Booknotes: Storming the Heights, Revised Second Edition

New Arrival:

• Storming the Heights: A Guide to the Battle of Chattanooga, Revised Second Edition by Matt Spruill (U Tenn Press, 2024).

Jay Luvaas and Harold Nelson's The U.S. Army War College Guide series pioneered a Civil War battlefield touring and staff ride format that has stood the test of time. I believe that the most recent volume published under the War College imprimatur was Bowery and Rafuse's Guide to the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign (Kansas, 2014); however, the format itself has also flourished elsewhere with University of Tennessee Press and Matt Spruill. Originally published in 2003, Spruill's Storming the Heights: A Guide to the Battle of Chattanooga has now been reissued in a newly revised edition that takes into account the substantial changes to the physical landscape that have occurred over the past two decades. I love that cover art selection, too.

From the description: "In this newly revised second edition of his classic guidebook, Matt Spruill revisits his standard-setting tours of the Chattanooga National Military Park, providing updates and new directions after twenty years of park improvements. He recounts the story of the November 1863 battle of Chattanooga using official reports and observations by commanding officers in their own words. The book is organized in a format still used by the military on staff rides, allowing the reader to understand how the battle was fought and why leaders made the decisions they did." Readers of the publisher's Command Decisions in America's Civil War series will recognize the shared elements between these guides and the newer series' own extensive touring feature.

The original War College series and its iterations have never been compact in nature (indeed, this particular volume is well over 450 pages in length!), so it's always been recognized that they are for serious tramping (with prep reading involved) and not exactly conducive to rush tours. Not having access to the first edition, I unfortunately can't make any direct comparisons between the two Chattanooga versions that can be summarized here.

More from the description: "Unlike other books on the battle of Chattanooga, this work guides the reader through the battlefield, allowing both visitor and armchair traveler alike to see the battle through the eyes of its participants. Numerous tour “stops” take the reader through the battles for Chattanooga, Wauhatchie, Lookout Mountain, Orchard Knob, Missionary Ridge, and Ringgold Gap. With easy-to-follow instructions, extensive and updated tactical maps, eyewitness accounts, and editorial analyses, the reader is transported to the center of the action."

The book is stocked with a great number of period and modern photographs, and it provides dozens of tactical and operational-scale maps for readers to follow. In addition to orders of battle and brief information about Chattanooga's national cemetery, the appendix section houses extensive side tours of Lookout Valley and of the entire route of the Union supply line from Bridgeport.

"With this second edition, Storming the Heights will continue to be the go-to guide for Civil War enthusiasts interested in touring this sacred ground."