Manchester, Tennessee - Chickamauga National Military Park

For our next adventure, we wanted to see some Civil War sites.  We found an area near Chattanooga, Tennessee that had 3 such places, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge and Chickamauga.

  

It was about an hour & a half drive through lush green, forested, rolling hills.  Tennessee is beautiful!  

We passed right over the Tennessee River.

A view of the Tennessee River, with the city of Chattanooga in the background. 

We decided to go to the Chickamauga Park first, since it was the furthest away.  It was actually in Georgia.  So we were able to get into another state.  It turns out that Chattanooga is right on the Tennessee/Georgia border.  

We knew nothing about the Civil War battles that took place here, so we went into the visitor's center first.  

It turns out that the Battle of Chickamauga, which waged for 3 days, was the second bloodiest of the entire Civil War, behind the Battle of Gettysburg. 

The Union's Army of the Cumberland was under the command of Major General William Rosecrans.  The Confederate Army of Tennessee was lead by General Braxton Bragg.  They would have stayed in tents such as this. 

The visitor's center housed a very large gun collection. 

 I think this was one of Logan's favorite parts of the visitor center.

He couldn't wait to get back home and tell Papa all about it.

 The Cochrane Revolving Rifle from about 1845.

A Model 1855 Colt Revolving Rifle from 1856-1864.  This is just a small sampling of the guns we saw there.  It was a very extensive collection.  

 Logan showing off a Union soldier hat.

And Taylor in a Confederate soldier hat.

 Outside the visitor center.

There was a driving tour that takes about an hour.  So we decided to do that.  We stopped at our first place, this cannon in a field.  We walked around a bit and then got back in the car to drive on.

At first we were stopping frequently and walking around to see everything we could.

Taking pictures of all the monuments.  There were A LOT of monuments.  That's pretty much what the park is all about.

After awhile, we stayed in the car more and walked less.  It was pretty warm and muggy, of course.  And this was taking a lot longer than an hour.

The monuments were to specific units that fought there, but we weren't getting a sense of the big picture. 

We were stumped as to who actually "won" the battle.  

I suppose no side really won, with as many casualties as they all sustained.  I later read that 16,170 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, captured or missing and 18,454 Confederates were killed, wounded, captured or missing.  

In the end, the Union soldiers were not able to advance past Chickamauga and had to retreat back to Chattanooga, but they were able to take back that city, while the Confererate forces occupied the surrounding hills. 

Most of the Civil War battles took place in open fields.  Chickamauga is a wooded area, which made fighting more difficult. 
 

There were cannons all over the place, everywhere we stopped, there were more.  I think they represent where the cannons and battle lines were during the battle.  

 

 Logan is showing us how you would load one.  

This is Wilder Brigade Monument.  It was built as a memorial to John Wilder's brigade.  Union Brigadier General Wilder and his men were instrumental in holding off the Confederate army during the battle.  He also led the brigade through much of the Atlanta campaign and many years later became the commissioner of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.

The tower monument was completed in 1904.  It's 85 feet tall with a spiral staircase that takes you to the very top, where you can see the view of the area where the Confederate army broke through and were held back by Wilder's Brigade.  

Climbing the stairs, all 136 of them. 

A peek out the narrow window.  

 Almost there.

Yay!  We made it.

 That's the parking lot, waaaay down there. 

 Beautiful views from the tower.

 Heading back down the spiral staircase. 

I wish I could say that we know a lot more about the Civil War, but I can say that our interest has been peeked and we'll be studying it more at home this year.  

It was amazing to see this historic place.  Now it won't be just a name we read about, it will be a real place.  

We spent so much time at Chickamauga that we didn't have time to go to the other two Civil War sites in the area.  That was disappointing, but we were too worn out, once again, to care that much.  We just wanted to get back home and rest. 

We did take a few minutes to drive into Alabama because it was so close it would be a shame to miss entering another state.  I believe that makes 12 states we've been in, so far, during our vacation.