Twenty-four hours after the affair described in the last chapter, the Riverlawns rode into Huntsville, bringing with them their last prisoners and their horses. They found that the larger portion of the Union cavalry had already arrived, and prisoners, horses, and negroes ready to flee to the North, were numerous.
"You have done remarkably well, Major Lyon," said the general in command, on receiving Deck's report. "I doubt if any of our forces have done better," and with this compliment the youthful commander was dismissed.
The stop in Huntsville did not last long, some of the cavalry leaving on the same night that the Riverlawns came in. By a pre-arranged plan the Union forces spread out into a large semicircle when on their way northward, and they came home with about three hundred prisoners, sixteen hundred horses and mules, and a thousand head of cattle, sheep, and pigs. On the return, the Riverlawns encountered but one body of the enemy, less than fifteen in number, and these fled at the first sight of the Unionists. About six hundred negroes joined the army on its northward movement, and thus escaped to the free States, much to their own satisfaction.
General Bragg, accompanied by Wheeler's cavalry force, had escaped to Chattanooga, and it was thought by some that General Rosecrans ought to pursue the enemy without delay. But there were great difficulties in the way. The enemy had torn up the railroads, the Army of the Cumberland, despite such raids as the one just mentioned, was short of rations and forage, and the commanding general felt that he must have support for his flanks ere braving the river and the mountain gaps, which he felt the Confederates would hold as long as possible.
To thoroughly understand the situation, the reader must remember that between the Union army and Chattanooga lay the lofty Cumberland Mountains, washed on either side by the waters of the Elk and the Tennessee rivers. To the northward the mountains were rugged and but poorly wooded; to the southward they were partly broken up by the Sequatchie River, flowing through the valley of that name, nearly fifty miles long, a valley much broken in spots.
Behind this great barrier Bragg felt, for a time at least, safe, and he utilized each hour in adding to his troops, men being forced into the Southern army wherever and whenever they could be found. The soldiers were poorly clothed and scantily fed, and some of the cavalry were mounted on mules. The firearms were of various sorts, English and Belgian weapons being quite common.
It was not until the 16th of August that the Army of the Cumberland began that momentous advance which will ever be remembered in the annals of history. In the meantime, railroads had been repaired, the artillery had been equipped with extra heavy harness for the horses, boats on the rivers had been put in good condition, and, equally important, the corn had ripened in sunny spots and been gathered in by the army quartermasters. The loss of their crop of corn caused many a heartburning among the farmers of this section of our country, but the confiscation was one of actual necessity; and, wherever such a course seemed just, payments were made for what was taken.
Twice had Rosecrans defeated the enemy by turning his flank. Now, with the mountains between himself and Bragg's front, there seemed nothing to do but to try the trick again. But the movement must be well planned and well executed, or the enemy would immediately become aware of what was going on, and make a move that would upset all the Union commander's calculations.
As has been said, the mountains to the northward were high and rugged; to the southward, they were broken up by a long valley, a river, and several small creeks. To turn the enemy's right would, therefore, require a long and arduous journey through a country almost barren. Rosecrans resolved to make his real movement to the left; that is, to the southward of Chattanooga. And the first act in the great drama was to hoodwink Bragg into believing that he was coming around by the mountain paths to the north.
Carrying with them ammunition enough for two great battles, and rations for twenty-five days, the forward movement began by throwing Crittenden's corps over the Cumberland Mountains and Walden's Ridge into the Tennessee Valley, directly opposite and to the north of Chattanooga. The corps moved from Hillsboro, Manchester, and McMinnville, and when in the Tennessee Valley were joined by Wilder's brigade of mounted infantry,—a portion of the fourteenth corps. To these bodies were added Minty's cavalry, which, riding on the left, through Sparta and Pikeville, operated along the river for twenty-eight miles above Blythe's Ferry.