Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

Immediately after crossing the mountains to the Tennessee River, Rosecrans, who was moving with a force of effective infantry and artillery, amounting to fully seventy thousand men, threw a corps by way of Sequatchie Valley — a canon or deep cut splitting the Cumberland range parallel-hoping to strike the rear of Gen. Buckner's command, whilst Burnside occupied him in front. Buckner, however, was directed by Gen. Bragg to withdraw to the Hiawassee; and the enemy then commenced a movement against the Confederate left and rear, showing plainly that he intended a flank march towards Rome.

To save the State of Georgia, Chattanooga had to be abandoned. Gen. Bragg, having now united with him the forces of Buckner, evacuated Chattanooga on the 7th September, and, after a severe march through the dust, which was ankle deep, took position from Lee and Gordon's Mill to Lafayette, on the road leading south from Chattanooga, and fronting the east slope of Lookout Mountain.

Gen. Bragg's effective force, exclusive of cavalry, was a little over thirty-five thousand men. But in view of the great conflict that was to ensue, Gen. Longstreet's corps was on the way from Virginia to reinforce him, and with this prospect it was determined to meet the enemy in front, whenever he should emerge from the mountain gorges. During the 9th September, it was ascertained that Rosecrans, supposing that Bragg was retreating, had pressed on his columns to intercept him, thus exposing himself in detail, and that a large force of Thomas' corps was moving up McLemore's Cove. Cheatham's division was moved rapidly forward to Lafayette in front; a portion of D. H. Hill's corps occupied Catlett's Gap in Pigeon Mountain (a spur of Lookout, about fifteen miles from Chattanooga), flanking the enemy on his right; while Gen. Hindman, in conjunction with Hill, was ordered to attack the enemy immediately in the Cove.

The attack was delayed; a day was lost, and with it the opportunity of crushing a column of the enemy; and when Hindman, with whom Gen. D. H. Hill had contumaciously refused to co-operate, and who had therefore to await the junction of Buckner's command, was at last ready to move, Thomas had discovered his error, retreated to the mountain passes, and thus rescued the Federal centre from the exposed position in McLemore's Cove.

To understand the advance of Rosecrans' army, it would seem that Thomas' and McCook's corps crossed the Tennessee at Bridgeport, marching over Sand Mountain into Will's Valley, and thence down McLemore's Cove in the direction of Lafayette. Crittenden's corps had crossed above Chattanooga at Harrison's, and was moved in the direction of Ringgold.