Great floods seen from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, USA, March 1867

Great floods seen from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, USA, March 1867. Albumen print from the album assembled by John Downes Rochfort. Rochfort visited all the major American Civil War sites in 1867 and some of the photographs he purchased en route have since become some of that war's best known images. Lookout Mountain overlooks the Chattanooga Valley, scene of a Confederate defeat in November, 1863. The capture of Chattanooga, known as the 'Gateway to the Lower South', was of considerable strategic importance to the Union. The town became the supply and logistics base for their march to Atlanta in 1864, from where William T Sherman conquered the whole state of Georgia. In 1867 the Tennessee River Valley experienced disastrous flooding. ©SSPL/National Media Museum