Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

[519] stream. The ridge rises abruptly on either hand, four or five hundred feet, and at its western mouth the gap widens to the breadth of a hundred yards, leaving room for a patch of level wooded land, on either side of the roads. The gap is about half a mile long, and the plain in the rear is so cut up by the windings of the stream, that three bridges or fords have to be crossed, in the first half-mile beyond, on the Dalton road.

Cleburne had been ordered to use the great natural advantages presented by this gap, to check the pursuit of the national army, till the trains and rear of the main column could get well advanced beyond the entanglements, on the other side of the ridge. He accordingly posted some of his troops on the mountain-top; and, behind the fringe of trees at its base, four short lines were formed across the gap. Skirmishers were thrown out as far as the creek, and a battery was placed in the mouth of the gap, screened by withered branches built up in front of the guns; a ravine near by sheltered the artillerists. Cleburne had over four thousand bayonets.

The rebel line of skirmishers was feeble, and Hooker deployed a brigade, under cover of the embankment of the railroad. Soon, a brisk musketry-fire began between the skirmishers. The rebel cavalry at once retreated through the gap on a trot, and the valley in front was clear of Cleburne's troops; but, close in rear of the ridge, an immense wagon-train was still struggling through the fords of the creek, and the deeply cut up roads leading to Dalton. Cleburne's division was the only barrier between the train and the eager advance of the pursuing army.