Chickamauga Station

Chickamauga Station. Unused Stockpiles. You are standing near the former Western and Atlantic Railroad, which ran from Chattanooga, about eight miles west of here, to Atlanta, Geor- gia. During the Civil War, a large Confederate camp was located here around Chickamauga Station while Gen. Braxton Bragg reorganized and regrouped his Army of Tennessee., After the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, the station served as an important depot for stockpiling ammunition and food for Confederate troops deployed on Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. On October 9, Confederate president Jefferson Davis stopped here on his visit to the soldiers surrounding Chattanooga. He hoped to raise the troops' sagging morale and soothe the discord in the ranks over the increasingly unpopular Bragg, whom Davis supported., On November 25, 1863, Bragg's army fled east and south along the railroad after the Battle of Missionary Ridge. A Tennessee private in the rear guard later recalled the varied reactions of the men who marched by the station. "As they passed I could read the character of every soldier. Some were mad, others cowed, and many were laughing. Some were cussing Bragg, some the Yankees ... I cannot describe it.", Part of their anger arose from the sight of undistributed food at the station, where it had sat while they went hungry on the mountaintops. The private described "great piles of corn in sacks, of bacon, of crackers, and molasses, and sugar, and coffee, and rice, and onions, and peas, and flour by the hundreds of barrels, all now to be given to the flames."