking this looming
presence and the slight,odyssean, homeric image of a
(20:39):
battle on top of a mountain inthe clouds and placing that
Union flag.
That's an enduring thought.
The following day, union forcesunder Grant launch a
(21:02):
devastating attack againstMissionary Ridge, the
Confederate center, and breakConfederate lines around the
city.
Bragg retreats Chattanooga.
Then this apex of supply linesand ultimately the gateway to
the Deep South belongs from hereon out to the deep south,
(21:23):
belongs from here on out to theUnion.
It's sunset, the weather'scleared up a bit.
I'm on Sunset Rock, on thesummit still of Lookout Mountain
.
I had no way of knowing howhigh I was, uh, before now, but
(21:46):
it it truly, it truly is, isstunning.
Up here you can see everything.
Um, I don't know Just howbeautiful places like this,
unassuming places like this,become the sites of battles,
conflicts, events that shapenations.
(22:07):
Just how places like thisbecome that will forever be a
mystery to me.
That's one of the things for methat makes life fascinating.
But I'll say this right nowChattanooga, tennessee
definitely has a lot of them.
(22:37):
Chattanooga, the battles aroundit, lookout Mountain, should be
mentioned alongside historicalgiants like Gettysburg and
Antietam.
And here's why First, withoutChattanooga you don't have
Sherman's march to the sea,which cripples the Confederacy's
practical ability to wage war.
(22:59):
Second, and I think moreimportantly, this is the battle,
more, I'd argue, than mostothers that saves the Union.
The Union victory atChattanooga puts wind in the
sails of Lincoln's campaignapproaching the 1864 election
and solidifies General Grant asthe possible savior of the Union
(23:22):
.
It's after Chattanooga whereGrant is brought east and
appointed by Lincoln as thegeneral in charge of the
entirety of the Union war effort, entirety of the Union war
effort.
He'll then, when brought east,simultaneously, direct campaigns
throughout the country intandem with each other, much
like at Chattanooga.
(23:42):
An aggressive, coordinatedeffort that would eventually
bring about the end of the war,the sunset of the Confederacy.
(24:09):
It's Noah here.
Hope you enjoyed the episode,hope you learned something.
I appreciate every minute youspend with us.
So Chattanooga, great place tocheck out.
I'll post a link to all thehikes that I took, all the
places that I went to.
Sunset Rock is an absolute must.
Apart from that, if you likehistory, if you like the Civil
(24:33):
War in particular, I did aseries, a three-part series,
where I follow someone from theConfederacy and someone from the
Union on their way toGettysburg.
So scroll back in your feed tocheck that out.
Otherwise, one way that youcould help Noodles and I
continue to put the researchwe'd like to to improve the
production quality of the showeach and every week is to rate
(24:55):
and review wherever you'relistening.
Now, genuinely, that effortreally helps us, so I appreciate
that.
I appreciate you.
With all of that said, be goodto each other.
Where to next?
Welcome to the Van Chattanooga, tennessee, a town
recently named America's firstnational park city.
Consider our earlier deep diveinto how and why.
But as great as the trails andthe parks of Chattanooga are,
the rich echoes of history foundthroughout the city also
(00:23):
require some attention.
Echoes of history foundthroughout the city also require
some attention, particularlythe many sites associated with
America's bloody andconsequential civil war.
Today, my dog Noodles and Ivisit such a site.
We summit Lookout Mountain andexplore the conflict that
occurred up and down its slopes.
We hike the trails, see thesights and dive into why the
(00:45):
subsequently named Battle Abovethe Clouds, which occurred on
the mountain, is overlooked.
We also ask ourselves why thebattles that occurred in and
around Chattanooga aresignificant and maybe essential
in understanding the largerpicture of the Civil War.
Finally, we'll attempt toconvince you why Lookout
(01:08):
Mountain and Chattanooga itselfshould be a welcome addition to
your travel bucket list.
Sound good, all right.
Safe travels.
Cruising down the street.
I wonder where this road wouldlead.
Street, I wonder where thisroad would lead.
So many possibilities.
Care to share what you think.
(01:31):
Oh, noodles, what do you see?
Backroad Odyssey, you willyourself upwards.
Each step, more labored thanthe last, dense fog renders your
(01:54):
eyes useless.
Still you climb.
The growing sounds of conflictdefine your path forward.
Your destination is the summitof Lookout Mountain, a peak
southwest of the recentlystarved-out city of Chattanooga,
tennessee.
Weak from dwindling rations,weary from the woes of war, you,
(02:14):
along with the Union Army whohad recently been trapped within
the city, tell yourselves witheach step that to secure
Chattoga is to inch closer tothe end of this terrible
conflict.
