Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[177] similar structures were frequently seen. We passed by the fortifications of Tullahoma, dined at Decherd, and in the afternoon descended the Big Crow Creek hollow, in the Cumberland mountains, to Stevenson, where we remained long enough to visit Battery Harker, in front of it. It was a strong work, that covered the village and its approaches, and had within its heavy earth-walls a very substantial citadel, octagonal in form, and made of logs, after the manner of the block-houses. Stevenson was then almost entirely a village of shanties, standing

Block-House at Normandy.1

among the ruins of a once pleasant town, on a slope at the foot of a high rocky mountain.

Passing on from Stevenson, we observed many earth-works and block-houses; and at each end of the temporary railway bridge at Bridgeport, where we crossed the Tennessee River, we noticed heavy redoubts. At Shellmound we entered the mountain region south of the Tennessee. The road gradually ascended, and in some places skirted the margin of the river, high above its bed. We soon reached one of the deep mountain gorges through which Hooker passed,² and crossed it upon delicate trestle-work two hundred feet in air above the stream that passed through it,, the, whole trembling fearfully as our heavy train moved over it at a very slow pace. Then we were among the lofty hills of the Raccoon mountains, and in a little while descended by a gentle grade into Lookout Valley, crossed the: Lookout Creek at Wauhatchie, swept along the margin of the Tennessee, at the foot of Lookout Mountain, and arrived at Chattanooga at sunset, where. we took lodgings at the Crutchfield House.

A letter of introduction to the Rev. Thomas B. Van Horn, post-chaplain, at Chattanooga, gave us a valuable friend, and a competent guide to historical places during the two or three days we were in that town and its vicinity. He was then in charge of the National Cemetery near Chattanooga, laid out under his directions, into which he was collecting the bodies of Union soldiers from the battle-fields of Southeastern Tennessee and Northern Georgia and Alabama, and from posts and stations within a circle from eighty to one hundred miles radius. Mr. Van Horn was residing, with his family, in the house not far from Grant's Headquarters,³ which both Thomas and Sherman had occupied as such — a pleasant embowered dwelling, unscathed by the storm of war that swept over the town. He kindly offered to accompany us to all places of interest around Chattanooga; and on the morning after our arrival we were seated with him in his light covered wagon, drawn by his spirited horses, “Joseph Hooker” and “John Brown.” We first rode to the summit of Cameron's Hill, an alluvial bluff between the town and the river, which rises to an altitude of about three hundred feet. From its top we had a comprehensive view of the country around, including almost the entire battle-field on Lookout Mountain and along the Missionaries'