Iowa Soldiers on Missionary Ridge

Battle of Missionary Ridge

Missionary Ridge looked impossible before it looked inevitable 

From the Union camps around Chattanooga, the ridge rose like a wall—steep, wooded, and crowned with Confederate rifle pits and artillery. An Iowa soldier said it looked “as if the rebels had piled the hill on purpose to keep us out.” Another said it was “a place no sane man would charge unless driven there by fate or fury.”

 

Iowa troops had already seen both.

 

By November 1863, Iowa regiments were scattered through the Army of the Cumberland and parts of Sherman’s force north of town. Men from the Second, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Eleventh, and Fifteenth Iowa Infantry were present in the Chattanooga campaign, worn down by months of marching, short rations, and the long siege that had nearly starved the army into surrender.

The Dubuque Herald told readers that Chattanooga had become “a trap as dangerous as any battlefield,” warning that Union soldiers were living on “half rations and full hope.” The Davenport Democrat said the army was “hungry, cold, and staring straight up at the enemy.”

 

General Clarence Thomas

That enemy was Braxton Bragg. His Confederates lined Missionary Ridge from end to end, confident the ground could not be taken. One Southern officer boasted the ridge was “as strong as Gibraltar.”

 

Iowa men heard the same talk. An Iowa private wrote home that the rebels “looked down on us like men watching ants.” Another said the ridge seemed “built by God for defense.”

 

On November 23 and 24, fighting broke out along Orchard Knob and Lookout Mountain. Iowa regiments were involved in the grinding pressure that pushed Confederate lines back toward Missionary Ridge itself. The Eleventh Iowa fought near Orchard Knob, advancing under fire across open ground. A soldier in the regiment said they moved forward “with bullets cutting the grass like rain.”

 

The Iowa State Register said the men went in “quietly and grimly. No cheers were needed where duty was so plain.” The Burlington Hawk-Eye said Iowa troops showed “the steady courage of men who had learned war the hard way.”

 

The main event came on November 25.

 

General George H. Thomas, commanding the Army of the Cumberland, had been ordered to take the Confederate rifle pits at the base of Missionary Ridge. The top of the ridge was not the aim—at least not on paper. Grant later admitted the order was meant partly to keep Bragg from shifting troops against Sherman.

 

But paper plans rarely survive contact with men who have been shot at long enough.

 

Iowa regiments formed in long lines at the foot of the ridge. The Sixth and Fifteenth Iowa were among those aligned for the advance. Officers pointed to the rifle pits halfway up the slope. That was the goal. Nothing more.

 

At 3:30 p.m., the order went down the line. An Iowa soldier remembered it simply: “Forward.”

 

The men stepped off into the storm. Confederate artillery opened from above. Muskets cracked from the pits. Dirt and stone flew. A private in the Seventh Iowa said the air “seemed alive and angry.” Another said, “You could hear the balls before you felt the fear.”

 

The rifle pits were taken quickly—too quickly. Once there, Iowa troops and others found themselves pinned down by fire from above. Staying put meant death. Going back meant the same.

 

So they went up.

 

No one ordered it. That fact echoed through letters and newspapers almost immediately. “The line rose as one man,” said an Iowa officer, “and moved upward without command, without hesitation.”

 

Confederate General Braxton Bragg

A soldier in the Fifteenth Iowa said the climb felt unreal. “I don’t remember deciding. My feet were going before my thoughts.”

 

The slope was brutal. Loose rock slid underfoot. Trees and brush tore at uniforms. Men climbed using hands as much as legs. An Iowa private said he “grabbed roots, stones, anything that would hold, and kept climbing because stopping meant dying.”

 

Confederate fire poured down. The defenders had placed their works near the crest, expecting attackers to be stopped far below. Instead, the Iowa men closed the distance fast. A Confederate officer admitted their guns “could not be depressed enough to strike them.”

 

The Burlington Hawk-Eye called it “a charge born of necessity and courage.” The Iowa soldiers “climbed where common sense said no man could climb.” The Davenport Democrat said the scene “belonged more to epic than to war.”

 

Near the top, the fight turned desperate and close. Muskets became clubs. Bayonets flashed. Men shouted without knowing what they said. An Iowa soldier recalled seeing a Confederate drop his rifle and run, “fear finally beating pride.”

 

Confederate lines folded and fled down the east side of the ridge. Flags went down. Prisoners streamed past, stunned and silent.

 

Grant could hardly believe it. He said the advance was “one of the most remarkable assaults of the war.” Thomas, accused for months of moving too slowly, finally had his answer. “I knew the men would do it,” he said.

 

Iowa papers seized on the moment. The Iowa State Register declared Missionary Ridge “a victory written by the soldiers themselves.” The Dubuque Herald called it “the day the Army of the Cumberland found its spine.” The Keokuk Gate City praised Iowa regiments for showing “that Western men, once roused, cannot be stopped by hills or hell.”

 

Losses were real. Iowa units paid for every yard. The Sixth Iowa reported heavy casualties in the climb. Officers wrote of companies reduced to handfuls. One captain said his men “stood on the crest and looked back down the ridge, hardly believing we were alive.”

 

Letters home mixed pride with exhaustion. “I don’t know how we did it,” one Iowa soldier wrote. “I only know we did.”

 

Missionary Ridge ended the siege of Chattanooga and broke Bragg’s army. The South lost one of its strongest positions in the West. The Union gained momentum that would carry it toward Atlanta.

 

For Iowa, the ridge became a measure of what its soldiers had become. These were no longer green regiments learning under fire. They were veterans who could take ground no one expected them to take, because staying still was worse than moving forward.

 

The Davenport Democrat said the battle proved Iowa troops had “passed beyond fear into resolve.” The Burlington Hawk-Eye put it more quietly: “They went where the path led, even when the path went straight up.”

 

Missionary Ridge didn’t just fall that afternoon. It was climbed—by Iowa men with empty stomachs, shaking legs, and a stubborn refusal to stop.