The "Battle Above the Clouds" on Lookout Mountain

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The "Battle Above the Clouds" on Lookout Mountain is a Tennessee story with a documented core at Lookout Mountain (Point Park and Cravens House), Hamilton County. The sources are named below.

HistoryKind of story
7Named sources
Chattanooga & SoutheastRegion
Oct 30Checked, 2026

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The “Battle Above The Clouds” on Lookout Mountain

People say that on November 24, 1863, Union soldiers climbed Lookout Mountain in thick fog and fought a battle above the clouds, with the whole city of Chattanooga looking up from below. They say the fog hid the men so well that the fight looked like a ghostly battle in the sky. Newspapers gave it the grand name, and the story grew from there. The real fight was smaller and messier than the name suggests.

What The Record Shows

The National Park Service (Cravens House page, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park) says that on November 24, 1863, Union General Joseph Hooker, with approximately 10,000 men, ascended the mountain and attacked Confederate General Edward C. Walthall's brigade of about 1,500 Mississippians, with much of the fighting on the Cravens family's property, and that the Confederates were pushed back beyond the Cravens House by early afternoon. The Tennessee Encyclopedia (Lookout Mountain; Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga) says the fight was in heavy fog, that the men sent up the mountain "disappeared in the mist," that the U.S. flag flew on the pinnacle the next morning, and that newspapers romanticized the episode by calling it the "Battle Above the Clouds"; that entry says the Confederates retreated from the Cravens house by mid-afternoon, so the two sources differ slightly on the hour. The NPS article "Grant at Lookout Mountain" says heavy fog made it nearly impossible for Grant to follow the fight, that the fog cleared to reveal a lunar eclipse, and that Grant noted the battle was nothing more than a small skirmish, not deserving the attention it received. The NPS page on the Lookout Mountain Battlefield puts the Union attack on the mountain's northern side, while another NPS page describes Hooker's flank attack on the western slopes. Neither the NPS pages nor the Tennessee Encyclopedia say who first used the name; the Tennessee Encyclopedia says newspapers coined it, so the name came from reporting, not from the soldiers' own orders. We did not find casualty counts for Lookout Mountain alone; the NPS figure we found covers the whole Chattanooga fighting together.

Sources

A Note

The name came later from newspapers. The sources differ slightly on when the Confederate withdrawal happened.

Its home: Cravens House, Lookout Mountain Battlefield (National Park Service). Official page.

On this site: Point Park, Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga Events.

Looked for and Not Found

Casualty numbers for Lookout Mountain alone (only a whole-campaign estimate was found)
A source naming the first newspaper or writer who used the phrase Battle Above the Clouds
Troop numbers on NPS or Tennessee Encyclopedia pages other than the Cravens House page

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is the story of The "Battle Above the Clouds" on Lookout Mountain true?

Is this a legend?

It is a story with a documented core. The facts are listed on this page with their sources.

Where do these facts come from?

From the named sources listed on this page: Cravens House (National Park Service); Lookout Mountain, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (National Park Service); Grant at Lookout Mountain (National Park Service).

Sources

Read on October 30, 2026. Stories are for fun; the facts come from these sources. How we check: editorial standards; spot a mistake? tell us.

Cite this page: It's Tennessee, “The “Battle Above The Clouds” on Lookout Mountain”, itstennessee.com/legends/battle-above-the-clouds-lookout-mountain/ (updated 2026-11-01). By the It's Tennessee editorial team. Free to quote with attribution and a link to this page; data and tables are licensed CC BY 4.0.

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