Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/240

 which started on the night of October 24 from Chattanooga to join him by way of Rankin's Ferry.

Hooker's troops were ordered to move without wagons, with three days rations and forage, and sixty rounds on their persons. They passed directly over and crossed the Tennessee from Bridgeport by a pontoon bridge, with Steinwehr's division in the lead, and followed the road along the base of Sand Mountain to Shellmound, where they entered the valley of Running Water Creek, up which they marched to Whiteside, where they went into camp late in the evening. The next morning, the column continued up Running Water Creek to the watershed, and descended through the gorge into the Lookout Valley. It pushed on as far as Wauhatchie without meeting any opposition; but, a short distance from that place, near the junction of the Brown's Ferry and Chattanooga road, the cavalry advance suddenly received fire from rebels concealed in the underbrush on a hill close to the road. The column halted and a brigade was deployed to the left and another to the right of the location of the rebels, in order to cut them off; but the enemy fled across Lookout Creek and set fire to the railroad bridge over it. Resuming the march, our troops became exposed to the fire of the batteries on Lookout Mountain, which commanded that part of the valley; but the shells they threw did no injury. Between four and five, the mouth of Lookout Valley was reached and a junction effected below it by Howard with the command of General Hazen. The Eleventh Corps went into camp less than a mile from Brown's Ferry, with its left resting on the ridge occupied by Hazen, and its right at the base of Raccoon Mountain. Geary's division was directed to encamp near Wauhatchie, three miles from the Twelfth Corps, in a position covering the two roads leading from Lookout Valley to Kelley's Ferry, the first below Brown's.

We had lost but a few men so far, but the enemy did not intend to yield the position of Lookout Valley so easily. They had observed the division of Hooker's force and