Chattanooga Campaign
Moccasin Bend also played a major role in the Civil War. The Union forces took control of west and middle Tennessee, leaving one important place they had not yet conquered. They took that in the Chattanooga Campaign. "According to Civil War historian, James McPherson, Chattanooga had great strategic value, for the only railroads linking the eastern and western parts of the Confederacy converged there in a gap carved through the Cumberland Mountains by the Tennessee River. Union forces could divide the eastern portion by penetrating into Georgia via Chattanooga."