12

 

THE CROSSING BEGINS

» 28–30 AUGUST 1863 «

 

By long-standing habit, Rosecrans was a late sleeper who usually worked well past midnight when in camp. On Friday, 28 August, he could not follow his normal pattern because he had chosen that day to initiate his army’s crossing of the Tennessee River. Rosecrans had decided that the crossing would begin at Caperton’s Ferry in McCook’s Twentieth Corps sector, where the Pioneer Brigade would erect a 1,250-foot pontoon bridge after the river’s east bank was secured. Early in the morning Garfield sent McCook specific instructions placing him in overall charge of the operation. First, he was to supervise the movement of the pontoons to the river via the route selected earlier. Second, McCook was to deploy most of the pontoons on a mile-long stretch of riverfront, reserving some to ferry several infantry regiments across the stream. The entire movement was to be conducted with the greatest secrecy, shielding all activity from any Confederate pickets on the far bank of the river or on Sand Mountain. McCook was to have everything in place by nightfall and safeguard the pontoons until they were launched. Lieutenant Burroughs was assigned to assist McCook for the duration of the operation. Garfield told McCook that Rosecrans wanted the bridge placed just below the point where Crow Creek emptied into the Tennessee River. Because of his recent illness, Garfield had not participated in the earlier surveys made by Rosecrans and Burroughs, and he was unaware of the specific geography of the site or the exact location they had selected. Having given McCook his instructions, Garfield departed with Rosecrans for Bridgeport. Because so many generals and staff officers made the trip, two steam dummies were required. At some point during the visit to Bridgeport, Garfield learned that he had given McCook the incorrect location for the bridge. Without a hint of embarrassment, he ordered Captain Drouillard to send a correction to the corps commander: The Pioneers were to lay the bridge above the mouth of Crow Creek, not below as specified earlier.¹

Upon arriving at Bridgeport, Rosecrans and his party found a scene of intense activity. Sheridan, who had two brigades at Bridgeport, had promised Rosecrans on the previous day that he could build a trestle bridge over the river very quickly if he had engineer assistance. Thus Rosecrans found Bradley’s Third Brigade already hard at work on various projects related to crossing the river. Three regiments were cutting and shaping timbers, while the fourth was constructing a shipyard for the assembly of small steamboats. Meanwhile, Lytle’s Second Brigade manned the old Confederate fortifications overlooking the crossing site. In accord with his customary practice, Rosecrans mingled with the men as they worked, impressing Pvt. Merritt Simonds of the Forty-Second Illinois as “a plain, honest man.” Knowing the magnitude of the task ahead, Rosecrans had already directed that Sheridan’s soldiers be reinforced by two regiments from Brannan’s Third Division of the Fourteenth Corps, but they would not arrive until the evening, and without axes. Indeed, Rosecrans was at Bridgeport before the Eighty-Second Indiana Infantry regiment of Connell’s First Brigade and the Fourth Kentucky Infantry regiment of Croxton’s Second Brigade left their camps near Battle Creek. While at Bridgeport, Rosecrans also issued two additional orders. Seeing the need for boats to facilitate the construction process, he ordered Burroughs to dispatch four pontoons by rail from Stevenson. He further directed Stanley to send the Second Michigan Cavalry regiment of Campbell’s First Brigade to Bridgeport as well. The Michigan horsemen were to drive Confederate pickets from both Long Island and the east bank of the river to prevent them from hindering the work. The bridge builders would be four companies of the First Michigan Engineers and Mechanics, who were already coming by rail from Estill Springs. Finally, before leaving Bridgeport, Rosecrans instructed Maj. William Sinclair of Stanley’s staff to have Crook send two regiments of Long’s Second Brigade across the river at Hart’s Bar, several miles north of Caperton’s Ferry.²

At Stevenson, McCook and Burroughs began to move the 100-wagon pontoon train to the river at Caperton’s Ferry without being seen. The first task was to establish a covert path to the riverbank for the pontoons and their guards. A temporary screen was thrown across the railroad northwest of Stevenson, behind which the pontoons could be moved into the dense woods south of the railroad. When all was ready, Burroughs gave the order to Capt. Patrick O’Connell of the Pioneer Brigade at 10 A.M.: “Commence hauling the pontoon train to the river by the hidden road. Keep it concealed at every step. Stop it in the woods securely hidden & as near Caperton’s Ferry as may be.” During the afternoon Davis ordered Heg to move his Third Brigade to the river. Heg started his four regiments from their camps at 5:00 P.M., and by midnight had everyone in position near the hidden pontoons. Behind them, soldiers from Post’s First Brigade assumed the sentry positions formerly occupied by Heg’s men. Hospital Steward David Lathrop of the Fifty-Ninth Illinois Infantry regiment was pleased that the army was finally beginning to move. He explained that the mind-numbing routine of sedentary camp life had a detrimental effect on soldiers, culminating in greater rates of sickness. For the moment, only Davis’s division was in motion. In the camps of Johnson’s Second Division around Bellefonte, the daily grind of drill, picket duty, camp improvement, and foraging continued unabated. Even among Sheridan’s troops at Bridgeport, not everyone was thinking of the pending movement. According to Pvt. James Riley of the Forty-Second Indiana Infantry regiment, “This morning I did not get up very early for there was not much going on in camp.” Far different was the experience of Pvt. George Cummins, twenty-three, of the Thirty-Sixth Illinois Infantry regiment, who recorded in his diary: “Last night was up nearly all night with Bro. Stephen. This morning about 6 he died & in an hour we burry him. Last night was a sorrowful time for me. It is hard to see a bro. die, especially away off from home in a strange desolate land.”³

Although Rosecrans intended multiple crossings of the river, he did not want them to be simultaneous. Only after a secure lodgment was achieved would subsequent crossings be attempted. Yet in two divisions of the Fourteenth Corps aggressive commanders wanted to accelerate the timetable. The First and Second Divisions of the corps remained quietly in their camps on the railroad north of Stevenson on 28 August, but Brannan and Reynolds were anxious to advance. In Brannan’s command, only Van Derveer’s Third Brigade was posted on the river, at the mouth of Battle Creek. On that day Van Derveer’s primary task was to construct a bridge over Battle Creek in order to improve lateral communication within the Federal lines. The bridge required a central pier, so a detail of eighty men from the Thirty-Fifth Ohio Infantry regiment began building a midstream crib of logs and rocks to support the stringers. While they struggled to prevent the crib from breaking apart and floating away, woodsmen from the Second Minnesota Infantry regiment dismantled some abandoned log houses and built a massive raft. The regiment also constructed several smaller flatboats. At 5:00 P.M. Brannan announced that he could place a regiment on the far shore whenever Rosecrans desired it. Surprised, Rosecrans cautioned Brannan not to initiate a crossing without orders. Like Brannan, Reynolds had only part of his division on the river. At Shell Mound, the soldiers of King’s Second Brigade for some time had been gathering flatboats and building others. King already had raided twice across the river, and the weak Confederate response had emboldened Reynolds to do more. The constant trickle of deserters provided enough information on Confederate dispositions to offer a high probability of success, so Reynolds authorized King to mount a strong raid after nightfall. King selected six companies of the 101st Indiana Infantry regiment, four companies of the Seventy-Fifth Indiana Infantry regiment, and nine mounted artillerymen from the Nineteenth Indiana Battery, all of whom prepared to cross the river after darkness fell.⁴

Upstream, the units maintaining the fiction that the crossing would occur north of Chattanooga continued their deception at a leisurely pace. Wilder sent the usual pickets to the river facing the town, but most of his troops spent the day foraging. A detail of prisoners built a road up the west side of Stringer’s Ridge to Lilly’s gun pits, but the gunners did not occupy them on 28 August. Pvt. Alva Griest of the Seventy-Second Indiana joyfully informed his diary about the haul of butter and sweet milk he had obtained from locals and dreamed about the peach cobbler he was going to make. Ominously, he also noted that he could hear a great deal of railroad activity in Chattanooga. To Griest, the sounds meant that the Confederates were either evacuating the town or receiving reinforcements, but he could not choose between the conflicting interpretations. Pvt. William Records of the same regiment also mentioned the way sounds carried across the river from Chattanooga during the cool and windy day. He described two deserters from North Carolina who swam the river, bringing the usual stories of destitution and demoralization in the Army of Tennessee. Far above Wilder, on Walden’s Ridge, Wagner chafed at the seemingly lackadaisical Federal movements. Hazen on the previous day had reported deserters’ claims that the Confederates were preparing to evacuate the valley, and Wood had forwarded Hazen’s message to Wagner. From his vantage point, Wagner saw no evidence of an evacuation, although he did observe a continued shift of Confederate units upriver from Chattanooga. Unwilling to remain a passive spectator, Wagner during the day sent detachments down into the valley to select locations from which to bombard the town. At Poe’s Tavern, Hazen himself reported no change in the situation in his sector. During the day he sent only two companies of the Ninety-Second Illinois Mounted Infantry regiment to the river. Minty’s brigade was equally quiescent, remaining in its camps around Smith’s Cross Roads with only a few men picketing the river.⁵

In the Twenty-First Corps, sequestered in the Sequatchie Valley, the languid pace of operations generated a feeling of unease. At Therman, most of Wood’s First Division followed their daily routine, but in the Third Kentucky Infantry regiment the seriously injured Capt. John Tuttle contemplated his dire situation. Wracked with pain, Tuttle wrote, “The Drs. all agree I cannot be removed from here for a considerable length of time and the question is what is to become of me. If left alone or with a small guard the guerrillas are good for me.” At Dunlap, the two brigades of Palmer’s Second Division spent the day drilling or foraging among the generally pro-Union locals. At Pikeville, Van Cleve continued to seek the return of Dick’s Second Brigade, still guarding McMinnville. As he had on the previous day, Capt. Daniel Howe of the Seventy-Ninth Indiana Infantry regiment recorded his displeasure with his surroundings: “I am glad I have something to do, for this is the most lonesome spot I ever was in. It is a beautiful valley, it is true, but it looks too much like a prison. The ‘sights’ of Pikeville can be seen in a very few minutes. It is all suburbs and I don’t think there is any ‘elephant’ there.” During the evening, a cow stumbled through the camp of the Seventeenth Kentucky Infantry regiment, trampling sleeping soldiers, whose shouts reverberated throughout the valley. Taken up successively by other regiments, the noise took some time to dissipate. Greatly displeased, brigade commander Samuel Beatty called the entire command into line and kept it there all night as punishment. The incident confirmed both the irrepressible nature of the common soldier and the need to relieve tension. Even Crittenden was affected. In response to Van Cleve’s invitation to visit his command, Crittenden responded through his adjutant: “The general cannot leave here at present as he is much in the dark, and cannot form any conjectures as to the probable course of events.” Wracked by self-doubt, blinded by the frowning mountains, and only tenuously connected to the rest of the army, Crittenden could only hope that orders to begin the campaign would soon arrive.⁶

