As clouds enshrouded the mountains on the morning of Nov. 23, 1863, a few hundred gray-clad soldiers stood atop Orchard Knob peering into the besieged city of Chattanooga. For weeks, Confederate pickets kept watch over the beleaguered city from the knob, a small hill that lay between the city and their main line along Missionary Ridge.
To the soldiers, it certainly appeared to be a “no man’s land” as they found themselves wedged between two great struggling armies. Unknown to them, the fight for control of the city would begin that afternoon with the main Union assault directly targeting Orchard Knob.
Like any other day, Confederate sentinels walked their rounds, men hunkered in their trenches reminiscing about their homes and families, and officers watched the movements of Union soldiers in the distance. The artillery boomed from Union occupied Fort Wood, the shells screeched over the heads of the men stationed on and around Orchard Knob, and ensuing explosions could be seen and heard along Missionary Ridge. As sieges go, everything seemed normal in and around Chattanooga.
Around 1 p.m., the calm suddenly broke across the valley as bugle calls pierced the air and drums “rat-a-tat-tatted” amidst the concussion of the artillery.
The dust began to rise as thousands of Union soldiers scurried into line, then filed over the breastworks east of the city. From atop one of the ramparts at Fort Wood, one observer noted that “flags were flying, the quick earnest steps of thousands beat equal time. The sharp commands of hundreds of company officers, the sound of the drums, the ringing notes of the bugle, companies wheeling and countermarching, and regiments getting into line, the bright sun lighting up 10,000 polished bayonets until they glistened and flashed like a …shower of electric spirits — all looked like preparations for a peaceful pageant, rather than for the bloody work of death.”