 |
| Nickajack Cave.1 |
Sept. 7, 8, 1863. |
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[126]
day at Wauhatchie, near the Point of Lookout Mountain, where it abuts upon the Tennessee River, well up toward Chattanooga, and threatening that post by the pass called the Nickajack Trace.
Having passed the first mountain ranges south of the Tennessee without opposition, and being informed of the movements of Confederates from East Tennessee to Chattanooga, Rosecrans determined to advance his right
through the Lookout Mountain passes, and with his cavalry on his extreme right, threaten Bragg's railway communications between Dalton and Resaca Bridge, while his left and center should move through other passes upon the Confederate front Anticipating this, when he discovered that the main army was below, Bragg abandoned Chattanooga,
passed through the gaps of the Missionaries' Ridge2 to the West Chickamauga
1 this Cave is at the base of Raccoon Mountain, and its wide mouth may be plainly seen from the Shellmound Station, about twenty miles from Chattanooga. The Mountain there rises abruptly more than a thousand feet above the level of the Tennessee, and in the face of a perpendicular cliff is the entrance to the Cave. It is not irregularly arched, as such caves generally are, but is in horizontal strata of rock that gives one an idea of the grand Egyptian architecture. The roof is so high above the floor, that a man may ride into it a considerable distance on horseback. Out of it flows a considerable stream of water of a light green color. The opening is about one hundred feet in width and forty feet in height. This Cave was one of the chief sources from which the Confederates derived saltpeter, and its possession was of great importance to them. In earlier times it was the habitation of a band of robbers, who murdered and plundered emigrants and traders when descending the Tennessee River.
2 The writer was informed by the late John Ross (see page 476, volume I.), the eminent Cherokee chief that this undulating ridge, which passes three miles east of Chattanooga and rises about three hundred feet above the Tennessee River, was named the Missionaries' Ridge because missionaries among the Cherokees had a station on the southeastern slope of it. The site of Chattanooga was known as Ross's Landing, the chief having a warehouse and trading port there. His dwelling was near a pass in the Missionaries' Ridge, about five miles from Chattanooga, and was yet standing and well preserved when the writer visited that region and sketched it in May, 1866. It was a long, low building, two stories in height, with heavy stone chimneys. It was called Rossville. A few rods in front of it was the dividing line between Tennessee
 |
| Ross's House. |
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.