That night I issued orders for opening the route to Bridgeport--a
cracker line, as the soldiers appropriately termed it. They had been so
long on short rations that my first thought was the establishment of a
line over which food might reach them.
Chattanooga is on the south bank of the Tennessee, where that river runs
nearly due west. It is at the northern end of a valley five or six
miles in width, through which Chattanooga Creek runs. To the east of
the valley is Missionary Ridge, rising from five to eight hundred feet
above the creek and terminating somewhat abruptly a half mile or more
before reaching the Tennessee. On the west of the valley is Lookout
Mountain, twenty-two hundred feet above-tide water. Just below the town
the Tennessee makes a turn to the south and runs to the base of Lookout
Mountain, leaving no level ground between the mountain and river. The
Memphis and Charleston Railroad passes this point, where the mountain
stands nearly perpendicular. East of Missionary Ridge flows the South
Chickamauga River; west of Lookout Mountain is Lookout Creek; and west
of that, Raccoon Mountains. Lookout Mountain, at its northern end,
rises almost perpendicularly for some distance, then breaks off in a
gentle slope of cultivated fields to near the summit, where it ends in a
palisade thirty or more feet in height.
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