Blissfully unaware of the thousands of Confederate soldiers boarding trains in Virginia for the Tennessee front, Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans spent the morning of September 9 issuing instructions that sent the Army of the Cumberland in vigorous pursuit of its seemingly demoralized and fleeing foe. His first message, written at 8:00 a.m., went to Maj. Gen. Thomas L. Crittenden, commanding the XXI Corps, who was even then pushing hard toward Chattanooga with Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Wood’s division. Anticipating the capture of the city, Rosecrans directed the XXI Corps commander to leave a single brigade as garrison while pursuing Bragg’s Army of Tennessee in the direction of Ringgold and Dalton, Ga. Knowing Crittenden well, Rosecrans explicitly stated what he wanted done and how Crittenden was to do it. An hour later, Rosecrans sent a somewhat less prescriptive message to Maj. Gen. Alexander McCook at Valley Head, Ala. McCook was to lead his entire XX Corps beyond Lookout Mountain toward Alpine and Summerville, Ga., in an effort to strike the flank of Bragg’s retreating forces. While Crittenden specifically had been instructed to protect his trains, McCook was told not to wait for his wagons and those of Maj. Gen. David S. Stanley’s Cavalry Corps, because celerity of movement was desired. McCook, however, was to keep in touch with Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas’ XIV Corps operating to McCook’s north. Half an hour after giving McCook his marching orders, Rosecrans dispatched instructions to Stanley’s cavalry. After explaining the objectives of the three infantry corps, the army commander essentially freed Stanley to chart his own course of action. Rosecrans required only that the cavalry cover the army’s right flank; if Stanley chose to move toward Rome, Ga., he was welcome to do so as long as he hurt the enemy. Finally, at 10:00 a.m., Rosecrans completed the round of instructions with a terse message to George Thomas. The XIV Corps was to drive toward La Fayette, Ga., and, like the XX Corps, strike the flank of Bragg’s retreating army if it could be found.5

Prompt execution of the orders emanating from army headquarters at Trenton, Ga., depended upon the distance to the recipient. By the time Rosecrans’ detailed instructions reached him at 2:15 p.m. on the 9th, Crittenden had already entered Chattanooga. Satisfied that the Confederates had gone, he ordered Wood’s division to secure the city and sent the remainder of his corps toward Ringgold. By the end of the day, the divisions of Maj. Gen. John M. Palmer and Brig. Gen. Horatio P. Van Cleve were in Rossville at the western foot of Missionary Ridge, having bypassed Chattanooga. During the afternoon Col. Smith D. Atkins’ 92nd Illinois Mounted Infantry rode north toward Friar’s Island on the Tennessee River, where they found two regiments of Col. John T. Wilder’s mounted brigade crossing to the east bank. South of Trenton, George Thomas’ XIV Corps was slower to respond. The leading element, Maj. Gen. James S. Negley’s division, did not receive the pursuit order until after nightfall. Already under orders to descend Lookout Mountain into McLemore’s Cove, the division consolidated at the foot of the mountain by late afternoon and probed beyond Bailey’s Crossroads to the crest of Missionary Ridge. Negley’s men encountered only videttes from the 51st Alabama Cavalry, but friendly citizens indicated that larger Confederate forces were gathering at Dug Gap on the other side of the cove. Behind Negley, no XIV Corps units moved forward appreciably on September 9. A similar situation existed in Alex McCook’s sector south of Thomas. McCook himself did not receive Rosecrans’ pursuit order until 6:00 p.m. Operating under previous instructions, Brig. Gen. Jefferson C. Davis took two brigades down Lookout Mountain into Broomtown Valley to support a cavalry probe but no other infantrymen stirred from their camps. The reconnaissance by David Stanley’s cavalry precipitated a stiff fight at Alpine, Ga., which was won by the Federals at a cost of 14 killed and wounded.

It did not, however, generate any new information on the location or intentions of Bragg’s army.6

Rosecrans’ bold decision on the 9th to mount a hasty pursuit by his widely scattered forces rested solely upon the fragmentary intelligence reports reaching his headquarters and his own intuition. Knowing the importance of Chattanooga to both sides, he believed its abandonment without a fight spoke volumes about Confederate morale and Bragg’s state of mind. If the Army of Tennessee was indeed retreating in haste toward Rome, Ga., as so many reports indicated, the risk in pursuing without first consolidating his corps did not appear prohibitive. In Rosecrans’ analysis, the benefit of cheaply seizing additional ground in the mountains of north Georgia outweighed the desirability of firming up his lines of communication and reorganizing the Army of the Cumberland for a methodical pursuit. Rosecrans, of course, was aware that the broken railroad bridges at Bridgeport, Ala., and Running Water Canyon forced his logisticians into a long wagon-haul. He had let a contract with a private bridge builder to reconstruct the Bridgeport span, and would soon do the same for the Running Water Creek bridge, but those would be weeks under construction. Until they were usable, the pontoon bridge at Caperton’s Ferry and the combination trestle-pontoon structures at Bridgeport would have to carry the load. Momentarily the bridges were secure, but they required constant maintenance by engineer units. Similarly, the reserve stocks of supplies at Stevenson, Ala., and Bridgeport were currently sufficient, but if the wagon hauls became much more extensive, the leading units risked suffering crippling shortages of food and ammunition, particularly if forced into battle.7

In addition to the risks attendant upon a convoluted and shaky supply line, operational considerations also raised worrisome issues. Once beyond Lookout Mountain and moving on their respective objectives (Dalton, La Fayette, and Rome), the three infantry corps would not be within immediate supporting distance of each other. Separated by more than 40 air-line miles, and nearly double that number given the mountains and the primitive road net, neither the XXI Corps on the left nor the XX Corps on the right could quickly come to the aid of the XIV Corps in the center. Nor could the army concentrate quickly because of the tangle of ridges separating its component parts. If the enemy was fleeing in near panic, a wide-front advance by multiple corps would cast a wide net and catch him in flank to good advantage. If the enemy was not fleeing, however, the inability of the Federal corps to support each other quickly could lead one or more of them to risk being defeated in detail. While Rosecrans was willing to accept that risk, George Thomas was not. The army commander had ordered the pursuit before Thomas reached army headquarters on the morning of September 9, but Thomas apparently remonstrated against the movement when he joined Rosecrans at Trenton. A cautious officer by temperament, Thomas argued in favor of consolidating the army in Chattanooga and building a supply reserve before chasing Bragg into the north Georgia mountains.

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