 |
| View of Lookout Mountain and Valley from Chattanooga.1 |
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[163]
cutting their way through the felled trees with which the mountain-side had been covered, under the very muzzles of the Confederate cannon, driving the foe from his camp in the hollow or plateau well up toward the crest, and forcing him around the arable belt toward the Chattanooga Valley.
In this work, Cobham's brigade, posted on high ground, did effective service, by pouring destructive volleys from above and behind the Confederates, while Freeland's brigade was rolling them up on the flank.
Both were supported, closely and warmly, by the brigades of Whittaker and Creighton.
Not knowing to what extent the Confederates might be re-enforced, and fearing a fatal entanglement and disordering of his troops in the mountain, Hooker now directed them to halt.
But they could not be restrained.
Inspired by their success they pushed on, and notwithstanding their adversaries had been re-enforced, they continued to be irresistible.
Two of Osterhaus's regiments, meanwhile, had been sent forward on the Chattanooga road, near the base of the mountain, and the remainder of his division joined Geary.
After a little more struggle the plateau was cleared, and from near Craven's house, where the Confederates made their last stand, they were seen flying pell-mell, in utter confusion, down the precipices, ravines, and rugged slopes, toward the Chattanooga Valley.
During all the struggle, a battery planted on a little wooded hill on Moccasin Point, under Captain Naylor, had been doing excellent service.
It actually dismounted one of the guns in the Confederate battery on the top of Lookout Mountain, nearly fifteen hundred feet above it.
It was now about two o'clock in the afternoon.
The mountain was completely enveloped in a dense cloud — so dense as to make further movements perilous, if not impossible.
All the morning, while the struggle was going
on, the mountain was hooded with vapor that went up from the valley, and it was only at intervals, when it broke away, that glimpses of the lines and banners of the Nationals might be caught by straining eyes at Chattanooga
1 this is from a sketch from Cameron's hill, at Chattanooga, made by the writer in May, 1866, in which the ruins of Mr. Cameron's house is seen in the foreground. Below is seen the Tennessee River, winding around Moccasin Point. In the distance, at the center, rises Lookout Mountain, on the face of which the white spot indicates the place of Craven's house, on the plateau. In Lookout Valley, to the right, is the hill on which Hooker was stationed during the fight. Farther to the right are seen the northeastern slopes of Raccoon Mountain.
Scanned printed text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.