'East Meets in the West' recalls Gettysburg visitors - June 29

Chattanooga Arboretum & Nature Center, 400 Garden Road, will be the starting point for a free Civil War history tour of the struggle in Lookout Valley between veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 29.

The program, "East Meets in the West: Gettysburg Veterans Clash in Lookout Valley," will be a car caravan tour to various sites, led by a ranger with the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. It is being held in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Campaign.

The tour will tell the story of how, fresh off their victory at Gettysburg, Pa., three months earlier, the 11th and 12th Corps of the Army of the Potomac headed west to assist the besieged Army of the Cumberland in Chattanooga. For most of these soldiers, this was their first visit to the Chattanooga region.

However new the area may have been to these Eastern troops, when it came to their first battle in the West, it was against an all-too-familiar opponent, Confederates from the Army of Northern Virginia. The ranger will discuss how that campaign may have shaped these veterans' experience in Lookout Valley.

For more information, call the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center at 706-866-9241, the Lookout Mountain Battlefield Visitor Center at 423-821-7786, or visit the park's website at www.nps.gov/chch.

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