Customer Reviews

Storming The Heights: A Guide To The Battle Of Chattanooga

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As an avid battlefield tourist, I love nothing more than finding a great battlefield guidebook. In July 2004, I took a trip to Chickamauga and Chattanooga to tour the Civil War sites there. I bought this guidebook, as well as "Guide to the Battle of Chickamauga" written by the same author (also an excellent guidebook, by the way), and found them to be to be the best two I've ever used.

Mr. Spruill overlayed troop movements over topographic maps, making for an excellent set of maps. Mr. Spruill guides the tourist masterfully to the sites in and around Chattanooga, describing what happened at each stop very clearly. He provided plentiful first-person accounts throughout the book to give the tourist extra insight into what happened at each stop. Finally, he scattered through the text photos of commanders, old photos of the battlefield and city, and modern photos of several of the sites. Throughout, it makes for a great guidebook.

This guide really is only for those dedicated enough to travel to all the rather widely dispersed sites around Chattanooga and those who have the time. If you plan on spending several days at Chattanooga, buy this guidebook. It is well worth the money, and finding all those hidden sites associated with the Siege/Battle of Chattanooga is very rewarding.

This guide is intended for those wanting to develop a good understanding of what happened, and where it happened regarding the battle for control of the railroad city of Chattanooga, Tennessee during late November, 1863. Matt Spruill provides an excellent, carefully written overview of the battles and their principal locations, including: the preliminary conflicts at Brown's Ferry and Wauhatchie in late October, 1863; then -- with more focus -- on the Battle for Missionary Ridge and the delaying action at Ringgold Gap.

Visitors are guided over the same routes used by the troops and the narrative is illustrated with numerous photographs and thirty-four tactical and operational maps and figures, all depicting the engagements and general situation on the terrain as it appeared then and today. In addition to the excellent index, maps are drawn by Lowell Forbes, and the authors include six appendices that provide additional detail regarding the Union and Confederate order of battle, and excusions to Lookout Valley, Fort Wood Site and Orchard Knob, the Chattanooga National Cemetery, and an excursion to Rossville Gap. The authors provide excellent directions and visitors using this guide to explore the battlefield areas will find it provides a wealth of detail for those seeking a few days of exploration.

The author, Matt Spruill, is a retired Army colonel who has dedicated himself in recent years to writing definitive battle guides that should be considered essential purchases for Civil War buffs, librarians and historians. These include two others for battles in Tennessee - Guide to the Battle of Chickamauga (UP of Kansas, 1993) and Winter Lightning: A Guide to the Battle of Stone's River (U Tennessee Press, 2007) - and, one for the Seven Days Battles near Richmond, Virginia, titled, Echoes of Thunder: A Guide to the Seven Days Battles (U Tennessee Press, 2006). His son, Lee Spruill, is a major in the Army Reserve who served a tour of duty in Afghanistan and co-authored the battle guide to the Battle of Stone's River.

Drawing heavily from letters, orders and other documents published in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, (published 1880-1901), and from their experience in writing three previous guides for other Civil War battlefields, the author is commended for writing an excellent, and definitive book-length guide for the Battle of Chattanooga.

Recommended for all academic and public libraries with readers interested in the American Civil War.

R. Neil Scott

Middle Tennessee State University

Visiting Civil War battlefields to try to gain a sense of what happened there can often be tricky. Reading the signage and monument inscriptions only gives you the most basic information. Or as in the case of Chattanooga only a small part (or parts) of the battlefield have been preserved and the rest is obfuscated by urban sprawl. A good guide book can make the difference when visiting a Civil War battlefield. Matt Spruill has written just such a book, "Storming the Heights: A Guide to the Battle of Chattanooga."

When people think of Civil War battles they tend to think in terms of one army attacking another army in one geographic place and the battle is usually over in one day. That indeed is true for some Civil War battles, but not all, especially not for Chattanooga. There isn't one engagement that I could pinpoint and say "That is the Battle of Chattanooga." In reality, however, there were several battles that took place around Chattanooga which culminated in the Union Army's ability to break the Confederate siege lines around the city and the to Confederate Army's retreat from those lines.

Beginning with the opening of a Federal supply line at Brown's Ferry & Wauhatchi, then to the Battle for Lookout Mountain and ending with the Battle for Missionary Ridge Mr. Spruill guides us through these engagements. He has also included side trips to the Lookout Valley, the site of Fort Wood, Orchard Knob, Rossville Gap and Chattanooga National Cemetery.

Mr. Spruil takes us to the site of these engagements with turn by turn directions. There are several tour stops for each engagement. At each stop Mr. Spruill has included topographical maps overlaid with the Union and Confederate troop positions. He lets the participants relay what happened there by relying heavily on official reports. Both Union and Confederate sides are covered for each engagement.

In my opinion Mr. Spruill has leaned too heavily on the official reports for the story telling. I would have liked to read quotes from letters, journals and diaries of the common soldier alongside the official reports of the Union and Confederate officers.

The maps included in the book, drawn by Lowell Forbes, are also a bit problematical. Certainly I wish there were more of them (one can never have too many maps when studying a Civil War battle). I also would have liked to have seen at least a few of them include modern roads, which would be especially helpful when trying to follow Mr. Spruill's turn by turn directions. Also the maps aren't generally oriented so that north is at the top of the page, and Mr. Forbes did not include a directional indicator on any of the maps in the book.

That being said, "Storming the Heights" is an indispensable book for one studying the engagements during the Battles for Chattanooga, and touring its battlefield sites.

This book is really great. The author has included some out of the way places that are part of the Chattanooga Battles. He uses mainly primary resource material centered around the Official Records of the Civil War following the US Army War College style. This guide allows the reader to draw some conclusions on his or her own which makes it really a fun way to tour the battlefields. The maps are clear and concise. Definitely a must have book for Battlefield Trampers!

This is what historical touring literature is all about. The format in this book is fantastic for touring Civil War battlefields. Following the miliary style of the Staff Ride, the author lets the battle unfold for the reader in a truly unique way that must be experienced. This books covers a complex subject which is not easy to tour without a guide book. The Chattanooga Battlefield is a victim of urban sprawl but this book brings it to life anyway. I highly recommend this book. It is the best tour book on Chattanooga period. One warning though. This book requires some knowledge of the battle if the reader wants to fully experience the tour. Still, the novice will find it easily understandable and well written. The author's experience as a tour guide shines through. In short, if you want to tour the battlefields of Chattanooga, this book will serve you well at a bargain of a price. I cannot give it a higher recommendation!

This is the kind of product that if I could have examined it in the bookstore, I would not have bought it. Immediately out of the box I could tell that this wasn't what I was hoping for. I was hoping for a book that would have a lot of pics and maps and detail about various regiments - particularly the 44th Illinois Regiment. This book had none of the above. What the book is a compendium of regimental field reports. The maps are helpful in the sense they tell you where the regiments lined up, but do not give you a feel for the flow of the battle. I guess the author was just trying to include primary sources rather than give you his take on the battle - something I enjoyed in the Jeff Shaara battlefield guide. The problem with the compendium approach is that the one I was looking for - the 44th Illinois of Francis Sherman - is not even in there. Guess I'll search the web for it. I was relying on all the 5-star reviews for this book when I made the decision to purchase. They must be from friends of the author, because if this is the best battlefield guide of Chattanooga and Missionary Ridge than I'm better off just putting together my own compendium from the web.

Great information on the Chattanooga area battles. This book is full of pictures and detailed maps on battle positions. Can't wait to go back to that area with the book and follow the battle progress. Also, the reports issued by the CSA and USA officers are quite interesting.