Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[201] McCook to leave on the Tennessee only such posts as are strictly necessary, and to move the rest of his division through Jasper to Anderson, where General Robert B. Mitchell, commander-in-chief of the Federal cavalry, is to meet him. McCook starts with Colonel La Grange's brigade, stationed at Bridgeport; Colonel Campbell's brigade, encamped farther down, will follow McCook; and the third, under Colonel Watkins, will do the duty formerly assigned to the entire division. But the weather is fearful. McCook, who got in late at Jasper, wishes to allow Campbelltime to join him during the night; Campbell, likewise belated, does not appear, and, after having thus lost precious time, McCook, with a single brigade, at the break of day resumes his march in the direction of Anderson. Crook has experienced a like mischance: after bivouacking on the top of Walden's Ridge, he saw Miller appear only on the 2d, in the morning. Wheeler, on the contrary, marched throughout the night from September 30th to October 1st, so that in the forenoon of that date he reaches Pikeville, on the banks of the Sequatchie, near which he allows his men and horses a well-earned rest. He is about five miles ahead of Crook, and will know how to avail himself of this advantage. In the night of the 1st-2d, Wharton, with his division (Davidson's), the baggage-wagons, as well as the lame men and horses, toils up the eastern slopes of the Cumberland Mountains and takes the direct road to McMinnville, where the Federals have considerable depots which contribute to the supplying of Chattanooga by the way of Anderson.

During this time, Wheeler, firmly believing that Crook will start in pursuit of the principal corps, takes with him a body of fifteen hundred horse belonging to Martin's division, and rapidly descends the Sequatchie Valley in the direction of Anderson. After having captured, on the way, about thirty United States wagons, he gains at last that much-coveted point, and the joy of the Confederate cavalry may be imagined when they discover on the road to the south of the village the enemy's wagons, whose white covers in the distance form, as far as the eye can reach on the damp plains, something like a long chaplet of pearls. The escort is easily dispersed, and while a portion of the force remain under arms at the north of the village, the rest burn the wagons