158 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rises in slopes so steep that they were insurmountable by an army, 

 until its summit is fourteen hundred feet above the rapid current. A 

 mile or so eastward is Missionary Eidge, roughly parallel to Lookout, 

 but much lower and more accessible. Its top is really a succession of 

 hills or knobs. Between these ridges is Chattanooga Creek, which 

 enters the Tennessee near Chattanooga. Still to the'eastward of Mis- 

 sionary Eidge is the famous Chickamauga Creek. Looking westward 

 from Lookout summit, the view is wild and picturesque in the extreme. 

 Extending to the base of the mountain the valley of Lookout Creek is 

 seen in the immediate foreground. Beyond that is the rough Sand 

 Mountain, whose name tells the story of its rock structure and suggests 

 its scraggly covering of trees and shrubs. To the northwest the river 

 winds in its narrow gorge in the plateau for a few miles and disap- 

 pears around Sand Mountain. North of the river Sand Mountain is 

 continued and known as Walden's Eidge. 



Eeturning to the military movements, we find Eosecrans on the 

 Cumberland plateau, in the vicinity of McMinnville. For some time 

 be was busy repairing the seventy miles of railroad leading from Mur- 

 freesboro towards Chattanooga, which the confederates had destroyed 

 in their movement southward. Some of the bridges of this road 

 were destroyed and rebuilt four times in the course of the war. The 

 Chattanooga and Nashville railroad passed to Stevenson, a small town 

 about thirty miles down the river from Chattanooga, where it joined 

 the railroad leading from Chattanooga to Memphis on the Mississippi. 

 Stevenson was the federal base of supplies. The road then crosses the 

 river at Bridgeport, crosses through a ravine, a spur of Sand Moun- 

 tain into Lookout Valley, and thence passes around the northern end 

 of Lookout Mountain into Chattanooga. To protect this line Eose- 

 crans was obliged to detail thousands of his troops; each bridge was 

 guarded by a detachment of soldiers who generally had built a stockade 

 in the vicinity. The country was swarming with detached bands of 

 hostile 'guerrillas' who would wreck a train or burn a bridge and then 

 escape. 



The union commander had open to him two approaches to Chatta- 

 nooga. He could advance over Walden's Eidge directly upon the city, 

 but this route was beset with difficulties. The roads were very poor 

 and led over the hilly, wooded plateau. After a rain they speedily 

 became impassable to wagons. His base of supplies and nearest rail- 

 road point was at Stevenson, from which he would be compelled to haul 

 supplies for the army in the presence of an enemy well supplied with 

 cavalry ; moreover, he would have to cross the river in boats at Chatta- 

 nooga in the face of a vigilant foe. In spite of its difficulties this was 

 the way which Eosecrans was generally expected to take, as it waa 

 thought that Burnside, who was near Knoxville. up the valley, would 

 romp down nnrl join in the movement. 



