Chickamauga National Military Park

For the second day of our Chattanooga visit we started off with some history. The CurbCrushers drove back into Georgia to the Chickamauga National Military Park. Point Park located on top of Lookout Mountain is considered part of this park, but the battlefield from the Battle of Chickamauga is located about 15 miles southeast of the Incline Railway.

This park is one of the first (or maybe it was the first) National Military Park. One of the interesting things about this park is that is was created while a number of the vetrans of the battle were still alive. The survivors of the various units returned to the park, and placed a variety of monuments and markers that show where their units were located during the battle. This makes for an interesting visit. Probably about a close as you can get to standing next to a Civil War veteran on a battlefield an have them tell you what happened.

Entering the park from the north, you come to the Visitor’s Center. There you can pick up a map of the park that has a self-guided auto tour. In addition there is a good presentation in the museum area of how the battle unfolded. With that overview, what you see driving around make a lot more sense.

The drive takes about an hour to an hour and a half if you only stop at the seven points on the tour map. You get a real feel for the scope of the battle that took place. When one thinks that this all took place communicating by messengers on foot and horse back, it is no wonder that all of the miscues that took place happened. This battle took place toward the end of September, and if the weather when the CurbCruhsers was there the middle of September was anything like what the Union and Confederates experienced in 1863, there was a lot of hot marching that took place.

Pictures can be found here.


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