The 13-foot by 30-foot “Battle of Lookout Mountain” painting has only been on display at the Lookout Mountain Battlefield Visitor Center since 1986. For close to half a century, it lay wrapped up and out of view. How the painting came about requires travelers to visit Chattanooga, Tennessee, which borders Chickamauga, Georgia.
Significant Civil War battles took place in both spots within the span of a few months in 1863, and 19th-century artist James Walker (1819–1889) captured much of what occurred there.
It is at the Lookout Mountain Battlefield Visitor Center where I discovered the centerpiece painting during a May visit to the area. The painting took me to the cold, foggy scene of the turning-point battle that resulted in Confederate forces withdrawing and Union forces overtaking Chattanooga’s rivers, railroads, and roads. The massive canvas dominates a wall and the lighting illumines every detail, from Confederates surrendering on one side of the steep mountain, to the gear the soldiers carry, to horses’ tense muscles.
I was so intrigued by the painting that I contacted Jim Ogden, staff historian for the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park in Tennessee, who explained to me where the painting was before it graced the visitor center’s walls: “In the early 1900s, it was stored in a barn on a private farm, and in the 1950s it was donated to a national military park, which kept it rolled up and stored in a garage in a maintenance area.”
Civil War Artist
“Walker, as a painter, was well-known and respected before the Civil War for his paintings of the Mexican War,” Ogden said. “He was English-born [1819], but immigrated to the United States. Then, when the U.S. Capitol was expanded, Walker was so well-known that he was commissioned in 1858 to do the painting titled “The Battle of Chapultepec” to hang in the new Senate Chamber. The painting is now at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Then the Civil War begins and it’s a new war to document on canvas, so Walker produced a number of scenes of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga battles.”Walker visited the battlefields immediately after the battles in 1863, and since he knew Gen. Joseph Hooker (commander of the Union army during the battle) from the Mexican War, Gen. Hooker commissioned Walker to do a 13- by 30-foot painting with Gen. Hooker as the focal point of the painting. It took Walker four years to complete it, between 1870 and 1874. With this large painting, Walker pulls the viewers eye to Gen. Hooker on the white horse.
Once the painting was finished, it hit the road, so to speak, as a traveling exhibit. “Gen. Hooker’s idea is that people would come to see the painting displayed in various homes and venues around the United States and they would pay, often a nickel, to learn about the great general who captured Lookout Mountain,” said Ogden.
But the massive, image-rich painting was barely accessible to the public when Gen. Hooker died in 1879. “With his death, there was no need for the painting to travel,” said Ogden.
It was not until the mid-1980s that a National Park Service attendant learned of the long-rolled up painting, evaluated it, and determined it warranted an opportunity to be installed for permanent, public display.
To clean and install the Walker painting required $100,000, which was donated by various Chattanooga residents and business owners. “It had lost some luster around the edges and was very dirty, having been rolled up for so long. But overall, it was not in terrible shape, considering. It just needed a really good cleaning.”
The Battle Painting
About the accuracy of the painting, Ogden said that there are a few minor errors regarding the depiction of some uniforms and equipment, “but I think the painting is a fantastic work. Gen. Hooker really did ride a white horse. Plus, Confederate troops are shown on the side of the mountain and in their earthworks, and visible is the Confederate flag. Other Confederates already captured by Hooker’s troops are shown as taken to the rear, which really happened.”
He added, “I’m really glad we have it on display. It is a wonderful depiction of the battle and can be used to truly help people understand how that battle occurred. It was a difficult battle because it mostly took place on the side of a mountain. If I’m taking people on a tour of the Lookout Mountain battlefield, my first stop is a summary of the battle using that painting as a visual reference. Plus, Lookout Mountain is often in the clouds, so that aspect of the painting is very realistic.”
Walker ended up in San Francisco, California, in the 1880s, and for the rest of his life, painted scenes of cattle drives, cowboys, and the Western landscape, instead of military battles. But it is the detailed war scenes for which he will always be most remembered. And his impressive painting on display in Chattanooga provides a dramatic visual history of an important event.
