Chattanooga, along the Tennessee River and the northern gateway to the Georgia railroad system, was strategically important to both the United States and the Confederacy during the Civil War. Lookout Mountain was a key vantage point for military control of river traffic and the railroads into the city. After its September 1863 defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga in north Georgia, the Union Army retreated to Chattanooga, where Confederate forces surrounded the city and fortified Lookout Mountain. On November 24, Federal troops captured the mountain. Union soldiers had expected a deadly shower of bullets, as one wrote: "Every moment we expected to hear [our charge] broken by sharp shots from the rocks overhead, or by a rattling volley from the innumerable boulders in front." Instead, they overwhelmed the Confederate defenders in a fight known as the "Battle above the Clouds" because thick fog shrouded the mountain. There were about 400 Union casualties and 1,250 Confederate casualties. Point Park and the Cravens House interpret the fighting and its effects on local residents.

Photo: Lee Hattabaugh

Photo: Lee Hattabaugh

Photo: Lee Hattabaugh

Photo: Lee Hattabaugh

Photo: Lee Hattabaugh