Hooker's Battle

“The war in Tennessee. Hooker’s Battle above the clouds, and capture of the Confederate position on Lookout Mountain, November 24th, 1863. The wild mountains of Tennessee, where nature reveals in producing the most fantastic forms, and piling rocks upon rocks, forms one of the mightiest ridges on the land, have been the scene of one of the most extraordinary battles in history; a battle fought with the mists and clouds rolling beneath the combatants, the flash and the roar of the guns appearing to the spectators in the plain below like the lightning and the thunder of heaven. By eight o’clock on Tuesday, November 24th, Hooker’s column was moving up Lookout Valley, and, to the surprise of the enemy, disappeared in the woods south of Wauhatchie. But here, filing his troop to the left, General Hooker began the difficult task of the ascent of the mountain. The head of the column, having reached the palisades, went into line of battle facing to the north, and with the right resting against the palisades stretched down the mountain. Geary’s division formed the front, with Greene’s brigade of New York troops on the right. General Hooker then formed a second line of the two brigades of the Fourth Corps which had been sent him, placing Whittaker on the right and Grose on the left. General Osterhaus formed a third line, and held himself in readiness to aid any part of the line which might need it. Thus arranged, the corps was ordered forward, with a heavy line of skirmishers thrown out, and marching along the slope of the ridge, soon came upon the rear of the enemy, who were taken completely by surprise. Before those at the foot of the hill could comprehend the situation Colonel Ireland’s skirmishers had penetrated far toward the point of the mountain, and got in a heavy fire upon the enemy, who were now trying to escape up the hill, while the Federals assaulted them from above. At the same time the Federal batteries on the Moccasin Point and those of the Confederates on Lookout Mountain opened a heavy fire upon each other, and soon the whole mountain was hid from the view in Chattanooga by the cloud of smoke which rose above and around it. The enemy made but little organized resistance, yet their skirmishers for a long time kept up a heavy fire from behind jutting rocks and from trees. Holding Ireland’s right well against the palisades, Geary threw Kennedy forward on the left, and he, after being re-enforced by Grose, the enemy on the point of the mountain gradually gave way and fell back in some disorder to the line of breastworks on the east slope of the mountain, at Craven’s House. General Geary swung around until his line was parallel with that of the enemy, and again advanced, but being met by organized and well-directed resistance, for a time recoiled. The enemy were now in strong position, Craven’s House being the centre of a line of heavy breastworks; but they lacked numbers to man them, having lost severely. They were compelled to expose their right flank. Hooker then sent the Eighty-fourth and Seventy-fifth Illinois to hold the road across the mountain, and advanced on the enemy, with Geary on the right, Osterhaus on the left. Whittaker and Grose in the centre. Geary turned their left, as Osterhaus did the enemy’s right, and then, with one charge of the whole line, Hooker carried the position."— Frank Leslie, 1896

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