Battle of Missionary Ridge, 1863

Battle of Missionary Ridge, 1863

The Battle of Missionary Ridge was fought November 25, 1863, as part of the Chattanooga Campaign of the American Civil War. Following the Union victory in the Battle of Lookout Mountain on November 24, Union forces under General Grant assaulted Missionary Ridge and defeated the Confederate Army of Tennessee, commanded by General Bragg. Grant ordered the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by General Thomas, to move forward and seize the Confederate line of rifle pits on the valley floor, and stop there to await further orders. The Union soldiers moved forward and quickly pushed the Confederates from the first line of rifle pits but were then subjected to a punishing fire from the Confederate lines up the ridge. The second advance was taken up by the commanders, but also by some of the soldiers who sought shelter from the fire further up the slope. The Union advance was disorganized but effective; finally overwhelming and scattering what ought to have been, as General Grant himself believed, an impregnable Confederate line. In combination with an advance from the southern end of the ridge by divisions under General Hooker, the Union Army routed Bragg's army, which retreated to Dalton, Georgia, ending the siege of Union forces in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Lithograph by Kurz & Allison, 1886.

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