Chattanooga

On the penultimate day of my 2500 mile car trip through five states, I toured the Civil War battlefield of Chickamauga in Georgia, where in September 1863, Union General George Thomas, a Virginian, earned the permanent sobriquet of The Rock Of Chickamauga when he saved the Union army from destruction with a heroic stand upon Snodgrass Hill a few miles outside of Chattanooga after the army was sent reeling in disarray during the battle when a gap inadvertently, due to a confusing set of order, opened in its battle line.  Thomas organized a defensive line among disorganized fleeing troops upon the high ground in the background of the picture below and held the position until nightfall, when the army retired to Chattanooga where it was besieged by the Rebel army.

The dominant position in the siege of Chattanooga was on lookout Mountain in Georgia, just south of the city, where Rebel artillery made the Yankee position below practically untenable.  However, U.S. Grant was appointed commander of the Union army in Chattanooga, and with forces he brought with him from his own army which had just captured Vicksburg, he drove the Rebels away in the Battle Above The Clouds on Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain in November 1863, thus opening up the Deep South to the Union invasion which occurred the next spring with General William Sherman's army's march through Georgia to Atlanta.

The picture below taken from downtown Chattanooga shows how Lookout Mountain dominates the landscape.  In the city I also visited the National Cemetery and stopped at a few jazz sites before I headed northwest through central Tennessee to return to Virginia.

Along the way I saw a nice rainbow, although it signified encountering rain on the drive.  The next day I wished to see a couple of landmark sites in Virginia before I returned home.