Nov. 25, 1863. |
Nov. 24. |
 |
| Pulpit Rook.2 |
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and Orchard Knob, where ears, filled with the thunders of battle high in air, were making all hearts anxious.
Hooker had been literally fighting in the clouds, and gaining a substantial victory, while all below was doubt and painful suspense.
He established his line firmly on the eastern face of the mountain, his right resting on the palisades at the summit, and his left near the mouth of Chattanooga Creek, completely commanding, by an enfilading fire, the line of the Confederate defenses, stretching across the Chattanooga Valley to the Missionaries' Ridge.
Communication with Chattanooga was established toward evening, and at sunset General Carlin, with his brigade, joined Hooker, and was placed on his right, to relieve the troops of Geary, exhausted by hours of climbing and fighting.
During the night the right was attacked, but the assailants were gallantly repulsed.
The assault was to mask the retreat of the Confederates from the top of the mountain, to which they were impelled by the fear of being cut off in the morning from the only road leading down to the Chattanooga Valley.
They left behind them, in their haste, twenty thousand rations, the camp and garrison equipage of three brigades, and other war material.1 Before daylight, in anticipation of this retreat, parties from several regiments were detached to scale the palisades at some broken point.
The Eighth Kentucky were the first to do so, climbing up a narrow, rocky passage, one at a time, for there was no one above to oppose them.
At sunrise,
in the clear, crisp autumn air, they unfurled the National banner from Pulpit Rock, on the extreme point of the mountain overlooking Chattanooga, with cheers that were re-echoed by the troops below.
From that “pulpit” Jefferson Davis had harangued his troops only a few days before, when he gave them assurances that all was well with the Confederacy.
This brilliant victory made absolutely secure the navigation of the river from Bridgeport to Chattanooga, the needful highway for supplies for the National army.
While Hooker was fighting on Lookout Mountain, Sherman's troops were crossing the Tennessee above Chattanooga.
At one o'clock in the morning,
three thousand men embarked on the pontoon boats already mentioned, at the mouth of the North Chickamauga Creek, behind the shelter of Friar's Island.
They floated silently down the river, landed some troops above the mouth of the South Chickamauga, to capture Confederate pickets
1 Bragg, in his report, complained of the remissness of General Stevenson, in command on the summit of the mountain, for not rendering assistance to Walthall. He said Stevenson had “six brigades at his disposal.” “Upon his urgent appeal,” said Bragg, “another brigade was dispatched in the afternoon to his support, though it appears that his own forces had not been brought into action.”
2 this shows the character of a portion of the summit of Lookout Mountain, where it abuts upon the Tennessee River. There lie in picturesque confusion immense laminated bowlders, and occasionally columnar masses of Rock. Not far from Summertown (a place of summer resort on the top of the Mountain), on the road 164 to Lula Falls, is a curious collection of these, called Rock City. Two columnar masses, called the two sisters, rising near each other, appear like the huge boundaries of an immense gateway.
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