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

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[200] The three others are taken away to double Wheeler's forces, which are going to spring upon the rear of Rosecrans. On the evening of the 30th the bulk of these forces is collected near the crossing called Cottonport Ferry, where the Decatur and Washington road crosses the Tennessee. Although he is obliged to send away a portion of Forrest's cavalry, whose horses are either foundered or wounded, still there are left him about four thousand sabres, which, with some batteries, are divided among the three divisions of Wharton, Martin, and Davidson.

While Bragg shall seek, from the northward, to gain the Nashville and Bridgeport Railroad, a force of nearly equal strength shall advance from the southward to reach that same road. On the 29th of September, Johnston orders tile chief of his cavalry, General Lee, who occupies Northern Alabama, to cross the Tennessee with two thousand five hundred well-mounted men. Roddey's brigade, nearly fifteen hundred strong, shall leave Tuscumbia to join him.

Meantime, Wheeler as early as the evening of September 30th finds himself beyond the Tennessee. Crook has not been able to collect his forces in time to defend the passage. His posts have fallen back from Washington to Smith's Cross-roads before the enemy's powerful column. This column, without waiting any longer, has entered the road called Paine's Trace, leading across Walden's Ridge to Pikeville on the banks of the Sequatchie, and soon the darkness of night masks its movements. The Federal left wing is turned. Crook calls to him all the detachments en échelon down the river, and begins to march, October 1st, upon the tracks of the Confederates, with his two thousand cavalrymen under the direction of Minty and Long. The brigade of mounted infantry, the command of which Wilder has given to Colonel Miller, will meet Crook in the mountain. The news of Wheeler's crossing, quickly transmitted to Chattanooga, causes a deep sensation among the Federals. For, once in the Sequatchie Valley, the hostile cavalry can easily reach at Anderson the only road which connects Chattanooga with Bridgeport, and by a fatal coincidence a long subsistence-train, including upward of three hundred wagons, happens to be just near the most exposed point on the road. Orders are issued to Colonel