About the time that Beatty’s infantrymen were raising their primal shout at Pikeville, Pioneer Brigade engineers, Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps infantrymen, and Cavalry Corps horsemen were approaching the bank of the Tennessee River in several places. At 7:45 P.M. Captain O’Connell received Rosecrans’s final instructions, which were to use no more than fifty-six pontoons at Caperton’s Ferry. In the woods near the ferry, O’Connell’s engineers continued unloading the cumbersome pontoons, chesses, and balks from wagons, a task that would take until midnight. Near them, Heg’s infantrymen stood guard in the darkness or tried to sleep on the rough ground. Approximately six miles upstream at Hart’s Bar, cavalrymen from Long’s Second Cavalry Brigade completed their own covert path to the river. While commissary officers distributed rations, Long readied a detail of three officers and fifty-two men from the Third Ohio Cavalry to ford the river under cover of darkness. At Bridgeport, Maj. Leonidas Scranton’s Second Michigan Cavalry regiment arrived and bivouacked near the river, ready to cross to Long Island. At Battle Creek, Brannan at 9:30 P.M. informed army headquarters that he could cross the river with a regiment to seize the Confederate pickets. Unwilling to have an overeager division commander disrupt his crossing sequence, Rosecrans authorized the raid, but in less than regimental strength. Thomas also approved Brannan’s idea, cautioning the division commander not to complicate matters at a site where he believed a pontoon bridge was to be laid. Upstream at Shell Mound, Reynolds prepared to launch his own probe without waiting for permission from higher authority. After dark, King’s raiding party gathered at the flatboats moored at the ferry site. Like Brannan, Reynolds had no understanding of Rosecrans’s plan, but he was anxious to prove to his superiors that he was an aggressive division commander. King’s raid, if successful, would offer an opportunity to burnish his credentials.⁷

By the time Rosecrans composed his nightly summary to Halleck, several thousand troops were massed along the river from Caperton’s Ferry to Shell Mound. Rosecrans’s message was brief: “Corps in the same position. Pontoons for first bridge at ferry now down and going down to concealed position, with an advanced brigade. The cavalry will begin to cross tonight.” Outside army headquarters in the “Little Brick,” some distance from the noisy railroad depots, Timothy Stanley assembled a regimental band and many of his brigade officers to serenade for the army commander. Stanley’s efforts were apparently not appreciated by the commanding general, as a participant reported: “A dusty ride of four miles and back was what the thing amounted to. Gen. Rosecrans took no notice of the serenade that I could perceive.” As Stanley’s officers dejectedly returned to their camps, other soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland were already going into action. At Shell Mound, beginning around 10:00 P.M., King’s raiding party of 350 Indiana soldiers quietly paddled their flatboats across the Tennessee River to a landing near the shell-damaged railroad depot. Leaving two companies to hold the crossing site, King led eight companies of infantry and the nine mounted men on the road leading up Running Water Creek toward Lookout Valley. Six miles from Shell Mound, King’s raiders encountered a few Confederate pickets, forcing them into hasty flight. Posting two companies as a rear guard, King pressed on to the camp of Capt. Thomas Edmondson’s Company F, Third Confederate Cavalry regiment. Like the pickets before them, the startled Confederates scattered into the darkness, but King’s men managed to capture six prisoners, eleven horses, and assorted weapons. Gathering more plunder as they retraced their steps to Shell Mound, the raiders prepared to return across the river without hindrance. Surprisingly, all along the Tennessee River front from Shell Mound to Caperton’s Ferry, the Confederates seemed not to be aware of what was about to happen when dawn broke.⁸

On 28 August Confederate commanders continued to believe that Rosecrans would likely move northward to link with Burnside’s force threatening Knoxville. Even when scouts reported that Rosecrans was at Stevenson and that most of his army was concentrated between Stevenson and Jasper, the belief remained strong that the two Federal forces would not remain separated long. Buckner’s spy network had been entirely too efficient, providing a clear picture of Burnside’s movements, in contrast to the vague reports from downstream. If Brent’s diary is any indication of Bragg’s thinking, the army commander was actually considering a quick strike against Burnside, even if it meant the temporary abandonment of Chattanooga. Burnside was thought to have fewer than 30,000 troops, and the Confederate rail network could concentrate Bragg’s army quickly at Loudon. Stewart’s Division was already moving to Buckner’s assistance. To replace Stewart, Bragg assigned Walker and Breckinridge to Hill’s Corps. When his division reached Chickamauga Station, Breckinridge would support the army’s right, while Walker was to prepare to follow Stewart to Buckner’s aid. In a note to Hill describing the changes, Mackall enclosed Major Johnston’s note detailing the intelligence on Burnside’s movements. The chief of staff also noted that an “old citizen from the other side of the river” had just reported Rosecrans’s headquarters was at Jasper and that Federal troops were moving up the Sequatchie Valley. In fact, only Reynolds’s headquarters was at Jasper, and the Sequatchie Valley movements were only supply trains sustaining the Twenty-First Corps. Not knowing this, Mackall thought the disparate pieces of evidence indicated that Rosecrans was moving north to join Burnside. To Bragg, Mackall, and Brent, it all seemed to make sense because of the lack of visible Federal activity downstream and the desultory bombardment of the town. Both Hill and Polk were already united in the belief that any Federal crossing would occur upstream from Chattanooga.⁹

In the camps of the Army of Tennessee little changed on 28 August. Details from Cheatham’s Division continued to load goods from Chattanooga’s warehouses on southbound trains. Regiments also continued to hold regular inspections and dress parades, and in the Twelfth Tennessee Infantry regiment nightly prayer meetings drew crowds of the faithful. In Stanford’s Mississippi Battery, one man climbed Lookout Mountain as a tourist, while another was delighted to receive a box of clothing from home. Hindman’s Division remained quiet in its camps around McFarland’s Spring. When an officer in Anderson’s Brigade learned that some female visitors had been halted in Dalton because visits to the army were prohibited, he arranged to get a pass to meet them there. In Cleburne’s Division, detachments continued to rotate between their camps and the trenches along the river, while rumors about the coming of both Burnside and Johnston spread widely. Cleburne, meanwhile, completed the constitution of a new fraternal order for Confederate officers, the Comrades of the Southern Cross. Stewart’s Division was under marching orders, although the news was slow to reach Clayton’s Brigade at the far northern end of the river line. At Birchwood, Lt. William Cole, thirty-four, of the Thirty-Eighth Alabama Infantry regiment penned a sorrowful letter to his wife, Cornelia, in Fayette County, Alabama. He wrote, “I commenced last winter at Mobile with two pairs of pants. I lost one of them on our retreat and have been wearing the others evisince. I fear that I will be left entirely naked just about cold weather though I hope the skin will thicken and tough so that I can bear the cold.” On a cold and windy day like 28 August, men like Cole saw a bleak future ahead if they could receive no relief: “I am of the impression that we will fall back to Atlanta after we have a fight. … It will be too cowardly to fall back. … Show the Confederate Spine as well as Judgment. We are to get the worst whipin here that have ever been since we have been engaged.”¹⁰

While most of the army waited, other units were in motion. Brown’s and Bate’s Brigades of Stewart’s Division marched to Tyner’s Station on the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad and waited patiently for trains that did not arrive until after dark. Many of the units would have to travel all night to cover the seventy-five miles to Loudon. More fortunate was Johnson’s Brigade, which had just reached Charleston when it was ordered to return to Loudon. This time Johnson’s men boarded trains that rapidly carried them the forty-two miles back to Loudon, where they awaited the remainder of the division. Nor were Stewart’s men the only Confederates riding trains on 28 August. Wilson’s Brigade of Walker’s Division left Atlanta that morning and arrived at Chickamauga Station during the evening. Their numbers were low because many men had taken unauthorized leave to visit their Georgia homes, but most of the absentees would eventually return. Behind them, Ector’s Brigade neared Atlanta, while Gist’s Brigade was around Montgomery. After Walker’s Division came Breckinridge’s three brigades. Adams’s Brigade was on the rails between Mobile and Montgomery. Stovall’s Brigade was split, with the bulk of the brigade awaiting transportation at Mobile, while the remainder took the rail-river route via Selma. The last element to leave Mississippi, Helm’s Brigade, was also divided between the two routes, with part of the brigade crossing Mobile Bay to Tensas Landing and the remainder reaching Demopolis on the Selma route. Even Buckner had troops on the move. Still hoping to mount an offensive against Burnside when Stewart arrived, Buckner believed the fight would have to occur south of Clinch River. Accordingly, he continued to draw Pegram’s cavalry closer to his infantry at Loudon. Clearly, the decrepit Confederate railroad system could still make a difference in Bragg’s strategic and operational calculus. That system, however, momentarily was operating to support a flawed analysis of Federal intentions.¹¹

