Chattanooga, TN

June 15, 2010

Chattanooga is an interesting city of transportation. We kidded about "Chattanooga Choo Choo" on our way in, but it is an historic place as well as a celebrated song! The Glenn Miller song was the very first Gold Record. Also, there is an old depot with a nice hotel named Chattanooga Choo Choo. It is next to the free shuttle depot. FREE means we hopped on and rode north to the river. The city is way more bustling than Memphis. There is a minor league ball field, aquarium, art museum, and riverside park. We were walking around with a bunch of folks, enjoying the heat - well, sort of. We hiked up Missionary Ridge and back downtown for a smoothie. In spite of the cool drink, hot and humid won, so we shuttled back to the car and home. We visited with some nice folks along the way, confirming our opinion of the city.

We enjoyed our tours of the 2 battle sites in this area. The Chickamauga Battlefield is in northern Georgia in the plains south of Chattanooga. We happened to be in time for a Ranger-led tour of the major battle areas. Ranger Rob painted a picture of incompetence and large egos in high places; heroism among the rank and file. it is a story of WHO-you-know, as opposed to WHAT-you-know, determining promotions and decisions. The battle was the meeting of 2 forces, roughly 60,000 men each, clashing over a two-day period with 34,000 casualties. The goal was control of Chattanooga and its supply center of trains, rivers and roads. The Confederates won at Chickamauga, only to loose sight of the objective by letting the Union troops retreat to Chattanooga.

That began the Battle of Chattanooga and Lookout Mt. and a siege, the reverse of Vicksburg, where Union forces were cut off from supplies. Again, mismanagement came into play, allowing the Union to re-establish a supply line and then run the Rebels out of the area. All of this was presented in another Ranger Rob tour of the Lookout Mt. battlefield at Point Park.

We took an early morning 1.5m hike down the mountain from Point Park to the Craven House, the Confederate command post. The trail shows where forces tried to scale the cliffs to gain control of the high ground. Amazing. Even more amazing was the climb back up. Thought I was gonna' die! We came back up top into the park where I scared folks from going any further. Morning walks began the next day! My laziness has just gone too far.

Just one more thing about Chickamauga. A reunion was held in 1889 to celebrate the peace at the former battlefield. Few were expected, but over ten thousand came with their families to picnic and relive the events of September, 1863. This meeting sparked the idea of preserving this battlefield and others of the Civil War. Therefore, it became the first of the four original memorial parks preserved to original condition to pay tribute to those who fought. The other original parks were Vicksburg, Shiloh, and Gettysburg.