Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/270

 force was landed first, to capture the rebel pickets, which was smartly done, an officer and twenty men being taken and only one escaping. The rest of the brigade was next put ashore above and below the mouth. Then the pontoons, a ferryboat, and another steamboat commenced the transfer of the troops from the opposite bank, and by daylight fully 8000 men and one battery had been brought over and were well intrenched. The work of laying the two pontoon-bridges over the Tennessee and Chickamauga was commenced, and pushed so energetically that both were completed within less than seven hours, notwithstanding the powerful current from the high stage of water. Long's brigade of cavalry, which was to make a dash on the enemy's communications, had passed over the bridge by three o'clock. It succeeded in reaching and burning Tyner's Station, on the Chattanooga and Cleveland railroad, destroying the track and capturing one hundred wagons and two hundred prisoners. Another noteworthy exploit was the seizure, immediately after effecting a landing, of a number of torpedo rafts in the Chickamauga, which the rebels were about to send down the Tennessee for the destruction of our bridges.

General Sherman and staff passed over the bridge directly after the last pontoon was put in, and were gratified to be met on the left bank by General Howard, who had come up along it unopposed, with Buschbeck's brigade of Steinwehr's division, in order to open communication be tween his corps (the extreme left of Thomas) and the Fifteenth Corps. General Howard rode back to his command, but, at the request of General Sherman, left the brigade with him, and it shared the experiences of the Fifteenth Corps.

By noon, Blair's three divisions, with all their artillery and everything else, were on the left bank, and Davis's division was waiting at the east end of the bridge to follow the cavalry. At one o'clock, the march from the river towards Missionary Ridge commenced en échelon, with M.