A few minutes after midnight on 29 August, the Third Ohio Cavalry regiment put Rosecrans’s plan into motion. Stealthily fifty-five volunteers entered the river near the mouth of Widow’s Creek and followed a guide along a winding, invisible underwater ridge stretching across the Tennessee River. All made the crossing safely without being seen by the five Confederate pickets nearby. Surprise was lost when an officer’s pistol fired prematurely, causing the Confederates to scatter in the thick foliage. Capturing only one picket, the Federals nevertheless secured the east bank of the stream and signaled for their comrades to begin crossing. Around 2:00 A.M. Long led three regiments into the water. During the crossing the Second Kentucky Cavalry lost two troopers and three horses drowned when they slipped into deep water. At dawn Long led the Second Kentucky southward toward Caperton’s Ferry. After a two-mile ride he encountered a Confederate courier carrying a message for Col. William Estes of the Third Confederate Cavalry regiment. Learning that one of Estes’s companies guarded Caperton’s Ferry, Long accelerated his pace to a gallop. Meanwhile, Crook led the First and Third Ohio Cavalry regiments northward toward Moore’s Spring, a well-known landmark two miles east of Bridgeport. Named for the William Moore family, the spring lay in a narrow valley between Hogjaw Ridge and Sand Mountain. From there a road ran over Sand Mountain to Trenton in Lookout Valley. Told by Moore that Capt. P. H. Rice’s Company G of the Third Confederate Cavalry regiment was camped on the road leading up the mountain and that Estes’s own camp was nearby, Crook sent the First Ohio Cavalry regiment forward. Rice retreated quickly, abandoning his camp to the charging Federals. Col. Estes’s camp proved empty as well, although active cooking fires indicated recent occupation. After collecting large quantities of weapons and equipment, capturing six Confederates and killing another, Crook’s men continued their pursuit across the top of Sand Mountain on the Trenton Road.¹²

At Caperton’s Ferry, the morning mist began to dissipate on the river as the sky brightened. Suddenly, parties of Federal axmen hacked away the foliage hiding more than fifty pontoons from pickets of Capt. John Hoge’s Company A, Third Confederate Cavalry regiment. As soon as the brush was removed, hundreds of soldiers from Heg’s Third Brigade manhandled the cumbersome pontoons into the stream. Into each pontoon jumped twenty-five men and an officer. Oarsmen took their places on the sides of the ungainly vessels while the remainder of the soldiers crouched low to avoid the shots expected momentarily from the Confederate pickets. Amazingly, the pickets held their fire, having been taken completely by surprise. Heg himself occupied the center of the flotilla, prominently displaying the brigade’s colors. He was flanked by men from the Eighth Kansas Infantry regiment and the Fifteenth Wisconsin Infantry regiment, who rowed furiously. At Caperton’s the river was approximately 1,250 feet wide, exposing the helpless soldiers in the pontoons for what seemed like hours, although it was little more than ten minutes. Those not rowing lay in the bottom of the pontoons in water that had either leaked or splashed into the boats. Although he did not want to be the first ashore, Capt. James Love of Company K, Eighth Kansas Infantry regiment, found his pontoon in the lead. Love tried to restrain his oarsmen, but he was among the first to land on the east bank. Forming quickly, the Eighth Kansas pushed rapidly beyond a fence and a cornfield to a road paralleling the shore. There they were joined by the Fifteenth Wisconsin. Throwing out skirmishers, the two regiments pursued the Confederate pickets, passing through their abandoned camp without halting. Only a few random shots broke the stillness as the Confederates disappeared in the trees. A mile from the river, the two regiments halted at the foot of Sand Mountain. After a brief pause, Heg sent the Eighth Kansas up the mountain, leaving the Fifteenth Wisconsin to cover the arrival of the remainder of the brigade.¹³

By 10:00 A.M., when the Kansans reached the summit, the panorama spread before them was breathtaking. From their perch 900 feet above the valley, they could see the placid Tennessee River stretched like a silver ribbon across their front. On the river, a swarm of pontoon boats looked like tiny water bugs as the Pioneer Brigade assembled them into a frail bridge. Five miles away, Stevenson was visible, with its frenetic railroad activity and growing supply dumps. Even though the distance was too great to see the thousands of soldiers occupying the valley south of Stevenson, clouds of dust indicated their presence. Soon the Eighth Kansas was joined on the mountain by Long and the Second Kentucky Cavalry regiment, who raced in pursuit of Captain Hoge’s fleeing remnants. Catching three Confederate horsemen and an official of the Nitre Bureau, Long and the Second Kentucky turned northward on the mountain, eventually joining Crook and the two Ohio regiments at John Price’s farm. On the valley floor, the Pioneer Brigade quickly carried the remainder of Heg’s brigade across the river and began to construct the pontoon bridge. As soon as the first boat was anchored in position, another was dropped downstream beside it, anchored, and connected to the first with long timbers called balks. As soon as the balks were secured, flat planks called chesses were laid on the balks as a roadway. The chesses were secured by side rails lashed to the balks by ropes threaded through the chesses. The side rails thus made the roadway somewhat more rigid while still allowing the bridge to flex in response to both the load and wave motion. Although the windy day made the clumsy pontoons difficult to manage, the engineers worked rapidly. Details from Carlin’s brigade supplemented their efforts. By 1:00 P.M., McCook announced that the bridge was available for traffic. Among the first units to cross was the First Tennessee (Union) Cavalry regiment. Most of the Tennesseans scouted downriver, while one company climbed the mountain to screen Heg’s infantry.¹⁴

Delighted that the crossing at Caperton’s Ferry had been so successful, Rosecrans rode to the bridge with Garfield, McCook, and Negley. Crossing the span, Rosecrans continued to the top of Sand Mountain, where the Eighth Kansas Infantry regiment stood guard over the bridgehead. After bantering with the men, Rosecrans and his party returned to the bridge and continued to Stevenson. On the way, they met a party of officers from Negley’s division, which included John Beatty, Timothy Stanley, and Col. Horace Hobart. According to Beatty, Rosecrans “checked up, shook hands, and said: ‘How d’ ye do?’ Garfield gave us a grip which suggested ‘vote right, vote early.’ Negley smiled affably, and the cavalcade moved on.” Beatty and his group then crossed the bridge and explored the lush countryside below the mountain. Returning to the river, they found Pioneer Brigade soldiers frolicking in the river, a practice soon curtailed by brigade order. Meanwhile, Heg ordered the Fifteenth Wisconsin to join the Eighth Kansas on top of Sand Mountain. He wanted to send his remaining two regiments as well, but the road was so bad that he elected to wait until the next day. At dusk, he sent the Eighth Kansas and Fifteenth Wisconsin three miles ahead on top of the plateau, where they established a defensive position. Davis supported Heg by moving Carlin’s Second Brigade to the bridge, although he held it on the west shore. At the same time, McCook ordered Davis to bring Post’s First Brigade to the bridge early the next morning. He also directed Johnson to move his Second Division from its Bellefonte camps to Crow Creek, near Stevenson, on the next day as well. Pleased with the work of his division, Davis and his wife that evening were Post’s guests at a dinner party held at Post’s quarters. Stanley and Capt. Joseph Pope, Davis’s commissary officer, along with Pope’s wife, completed the convivial group. As night settled over Caperton’s Ferry, many of Davis’s soldiers no doubt expressed relief that the Army of Tennessee had not chosen to contest the crossing.¹⁵

Eleven miles upstream at Bridgeport, Lytle orchestrated another crossing with a force that had grown to ten regiments of infantry, a regiment of cavalry, two batteries, and a detachment of the First Michigan Engineers and Mechanics. After placing the batteries to cover Long Island, Lytle ordered the Second Michigan Cavalry regiment to begin fording the river shortly after noon. The horsemen entered the water opposite the northern tip of Long Island, a mile and a half north of the railroad bridge. The first troopers experienced difficulty descending the steep fifteen-foot bank, but gradually the movement of men and horses created a safer passage. The river was shallow at the crossing site, causing only a few of the smaller horses to tread water. On the far shore a thick canebrake masked any lurking defenders, but none appeared. Forcing their way through the thicket in single file, the Federal horsemen eventually reached the point where the railroad had crossed the river in happier times. As Lytle watched from the Bridgeport bluff, Maj. Leonidas Scranton arrayed his regiment in battle formation and sent Company M across the narrow river channel toward the far bank. Again, the Federals expected to be met by a thunderous volley; again they were relieved when no shots were fired. With the water only four feet deep, the cavalrymen soon reached the far shore. The remainder of the regiment followed and advanced a mile beyond the river. No Confederates were found, probably because they had withdrawn in the face of Crook’s sweep into Hogjaw Valley earlier that morning. Back at Bridgeport, some infantrymen occupied Long Island, while others prepared bridge timbers. Meanwhile, Lytle sent his aide, Capt. Alfred Pirtle, to survey the river with several pontoons that had arrived the previous night. In a letter home, Pirtle noted, “The trip was enjoyed by all of us, being a pleasant break in a monotonous life.” For the remainder of Lytle’s enlarged command, the day passed quietly. At least one young private, Merritt Simonds, sat for his photograph.¹⁶

Four miles upriver, Brannan continued to press his superiors for permission to cross the river at the mouth of Battle Creek. At 8:30 A.M. Thomas forwarded to Rosecrans Brannan’s assurances that he could seize a bridgehead with a single regiment. Rosecrans had not initially expected to make a crossing in the Battle Creek vicinity and had deployed no bridging assets there. Brannan’s insistence that he could accomplish the task without assistance led Rosecrans to let him try. At 9:50 A.M. he authorized Brannan to attempt a limited crossing. Anticipating approval, Brannan at 11:00 A.M. sent a few scouts across the river. When the scouts encountered no Confederates, Brannan renewed his plea to be allowed to cross a regiment. Upon receiving the permission he had so vigorously sought, Brannan assigned the task to Van Derveer’s Third Brigade. Van Derveer decided to initiate the crossing cautiously with only two companies. He offered the honor of leading the movement to the Second Minnesota Infantry regiment, builders of the raft and canoes to be used in the crossing. When they demurred, he directed the Thirty-Fifth Ohio Infantry regiment to provide the crossing force. Around 3:00 P.M. Companies A and G of Lt. Col. Henry Boynton’s regiment crossed the river by propelling the large raft out of the mouth of Battle Creek. Like the scouts before them, they found no one contesting their advance. Chastened by the ease with which their sister regiment seized the far shore, the Second Minnesota sent four companies across the river after dark. Reporting Van Derveer’s success to corps headquarters, Brannan asked to expand the small bridgehead. Thomas responded at 8:45 P.M. with the welcome news that Brannan could cross not only a regiment but also his entire division. Recognizing the raft’s inadequacy, Thomas told Brannan to send his trains to the Stevenson depot, fill them with twenty-five days’ rations, and direct them to Bridgeport, where a bridge would be constructed within forty-eight hours.¹⁷

