With the weather looking doubtful for the week, we decided to do a tour of the Chickamauga civil war battlefield. Unfortunately, the visitor centers for the battlefields are still closed due to COVID. We watched the Chickamauga parks film on line and researched the park. The battlefield outdoor tour was open for either hiking or auto touring. With rain occurring off and on, we chose the auto tour. They have a phone number you can call with your cell phone and get a audio tour of the battlefield as you drive from point to point. In August 1863, Union forces captured Chattanooga, a major rail hub for Confederate forces. Confederate forces from Atlanta marched to reclaim Chattanooga and the Union and Confederate armies met in the mountains south east of Chattanooga at Chickamauga. The battle lasted two days before Union forces withdrew to Chattanooga. The Union lost 16,000 men killed, wounded or captured. Confederate forces lost 18,000 killed, wounded or captured. Confederate forces bombarded Chattanooga from the mountaintops overlooking the town for two months. In November, Union forces, now under the command of General Grant, pushed Confederate forces off of Mission Ridge, Lookout Mountain and back toward Atlanta. Neither Leslie nor David are Civil War buffs, so a lot of the signage and 1500 monuments did not mean much to us. But it is still a impressive park to tour and imagine the thousands of men surging back and forth through the hail of bullets and cannon fire. The park was created in 1890 and many of the monuments and plaques were put in place by veterans of the battle who remembered the intimate details of the battles even 30 years later. We finished the tour at the top of Snodgrass Hill where the rear guard of the Union army held off the Confederate forces to allow the army to retreat to Chattanooga.
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Entrance Sign
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| Canon from the battle |
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Memorial
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Wiley Memorial Tower
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| Snodgrass Cabin |
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