Est. 1863 · First National Military Park · Civil War · Battle of Chickamauga · Battles for Chattanooga
The Battle of Chickamauga, fought September 19-20, 1863, was the Confederacy's largest victory in the war's Western Theater and one of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War. Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee, reinforced by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's corps detached from Lee's army in Virginia, attacked Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland in the dense second-growth woods south of Chattanooga. A miscommunicated order opened a gap in the Union line on the second day. Longstreet's assault drove most of Rosecrans's army from the field. Maj. Gen. George Thomas held a defensive position on Snodgrass Hill, earning the sobriquet "Rock of Chickamauga" and preventing the Union retreat from becoming a rout.
Total combined casualties exceeded 34,000 men. Bragg's army then besieged the surviving Union force in Chattanooga until November 1863, when Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant arrived with reinforcements and broke the siege at the Battles of Lookout Mountain (November 24) and Missionary Ridge (November 25). Grant's victories cleared the way for Sherman's 1864 Atlanta Campaign.
Congress designated Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park on August 19, 1890, the first park of its kind in the United States. The park now encompasses the Chickamauga Battlefield in Georgia, Lookout Mountain Battlefield, Missionary Ridge sites, Orchard Knob, and Signal Point in Tennessee. The Fuller Gun Collection in the Chickamauga visitor center contains over 350 American shoulder arms from the Revolutionary period through World War I, regarded as one of the finest such collections in the country.
Sources
- https://www.themoonlitroad.com/green-eyes-chickamauga-battlefield-georgia/
- https://www.thetravel.com/chickamauga-and-chattanooga-national-military-park-georgia-haunted-ghosts-and-history/
- https://astonishinglegends.com/astonishing-legends/2023/10/21/chickamauga-green-eyes
- https://www.northwestgeorgianews.com/legend-of-green-eyes-a-local-ghost-stor-loca/article_b2f67e4a-f911-5afc-b375-414141310ef3.html
ApparitionsPhantom soundsShadow figuresOrbs
Old Green Eyes is the best-known ghost story attached to Chickamauga Battlefield. Accounts describe a figure with glowing green eyes seen most often on Snodgrass Hill, where the costliest fighting of the second day took place. Some traditions describe the apparition as the lingering form of a decapitated Confederate soldier whose body was never recovered, leaving only his head buried after the battle. Other versions describe a non-human entity that prowled among the corpses in the days following the engagement.
A former park employee, interviewed by the Chattanooga Pulse and other regional outlets, has claimed responsibility for circulating the modern version of the Green Eyes story beginning in the late 1960s. The 1970s saw two reported automobile accidents on park roads attributed to drivers startled by something glowing alongside the road at night.
Additional Chickamauga lore includes a "Lady in White" said to walk the field by moonlight searching for her dead sweetheart, distant musket reports and bugle calls heard with no source, and photographs of orbs and mist near monuments on Snodgrass Hill and the Wilder Tower. The National Park Service treats these accounts as folklore and focuses interpretive programming on the historical battle rather than on paranormal claims. Regional ghost-tour operators in Chattanooga and Fort Oglethorpe include the park on evening itineraries.
Notable Entities
Old Green EyesLady in White