Above Battle Creek, Federal activity on the river was minimal. During the early morning King’s raiding party returned from Shell Mound, having driven Confederate pickets deep into Running Water Canyon. The remainder of Reynolds’s division spent the day peacefully. Cpl. William Miller of the Seventy-Fifth Indiana Infantry regiment noted the arrival of many Confederate deserters and recorded his impressions: “They say the war is over and I have no doubt they think so, but I can’t agree with them for I think there will be a terrible battle in this department within the next thirty days.” Opposite Chattanooga, the Seventeenth Indiana Mounted Infantry regiment surveyed a ford at Friar’s Island. Otherwise, the aggressive activity was confined to Wagner’s Second Brigade. For some time Wagner had pressed for a more active role for his command while watching Wilder’s men agitate the Confederates. Unwilling to remain passive and contemptuous of the deception operation’s languid pace, Wagner resolved to act. Gathering the Fortieth and Fifty-Seventh Indiana Infantry regiments and a section of the Tenth Indiana Battery, he took them down the mountain to Lilly’s gun pits on Stringer’s Ridge and proceeded to bombard the town. Wagner’s gunners employed two ten-pounder Parrotts, functionally equivalent to Lilly’s three-inch ordnance rifles, but neither the quality of their ammunition nor their gunnery skills equaled Lilly’s performance. Capt. William Naylor’s men fired thirty-eight rounds in a two-hour span ending at 1:00 P.M. with little effect except to amuse Lilly’s men. Besides moderating Wagner’s thirst for action, the expedition yielded a deserter from the Thirty-Seventh Tennessee Infantry regiment, who stated that Stewart’s Division had departed for Cleveland on the previous night. Coupled with some vague information from civilians and Wagner’s own observations, the deserter’s report indicated that the Confederates were shifting troops upriver. In a note to division headquarters, Wagner duly reported his analysis for consideration by his superiors.¹⁸

The momentous events taking place in the Tennessee River valley went without notice in the Twenty-First Corps, closeted in the long narrow trench of the Sequatchie Valley. There, the supply lines finally were working satisfactorily, the temperature was comfortable, the foraging was good, and most of the locals remained friendly though they were considered ignorant and poor. Perhaps best of all, the mail was arriving regularly. Letters from home often released powerful emotions, as shown by the response of Pvt. Willis Jones of the Eighty-Fourth Illinois Infantry regiment to a miniature sent by his wife, Rachel: “The more I look at it the better it looks and the better I like it. … It looks as tho you was thinking of me. … You look as pleasing as you ever did. … The baby it looks natural as it did when I left home and there has bin but one day since I got it but what I have looked at them several times. … Well I will have to stop this and write about something elce.” In the Thirty-First Indiana Infantry regiment, several applicants for commissions in the United States Colored Troops departed for Stevenson to be examined. In many Twenty-First Corps units spirits were high because of rumored successes in South Carolina and the increasing numbers of demoralized deserters offering themselves for capture. The exuberance got out of hand again in Beatty’s command, and he held the brigade in line for several hours until near midnight for the offense of “yelling.” Van Cleve at Pikeville informed Crittenden that he had finally accumulated sufficient rations for his division and Minty’s brigade beyond Walden’s Ridge. Like Hazen, whose brigade was also beyond Walden’s Ridge, Van Cleve also boasted of operating a local mill for the benefit of his troops. Best of all, Van Cleve stated that a courier from his division had met troops belonging to Burnside’s army at Jamestown, Tennessee, sixty miles north of Pikeville, three days earlier. In turn, Crittenden forwarded the good news to Garfield at Stevenson. While extremely tenuous, the connection between Rosecrans’s and Burnside’s armies had finally been made.¹⁹

Soldiers at Stevenson and camped along the railroad were better informed about the progress of the campaign than their compatriots in the Sequatchie Valley. Laibold’s Second Brigade of Sheridan’s Third Division continued to guard the massive piles of supplies that were rapidly filling the open space around Stevenson. Just outside town, Negley’s Second Division remained at rest, its daily routine disturbed only by locomotive whistles. On 29 August, Pvt. William Stookey, twenty-two, of the Forty-Second Indiana Infantry regiment, wrote to his wife, Helen: “I am a very tierd of living away from you my loving Wife. … The time is passing away fast and it will not be long till the last year passes by.” Capt. Daniel O’Leary of the Fifteenth Kentucky Infantry regiment placed his own hardship in a wider context: “The people of the north know but very little of the trials and privations the poor people have to endure among these mountains. The old men, women and children remain and consequently they were unable to cultivate very much this season and they are deprived of the greater portion of what they did raise, while mothers and daughters of once respectable families sacrifice their honor for a few dollars to enable them to sustain life.” In Battery G, First Ohio Light Artillery, two men convicted of stealing $40.00 from a widow were drummed through the camps with their heads partially shaved. At a picket post near Anderson Station, Capt. James Edmonds, twenty-seven, of the Ninety-Fourth Ohio Infantry regiment found his mind wandering back to an earlier time: “I have laid upon my blanket, gazing at the passing clouds, musing most of the day. I am strongly reminded of many such days spent at college when all was ‘coleur de rose.’” In the camp of Battery H, Fifth United States Artillery, Lt. Howard Burnham’s thoughts also turned to home, as he explained to his mother: “I have been so far in fine health and like this out-door life—everything except waiting three or four days in camp. I suppose Longmeadow [Massachusetts] is looking very pleasant and our place more so, but I shall not probably see it this season.”²⁰

The units stationed on the army’s right and in its rear were not immune to the quickening pace of events on 29 August. At Bellefonte, in Johnson’s Second Division rumors began to circulate that their days in camp were nearing an end. Capt. Henry Richards of the Ninety-Third Ohio Infantry regiment wrote to his father disparagingly about the local population: “The inhabitants in the mountains seem very ignorant generally and especially the women, which all chew tobacco and dip snuff.” Although Richards chose not to mention it, during the day a soldier in his regiment was drummed out of camp for desertion. In the Twenty-Ninth Indiana Infantry regiment, Pvt. Bergun Brown praised Rosecrans in a letter to his family: “As soon as the occasion requires Old Rose will be on hand. What a blessing to have a commander that the men have confidence in. They work together.” That evening the long-awaited orders arrived. In the Reserve Corps, some units were already in motion. During the day, Second Division commander Morgan arrived in Athens, Alabama, with Tillson’s First Brigade and part of a cavalry regiment. Sixty miles to the north, Dan McCook’s Second Brigade consolidated at Columbia, Tennessee. Morgan’s task was to guard the army’s right flank by pacifying the restive countryside. Having lost a brother under ambiguous circumstances a year earlier, Dan McCook was in no mood to be gentle with the locals. As he informed Granger, “Some such decided measures as you adopted at Franklin must be adopted here and at Pulaski to break the necks of the rebels.” Such bald sentiments could only lead to trouble if McCook’s command continued southward. On better terms with civilians around Shelbyville, Fosterville, Wartrace, and Estill Springs, soldiers of Steedman’s First Division spent the day foraging for vegetables, apples, and plums. Less pleasant was the work assigned to the 113th Ohio Infantry regiment, stuck with salvaging more than 1,000 sacks of corn from the site of a recent train derailment.²¹

Upon returning from Caperton’s Ferry, Rosecrans made several significant decisions. Because the crossing had not faced even token opposition, he decided to bring forward Reserve Corps units on both flanks of the army. On Rosecrans’s left, Dick’s Second Brigade of Van Cleve’s Third Division still garrisoned McMinnville on the far side of the Cumberland Plateau. To leave it there while its parent unit advanced from Pikeville was unacceptable, so Granger was instructed to relieve Dick with several regiments of loyal East Tennesseans brought from Alexandria, Tennessee. Rosecrans informed Granger that the Alexandria units, soon to be commanded by Brig. Gen. James Spears, would eventually advance to Pikeville. Other Tennessee units were to abandon Carthage, Tennessee, and move to McMinnville as well. On the army’s right flank, Rosecrans instructed Granger to cancel Morgan’s occupation of Athens, Alabama, and send Morgan to Huntsville instead. Having strengthened his flanks, Rosecrans turned to the inefficiency of the Pioneer Brigade. Although they had built the pontoon bridge in four hours, Rosecrans desired significant changes in the Pioneers’ organization. He had not worked well with St. Clair Morton, the army’s former chief engineer, but Morton’s successors were also unsatisfactory. Capt. William Merrill of the Topographical Engineers was too busy with his own organization, Lt. George Burroughs was too inexperienced, and Capt. Patrick O’Connell lacked the rank to command even the Pioneer Brigade. Earlier, Rosecrans had written to Halleck about the problem; now he asked permission to organize two volunteer engineer regiments from the Pioneer Brigade. The concerns about his engineers notwithstanding, Rosecrans highlighted their performance in his nightly summary for Halleck, reporting simply that the Army of the Cumberland was across the Tennessee River in several places from Caperton’s Ferry to Battle Creek, with “no fighting to amount to anything.”²²

