CHAPTER VII

CHICKAMAUGA

Next after Richmond and Vicksburg , themountain fastness of Chattanooga was the mostImportance important strategic point in the South-of Chatta- ern Confederacy . It was the centre ofn00ga - great lines of railroad radiating in

every direction to the Mississippi , the Ohio , theAtlantic Ocean , and the Gulf of Mexico . Situ-ated at the lower end of that huge mountaindefile known as East Tennessee, in the heart of aregion which some have called an American Swit-zerland, it guards the only avenue by which Vir­ ginia can be approached directly from the south-western states. Its possession by a Federal armywould practically isolate Virginia and North Carolina on the one hand, and lop off Mississippi and Alabama on the other; and by opening theway into the interior of Georgia would throw whatwas left of the war entirely into the Atlantic region. Its possession by the Confederates gavethem control of eastern Tennessee, enabled themeasily to move reinforcements between Virginia