Both you and the Confederateforces above you know that
control over Chattanooga'srailways is essential in either
(02:38):
invading or defending the yetuntouched deep south of the
Confederacy.
Your pace quickens as you andyour weary division pierce the
sky.
It's just past 6.20 am, the sunis rising.
(03:06):
As we hike one of the manytrails at the base of Lookout
Mountain, just south ofChattanooga, I thought it'd be
fitting to start at the bottomand end at the summit, where
this event actually happened.
And in the show we've talkedabout Gettysburg, we've talked
about other grandiose, homericevents of the Civil War, but
(03:29):
here in Chattanooga, the variousbattles that happened in and
around the city are sometimesoverlooked.
They're seen as not significant, relevant or, dare I say,
interesting.
To that I say challengeaccepted.
Let's challenge this idea.
In my view, any war, anyconflict, history in general, is
(03:55):
a puzzle.
Some pieces might be larger,more complex than others, but
when you lose those small piecesyou miss the entire context,
you miss completing the wholepicture.
In Chattanooga, the battleabove the clouds are smaller
pieces today, but no lessessential or no less interesting
(04:19):
.
So let's get into it.
Context, then.
What is our context leading upto the battle above the clouds,
the battles for Chattanooga inlate November 1863.
(04:47):
The third year of the war haltsConfederate feelings of
invulnerability, justifiedfeelings.
Really, the South had until nowsuperior military leadership,
higher morale and strings ofcritical victories.
This feeling is reallychallenged in the summer of 1863
(05:08):
, when the Union wins twodecisive battles.
In July, the Battle ofGettysburg repels Lee's bold
invasion into Pennsylvania inwhat would become the last major
Confederate offensive in theNorth, what would become the
last major Confederate offensivein the North?
And almost simultaneously, theVicksburg Campaign under General
(05:32):
Ulysses S Grant asserts Uniondominance over the Mississippi
River, the nation's highway.
This effectively cuts theConfederacy in half.
Sugar, cotton and resourcessourced from west of the river
Texas, arkansas, missouri aresevered almost completely.
Each victory at Gettysburg andat Vicksburg lays the foundation
(05:55):
for two key events to happen.
First, it increases GeneralGrant's reputation as someone
who wins battles despite thecosts.
Before this point in the war,union generals had largely been
timid, reluctant to attack, butGrant was not.
The second thing that happensis a shift in Union focus.
(06:19):
After long years on thedefensive the North, with the
Western Confederacy isolated andNorthern invasions repelled
they look for a foothold onwhich to dismantle Confederate
strength in the deep South, anarea that until now had been
relatively untouched by Unionforces.
Where, you ask, would thisfoothold, this launching point,
(06:45):
be?
It is midday, 1.35 or so.
We're at Coolidge Park Again,sitting down at the banks of the
Tennessee River, overlookingdowntown.
Here are some questions I haveright now.
Why would Union and Confederateforces see Chattanooga as
(07:09):
strategically important at thispoint in the war?
There are a lot of other townsin the South, some closer to the
then border states, some morepopulous, and here's why.
And here's why, for one, it waskind of a critical railroad hub
(07:49):
and, as the war progressed,control over the distribution
lines that lead to and froChattanooga would be essential
in either defending or tearingapart the supply lines of the
Deep South.
And Chattanooga as a town isalso a location that's south
enough to be an effective basefrom which to launch operations
into and throughout the DeepSouth.
It offers access to thesouthern end of the Appalachian
(08:12):
Mountains, which offers accessinto Georgia and to the
Carolinas.
Eventually, this Chattanooga iswhere General Sherman launches
and supplies his infamous marchto the sea through that route.
But that's much down the road.
We're approaching right now thefall of 1863.
(08:35):
Gettysburg just repelled Lee,and Vicksburg, under General
Grant, launched him into thecommand of several armies in the
West.
Right now they're separate, butall these armies under the
control of Grant now have theireyes on Chattanooga.
(08:55):
But here's the twist.
Here is the twist, my friends.
The Confederates know thecity's importance too, and they
won't give up this positionwithout a fight.
The desire to controlChattanooga leads to the second
(09:17):
bloodiest battle of the CivilWar.
Upon seeing the advancing Uniontroops, not under Grant but the
more timid General Rosecrans,confederate Commander General
Bragg withdraws from Chattanooga.
But rather than retreating outof fear Bragg is going to be
heavily reinforced and Rosecrans, confident in the Army of the
(09:40):
Cumberlands' ability to pushBragg and the Confederates south
and secure Chattanooga for good, chooses to pursue Bragg south
near the town of Chickamauga.
Maybe overconfident, rosecransspreads his forces thin in
pursuit of the Confederates.
