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

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[218] dissipated, allows the Unionists to see the gigantic slopes of Raccoon Mountain silent and deserted. Behind them the pontoniers establish the bridge under the fire — not very destructive, it is true —of the enemy's batteries on Lookout Mountain. At four o'clock in the afternoon the platform is solidly laid and passage on the bridge is secured. The operation entrusted to Smith has been perfectly conducted and crowned with complete success. The Army of the Cumberland holds the entrance to Will's Valley, where it is waiting for Hooker.

Notwithstanding the weight of his train, Hooker has followed exactly the programme which has been traced for him. On the 25th the ponton-bridge was finished at Bridgeport; on the 26th his three divisions have crossed the river and bivouacked on its banks between Shell Mound and Whitesides. On the 27th these divisions have passed the mountain and halted at the entrance to Will's Valley. On the 28th they descend upon Wauhatchie, while Palmer relieves the regiments left to guard Shell Mound and Whitesides. Hooker advances with circumspection in the deep valley commanded on the east by the solid mass of Lookout Mountain, for he is aware that from the top of that observatory Longstreet's sentinels are watching his movements. He expects an attack all the more because he has known for a long time the formidable adversary whom the fortunes of war have brought face to face with him.

Indeed, how could the Confederates quietly allow to be accomplished an operation which would cause them to lose the principal fruit of their victory at Chickamauga? The building of the bridge at Brown's Ferry should have been sufficient to reveal to them Grant's designs. However, after an insignificant effort to throw impediments in the way, they had done nothing, up to the 27th, to prevent the enemy from entering Will's Valley. The detachments which were occupying the western declivity of Raccoon Mountain have withdrawn before Hooker after obliging him to deploy two brigades of the Eleventh corps. Still, Longstreet, thus forewarned, attempts nothing to thwart him. Hooker, leaving Geary at Wauhatchie to guard the road and the railway, has continued his march with the Eleventh corps, and, in spite of a few shells fired from afar by the batteries on Lookout Mountain,