Existing comment:
Missionary Ridge: November 25, 1863:
The battle on Lookout Mountain was not itself the turning point in the Chattanooga campaign. Confederate forces were still positioned on Missionary Ridge to the east of the city. On November 25, Grant planned a multi-pronged offensive against this position -- an offensive that would succeed although not as Grant originally supposed.
Grant's initial plan that day was to attack Confederate troops on the ridge at their weakest points -- their flanks -- while merely threatening Bragg's seemingly unassailable center. He intended the crucial blow to be struck at the Confederate right flank at the north end of Missionary Ridge by General William T. Sherman's troops. The Confederate left flank at the Rossville Gap was to be attacked by General Joseph Hooker's troops after they crossed the valley east of Lookout Mountain.
To General George Thomas's soldiers, the veterans of Chickamauga, Grant assigned a secondary role. They were to harass and divert the attention of the Confederates in the center from the threats to the flanks. Thomas' men had taken their first steps in this regard when they had captured the Confederate outposts at Orchard Knob, one mile from the foot of Missionary Ridge, on November 21. Having secured that forward position, Grant moved his command post there the next day. |