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

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[49] the route that was the most difficult and exposed to attacks from the enemy, that which passes by Mount Vernon, London, and Williamsburg. The infantry again set out, on the 29th, on two converging lines, and reached on the ensuing day the town of Montgomery. In the mean while, the left of the army was covered by the fifth column, composed of cavalry, which moved directly to the south of Williamsburg on Walker's Gap, and, supported by a detachment from the fourth column, occupied Jacksborough on the same day. The movements of these different columns had been executed with great precision: the infantry had helped the artillery in the worst places on the road, the long lines of pack-mules had followed the army without detention and ensured its subsistence, while the enemy had not lain in wait for the advance in the difficult gorges which slope down the Cumberland plateau into the Tennessee Valley. Forrest's cavalry barely showed itself to fire a few shots near the village of Emory.

One can understand with what joy the Federals, after eleven days of toilsome march, entered the rich valley, a kind of promised land, which stretched out before them. Public rumor had greatly exaggerated their numbers. Burnside's division of the army had impressed the Confederates with a mistaken idea as to its effective force, and Bragg, fearing with reason lest by its flanking movements it should separate him from Buckner and then fall upon Chattanooga, had sent his lieutenant an order to evacuate Knoxville. Buckner, following the railway, had immediately marched his two divisions, numbering about ten thousand men. Covered by a part of Forrest's cavalry, he reached the great bridge on the Tennessee at Loudon, while Burnside was coming down upon Kingston and Foster was entering Knoxville without firing a gun. Buckner's troops were thus cut in two. Jones, faithful to the task which had been assigned to him long before, was falling, to the northward, upon Abingdon, in order to guard the entrance into Virginia. Frazer had received orders to join him, but having assured Buckner that he (Frazer) could hold his ground for an indefinite length of time in the Cumberland Gap, he was, on the 31st of August, authorized to remain there. Shackelford's Federal cavalry had hardly descended into the valley