i 4 8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE PHYSIOGRAPHIC CONTROL OF THE CHATTANOOGA 

 CAMPAIGNS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



By FREDERICK V. EMERSON, 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 



AT the opening of the civil war, the leaders of both sides clearly 

 recognized three regions around which important campaigns 

 must center. The confederacy was at a disadvantage in having no 

 marked natural boundaries. The rivers and mountain led into rather 

 than around it. The territory of the seceding states was roughly divided 

 into three physiographic sections, each of which required a separate 

 force. East of the Appalachians were the Piedmont and coastal plain 

 regions, the struggle for which centered in the vicinity of Richmond. 

 On the west was the Mississippi Valley, the 'gateway to the confederacy.' 



The middle section included the rugged portions of Kentucky and 

 Tennessee. By a singular combination of surface features the key to 

 all this area lay in the comparatively small region in the vicinity of 

 Chattanooga. It is the purpose of this paper to trace the relations 

 between the campaigns centering about Chattanooga to the topography 

 of the region — their 'earth control/ as the geographers would say. 



"Chattanooga," says Fiske, "was the northern gateway to the 

 center of the confederacy. From it radiated railroads to the Ohio, 

 Mississippi, Gulf and Atlantic; through it were the railroad connec- 

 tions of Virginia with the southwest. Its possession by the federal 

 army would isolate Virginia and North Carolina from the western 

 states of the confederacy, and open a way through Georgia to Atlanta 

 and thence to the coast." On the other hand, its control by the con- 

 federates gave them the fertile valleys of east Tennessee and allowed 

 them to threaten Kentucky and western Tennessee. They could readily 

 move troops and supplies between the army in Virginia and the forces 

 in the west. The mountaineers in Kentucky and Tennessee were 

 largely unionists and this provided an additional strong incentive for 

 the federals to control the region. 



The importance of Chattanooga during the war and the cause of its 

 industrial development since are largely due to physiographic and 

 geological influences. Within a space of a few miles three different 

 geological structures, each having a characteristic physiographic devel- 

 opment, approach each other. 



Taking these regions in order, the first to the eastward is the Appa- 

 lachian. It is an apparent jumble of peaks, ranges and valleys, as a 

 glance at the relief map will show. Their ancient crystalline rocks 



