Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1

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[481] was evidently not prepared for, and, indeed, Bragg already had enough line to hold with a small army if he came no farther toward Sherman than the Tunnel Hill, where the railway crosses the ridge.

General W. F. Smith superintended the swift bridge building; boats moved out from each shore, were anchored, the slender joists quickly put down and bound with cords, then the men ran with a plank apiece and placed it, and so the roadway grew. On the enemy's shore, where the ground gradually rises toward the foothills of the mountain ridge, a large curve, whose center was at the river, was marked out on the grass by a few stakes; the earth in a few minutes was broken by hundreds of strong men-hearty, cheerful workers. In less than one hour the long ditch was dug and there was ample cover for a large brigade. The bridge was not quite completed, and the last few shovelfuls were not yet thrown when, with Colonel Bushbeck's small brigade from Chattanooga way, I came in sight. Of course, at first, Sherman's men were a little startled. They did not expect anything or anybody from that quarter except the enemy. The picks and shovels were dropped and the rifles were seized; but those were not recruits, so they did not fly nor fire, but simply looked with 16,000 eyes. We had been sent to form a junction and cooperate with Sherman. We had started early, too; had crept quietly along the bank of the old river, through the thickets, the meadows, and across the small streams, in a circuit of four or five miles, encountering but little opposition till that armed host of workmen loomed up before us. At once I recognized our expected friends, and we were not long in getting together. Immediately I went to the bridge, dismounted, and ran out upon it just as the last pontoon