(10:01):
Days of confused fighting ensue.
Days of confused fighting ensue.
Dust and smoke envelop thethick woods in which they fight.
And on September 20th, a gapopens in Union defensive lines
(10:28):
and the Confederates choose tooccupy the heights around the
city, sealing off all but onesupply line.
The one supply line they leftundefended was nearly impassable
through the mountains.
So for all intents and purposes, the army of the Cumberland
(10:48):
would be starved out by Breg.
It was a siege, it was abarricade.
So there, the army of theCumberland waits, imprisoned in
the town they just captured.
(11:22):
It's late afternoon.
We're walking around theSouthside Historic District here
in Chattanooga and I can't helpthinking.
Walking around here, thesetroops, the Army of the
Cumberland, well-trapped, wereincreasingly starved and their
rations were crazy.
(11:43):
It was like 56,000, 57,000people, and each of them had
something like a small hardbread and a quarter pound of
pork or something like that.
It couldn't last and it wasgetting less by the day.
So, 56,000 men, all of themmalnourished and exhausted, in a
(12:03):
town where they could everysingle day look up upon the
horizon and see the reason fortheir suffering.
The surrounding mountainsbecame, I can only imagine, a
symbol for Confederate power andcontrol, and so for these men
(12:25):
to later have the opportunity totake back control, to scale
that mountain, that symbol ofsuffering.
That had to have made thematter much more significant and
personal.
Well, they undertook that.
But why does this become a siege, a starve out?
(12:45):
Couldn't the Confederates havecapitalized on the Union defeat
and retreat?
One of the biggest what-ifs ofthe war is the following
question why didn't Bragg takeadvantage of the Confederate win
(13:06):
and pursue the retreating Unionforces swiftly and brutally,
given the importance ofChattanooga?
It's a fair question.
And I think, to start, theConfederacy actually suffered
more casualties than Unionforces, some 18,000 to the
Union's 16,000 casualties.
(13:28):
Bragg was then hesitant to riskfurther losses by immediately
pursuing a retreating enemy,even though he still had
something like 6,000 more men athis disposal.
The army was also low onammunition and the exhausted
troops would have to followunion forces through difficult
(13:50):
terrain.
But all of these reasons aretypical.
It's what happens to winningand losing sides of any war.
So did Bragg, no stranger to war, believe that strategically it
would be better to force a siegeof Chattanooga, starve them out
, while maintaining the better,higher position around the city?
(14:12):
Maybe, but here's my hunch.
Everyone, north and South, atthis moment 1863, has their eyes
on 1864 and the next election,on 1864 and the next election.
(14:34):
If President Lincoln is ousted,if policy towards peace changes
, some compromise is reached,maybe Bragg was biding his time.
Ultimately, though, withhindsight, historians, history
buffs, anyone who studies thisperiod during the war, see
Bragg's failure to pursue weakand retreating forces as a
missed opportunity.
(14:55):
He failed to capitalize on atactical win and consequently
allowed Union forces to regroupand eventually recapture the
city, only this time withadditional armies under General
Grant, who would, in time,coordinate the liberation of the
(15:18):
besieged city.
We are in the van about to drivesouth to Lookout Mountain, so
let's get into it.
Before you can coordinate anattack, you have to free up
supply lines, you have to havepeople not be starving, and
(15:38):
grant knows this.
Immediately he takes a ferrylanding controlled by confeder
Confederate forces andestablishes a new supply line
into the city, relieving thearmy of the Cumberland and
bypassing pretty much everythingthat the Confederates are doing
in stopping supply coming intothe city.
(15:59):
So, with the army of theCumberland now able to rest and
be fed and its general Rosecransrelieved of duty, replaced by
Henry Thomas and forces underSherman and Hooker, coming down
to Chattanooga.
Grant, with all of these forces, look to the heights around the
(16:22):
city and plans to finally takeChattanooga and place another
peg in the ladder leadingtowards the end of this terrible
, bloody conflict.
Right noodles All right Off toLookout Mountain In what would
become a keystone of Grant'smilitary thinking.
(16:44):
Three separate forces assaultin coordination the Confederate
position.
General Sherman would attackthe Confederate north, general
Thomas the center and GeneralHooker would take Lookout
Mountain to the south.
Three cohesive units working intandem would scale the heights
(17:07):
around Chattanooga and retakethe city.
It's November 24th 1863.
The intense fog allows Hookerand his men to advance towards
the fog-covered peak of LookoutMountain with relative ease.
Confederate cannons are useless, the slopes too steep to aim
(17:31):
properly.
Aiming is impossible in thedense blanket of white that
surrounds everybody.
