Chickamauga National Military Park

After skirting Chattanooga, I took a nice drive through Chickamauga National Military Park, which is just south of Chattanooga.

Monument to Wilder and his Lightning Brigade at Chickamauga.

The Battle of Chickamauga was fought September 19-20, 1863. In the battle for control of Chattanooga, Union forces experienced casualties second only to Gettysburg.

Confederate forces would have a victory at Chickamauga, but would face a defeat a few months later in November, when the fighting renewed in Chattanooga. After that loss, a Confederate soldier wrote prophetically, “This…is the death-knell of the Confederacy.”