Sam D. Elliott

Elliott: A war correspondent on Lookout Mountain

by Sam D. Elliott ·June 24, 2018

War correspondents have been around the American military for many years, and such was certainly the case in the Civil War. Their work provides the modern historian with valuable insights on the operations of the armies and the morale of the men who fought, and the campaign for Chattanooga in 1863 is no exception. A letter from a correspondent from the Atlanta Register written about a week before the Confederate defeat at Chattanooga provides a lengthy and interesting description of his observations from a trip to the top of Lookout Mountain. The pro-Confederate Register was a Knoxville paper that fled to Atlanta when Knoxville fell to the Federal forces earlier in 1863.

This view shows Moccasin Bend from Confederate positions on Lookout Mountain.

Elliott: Welsh coal miners transformed Soddy after the Civil War

by Sam D. Elliott ·May 13, 2018

After the Civil War, the Chattanooga area experienced an influx of northern investors and immigrants seeking opportunity in the area's rich natural resources and the transportation network of railroads and river that made Chattanooga so important during the war. As part of this trend, the mostly Scots-Irish inhabitants of the northern end of Hamilton County saw an influx of Welsh-born immigrants from coal-mining areas of the north, chiefly Pennsylvania and Ohio. Their arrival began a decades-long transformation of the small farming community of Soddy, and to a lesser extent Sale Creek, into a bustling area supporting significant mining operations.

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Elliott: Cabell Breckinridge loses his horse

by Sam D. Elliott ·April 29, 2018

One of many instances of our Civil War depicting the struggle of brother against brother is commemorated at the Kentucky monument on the Chickamauga battlefield, where Confederates from that state under the command of Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge fought Union troops, also from Kentucky.

Repairing walkways around the historic Brotherton Cabin (Tour Stop 4) in Chickamauga Battlefield is on the agenda for National Public Lands Day.

Elliott: Feinting and fighting at Running Water Creek and Johnson’s Crook

by Sam D. Elliott ·January 14, 2018

On Sept. 22, 1863, two days after the Confederate victory at Chickamauga, Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman while at Vicksburg, Miss., received orders from Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to dispatch the first of what became four divisions of reinforcements to the beleaguered Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga. Sherman was directed to move eastward from Memphis and repair the railroads as he advanced. As things worsened at Chattanooga, he was told to suspend the repair work and "hurry eastward with all possible dispatch to Bridgeport."

Looking down the Valley of Running-Water Creek from near Whiteside's, Tenn., Nashville & Chattanooga R.R. bridge on the left

Elliott: Bad investments led to Soddy Bank failure in 1930

by Sam D. Elliott ·December 10, 2017

On Dec. 24, 1920, an item in the Chattanooga News announced that the Soddy Banking Company planned to erect a new building since the existing building on Wall Street had "become inadequate to handle [the bank's] increasing business."

Chattanooga History Column: Chattanooga artist and wife lost on the Lusitania

by Sam D. Elliott ·August 27, 2017

On May 7, 1915, the Cunard ocean liner Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine U-20.

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Chattanooga History Column: Hamilton County casualties in World War I

by Sam D. Elliott ·July 30, 2017

he names of 48 men appear on the monument, who with young Earl Julian, were only a small portion of the nearly 5,000 residents of Hamilton County who served in the World War I era.

Local History Column: October 1918, Chattanooga paralyzed by Spanish flu epidemic

by Sam D. Elliott ·April 16, 2017

In the fall of 1918, World War I was a few months into its fifth year and had become a cataclysm resulting in millions of deaths. But even as the war entered its final weeks, nature inflicted more casualties than had uncountable bombs, shells and bullets in the conflict.

Local History Column: One hundred years ago, Chattanooga goes to war

by Sam D. Elliott ·April 2, 2017

One hundred years ago this week, the United States declared war on Germany and entered World War I on the side of the Allies. Chattanooga's morning paper, the Chattanooga Daily Times, on April 6, 1917, printed the expectation that the declaration would come that day, as the United States Senate had approved war just days before. The House was expected to vote approval that day as well.

Local History Column: Chattanooga and the ‘General’

by Sam D. Elliott ·December 11, 2016

One of the most famous incidents of the Civil War in our area was the Great Locomotive Chase - an episode in April 1862 in which Union raiders hijacked a train pulled by a steam locomotive, the 'General,' with the intention of destroying bridges, track and telegraph wire between Chattanooga and Marietta, Ga.