Point Park, Lookout Mountain and Chattanooga Battlefields / Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, Georgia and Tennessee

CHICKAMAUGA AND CHATTANOOGA National Military Park GEORGIA AND TENNESSEE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR National Park Service
The National Park System, of which this area is a unit, is dedicated to conserving the scenic, scientific, and historic heritage of the United States for the benefit and inspiration of its people.
U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1961 0-618486 REPRINT 1961
The Battle of Chattanooga—a Union victory in November 1863 which secured that important railroad center and opened the way for the Atlanta Campaign
Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, oldest and largest of the national military park areas, was established in commemoration of two important battles of the American Civil War. On these battlefields gallant soldiers of the North and the South fought for control of Chattanooga, strategic railroad center and gateway to the heart of the Confederate States. Here, thousands of men on both sides exemplified the true American qualities of independence, courage, and self-sacrifice, which constitute the enduring strength of our democracy. At the dedication of the park, a veteran of the battle said: “Here ... we and they, the living and the dead, Confederate and Federal, fought for the right as each understood it, for the Constitution as each construed it, and for the liberty as each interpreted it.”
Chattanooga was an important railroad center at the time of the Civil War. Railroad lines radiated in the four principal directions and provided connections with Nashville, Memphis, Atlanta, and Richmond. The location of the city on the navigable Tennessee River where there were gaps in the mountains added to its strategic value. Its capture by Union forces would be a severe blow to the South. It would check the east and west passage of men and supplies for the Southern armies and provide a springboard for the invasion of Georgia.
During the summer and early fall of 1863, by skillful maneuvers, the Union Army of the Cumberland forced the Southern Army of Tennessee out of middle Tennessee and Chattanooga. On September 19 and 20, at Chickamauga Creek in Georgia, the two armies met in one of the fiercest engagements of the war. While this battle ended in Confederate victory, the Union forces succeeded in retreating northward into Chattanooga.