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Table Rock of Summit of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee

November 23-25, 1863

Graphite on paper

Overall: 5 1/2 x 6 1/2 in. ( 14 x 16.5 cm )
mat: 11 x 14 in. ( 27.9 x 35.6 cm )

James B. Wilbur Fund

1945.580.77

DescriptionCivil War Drawings Collection. Battle of Lookout Mountain, part of the Battle of Chattanooga, 23-25 November 1863:
William S. Rosecrans chased General Braxton Bragg to Chattanooga in the Tullahoma Campaign. At the end of the Tullahoma Campaign, Rosecrans sat to the west of Lookout Mountain and bluffed Bragg by moving a small group of men northeast of the city. Bragg withdrew and after Rosecrans regrouped for 6 weeks he ordered his men through the mountain passes, first of Sand Mountain (Lookout Mountain's similarly shaped neighbor to the west), then Lookout Mountain. As the Army of the Cumberland came out of the passes in Lookout Mountain they ran into Bragg's Army of Tennessee. Rosecrans, realizing his mistake, began a desperate move to the relative safety of Chattanooga. As he sidled north on the Lafayette-Chattanooga Road, Bragg launched an all-out offensive. The Army of the Cumberland suffered the worst defeat of any Army in the history of the United States at Chickamauga in the shadow of Lookout Mountain. After the battle Bragg's men occupied the entire length of the mountain, which they use to observe the remnants of the Union Army now stranded and besieged in Chattanooga.

General Rosecrans was replaced by General Ulysses S. Grant, whose rising star was about to shine beneath Lookout Mountain. Grant called on his old friend William Tecumseh Sherman to break the Rebel siege of Chattanooga.

On the face of Lookout Mountain the three-day conflict began with General Joseph Hooker forming a line from Lookout Creek at the bottom of the mountain to a point just below the top of the mountain. He then swept along the side of the mountain in an operation known today as "Battle Above the Clouds." General Hooker did not try to assault the weakly defended top of the mountain. Two days later the Union Army routed Bragg's Confederates on nearby Missionary Ridge.

InscribedVerso inscribed with lengthy inscription about the rock in graphite; below: "(The tent represented is that of a photographer / who makes 'cartes' of the heroes with a back ground / of rock & Chattanooga at $1.00 each) / Fred B. Schell"

ProvenanceJohn T. Kavanaugh Collection, Rutherford, New Jersey, 1945

ClassificationsDRAWINGS