Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 2.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[376] at least be protected. Buell had with him five divisions of the army of the Ohio, three of which were under Generals Schoepf, McCook and Crittenden, and the other two, designated as the fourth and sixth, under Thomas. These troops reached Murfreesborough between the 3d and 5th of September. The two divisions of Palmer and Negley were already at Nashville, with all the depots and a large number of convalescents. The first division came to rejoin them, and on the 7th of September Thomas was placed in command of all these forces, with instructions to defend the capital of Tennessee. Imperative necessity had summoned Buell into Kentucky; Bragg had just preceded him into that State.

On the 30th of August, whilst the Federals were proceeding from Decherd and MacMinnville toward Murfreesborough and Nashville, Bragg ascended the Sequatchie as far as its sources, and going through the pass of Grassy Cove arrived at Crossville with his heads of column, where Forrest found him the next day. The detour he had thus made to the north-east had again disturbed Buell's mind, and had retarded the movement of the Union army for a day. This detour, however, had no other object than to bring back the Confederates upon one of those turnpikes the scarcity of which, in America, invests them with exceptional importance. This was the Knoxville and Nashville pike, which on one side afforded great facility for penetrating into the heart of Tennessee, and on the other, by extending into the eastern section of that State, enabled him to receive the supplies he needed. Bragg, having struck this turnpike at Crossville, at once proceeded westward, passed through Sparta, and, rapidly following a direction parallel to that of his adversary, had taken possession of the village of Carthage on the Cumberland, which made him master of both banks of the river. From this point he threatened Nashville, from which Buell's army was still far distant; but whether he found that city defended by too large a garrison, or whether he had only made this feint to westward for the purpose of detaining the Federals in Tennessee, and of getting still more in advance of them, he suddenly turned northward in the direction of Glasgow. His heads of column crossed the Kentucky frontier on the 5th of September, at the very moment that Buell's