Blog 3658 – 11.09.2025

The Battle Above The Clouds

I grew up in the shadow of Lookout Mountain and except on cloudy or foggy days I could easily see the Incline Railway cars making their way up and down the steep mountain side. From where the cars stop at the top it is a short walk to Point Park which memorializes the famous Civil War battle that took place there called The Battle Above The Clouds. Long before I ever flew in an airplane, I knew this majestic view from great heights as I peered off the top of Lookout Mountain at the Moccasin Bend of the Tennessee River and Chattanooga below.

For at least the first third of my life I believed this to be the most beautiful and breath-taking site on the planet. Since that time I have been in all fifty States and eleven foreign countries including five different Provinces in Canada and can say honestly that every one of those places has wonders to share.

The old quote supposedly from a fruit fly trapped in a jar of vinegar all of its life comes to mind, “This is the sweetest place on earth.” We all have, I think, the egocentric tendency to imagine that wherever we are born and grow up is the center of the Universe.

When I was working in Aberdeen, Scotland, fourteen years ago I read a small book by a Scot journalist, named Wallace, about a trip he took to the small town of Wallace, Idaho to investigate the Wallace Mayor and Town Council’s audacious claim that Wallace, Idaho is indeed the Center of the Universe. A year later I had the privilege of realizing a special dream come true of driving across much of the U.S. and three Canadian Provinces to the last State on my list of Fifty, Alaska. I purposely planned my route to spend a night in Wallace, Idaho so that I too could examine its claim as the Center of the Universe. For an hour or so I walked the entire town. That is all it took and I duplicated much of the photographic evidence to support that claim that the Scot journalist had included in his book. Like him I found the town quite charming and its claim very plausible.

The manhole cover in the middle of town says it all.

The soldiers, North and South, who fought in the Battle Above The Clouds believed that position overlooking the Tennessee River to be quite strategic and important, perhaps not the Center of the Universe, yet it was for my young self and many who grew up in that vicinity.

One of my favorite quotes of Mark Twain, himself a world traveler, is that “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness…”

The framed complete quote is attached.

Bon Voyage, Pilgrim!

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White