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[340] only had taken place on the borders of the Cumberland between Pegram's Confederate troopers and Carter's Union men. After a few insignificant encounters—on the 25th of May at Fishing Creek; on the 28th near Somerset; and on the 31st more to the south, near Monticello—the Federals determined to send out a reconnoissance toward the latter point. Two mounted regiments left Somerset on the evening of the 8th of June, and overtook a third regiment which had arrived from Mill Springs on the left bank of the Cumberland. The column, under the command of Colonel Kautz, came up with Pegram's soldiers on the morning of the 9th, and drove them back in disorder beyond Monticello, taking possession of this village. But the Confederates, having promptly re-formed their ranks, attacked Kautz's troops, who, fortunately for them, had already started for the north. The Unionist rear-guard was very hard pressed; Kautz came back to its assistance and succeeded in relieving it, but only after a desperate and sanguinary struggle. Toward nightfall he was finally able to regain the banks of the Cumberland.

A few days later a Federal column commanded by Colonel Sanders crossed this river higher up for the purpose of attempting a much bolder and more important reconnoissance. Traversing the whole Cumberland plateau, Sanders had suddenly made his appearance in East Tennessee, passed between Kingston and Clinton, reached and destroyed the railroad at Lenoir Station; then, making a feint in the direction of Knoxville, had passed north of that city, cut the railroad once more at Strawberry Plains and at Mossy Creek, and finally re-entered Kentucky by way of Barton village. General Burnside had ordered these reconnoissances in order to pave the way for the army he was to lead during the summer into East Tennessee—a country which, as we have already stated, had remained faithful at heart to the Union, although in the power of the Confederates, and whose conquest, for this reason, appeared to be an easy task. But Sanders had found that the forces occupying that section of country were numerous, and, Burnside's army not being sufficiently organized, the projected expedition was postponed.

The Confederates, on their part, were trying to harass this army by sending out guerillas as far as those districts where the

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