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Chattanooga
Missionary Ridge Reservations
North Crest Road
Directions from Orchard Knob: Turn back onto Orchard Knob. Turn right onto 3rd Street. Travel 0.2 miles to the intersection with Dodson Street. Turn left. Continue on Ivy Street to the next intersection and turn right on Hawthorne Street. Continue for 1.7 miles to the intersection with Glass Street (TN Route 17) and turn right. Direct for 0.6 miles to the base of Missionary Ridge. Turn right at the intersection with Campbell. Continue on North Crest Road to view multiple sites and signage.
Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the Missionary Ridge Historic District contains several federally owned reservations marking significant points in the Battle of Missionary Ridge of Nov. 25, 1863. Gen. George H. Thomas’ Army of the Cumberland, still smarting from its defeat at Chickamauga, received orders to take the ridge’s base and wipe out Confederate rifle pits. But as the Federal troops took the rifle pits, they realized that Confederate fire from the ridgetop would turn their exposed position into “a hideous slaughter pen.” Many soldiers charged forward and began to climb the ridge to the amazed horror of senior Federal commanders. Gen. Gordon Granger told Grant: “When these men get going, all hell can’t stop them!” And so it couldn’t. Thomas’s men took Missionary Ridge in one of the most astounding charges of the war. The National Park Service maintains several “reservations,” where the battle is interpreted, including the Bragg Reservation, Delong Reservation, and the Sherman Reservation.
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