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

On the other hand, the Confederates, who started twelve hours before, make haste by forced marches to gain the banks of Elk River, lying some six miles from Tullahoma, but the division trains and the long columns of artillery impede their progress. Fortunately for them, Rosecrans allows four-and-twenty hours to elapse ere he despatches on their tracks Mitchell and Stanley, who had arrived, however, on the previous day at Manchester. The Southern cavalry is more active. Forrest, near the bank of the upper Elk River, will strive to retard Crittenden so long as Hardee shall not have crossed the defiles in the vicinity of Cowan. Wheeler brings up the rear of the army. The latter has to pass Elk River at three points: Hardee above the railway at Bethpage Bridge; Polk below the railway, at the Rock Creek Ford: the reserve artillery and a part of the trains shall cross at Estell Springs between the two other points. But Negley and Rousseau having both taken, in the rear of Hardee, the so-called military road, Wheeler, who soon becomes aware of this fact, concentrates the greater part of his forces in order to protect Hardee. A little over four miles before reaching Bethpage Bridge the military road slopes down the plateau by the wild gorge of Spring Creek. Wheeler waits for the enemy in this defile, and, despite his numerical inferiority, he makes so stubborn a resistance to Negley that night comes without the latter having been able to debouch in the valley of Elk River. That was all Wheeler wanted. While the Federals, not daring to advance in the obscurity of night, are bivouacking, Hardee clears the Bethpage Bridge—to which the Confederate cavalry subsequently sets fire—and establishes himself on the left bank behind light breastworks which command the passage of the bridge. During the night the artillery and Polk's corps have likewise cleared the river, the waters of which are hourly swollen by the rain. Therefore, Bragg, feeling that he is henceforth secure from any earnest pursuit, leaves at the Elk River only rearguards of cavalry, and before the close of day the Confederate columns will have entered the gorges of the Cumberland plateau.

The entire Federal army has also been put in motion. Brannan