Unwilling to be restrained, Rosecrans remained adamant that the pursuit continue, and Thomas acquiesced against his better judgment. At least two other officers, General Palmer of the XXI Corps and Col. John Parkhurst, Thomas’ provost marshal, held similar misgivings about Rosecrans’ decision when they heard the news. Nevertheless, the die had been cast in favor of pursuit and the Army of Cumberland would obey.8
While Rosecrans entertained visions of a rapid pursuit of a demoralized foe, Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee on September 9 was neither demoralized nor far away. Lt. Gen. Daniel H. Hill’s corps began the day in the vicinity of La Fayette. Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk’s corps rested around the crossing of West Chickamauga Creek at Lee and Gordon’s Mills. Maj. Gen. Simon B. Buckner’s corps was moving toward Rock Spring Church, between Polk and Hill, and Maj. Gen. William H. T. Walker’s Reserve Corps was closing on La Fayette. Polk expected to resume his march southward on the morning of the 9th, but at 5:30 a.m. Bragg ordered him to suspend the movement. Believing that his best course of action was to wait until the Army of the Cumberland tipped its hand and committed itself to move east of Lookout Mountain, Bragg decided to pause until definite information of the Federal positions became available. Thus he maintained his headquarters all day with Polk’s Corps near Lee and Gordon’s Mills, only twelve miles from the Chattanooga riverfront and six miles from Rossville Gap in Missionary Ridge. As the day progressed, Bragg first learned of the progress of the Federal advance guard as it pushed into Chattanooga. By mid-afternoon the cavalry commanders who had been the last to leave the city, Col. E. W. Rucker and Lt. Col. T. H. Mauldin, had reported for new assignments. Leaving Rucker and his East Tennessee Legion to cover Polk’s front toward the north and west, Bragg ordered Mauldin and his detachment of the 3rd Confederate Cavalry to enter the wide mouth of McLemore’s Cove and probe southward toward the vicinity of Stevens’ and Cooper’s (or Frick’s) gaps on Lookout Mountain. The cavalry screen was to be completed by Brig. Gen. William T. Martin’s cavalrymen in McLemore’s Cove itself and Brig. Gen. John Wharton’s horsemen far to the south near Alpine, Ga. Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who had been sent east to Dalton to cover the army’s baggage, was called to headquarters. Polk’s infantry would back up the northern half of the screen, while Hill’s would do the same on Pigeon Mountain, east of McLemore’s Cove.9
By 5:00 p.m. on September 9, Bragg knew only that some Federal units had seized Chattanooga and that others were said to be descending Lookout Mountain in the vicinity of Stevens’ and Cooper’s gaps. While useful, those scraps of information did not represent a picture of Federal activity coherent enough to justify a major Confederate response. Indeed, at that very moment the sounds of picket firing little more than a mile to the west at Crawfish Spring caused a momentary flurry of concern. Polk dispatched an infantry brigade to the scene, but cancelled the movement when word arrived that the firing was nothing more than soldiers shooting hogs for food. Some time thereafter, however, an officer arrived from General Martin at La Fayette with news that 5,000 Federals had entered McLemore’s Cove from Stevens’ Gap. Martin’s troopers had discovered the advance of Negley’s division of the XIV Corps. Believing that the courier’s information was at last sufficient to generate a concrete response, Bragg and his staff began to formulate an offensive plan. To Bragg’s mind, the particular geography of the region and Rosecrans’ incautious movements offered the Army of Tennessee an excellent opportunity for a counterattack in McLemore’s Cove. The cove itself was a cul-de-sac valley formed by Lookout Mountain on the west and a spur of Lookout named Pigeon Mountain on the east. Oriented slightly east of north, the valley was approximately seven miles wide at its northern end and tapered to a steep mountain wall where Lookout and Pigeon mountains joined 18 miles to the south. Between Stevens’ Gap, where the Federals had entered the valley, and Dug Gap, the pass in Pigeon Mountain leading to La Fayette, McLemore’s Cove was approximately five miles wide. To Bragg, this enclosed valley seemed to offer an excellent place to ambush a major part of Rosecrans’ army.10
At 10 p.m., while two Federal divisions camped at Rossville only six miles north of his location, Bragg ordered Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman to alert his division for movement and come to army headquarters.
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