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

The field on which the two armies are going to meet is easy to describe, because it exhibits no great irregularities of surface. It is bounded on the west by the heights of Missionary Ridge: the principal crest is narrow and rather steep, not very high, and offers excellent defensive positions. Everywhere accessible by pedestrians, it presents only two passages for wagons—the one at Rossville, and the other, called McFarland's Gap, two miles and a half south of that town. This crest of the mountain is distant from the edge of the Chickamauga by a space about four miles wide. At Crawfish Springs the foot-hills of Missionary Ridge fill up that space; more to the northward their elevation and extent gradually diminish. Primeval woods still cover the greater part of the country; they form on the two sides of Missionary Ridge a compact mass, broken only by the grassy slopes of the principal height of land. Cultivation of the soil is centred near the banks of the river, where, however, it yet occupies only a third part of the ground. The calcareous soil rapidly absorbs moisture; it collects this moisture in subterraneous cavities, whence issue here and there cool and limpid springs of water, such as Crawfish Springs. But in the heats of summer the springs which flow on the surface dry up; the thirsty soldier finds no place to slake his thirst, and even the Chickamauga itself becomes fordable almost everywhere, and the crossings present no serious difficulty except where the river is deeply confined between steep banks. We have already stated that two routes diverge from Rossville—the one to the east, and the other to the south. The first leads to Ringgold by the Red House Bridge; the second to La Fayette by the ford at Gordon's Mills after running along the base of the hills of Missionary Ridge. Crawfish Springs are nearly two miles above Gordon's Mills; Owen's Ford is about five miles and a half, and Pond Springs a little over eight. Four roads branch off on the east from the Rossville and La Fayette route, and cross the river between Gordon's Mills and Red House. These roads are, along the course of the river, first the one that leads to the two fords at Dalton and Tedford, which are respectively one mile and a quarter and nearly two miles from Gordon's Mills; then, halfway