If Rosecrans was heartened by the events of 29 August, his opponents in Chattanooga remained in a quandary as to his intentions. The day dawned bright and cool at Bragg’s headquarters without any news from the troops guarding the long Tennessee River line. Acting upon his suspicions that the Federal crossing would be upstream from Chattanooga, Bragg resolved early to reinforce Hill’s Corps. First he ordered Wharton’s Cavalry Division to leave its camps around Rome, Georgia, and move to Hill’s sector of the river line, where it would form a screen in front of Hill’s Corps. The order went directly to Wharton, bypassing Wheeler, which indicated an elevated level of urgency at army headquarters. Informing Hill of Wharton’s instructions, Mackall admitted that Wharton’s was the only Cavalry Corps division ready for field service. He also told Hill not to count on the support of Liddell’s small two-brigade division, which would remain at Chickamauga Station guarding the army’s supply depot. In contrast, the troops arriving from Mississippi would soon be available to reinforce Hill’s command, replacing Stewart’s Division, which had been sent to assist Buckner. Mackall also shared with Hill several of Bragg’s suggestions for the deployment of the new arrivals. According to Mackall, Bragg favored placing one division at Harrison, away from the river, as well as keeping the bulk of Hill’s command near the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad for ease in concentration. He further suggested that Hill strongly protect the village of Charleston, where the railroad crossed the Hiwassee River. Still, Mackall assured Hill, Bragg desired that Hill make his own dispositions as he saw fit. Not yet sure of Hill’s abilities as a corps commander, Bragg momentarily was treating the dour and prickly Hill carefully. On the one hand, he wanted to give the North Carolinian free rein within his own sector; on the other, he could not resist making his own wishes known. He thus chose a diplomatic course: offer Hill pointed suggestions but provide them through an intermediary, Mackall.²³

During the day news of Federal activity arrived from several sources. The ineffectual shelling of Chattanooga initially caused no alarm; the Federal shooting was poor, and nothing significant was hit. At some point during the afternoon, however, Capt. Patrick Rice, commanding Company G, Third Confederate Cavalry regiment, reported that a Federal force had crossed the Tennessee around Shell Mound and Bridgeport, and that his regiment was abandoning Sand Mountain and withdrawing toward Trenton. The captain’s message apparently referenced the Federal raid at Shell Mound during the previous night and Crook’s drive through Hogjaw Valley and up Sand Mountain beyond Moore’s Spring. Surmising that the bombardment and the seemingly limited crossing downstream from Chattanooga represented only a feint, Bragg and his staff believed that a crossing upstream from the city would soon occur. Because the troops from Mississippi were just beginning to arrive, and Stewart’s Division had already departed, Hill would need help quickly. Thus army headquarters drafted new orders. Hindman’s Division, encamped at McFarland’s Spring at the foot of Missionary Ridge, was instructed to march to Chickamauga Bridge, near Hill’s headquarters. Subsequently, a second message from Captain Rice ominously reported that a Federal brigade had crossed the Tennessee at and below Bridgeport. That message only served to reinforce Bragg’s concern about his army’s right flank and the even graver danger to Buckner at Loudon. In fact, Buckner’s situation seemed to be of far greater concern than anything happening downstream. Brent’s diary characterized the discussion at army headquarters: “Shall we abandon East Tenn? Buckner has not force enough to defend it. To leave him there would endanger his command, & he would be thus rendered useless in the campaign. As we can not go to his assistance it would be better to place him, in such position, as would insure his co-operation with this army, & enable him to fall on Rosecrans with our entire strength.”²⁴

A final bit of information reaching Bragg on 29 August confirmed his judgment about Federal intentions. At some point during the day, he received a memorandum from Col. Benjamin Hill, commander of the Thirty-Fifth Tennessee Infantry regiment. A native of McMinnville, Hill for some time had been sending scouts west of the Tennessee River. His memorandum placed two divisions of the Twenty-First Corps in the Sequatchie Valley, at Dunlap and Pikeville, and part of the third east of Walden’s Ridge. That information was essentially correct. He also correctly identified Wilder’s brigade. According to Hill, additional mounted brigades had just come over the ridge with pack mules to join Wilder. Although Hill misidentified the commanders of the divisions and confused Wilder’s supply trains with new units, he was more right than wrong about Crittenden’s command. Hill then proceeded to go astray by locating Rosecrans at Dunlap and Thomas’s Fourteenth Corps moving north in the Sequatchie Valley. According to Hill, McCook’s Twentieth Corps was scattered among posts at Murfreesboro, Stevenson, and Bridgeport. He placed Rosecrans’s total strength at 45,000 men, organized in three corps of three divisions each, with three brigades in each division. In fact, Hill correctly named seven of Rosecrans’s ten infantry division commanders on the river line, but he confused the Reserve Corps with McCook’s command. Except for Wilder’s and what proved to be Minty’s mounted units, Hill also knew nothing of Stanley’s Cavalry Corps. He thus provided Bragg with a reasonably accurate order of battle for the units on the river, but he seriously underestimated Rosecrans’s strength. Most important of all, he erred badly by reporting the movement of Thomas’s command northward in the Sequatchie Valley. Reynolds’s occupation of Jasper and the movement of supply trains northward from Stevenson were no doubt the cause of Hill’s mistaken analysis. Still, his memorandum aligned nicely with information Bragg had already received from other sources about Federal activity in the Sequatchie Valley.²⁵

With hindsight, it is easy to blame Bragg for not perceiving Captain Rice’s brief statements to be true indicators of Rosecrans’s plans. Indeed, numerous historians have accused Bragg of being a confused, hesitant commander who had lost track of Rosecrans’s army. Yet, from Bragg’s perspective in the Chattanooga suburbs, a major Federal crossing below Chattanooga did not seem so obvious. Until that moment, the bulk of aggressive Federal activity had been at Chattanooga and above. True, Bragg had reports locating the bulk of the Army of the Cumberland in the Jasper-Stevenson area, but those reports were balanced by the statement of a citizen that the Federal army was shifting northward in the Sequatchie Valley. Now, Colonel Hill offered an even more detailed account, and it too pointed to a northward shift by Rosecrans. Buckner’s certainty about his own perilous situation and Hill’s description of events in the Sequatchie Valley made it easy for Bragg to see a developing pattern. For him, the movement of large Federal infantry units was the key indicator of Federal intentions. Rice’s initial report had focused on cavalry units. His second report, about a brigade crossing below Bridgeport, was unspecific and may have only referred to the Federal cavalry crossing at Hart’s Bar. In addition, small Federal probes in the Shell Mound area were common and hardly a cause for alarm. In contrast, Hill had described the movement northward of an entire infantry corps. With Bragg and his generals focused upon Buckner, Hill’s information had to be taken seriously. Similarly, Rice’s reports could be interpreted as simply a scheme to divert attention from an upstream crossing. Even Col. William Estes, Rice’s commander, mentioned only cavalry when he reported a Federal crossing below Bridgeport to Wheeler at 1:00 P.M. Without news of the infantry crossing at Caperton’s Ferry, Bragg was not befuddled but was acting rationally in response to what he knew at that moment. Unfortunately, his assessment was incorrect; fortunately, there was still time to get it right.²⁶

Bragg’s soldiers tended to see the events of 29 August in the same way he did. They regarded the bombardment of Chattanooga as inconsequential. According to Sgt. Robert Bliss of Wood’s Brigade, “As I write, the booming of cannon may be heard down the river in the direction of Chattanooga, but we have got so used to this that it is looked upon as nothing.” Lt. William Moore of the Twenty-Fifth Alabama disparaged the shelling: “There has been sharp cannonading to-day but we have not heard the result yet. I do suppose however that it will [not] amount to anything only a few men killed on each side, which does not help at all to make peace, and ought to be stopped as an inhuman sacrifice of life without any good result.” There was desultory skirmishing from Chattanooga to Blythe’s Ferry, but that too had become routine. Chattanooga remained “an empty, dismal place,” according to Capt. James Hall of the Twenty-Fourth Alabama Infantry regiment. Sergeant Bliss agreed: “Chattanooga has fallen back to Atlanta.” Still, some citizens too poor to escape remained camped in the woods just beyond the city limits. The absence of most of the residents tempted some soldiers, who began to plunder locked houses. After the provost guard arrested a dozen miscreants, the Daily Rebel vigorously condemned such behavior: “One or two such offenders, swung up by the neck, might serve as an example to other thieves in uniform.” Most men in the ranks carried themselves honorably and professionally, filling the day with drill, inspection, dress parade, and in many cases, prayer meetings. Beyond that, all discussed the rumors that reinforcements were coming and that Knoxville and Cumberland Gap had fallen. At least one soldier found time to take a pleasure ride into the countryside near Harrison. Like his counterparts across the river, Sgt. John Sparkman found the local females unappealing: “Nearly all of the women are barefooted and bareheaded. They are not tasty or fashionable and generally homely.”²⁷

Because of the uncertainty, most large units remained stationary on 29 August. In Polk’s Corps, Cheatham’s Division continued to occupy camps south of Chattanooga. For the moment, Hindman’s Division remained at McFarland’s Spring five miles south of town, but Bragg’s late-afternoon decision to send it to Chickamauga Bridge would soon set it in motion. Cleburne’s Division remained scattered along the river from Harrison to Blythe’s Ferry. Liddell’s two brigades guarded the army’s supply base at Chickamauga Station. Most of Stewart’s Division spent the day on trains of the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad. Three brigades reached Loudon on 29 August, but Clayton’s Brigade spent the day trudging from Blythe’s Ferry to the railroad at Tyner’s Station. At Loudon, Stewart joined Preston’s Division. Buckner’s cavalry continued to screen the approaches to Knoxville, if only to maintain some contact with Burnside’s advancing forces. Similarly, Forrest’s Cavalry Division picketed the Tennessee and Clinch Rivers from north of the Hiwassee to a point beyond Kingston. South of Chattanooga, much of Wheeler’s Cavalry Corps remained at rest. Wharton’s Division at Rome was under orders to join Hill’s Corps upstream from Harrison, but it had not yet begun to move. Martin’s Division left Alexandria, Alabama, and marched to Gadsden, Wheeler’s headquarters. As for Walker’s Division, Wilson’s Brigade settled into camps around Chickamauga Station, while scattered regiments of Ector’s and Gist’s Brigades arrived during the day. Breckinridge’s leading unit, Adams’s Brigade, was north of Montgomery, while Stovall’s and Helm’s Brigades converged on that city by two routes, part via Mobile and part via Selma. While far better than marching, the rail movement was not without risk, according to Pvt. William Jones of the Forty-First Alabama Infantry regiment: “I will tell you of an awful occurrence that happened as we come a long on the cars. Jaret [Jarrott] Gray was on the top of the cars an fell off when it was running very fast an surposed it killed him. We havant hurd from him yet.”²⁸

