Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[162] four o'clock the next morning, when he found that the recent heavy rains had. damaged his pontoon bridge at the mouth of Lookout Creek, and the stream was not fordable. He at once ordered Geary to march to Wauhatchie, supported by Cruft, cross the creek there, and hold the right bank of the stream, while the rest of the troops should build temporary bridges nearly in front of the detachment. Fortunately for the Nationals, a heavy mist lay upon the country that morning, and while the vigilant eyes on Lookout Mountain above were watching the bridge-builders, as the mist drifted now and then in the breeze, they did not observe Geary's movement. He crossed the creek at eight o'clock, seized a whole picket guard there, of forty-two men, and extended his line to the right to the foot of the mountain, facing northward. Hooker now advanced Gross's brigade, which seized the bridge just below the railway crossing, and pushed over the stream. Osterhaus's division, which, as we have seen, had been left at Brown's Ferry, now came up, and Wood's brigade was pressed to a point half a mile above Gross, where it laid a temporary bridge and crossed. The two batteries, meanwhile, had been well planted on little hills near, and by eleven o'clock Hooker was at work, with a determination to assail the Confederates and drive them from Lookout Mountain--“an enterprise,” he said, under the circumstances, “worthy the ambition and renown of the troops to whom it was intrusted.” ¹ His adversary in immediate command before him, was General Walthall.

Hooker's guns all opened at once on the breastworks and rifle-pits along the steep, wooded, and broken slopes of the mountain, with a destructive enfilading fire. Wood and Gross having completed their bridges, dashed across the creek under cover of this fire, and joining Geary on his left, pushed swiftly and vigorously down the valley, sweeping every thing before them, capturing the men in the rifle-pits, and allowing very few to escape up the mountain. At the same time the troops scaling the rugged sides from the

Slope of Lookout Mountain.2

valley, pushed on over bowlders and ledges, rocky crests and tangled ravines,