Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park

Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park covers roughly 8,100 acres across Walker and Catoosa Counties in Georgia and Hamilton County in Tennessee. It protects the ground of two major Civil War battles fought in the autumn of 1863: Chickamauga, where Union forces were driven back and besieged in Chattanooga, and the later fighting at Lookout Mountain, Orchard Knob and Missionary Ridge, where the siege was broken. Chattanooga then served as the base for Sherman's Atlanta campaign. Congress created the park in 1890, the first national legislation to authorize preserving an American battlefield. Veterans of both armies helped place monuments, and more than 700 were eventually erected, along with cannon, roads and observation towers. A few surviving wartime houses, including the Brotherton, Kelly, Snodgrass and Cravens homes, remain. The Chickamauga unit is still largely rural, while the Chattanooga units are surrounded by the city. The park's early preservation work influenced how other battlefields were protected.