Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[272] movements of the Federals during the engagement on the 23d, has ascertained the breaking of their bridge at Brown's Ferry, and informed Bragg that they were preparing to attack Lookout Mountain on the ensuing day. His despatch, conveyed by means of signals to which the Unionists have the key, has been deciphered by them, and its contents are a new stimulant to Hooker.

Obliged as we are to relate in succession operations which are absolutely distinct one from another, we shall first follow Hooker, for it is he who during the engagement on the 24th has the most completely fulfilled his task.

This task is difficult, and appears still more perilous than it is in reality. The top of Lookout Mountain forms a narrow plateau which, with a succession of slightly rounded elevations, extends to the southward as far as Stevens' Gap. Its northern part is surrounded with abrupt rocks, veritable cliffs—called ‘palisades’ in America—which on the western side render access to it absolutely impossible to the most skilful man, save by one path only, known under the name of Smith's Trail, that leads down into Will's Valley below Wauhatchie. It was through this way that Wood's soldiers had scaled the deserted mountain and reached the village of Summertown in the first days of September. Below the culminating point, called Pulpit Rock, the palisades suddenly end on the north in the promontory which has given to the entire mass of earth and rock the designation of Lookout Mountain. These palisades also bound the eastern side, but their range is broken with gaps which open the way to several roads leading to the country-seats near Summertown, where the inhabitants of Chattanooga were wont to resort for cooler air during the scorching days of summer. An enormous mass of rubbish forms an irregular glacis, which, from the foot of the palisades, comes down on the west as far as the stream of Lookout Creek and on the east as far as Chattanooga Creek. The western slope is the most abrupt. From the base the two slopes rise gradually toward the north until they form a new bed of rocks cropping out of the ground and constituting a second escarpment above the brawling waters of the Tennessee. Their intersection thus forms, on the northern prolongation of the summit-line, a crest called the Point, the declivity of which is very gentle, while in the upper part there is even a