Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/99

 made the movement to the river an arduous undertaking. The Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad had been repaired to Bridgeport on the Tennessee, but to transport the army, with its artillery and baggage, ammunition, provision, and forage trains, over its single track with the limited motive-power and rolling-stock available would have required many weeks. The troops had, therefore, to use the ordinary roads over the mountains, which, as a rule, were narrow, extremely rough, and difficult in grade. Their precarious character rendered it further necessary to utilize as many of them as possible.

The configuration of the country and the lines of communication were such that General Rosecrans had the sole choice of approaching Chattanooga either by an eastward movement to the Tennessee and thence down the valley, or of making for the river to the west of the objective-point by way of the Sequatchie and the more direct routes to Bridgeport, Stevenson, and other points on the north bank. As the former course would have had to be made over fewer roads, and would have exposed our lines of communication and possibly invited another rebel invasion of middle Tennessee, the Commander-in-chief determined upon the latter movement. In order to mislead the enemy as to his real purpose, a direct advance was to be undertaken by part of his forces from the Sequatchie over Walden's Ridge to points opposite and above Chattanooga. Accordingly, the three divisions of Crittenden's Twenty-first Army Corps, forming the left, crossed the main ridge of the Cumberland Mountains in three columns, over as many roads, into the Sequatchie Valley. Thence the infantry brigades of Hazen and Wagner, together with Minty's and Wilder's mounted ones, were detached for the diversion against Chattanooga, while the remainder of the corps marched down the Sequatchie. General Thomas's Fourteenth Army Corps, constituting the centre, took the so-called University and Tantallon roads leading to the mouth of Battle Creek and to near Stevenson. Of McCook's Twentieth Army Corps,