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| Picket Hut near Stevenson. |
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marching order on the lofty and rugged ranges of the Cumberland Mountains, by way of Tantallon and University, and were well on their way toward Chattanooga.
Rosecrans advanced his army to near the foot of these mountains, when finding Bragg, who had destroyed all the bridges over the swollen streams in his rear, too far ahead to be easily overtaken, halted his entire force, chiefly on the high rolling table-land between Winchester, Decherd, Manchester, and McMinnville.
On the 5th of July, Van Cleve, who had been left at Murfreesboroa, arrived, and moved with his division to McMinnville.
Bragg pushed on over the mountains,1 crossed the Tennessee River at Bridgeport and its vicinity, where he destroyed the railway bridge behind him, and made his way to Chattanooga.
His expulsion from Middle Tennessee, by which a greater portion of that State and Kentucky was left under the absolute control of the National authority, was a disheartening event for the Confederates; and now they felt that every thing depended upon their holding Chattanooga, the key of East Tennessee, and, indeed, of all Northern Georgia.
Every effort was therefore made for that purpose; and the risk of fatally weakening Lee's army in Virginia, by withdrawing Longstreet's corps from it, was taken, and that efficient officer and his troops, as we have observed, were sent to re-enforce Bragg.2
Rosecrans now caused the railway to Stevenson, and thence to Bridgeport, to be put in order under the skillful direction of Colonel Innis and his Michigan engineers, and Sheridan's division was advanced to the latter section of the road, to hold it. At the same time Stanley swept down in a southwesterly direction, by way of Fayetteville and Athens, to cover the line of the Tennessee from Whitesburg up. As forage was scarce in the mountain region over which he was to pass, and Bragg had consumed the last blade of grass, Rosecrans delayed his advance until the Indian corn in cultivated spots was sufficiently grown to furnish a supply.
Meanwhile; he gathered army supplies at Tracy City and Stevenson,3 and thoroughly picketed the railway from Cowan to Bridgeport.
Finally, at the middle of August, the army went
forward to cross the Tennessee River at different points, for the purpose of capturing Chattanooga.
Thomas's corps
1 The Cumberland range is lofty and rocky, and separate the waters which flow into the Tennessee River from those which are tributary to the Cumberland River. The range extends from near the Kentucky line almost to Athens, in Alabama. Its northwestern slopes are steep and rocky, with deep coves, out of which flow the streams that water East Tennessee. Its top is barren and undulating. Its southeastern slope, toward Chattanooga, is precipitous, and the undulating valley between its base and the Tennessee River averages about five miles in width. In the range, and parallel with its course is a deep clove, known as the Sequatchie Valley, three or four miles in width, and about fifty miles in length, which is traversed by a river of the same name. West of this valley the Nashville and Chattanooga railway crossed the Cumberland range through a low gap by a tunnel near Cowan, and down the gorge of Big Crow Creek to Stevenson, at the foot of the mountain. Walden's Ridge is on the eastern side of the Sequatchie, and its lofty rocky cliffs abut upon the Tennessee River, northward of Chattanooga.
2 See page 99.
3 At the latter place the Nashville and Chattanooga railway and the Memphis and Charleston railway conjoin, making it a very important point in a military point of view.
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