Existing comment:
Headquarters Row: Generals and Ghosts:
Beginning in 1862, Confederate Gens. Braxton Bragg, Daniel Ledbetter, and Joseph E. Johnston, followed by Union Gens. William S. Rosecrans and George H. Thomas, occupied the Greek Revival-style Richardson house, which stood nearby at 320 Walnut Street. When Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant arrived in Chattanooga on October 23, 1863, he first made his headquarters there. Grant soon moved to the nearby T.J. Lattner house here at the corner of 1st and Walnut Streets. Lattner served in the Confederate army, and following the arrival of Union forces, his wife, Josephine, and their children moved to Georgia. Grant remained in the Lattner house while he planned the attacks that drove the Confederate army from Chattanooga. After Grant departed late in 1864 to take overall command of the Union armies, Gen. William T. Sherman used the house as his headquarters and there prepared plans for the pivotal campaign that led to the capture of Atlanta.
After the war, the army returned the house to Lattner, who moved back to Chattanooga. Union veterans, who wanted the Lattner house to become a historic site, placed a marker there noting its role as Grant's headquarters. Local residents told ghost stories about the house, claiming that a soldier once executed for dereliction of duty still haunted the place to prove his allegiance to his Union commanders. Others claimed to see the ghosts of Grant and Sherman in the parlor. The house was demolished in 1966. |