Existing comment:
The Battle Above the Clouds: November 24, 1863:
Having broken the siege, Grant prepared to go on the offensive. On November 24, he ordered General Hooker to attack Lookout Mountain. Eager to redeem his tarnished reputation, Hooker mounted an all-out assault.
Some of Hooker's men cried, "What does the general expect us to fly?" But the plan was not to attack the mountaintop but to fight along the slopes. Moving over boulders and fallen trees, Union soldiers swept the Confederate defenders from the northwestern slope and around to the south of the Craven's House on the northeastern side. Confederate mountaintop cannon aimed at the roads and river below could not defend against this mountainside onslaught.
Grant and other Union offcers listened anxiously from the city below, their view to the mountain obscured by fog and clouds. At dawn on the 25th, members of the 8th Kentucky Infantry (Union) scrambled to the mountain's northern tip. As the sun rose, they unfurled the stars and stripes, visible to the armies below.
The fighting at Lookout Mountain later became known -- and romanticized -- as "The Battle Above the Clouds." James Walker's painting "The Battle of Lookout Mountain" depicts this dramatic action. |