Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[24] were taken away from him in order to create the new army which was to attempt the rescue of Vicksburg. These troops, as the reader has seen, were lost alike to Bragg and to Pemberton. If Rosecrans in the month of May had vigorously attacked Bragg and pushed him beyond the Tennessee, the government at Richmond, being obliged to relieve him, would no doubt have paid less attention to Pemberton and concentrated all the available forces to crush the Federal Army of the Cumberland. The defeat of this army, involving the loss of Tennessee and Kentucky, would have caused the raising of the siege of Vicksburg more assuredly than would a Confederate victory in the State of Mississippi. But Bragg's army in the middle of June was weaker than ever. Polk's army corps comprised about eighteen thousand infantry and artillery, while Hardee's command had twelve thousand only; the departure of Morgan's division had reduced the cavalry to about six thousand. There were then only thirty-six thousand combatants whom Bragg could oppose to Rosecrans. This time the Federals were aware of the numerical inferiority of their opponents, and it was a rare and serious thing for the Confederates. Rosecrans did not exaggerate, as was the custom of most of the Union generals, the strength of his adversary. Bragg, it is true, was occupying excellent defensive positions which might perhaps compensate for his numerical inferiority.

We shall commence with a rapid description of the country in which the two armies are going to operate for some days.

The Cumberland Mountains, the foot-hills of which extend, in the direction of Nashville, within about nine miles from Murfreesborough, present table-lands forming a succession of levels, the highest of which abruptly terminates to the eastward in steep declivities. It is, in fact, separated from the principal chain of the Alleghany Mountains by a deep and perfectly straight valley which stretches from the north-east to the south-west over an expanse nearly one hundred and sixteen miles in length, and is watered from Pikeville to Jasper by the Sequatchie River, and from Jasper to Guntersville by the Tennessee. Gradually diminishing in height toward the north-west, the chain recedes and is lost in the rich plains of Middle Tennessee. The mass of stone