The Confederates then seem tohave overestimated the
advantages of the high ground ofthe mountain.
The subsequently named BattleAbove the Clouds sees Union
troops scale the something like2,000-foot mountain at the
(17:53):
peripheral of Confederate lines.
The outnumbered Confederatesface down the approaching
onslaught of Union troops slowlyclimbing their way upwards.
Ultimately, 1,200 Confederatesand about 500 Union casualties
take place are reported in thefog of Lookout Mount.
(18:14):
By late afternoon, generalBragg abandons the position,
ordering the retreat of all theSoutherners around Lookout
Mountain in the hopes ofreinforcing his center at
Missionary Ridge.
A Union flag is placed upon thepeak, signaling redemption to
the once starved andmalnourished troops who had
(18:38):
daily looked up at the summit.
We made it.
We are at the summit, in whatcan only be described as
(18:59):
serendipity a little bit.
There's a deep, deep fogblanketing over where we're at
right now, at Point Park, theexact conditions present at the
battle.
Above the clouds.
I can only imagine it's a greatview of Chattanooga, but I
can't see anything.
Cannons just point outwardstowards this white void.
(19:24):
And here's the great dilemmafor the Confederates at this
moment they're left defending aposition meant to halt supplies
to a city that now has supplies.
The heights give them astrategic advantage when they
can see, which they cannot, andthe slopes make cannons and
(19:50):
firearms almost useless.
The fear, the anticipation youmust have felt as a Confederate
soldier sitting there 2,000 feetabove the ground.
You can't see anything, but youknow they're coming, they're
inching their way towards you.
I'll say this though theconflict here, along with the
(20:17):
Union victory on this side ofthe mountain, isn't as
strategically important as whathappens elsewhere in Chattanooga
, but I'd say the symbolism offinally retaking this looming
presence and the slight,odyssean, homeric image of a
(20:39):
battle on top of a mountain inthe clouds and placing that
Union flag.
That's an enduring thought.
The following day, union forcesunder Grant launch a
(21:02):
devastating attack againstMissionary Ridge, the
Confederate center, and breakConfederate lines around the
city.
Bragg retreats Chattanooga.
Then this apex of supply linesand ultimately the gateway to
the Deep South belongs from hereon out to the deep south,
(21:23):
belongs from here on out to theUnion.
It's sunset, the weather'scleared up a bit.
I'm on Sunset Rock, on thesummit still of Lookout Mountain
.
I had no way of knowing howhigh I was, uh, before now, but
(21:46):
it it truly, it truly is, isstunning.
Up here you can see everything.
Um, I don't know Just howbeautiful places like this,
unassuming places like this,become the sites of battles,
conflicts, events that shapenations.
(22:07):
Just how places like thisbecome that will forever be a
mystery to me.
That's one of the things for methat makes life fascinating.
But I'll say this right nowChattanooga, tennessee
definitely has a lot of them.
(22:37):
Chattanooga, the battles aroundit, lookout Mountain, should be
mentioned alongside historicalgiants like Gettysburg and
Antietam.
And here's why First, withoutChattanooga you don't have
Sherman's march to the sea,which cripples the Confederacy's
practical ability to wage war.
(22:59):
Second, and I think moreimportantly, this is the battle,
more, I'd argue, than mostothers that saves the Union.
The Union victory atChattanooga puts wind in the
sails of Lincoln's campaignapproaching the 1864 election
and solidifies General Grant asthe possible savior of the Union
(23:22):
.
It's after Chattanooga whereGrant is brought east and
appointed by Lincoln as thegeneral in charge of the
entirety of the Union war effort, entirety of the Union war
effort.
He'll then, when brought east,simultaneously, direct campaigns
throughout the country intandem with each other, much
like at Chattanooga.
(23:42):
An aggressive, coordinatedeffort that would eventually
bring about the end of the war,the sunset of the Confederacy.
(24:09):
It's Noah here.
Hope you enjoyed the episode,hope you learned something.
I appreciate every minute youspend with us.
So Chattanooga, great place tocheck out.
I'll post a link to all thehikes that I took, all the
places that I went to.
Sunset Rock is an absolute must.
Apart from that, if you likehistory, if you like the Civil
(24:33):
War in particular, I did aseries, a three-part series,
where I follow someone from theConfederacy and someone from the
Union on their way toGettysburg.
So scroll back in your feed tocheck that out.
Otherwise, one way that youcould help Noodles and I
continue to put the researchwe'd like to to improve the
production quality of the showeach and every week is to rate
(24:55):
and review wherever you'relistening.
Now, genuinely, that effortreally helps us, so I appreciate
that.
I appreciate you.
With all of that said, be goodto each other.
Where to next?
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