Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/101

 Hindman, Hill's of Cleburne's and Breckinridge's divisions, and Walker's of two small divisions under Brigadier-Generals Gist and Liddell, about Chattanooga, and 8000 under Buckner made up of Preston's and Stewart's divisions in East Tennessee. On these figures he based a strong appeal for reinforcements, which were sent to him at once to the extent of two small divisions from General J. E. Johnston's command in Mississippi. He had the unpleasant duty of announcing, in the above-mentioned despatch, that a Federal force had appeared directly opposite Chattanooga on the day mentioned (this being the advance of the four brigades detached from the Twenty-first Army Corps) and shelled the town. Their sudden appearance was evidently a stunning surprise to him. He was deceived as to their strength, and spoke of them in his report as a “corps” when they hardly numbered 2000 men. Their nearness irritated him so much that, when he was sure that they were isolated from the rest of Rosecrans's army, he formed a plan to capture or destroy them by a coup de main, to be executed by a sudden rush over the river by Hill's corps. Some preparations were made to carry out this plan, but nothing came of it in the end.

Directly in the way of the Army of the Cumberland there rose on the south side of the Tennessee, running in a north easterly direction to the vicinity of Chattanooga, two great mountain ranges, the one nearest to the river being known as Sand Mountain and the other as Lookout Mountain. They are separated by a narrow valley down which Lookout Creek flows into the Tennessee. The sides of Sand Mountain, with a maximum altitude of over 2000 feet, rise so abruptly that no road is practicable along its base except for a few miles; but a few very difficult roads lead over it and into Lookout Valley. Lookout Mountain, a great rocky mass, reaches a height of nearly 2500 feet above the level of the sea, and also declines very steeply on both sides. There were then but three wagon-roads over it — one around its precipitous abutment on the river two miles from Chattanooga, another at a distance of twenty-five miles from the