The high railroad bridge we see directly in front of us is where the
Cincinnati-Chattanooga division of the Southern Railway crosses the
river. This railroad is owned by the city of Cincinnati and leased
by the Southern Railway. The creek a few rods to our right is the
North Chickamauga. It has its source on Waldens Ridge and leaves the
mountain about fifteen miles from here at Daisy, Tennessee, where it
has chiseled out a marvelously beautiful gulch of rustic beauty. When
the Chickamauga Dam was begun, this creek emptied into the river a
short distance above the dam, but after an artificial bed was dug,
its course was changed so that it would find the river below the dam.
To our left, on the south side, we can see where the South
Chickamauga Creek empties into the Tennessee. It was there that
the Federal troops under General W. T. Sherman crossed on pontoon
bridges at daylight, November 24, 1863. The steamer _Dunbar_ assisted
in transporting Sherman’s division to the other side of the river.
A pontoon was also laid across the mouth of the Chickamauga. It
was then that Sherman attacked the right wing of General Bragg’s
Confederate forces, which occupied Missionary Ridge from this north
end to the south. Sherman was fighting throughout the day while the
battle of Lookout Mountain was raging to our southwest. Because
Missionary Ridge ends near the Chickamauga Dam, and since the
battle fought there on November 25, 1863, has been regarded by some
historians as the turning point in the Civil War, a little later I
shall describe briefly that battle. For the present we shall leave
some of the interesting places below the dam in order to tell about
a few sites and historical events that took place above the dam and
along the South Chickamauga Creek.