By common practice in Rosecrans’s army, Sundays normally were days of rest, but 30 August was not a normal Sunday in the Tennessee River valley. The Confederates inexplicably had not opposed the initial crossing, but the advantage could be lost if Rosecrans did not consolidate his tenuous foothold by pushing more troops across the broad stream. Trusting McCook to expedite the flow of men over the Caperton’s Ferry bridge, Rosecrans, Garfield, and Sheridan departed for Bridgeport in the dummy in late morning. Behind them, McCook found the frail and narrow bridge to be a limiting factor. Already across the stream, Heg called forward his brigade trains and his two remaining regiments. The steep track up Sand Mountain proved to be another limiting factor, requiring infantrymen to assist the heavily loaded wagons up the mountain. By the end of the day, Heg’s command was united on the plateau at a crossroads five miles southeast of Caperton’s Ferry. Behind Heg, Carlin’s Second Brigade crossed the river during the morning but camped in the lush bottomlands east of the stream. Following Carlin, Post’s First Brigade left its camps west of the river and marched to the pontoon bridge. Arriving around 9:00 A.M., Post found a large cattle herd being driven across the bridge, a difficult task that took virtually all day. While waiting, some of Post’s men swam or bathed in the river, foraged in the surrounding countryside, or watered their mule teams in the river. Finally, around 4:00 P.M., the brigade took its turn on the swaying structure. Serenaded by the band of the Seventy-Fourth Illinois Infantry regiment, the soldiers managed to avoid being thrown from the undulating bridge. Once across, they too camped at the foot of Sand Mountain. Although Davis would report that his division reached the top of the mountain on 30 August, and McCook would repeat the claim, only Heg’s troops occupied the mountaintop at the end of the day. That night McCook ordered Johnson to move his Second Division across the bridge early the next morning, camping in the fields to be vacated by Davis’s troops.²⁹

While Caperton’s Ferry was significant in Rosecrans’s plan, the Bridgeport site was far more important to the success of the operation. Not only did Bridgeport offer direct railroad access to the river, it also facilitated the rapid reconstruction of the two massive railroad bridges critical to extending the campaign southward. Arriving at Bridgeport after the morning chill had dissipated, Rosecrans, Garfield, and Sheridan found thousands of men at work. Lytle’s and Bradley’s brigades, joined by two of Brannan’s regiments and a battalion of the First Michigan Engineers and Mechanics, were busily engaged in preparing timbers for a trestle bridge. To complete the trestle span and to bridge the narrower channel beyond Long Island, Rosecrans saw that far more pontoons would be required than the four already on hand. To facilitate the work from both shores simultaneously, Lytle had constructed a shaky footbridge across the narrow channel by utilizing the wreckage of the railroad drawbridge. He also ordered details to improve the bridge approaches and drive a road across Long Island. Intensely interested in the details of the work, Rosecrans crossed the river with Sheridan, who basked in the commanding general’s approval. Sheridan had promised a bridge at Bridgeport, but there was still much work to be done at the site. Although the river level was low, it was still “swimming deep” in places, making the arrival of the pontoons critical. Sheridan was also anxious to consolidate his division beyond the stream as rapidly as possible, so he requested the relief of Laibold’s Second Brigade from guard duty at Stevenson. Rosecrans agreed, and, before leaving Bridgeport, Garfield directed Thomas to relieve Laibold’s men. The army commander and his retinue departed Bridgeport in late afternoon, but Lytle kept most of the troops at their backbreaking labor well into the night. On the far shore, the bulk of the Second Michigan Cavalry regiment guarded the working parties, while Company M made a quick scout to Shell Mound before returning at dark.³⁰

Upstream at Battle Creek, Brannan was determined to get his division across the stream. His sole assets were a fifty-foot raft, two canoes, and two flat-bottomed skiffs. Van Derveer began the crossing with the Thirty-Fifth Ohio Infantry regiment, followed by the Eighty-Seventh Indiana Infantry regiment. With so few boats, the process was long and tedious. The large log raft in particular was an unstable platform, but it moved far more personnel than the smaller vessels. At some point Van Derveer and his son Harry crossed in one of the small boats. It was a sight never to be forgotten—the raft on the river, hundreds of men in frenetic activity, the swimming horses, and a regimental band playing onshore. Harry Van Derveer wanted to continue on the campaign, telling his mother, “I believe that school commences Monday. I would like to be there but then I like to be down here with Father.” During the afternoon, the Ninth Ohio Infantry regiment attempted to get its horses across the stream by loading the skiffs with twenty-five men, some of whom held long ropes attached to horses. Men onshore then forced the horses to jump into the stream and swim across the river guided by the ropes. One horse tried to jump from the bank directly into a boat, capsizing the skiff and dumping the infantrymen into water twelve feet deep. All were rescued, even the troublesome horse. Finally, in late afternoon the Second Minnesota Infantry regiment crossed without incident, leaving behind the brigade’s battery and most of its rations and baggage. Soldiers worked until past midnight to transfer some rations to the far shore, but it would take another day to make Van Derveer’s command ready for combat. Fortunately, patrols sent inland to the railroad discovered no Confederates. Brannan had hoped to cross more of the division before the day ended, but Connell’s First Brigade placed only two companies on the far shore before operations ceased. Nevertheless, at 7:15 P.M. Brannan reported to corps headquarters that Van Derveer was across and Connell would follow during the evening.³¹

Like Brannan, Reynolds itched to begin crossing the river. At 8:00 A.M. Reynolds informed Fourteenth Corps headquarters that he had ample means for crossing the river at Shell Mound. By capture or construction, Reynolds had collected seven flatboats and an eighth was nearly complete. With that flotilla, Reynolds estimated that he could move 400 men across the stream every hour. The boats could each move a wagon and team, permitting the crossing of a regiment’s train in thirty minutes. With no opposition nearby, Reynolds boasted that he could move the Fourth Division across the Tennessee at any time Rosecrans desired. Pending Rosecrans’s permission, Reynolds announced that he would send an expedition beyond the river toward Trenton, Georgia, that evening. Before Reynolds’s message reached corps headquarters at Bolivar, Thomas at 12:30 P.M. asked Reynolds if it was feasible to take the entire division beyond the stream. If so, Reynolds was to reduce baggage, cross with his troops and a few wagons, and send the remainder of his trains to Stevenson. There they would load enough supplies for twenty-five days and head to Bridgeport, where a bridge was expected to be completed soon. Reynolds responded positively at 2:30 P.M., and redirected his pending reconnaissance toward Chattanooga instead of Trenton. He planned to send most of King’s Second Brigade across the river that night to support the reconnaissance. At 4:55 P.M. Thomas authorized Reynolds to cross his entire division at Shell Mound as soon as possible. King immediately began preparations to cross the river in support of the Second Tennessee (Union) Cavalry regiment during the evening. Turchin’s Third Brigade was left at Jasper a while longer. There, Surgeon Josiah Cotton of the Ninety-Second Ohio Infantry regiment wrote his wife that the men’s morale had never been higher, especially since they were now free from George Crook. Turchin, with his European attitude toward foraging and his lax discipline, was much more to their liking, according to Cotton.³²

If most of his old brigade was delighted to be rid of him, Crook was equally glad to change commands. An infantryman by education and experience, he had traded places with Turchin at the end of July. According to Crook’s biographer, Stanley may have chosen Crook because they were both Ohioans and fellow graduates of the West Point class of 1852. At any rate, Crook on 30 August was participating in his first major operation as a cavalryman. On the previous day he had led the First and Third Ohio Cavalry regiments on a sweep along the shore from Hart’s Bar to Bridgeport and beyond to the top of Sand Mountain. After Long and the Second Kentucky Cavalry regiment arrived from Caperton’s Ferry, Crook early in the morning headed for the eastern slope of Sand Mountain. Descending into Lookout Valley, at 8:00 A.M. he burst into Trenton, county seat of Dade County. Trenton was also the terminus of the Wills Valley Railroad, a small company whose dream of connecting Wauhatchie, Tennessee, with Gadsden, Alabama, had been halted by the war. Grading was complete to Gadsden, but track had been laid only between Trenton and Wauhatchie, twenty miles to the north. Finding no opposition at Trenton, Crook scouted some distance along the track toward Wauhatchie. Again no opposition materialized, but prudence dictated caution, so the cavalrymen returned to Trenton. There the Federals procured some “groceries” and tobacco from local stores, then returned to the top of Sand Mountain and camped. Meanwhile, Capt. George Gotwald and a detail of twenty-eight men from Company E, Fourth Ohio Cavalry regiment, fruitlessly searched Sand Mountain for Crook and Long. Dispatched by Stanley with an order for Crook, Gotwald asked everyone he saw along the way from the river to Moore’s Spring and beyond for Crook’s location, but was rebuffed. He returned across the river, chagrinned to report his failure, but he had at least gained useful information on the roads crossing Sand Mountain into Lookout Valley.³³

Although the crossings below Chattanooga were at a delicate stage, Rosecrans’s deception force made no special effort to distract watching Confederates. In Wilder’s command most soldiers relaxed in camp. In keeping with the day, Chaplain Safety Layton of the Seventeenth Indiana Mounted Infantry regiment preached in a local meetinghouse to congregants from several regiments. Pvt. Alva Griest of the Seventy-Second Indiana Mounted Infantry found his peaceful Sunday disturbed by stomach pains caused by too much cobbler and by hordes of mosquitos infesting the river bottom. In the Eighteenth Indiana Battery, Lilly again dispatched a detail over Walden’s Ridge to acquire more ammunition from the Tracy City railhead. For Wilder’s men, the big news was the presence of William Crutchfield, prominent member of the family that formerly owned Chattanooga’s premier hotel. Crutchfield had been a Federal spy since the fall of 1861, and, although no longer associated with the hotel, he and his brother Thomas had continued to observe Confederate activity, which William passed to the Federals from his farm on the river north of town. As Confederate suspicions grew, William Crutchfield crossed the river during the evening of 29–30 August. During the day Wilder made an extensive visual reconnaissance of the Confederate works at Friar’s Island, six river miles above Chattanooga. Atop Walden’s Ridge, Wagner’s command also quietly observed the panorama spread below them. Capt. John McGraw of the Fifty-Seventh Indiana Infantry regiment improved the time by writing his wife, Mary Ann, enclosing three flowers he had picked on the mountaintop. There was a little more activity upstream, where Hazen sent some of Funkhouser’s men to the river at Harrison’s Ferry. There they exchanged shots with Confederate pickets, losing one man wounded. Most of Hazen’s men spent the day participating in a grand review. The event was attended by more than 300 Unionist citizens, some of whom waved crude, homemade national colors.³⁴

