Battle above the Clouds: Lifting the Siege of Chattanooga and the Battle of Lookout Mountain, October 16 - November 24, 1863

by David A. Powell, William Lee White (Foreword by)

Overview

In October 1863, the Union Army of the Cumberland was besieged in Chattanooga, all but surrounded by familiar opponents: The Confederate Army of Tennessee. The Federals were surviving by the narrowest of margins, thanks only to a trickle of supplies painstakingly hauled over the sketchiest of mountain roads. Soon even those quarter-rations would not suffice. Disaster was in the offing.

Yet those Confederates, once jubilant at having routed the Federals at Chickamauga and driven them back into the apparent trap of Chattanooga’s trenches, found their own circumstances increasingly difficult to bear. In the immediate aftermath of their victory, the South rejoiced; the Confederacy’s own disasters of the previous summer—Vicksburg and Gettysburg—were seemingly reversed. Then came stalemate in front of those same trenches. The Confederates held the high ground, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, but they could not completely seal off Chattanooga from the north.

The Union responded. Reinforcements were on the way. A new man arrived to take command: Ulysses S. Grant. Confederate General Braxton Bragg, unwilling to launch a frontal attack on Chattanooga’s defenses, sought victory elsewhere, diverting troops to East Tennessee.

Battle above the Clouds by David Powell recounts the first half of the campaign to lift the siege of Chattanooga, including the opening of the “cracker line,” the unusual night battle of Wauhatchie, and one of the most dramatic battles of the entire war: Lookout Mountain.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611213775
Publisher:	Savas Beatie
Publication date:	06/05/2017
Series:	Emerging Civil War Series
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

David A. Powell is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute (1983) with a BA in history. He has published numerous articles in various magazines, and more than fifteen historical simulations of different battles. For the past decade, David’s focus has been on the epic battle of Chickamauga, and he is nationally recognized for his tours of that important battlefield. The results of that study are the volumes The Maps of Chickamauga (2009) and Failure in the Saddle (2010), as well as The Chickamauga Campaign trilogy. The Chickamauga Campaign: A Mad Irregular Battle was published in 2014, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave appeared in September 2015, and the final volume, Barren Victory, was released in September 2016. David and his wife Anne live and work in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. He is Vice President of Airsped, Inc., a specialized delivery firm.

Author William Lee White has spent most of his life on the Chickamauga battlefield, taking thousands of visitors through the wooded landscape and telling the story of the bloodiest engagement in the Western Theater.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments viii

Foreword William Lee White xii

Prologue xvii

Chapter 1 Besieged 1

Chapter 2 New Arrivals 15

Chapter 3 Dissension in the Ranks 27

Chapter 4 Brown's Ferry and Wauhatchie 37

Chapter 5 Smith and Tyndale Hills 51

Chapter 6 Interlude 59

Chapter 7 Orchard Knob 73

Chapter 8 Battle Above the Clouds 81

Chapter 9 The Fight for Cravens House 95

Chapter 10 Results 105

Driving Tour 1 Wheeler's Raid and the Chattanooga Campaign 109

Driving Tour 2 Brown's Ferry, Wauhatchie, and Lookout Mountain 121

Appendix A The Myth of the Cracker Line by Frank Varney 135

Appendix B A Tale of Two Paintings 145

Appendix C Civil War Tourism: Lookout Mountain 153

Order of Battle 156

Suggested Reading 168

About the Author 170

Maps Hal Jespersen

Chattanooga Area, in 1863 xviii

Wheeler's Raid 2

Opening the Cracker Line 16

Battle of Wauhatchie 38

Union Forces in East Tennessee 60

Battle of Lookout Mountain 82

Driving Tour #1 108

Driving Tour #2 120

Editorial Reviews

What makes this book so good though, is the description of the Battle of Lookout Mountain…Now that is a very fine scenario for any ACW gamer!

Miniature Wargames

"Battle Above the Clouds: Lifting the Siege of Chattanooga and the Battle of Lookout Mountain, October 16 - November 24, 1863" by American Civil War historian David Powell fully recounts the campaign to lift the siege of Chattanooga, including the opening of the "cracker line", the unusual night battle of Wauhatchie, and one of the most dramatic battles of the entire war — Lookout Mountain. Illustrated throughout with black-and-white historical photos, "Battle Above The Clouds" is unreservedly and wholeheartedly recommended for both community and academic library American Civil War collections and supplemental studies lists.

Midwest Book Review