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| Country hard to hold Whiteside Valley, Tennessee. Over such difficult ground as this the Army of the Cumberland had to make its way in the Chattanooga campaign. Therein lay one valid reason why the Confederates were not sooner swept from eastern Tennessee, as President Lincoln and the War Department at Washington impatiently expected. Only the men who marched over the mountain roads knew to the full the hardships that the task involved. Railroad communications were constantly threatened and interrupted and, when this happened, the daily bread of the soldiers must be hauled in groaning wagon-trains by long, roundabout routes over the almost impassable mountain roads. On these roads points open to attack had to be properly guarded. Even the crude bridges shown in the picture must be commanded by protecting blockhouses or the Army might be without food for days. |