The Crutchfield House hotel, Chattanooga, Tennessee. (Chattanooga Public Library)

Away from the river, Sunday, 30 August, was a quiet day, especially for the Twenty-First Corps. Around Therman, Wood’s First Division remained at ease, while Palmer’s Second Division at Dunlap broke the routine with church services and much letter writing. The religious gatherings drew large numbers of enthusiastic civilians. Mail service into the Sequatchie Valley finally had become regularized, offering the soldiers the opportunity to correspond more frequently with loved ones and friends. In the Eighty-Fourth Illinois Infantry regiment, Pvt. Willis Jones sent his daughter Mellunda Ann some seeds that he had collected. At Pikeville, Van Cleve’s Third Division welcomed the battalion of the Third Indiana Cavalry regiment, which arrived during the day from beyond the Cumberland Plateau. Although the unit belonged to Minty’s command, Van Cleve planned to use it to establish a better link with Burnside. Having finally amassed enough rations to last sixteen days, he nevertheless dispatched another supply train over the mountains to McMinnville. In contrast to the Twenty-First Corps, McCook’s Twentieth Corps was mostly in motion on 30 August. With Davis’s First Division consolidating beyond the Tennessee, and Johnson’s Second Division marching to Crow Creek from Bellefonte, only Laibold’s brigade of Sheridan’s Third Division was stationary at Stevenson. Likewise, in Thomas’s corps, only Baird’s First and Negley’s Second Divisions remained in their camps in Crow Creek valley. For them, 30 August was also a day of dress parades, inspections, and preaching by regimental chaplains or representatives of the Christian Commission. Still, on this peaceful Sunday, death continued to stalk the camps. In the Eleventh Michigan Infantry regiment of Stanley’s brigade, Pvt. Joseph Shranger of Company E died suddenly and was buried before sunset. In the Seventy-Ninth Pennsylvania Infantry regiment in Baird’s division, Pvt. Jacob Ostrander was notified that his wife, Esther, daughter Agnes, and a sister-in-law had drowned in the Monongahela River.³⁵

There was more activity on the army’s right and rear. While Edward McCook personally reconnoitered a ford near Bellefonte, his staff ordered Watkins’s Third Brigade to leave Maysville, Alabama, for Larkinsville, McCook’s headquarters. At Larkinsville, McCook’s old Second Brigade, commanded by Col. Oscar LaGrange, spent the day idly racing horses in camp or attending church services in town. Those elements of Campbell’s First Brigade not already across the river remained stretched along it on both sides of Stevenson. To fill the void left by the eastward movement of Watkins’s command, Morgan’s Second Division of the Reserve Corps continued its leisurely advance from Middle Tennessee into northern Alabama. Granger ordered Morgan to march from Athens to Huntsville with Tillson’s First Brigade. Far behind Tillson was Daniel McCook’s Second Brigade, which was just departing Columbia, Tennessee. Leaving a regiment to garrison Columbia, McCook led the remainder of his brigade southward along the line of the damaged Nashville & Decatur Railroad. As he advanced, McCook discovered growing hostility among civilians and an equal propensity for marauding among his men. When he halted for the night at the hamlet of Lynnville, seventeen miles south of Columbia, he ordered another public reading of his standard order against marauding. He also counseled the local citizenry against the random shots from concealment hated by the troops as “bushwhacking.” He also established a strong security perimeter around his camp. In more secure areas such as Shelbyville, Wartrace, Tullahoma, Fosterville, and Estill Springs, Steedman’s First Division had no need for such drastic precautions. Nevertheless, they remained alert as they guarded the army’s Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad lifeline. In the 115th Illinois Infantry regiment at Fosterville, the weekly religious service became a funeral sermon for Musician Amos Wilson, who had died on the previous day. Otherwise, the day was quiet along the lines of communication.³⁶

Energized by his visit to Bridgeport, Rosecrans spent the evening dispatching a flurry of orders to maintain the army’s forward momentum. Rosecrans first wrote Crittenden a vague note ordering him to “move down secretly and quietly, leaving front as at present,” and warning him that detailed instructions would soon arrive in cipher. Drafted by Garfield at 10:00 P.M. but delayed by the encryption process, the instructions left headquarters well after midnight. They directed Crittenden to move down the Sequatchie Valley and cross the river at Shell Mound, Battle Creek, or Bridgeport. Crittenden’s wagons were to cross the river via the bridge being constructed at Bridgeport. Crittenden was to leave Hazen, Wagner, Wilder, and Minty in place to maintain the fiction of a pending crossing north of Chattanooga. Garfield explained that Rosecrans expected the Confederates to withdraw from the city and he forecast a battle somewhere between Dalton and Atlanta. Should the Confederates depart, Hazen and Wagner were to cross the river and occupy Chattanooga. At the same time Garfield also wrote to Granger and Morgan. To Granger he indicated that Rosecrans no longer was concerned about the town of Carthage in the army’s rear. Instead, he wanted Daniel McCook’s brigade to accelerate its movements so as to protect the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. Further, Steedman should relieve the regiment garrisoning Cowan so it could rejoin its parent unit. Morgan received specific instructions to advance beyond Huntsville to the Memphis & Charleston Railroad’s Flint River bridge and rebuild it. In a note to Samuel Simmons, Garfield gently warned the army’s chief commissary that “the General Commanding thinks you ought to be here.” Garfield directed Thomas retain King’s Third Brigade to guard the railroad until Dan McCook’s troops arrived. Finally, Garfield notified Lytle that a train carrying pontoons would arrive at Bridgeport at 11:00 P.M., and a quick return to Stevenson was needed.³⁷

Other staff officers were busy Sunday night fleshing out Rosecrans’s vision with detailed instructions and queries. Goddard reinforced Garfield’s messages to Simmons and Morgan. With the Nashville & Decatur Railroad still severed in several places, Morgan would have to be supplied from Stevenson via the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, and that road, too, was broken at the Flint River bridge. Simmons was to create a supply point for Morgan at the bridge until the span could be reconstructed. Goddard also sought to expedite the advance of the Sixty-Ninth Ohio Infantry regiment from Cowan, where it guarded a camp of several hundred convalescent soldiers. The Sixty-Ninth, which belonged to Stanley’s Second Brigade of Negley’s division, had been left behind when the Fourteenth Corps crossed the Cumberland Plateau in mid-August. Now it was needed at the front, but McCook’s Reserve Corps brigade would be slow to arrive, so Goddard inquired if the convalescent soldiers were armed. Like Garfield, Bond wrote to Simmons counseling him to come to Stevenson. In addition, Bond instructed Stanley to see that the difficult ford at Hart’s Bar was properly marked. Crook and Long had lost several men during their original crossing, so proper marking of the passage for their return was important. Similarly, Thoms ordered Lytle to mark the ford at the north end of Long Island and improve its approaches. Thoms also queried Lytle about the amount of flooring being stockpiled at Bridgeport for the bridge. Finally, staff engineer Burroughs instructed O’Connell to move the Pioneer Brigade to Bridgeport to assist in the bridging efforts there. Although signed by staff officers, these messages were essentially generated by Rosecrans in the hours before midnight. As such, they clearly reflected his management style. On the positive side, Rosecrans’s grasp of detail was remarkable in breadth of knowledge and span of control. Negatively, that same attention to detail placed on display Rosecrans’s worrisome tendency toward what would today be called micromanagement.³⁸

The lights burning late in the “Little Brick” on the edge of Stevenson were matched elsewhere on Sunday night. North of Stevenson there was turmoil in Negley’s Second Division. Garfield in late morning had ordered Thomas to send a division to Stevenson to relieve Laibold’s command, which would then join Sheridan at Bridgeport. Thomas passed the word to Negley, who ordered his three brigades to strike their tents and pack their baggage, a process that continued beyond sunset. Suddenly the order was modified to include only Beatty’s First Brigade. Beatty’s men began to move at 9:00 P.M., and did not settle into camp at Stevenson until midnight. Negley’s remaining brigades spent an uncomfortable night without the tents and camp gear they had so carefully packed for travel. At Bridgeport a detail from the Twenty-Fourth Wisconsin Infantry regiment of Lytle’s brigade worked all night unloading pontoons from railroad cars. Lytle himself was vexed by the train conductor, who adamantly refused to return to Stevenson immediately for another load of pontoons. Instead, the conductor held his train at Bridgeport until the next day. At Shell Mound others also worked in the darkness. There King orchestrated the crossing of his Second Brigade and the Second Tennessee (Union) Cavalry regiment to the east side of the river. Reynolds’s plan called for Daniel Ray’s cavalrymen to probe through Running Water Canyon into Lookout Valley toward Chattanooga. King’s infantry would support Ray by advancing to the wrecked railroad bridge over Running Water Creek near the hamlet of Whiteside. If Ray found more Confederates than he could handle, King could cover his withdrawal to Shell Mound. In any case, Reynolds did not want King to return to the Federal side of the river. Crossing first, Ray’s 375 horsemen at 10:30 P.M. moved cautiously toward the dark confines of Running Water Canyon. Behind them, King supervised the crossing of his command. By midnight he had gathered a formidable striking force east of the river, and it too took the narrow, rocky road into the mountains.³⁹

