In the autumn of 1863, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant recognized Raccoon Mountain as a pivotal landscape in the campaign to resupply Federal troops in Chattanooga following the Battle of Chickamauga. Confederate forces had cut all supply lines into Chattanooga, and rations and materiel were running low. Grant realized that the mountain was lightly defended. A Confederate brigade manned the eastern slopes, and the 28th Alabama Infantry defended the approach from the Tennessee River.
