5/9/13 - Chickamauga and Chattanooga NMP (Lookout Mountain Battlefield)

Part of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, Lookout Mountain is about 15 miles from Chickamauga Battlefield.  Between battles, it was two months. The Confederates held the high ground around Chattanooga.  From Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge they could fire down to the river and roads to block Federal supplies.  The final fight came with a surprise charge up the side of Lookout Mountain. 

Charles Walker's 13x30' painting of "The Battle Above the Clouds" is in the tiny Visitors Center on Lookout Mountain.  This is the middle of the painting.  (I said it's a tiny building and I couldn't back up far enough to get more.  If you want to see the whole thing, Chattanooga's nice this time of year.)

Across the street is Point Park.  The entrance gate was built in 1905 by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and is the world's largest replica of the Corps' castle insignia. (I told George it looked like a castle.  I didn't know it was an Army castle, since I can't remember any castles the US Army defended in this country.)

The walking tour around the park shows where a few of the siege lines were, with artillery posed above the edge.  Apparently the cannons were aimed to shoot down to the river and into town, and couldn't aim straight down the mountainside.  (Oops!)

As expected at a battlefield, there are monuments and markers. 

 

Out on the point is Ochs Memorial Observatory.  Adolph Ochs, owner and publisher of the NY Times, was instrumental in the creation of the Lookout Mountain Park.  There's a little museum inside.

Apparently part of the bluff has fallen, because you can't get to Umbrella Rock anymore.  Some of the pictures in the observatory show people posing on top of it, but there's no absolutely no way you'd get me up there! 

I like looking at the views from high places, but I want something between me and the edge.  Walls are good.  Guard rails will do in a pinch.  And if I get too close, George grabs hold of me, just in case.

 

There are more pictures of Lookout Mountain Battlefield.  Just click on one of them to scroll through them in a slideshow.