By midnight on 30 August, Rosecrans believed his campaign was proceeding according to plan. He had placed five infantry brigades and five cavalry regiments east of the Tennessee River without opposition. From the Sequatchie Valley to Caperton’s Ferry, friendly civilians and deserting soldiers reported deteriorating Confederate morale and predicted that Bragg would abandon Chattanooga. Recorded in Capt. David Swaim’s intelligence log, these reports clearly colored Rosecrans’s thinking. In a message to Burnside, he described his plan to outflank Bragg’s army on its left. Noting that Bragg might withdraw beyond Dalton, Rosecrans told Burnside, “Our present indications are that he will retreat towards Atlanta.” He warned Burnside that the Twenty-First Corps would be moving southward and that Burnside should extend his cavalry in the same direction. Rosecrans’s nightly report to the War Department also forecast the future course of the campaign: “The rebs will probably evacuate Chattanooga on hearing we are crossing and take the line of the Georgia R. R. from Ringgold south.” In a letter to his wife, he once more predicted Bragg’s response: “The indications are that they will retire towards Atlanta.” After noting that their son Adrian Louis was still in camp, Rosecrans admitted, “The next three weeks will be an arduous campaign.” Had he known that on that very day a spy was ordered to join his entourage, Rosecrans’s thoughts would have been quite different. In Washington, Secretary of War Stanton had directed Assistant Secretary Charles Dana to join Rosecrans’s command. Stanton’s letter of introduction, dated 30 August, stated that Dana “visits your command for the purpose of conferring with you upon any matters which you desire to have brought to the notice of this Department.” It would be some time before Dana arrived, and even longer for his true mission to be revealed, but Dana’s visit would ultimately play a pivotal role in Rosecrans’s career.⁴⁰

The vague reports of Federal activity east of the river notwithstanding, Bragg on 30 August remained focused on Buckner’s precarious position at Loudon. If Rosecrans were to throw a heavy force across the river between Chattanooga and Loudon while Burnside drove toward Knoxville, Buckner could be trapped before Bragg could intervene. Therefore the first order of business that Sunday was to order Buckner to abandon Loudon and withdraw nearer to Chattanooga. Accordingly, Mackall drafted an order for Buckner to retreat forty-two miles to Charleston. Located on the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad just below the Hiwassee River, Charleston offered an easily defended river line and a linkage with the right flank of Hill’s defenses around Blythe’s Ferry. Mackall instructed Buckner also to withdraw the Cumberland Gap garrison and bring it along, unless Federal movements interposed. If such proved to be the case, Frazer’s contingent should retreat eastward. Finally Buckner was to withdraw all bridge guards north of Charleston, as the railroad was useless beyond that point. Buckner was not to destroy the massive railroad bridge at Loudon until absolutely necessary; instead, he was to remove all railroad rolling stock to Charleston. While Mackall wrote to Buckner, Brent wrote to Hill, telling him that Hindman’s Division was moving to his support. Further, Brent told Liddell at Chickamauga Station to be prepared to support Hill if called upon. As the day progressed, nothing further arrived from Buckner, but a report from beyond Lookout Mountain indicated that Federal cavalry was operating around Trenton and approaching Wauhatchie. Although Brent believed that the force was “probably not large,” the new information caused Bragg to revise his instructions to Wharton’s cavalry camped at Rome and Calhoun, Georgia. Earlier, Wharton had been told to move his division to join Hill north of Chattanooga; now he was to halt at LaFayette and picket the routes over Lookout Mountain.⁴¹

Although army headquarters did not yet consider it significant, Crook’s surprise visit to Trenton and his probe toward Wauhatchie caused more activity beyond Lookout Mountain than simply a redirection of Wharton’s destination. Around the middle of the day, when news of Crook’s approach reached Chattanooga, Brent suggested that Polk withdraw his pickets to the junction of the Nashville & Chattanooga and Wills Valley Railroads. Polk responded baldly, “Any troops which may be beyond Lookout Creek are reporting directly to army headquarters, and are not under my control.” Queried further, Polk reiterated that if Bragg wanted the regiment beyond Lookout Mountain, the Twenty-Eighth Alabama Infantry, to be relieved, he would have to authorize it. At the same time, Polk appealed for the relief of the regiment picketing the river (probably the Twenty-Fifth Alabama of Deas’s Brigade, another of Hindman’s units) and the Thirty-Fourth Alabama Infantry regiment from Manigault’s command, serving as the Chattanooga provost guard. With Hindman’s Division already in motion to join Hill at Harrison, Polk proposed to replace the three regiments with units from Cheatham’s Division, camped just south of Chattanooga. Accepting Polk’s logic, Brent approved the change, and Polk immediately instructed Cheatham to use Smith’s Brigade. When the orders reached Smith, he sent the consolidated Twelfth/Forty-Seventh Tennessee Infantry regiment beyond the nose of Lookout Mountain into Lookout Valley and edged his remaining regiments closer to the mountain. The relief came too late in the day for the Twenty-Eighth Alabama to join its parent brigade, so it did not race to follow Hindman’s Division tramping toward the Tennessee River above Chattanooga. Ultimately, the only effect of the shuffling of units was to transfer the responsibility for guarding the western approach to Chattanooga from Hindman to Cheatham, while Bragg remained focused on bolstering Hill’s defenses on the army’s right. Meanwhile, word of the Federal probe spread in Cheatham’s Division.⁴²

Except for the movements of Smith’s and Hindman’s commands, it was an especially quiet Sunday for the troops in Bragg’s army. Although they were occasionally visible, Federals on the far side of the Tennessee River did little to attract attention. The profound lull led a few individuals to predict that any significant Federal crossing would occur below Chattanooga rather than above. After surveying the far shore from a battery in town, Capt. John Harris wrote to his mother, “The river only now separates us. I don’t think the force there is a very large one though for I believe that the larger portion intend crossing somewhere below here.” In the Daily Rebel, Henry Watterson advanced the same idea, quoting a “man from across the river” who said that only a small force of Federals faced the town. Upstream, Cleburne surveyed his thirty-mile front and concluded that if the Federal army attempted a crossing in his sector, he could not concentrate quickly enough to repulse them successfully. Cleburne recommended that Hill shorten the division’s frontage and identify concentration points before they were needed. Having already lost Stewart’s Division, Hill could do little until Hindman arrived from McFarland’s Spring and the divisions coming from Mississippi could reconstitute themselves. Of those reinforcements, several more regiments from Ector’s and Gist’s Brigades of Walker’s Division arrived at Chickamauga Station during the day. Still, in Walker’s Division only Claudius Wilson’s Brigade was fully formed, and it had suffered large losses during the trip as hundreds of men took unauthorized leave to visit their homes. Scattered on trains and steamboats on both sides of Montgomery, Alabama, most of Breckinridge’s Division was far south of Atlanta. At Chickamauga Station, Liddell’s Reserve Division continued to guard the army’s supply depot. There the men cooked three days’ rations in preparation for a move and continued religious meetings of various kinds, including a baptismal ceremony for eleven men in Govan’s Brigade.⁴³

Bragg’s decision to order Buckner to retreat more than forty miles to Charleston was the largest significant action he took on 30 August. Upon receiving the order Buckner was in a quandary: Should he burn the bridges along the way, should he destroy the steamboats in the Tennessee River, and, most important of all, were Bragg’s instructions genuine? To authenticate the order, Buckner asked that the answers to his other questions be partially encrypted. While awaiting a response, he arranged for the southward movement of Preston’s and Stewart’s Divisions, two artillery battalions, Pegram’s cavalry, and his supply trains. Clayton’s Brigade, just arriving by rail, was sent back to Charleston without debarking. After unloading Clayton’s men, the trains were to return to Loudon for Bate’s Brigade, and eventually Brown’s. Stewart had brought no wagons with him, or any artillery, thereby simplifying the move but precipitating a bureaucratic struggle with Hill over the absent wagons. Stewart’s fourth brigade, Johnson’s, which had already traveled between Loudon and Charleston several times, was assigned to lead Buckner’s main column. A circular from corps headquarters established the order of march: Johnson’s Brigade and a battery; a herd of beef cattle; a regiment, battery, and the engineer company; the supply, ammunition, and ambulance trains; Preston’s Division with Leyden’s and Williams’s Artillery Battalions; and finally, McMahon’s Brigade of Preston’s Division serving as rear guard. Johnson, whose wagons had just reached him, moved promptly on the familiar road to Charleston, but the remainder of Buckner’s command was slow to start. As darkness fell, Trigg’s Brigade finally departed Loudon in Johnson’s wake, but Gracie’s Brigade did not leave until the following day. McMahon’s rear guard only made four miles, from Lenoir Station north of the river to the south bank at Loudon. The trains returned from Charleston for Bate’s Brigade of Stewart’s Division, but Brown’s Brigade would also have to remain at Loudon overnight.⁴⁴

Buckner next turned to the remnants of his command remaining north of the Tennessee River. Originally placed under Forrest, Pegram was now instructed to concentrate at Lenoir Station to cover Buckner’s rear. When Forrest proposed to strike one of Burnside’s columns, Buckner dismissed the proposal as being too late. Instead, he wanted Forrest to withdraw from Kingston to the Hiwassee River line, where he would link Buckner’s and Hill’s troops. As for his last remaining units, Buckner instructed Jackson to withdraw his railroad guards toward Bristol, and Frazer to abandon Cumberland Gap and head for Abingdon. At 9:30 P.M. Buckner informed Mackall that he was preserving the Loudon bridge for the moment and sending his steamboats down to the Hiwassee. Shortly thereafter, he received word from Frazer that he believed he could maintain his position for at least forty days. Intrigued but unwilling to modify Bragg’s instructions unilaterally, Buckner at 11:00 P.M. suggested to army headquarters that the Cumberland Gap decision be reconsidered. Pending a response, he wired Frazer to remain in place for another day. For Buckner, abandoning Knoxville and the railroad to Virginia was one thing, but opening the historic passage between Kentucky and Virginia for Federal exploitation was quite another. Once lost, Cumberland Gap might be impossible to regain, and Buckner shrank from taking what might be an irrevocable step. Concern for Buckner’s situation already had occupied Bragg’s attention for several days, and Buckner’s call to revisit the Cumberland Gap issue would ensure that Bragg’s focus on his far right flank would continue a while longer. Given what was transpiring below Chattanooga, any concern for Cumberland Gap at such a time ultimately would prove to be misplaced. Bragg, however, could only respond to the information he had, and on 30 August the preponderance of information came from Buckner, not from scattered cavalrymen in Lookout Valley.⁴⁵