http://www.tpl.org/tier3_cd.cfm?content_item_id=16315&folder_id=670

Two Historic Civil War Sites Protected (TN)

In March 2004, TPL conveyed two hilltops in the Lookout Valley area of Chattanooga to the National Park Service. The hills became units of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, which owns over 9000 acres on the top, sides and bottom of Lookout Mountain. Both hills were seized from the Confederates by Union soldiers in late October of 1863 in the Battle of Wauhatchie, a prelude to the Battle of Lookout Mountain.

The 22-acre Tyndale Hill, formerly owned by local Stein Construction Company, was carried in a bayonet charge of the hill by Union General Hector Tyndale.

The 33-acre Smith Hill property, now located between an interstate highway and a railroad line, was named after Union Col. Orland Smith. During a nighttime raid, Col. Smith captured the Confederate fortifications on this hill during the Battle of Wauhatchie. TPL acquired this property from the Reflection Riding, a 300-acre arboretum and botanical garden at the foot of Lookout Mountain that is surrounded by the National Military Park.

The Chattanooga area figured prominently in the Civil War and has hundreds of related historic sites. TPL's Chattanooga Field Office has been involved in dozens of Civil War preservation projects.

Posted 4/2004