Chattanooga Civil War properties: history and property description

              Chattanooga Civil War Properties
Hamilton County, TN
Text adapted from 1999 report by Abigail Christman, Blythe Semmer, and Carroll Van West
Photos, 2006, by Carroll Van West
The object of the 1863 campaigns was to gain control of the city of Chattanooga, a city of great strategic importance to both the North and the South. Chattanooga was considered the gateway to the Deep South, and Union strategists considered the control of the city essential to successfully launching an invasion into the heart of the Confederacy. Chattanooga is located on the south bank of the Tennessee River and is encircled by Missionary Ridge, Lookout Mountain, Raccoon Mountain, and Walden’s Ridge. This difficult terrain would pose a challenge for both armies and would play a significant role in determining the strategy and outcome of the fighting.
Several major transportation routes ran through Chattanooga. Four major railroads linked Chattanooga to destinations north, south, east, and west. The Nashville & Chattanooga connected the federal armies to major bases at Fortress Rosecrans in Murfreesboro and the state capital of Nashville. The Western & Atlantic then ran south, serving as a transportation and communications lifeline to Atlanta, the major railroad junction of the Deep South and the gateway to Charleston. The East Tennessee & Georgia connected Chattanooga to the copper mines at Ducktown as well as East Tennessee cities such as Knoxville and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The Memphis & Charleston ran to the west, connecting the Tennessee River and Chattanooga to the Mississippi River and Memphis. During the Chickamauga and Chattanooga battle, as the scholarship of Roger Peckinpaugh has most recently emphasized, railroads were used on a revolutionary scale to transport troops quickly over great distances. Forces from the Confederate Army of Tennessee and Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Cumberland, Army of the Tennessee, and Army of the Potomac were all involved in the conflict.
During the battles, traditional transportation links included the Tennessee River as well as earlier turnpikes and roads. Control of these were also of significant strategic importance and this report emphasizes two such resources: the historic
Wauhatchie Pike in Hamilton County, Tennessee, and the Kelly’s Ferry Road in Marion County, Tennessee.
The battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga marked an important turning point for the Civil War in the Western Theater. At the end of the summer of 1863, the Confederacy desperately needed a victory. The Army of the Potomac had defeated the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg on July 3 and the following day Confederate forces at Vicksburg surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. The momentum of victory was with the Union, and Confederate morale was suffering. The Army of the Cumberland under Union General William S. Rosecrans and the Army of Tennessee under Confederate General Braxton Bragg had been fighting for control of Middle Tennessee since the previous winter with campaigns at Murfreesboro and Tullahoma. After being out-maneuvered from entrenched positions in Middle Tennessee in July (a series of small battles and skirmishes known as the Tullahoma Campaign), Bragg traveled down the Nashville & Chattanooga line to Confederate–held Chattanooga. The