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

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[67] makes a movement forward: on the left, Brannan and Reynolds, having effected a meeting at Shell Mound, proceed up the Nickajack Valley—which derives its name from a grotto very precious to the Confederates, for it furnished them with quantities of saltpetre—and follow a difficult road which leads to the edge of Lookout Creek. Negley toils up the slopes of Raccoon Mountain. On the right McCook's three divisions occupy the eastern declivity of that mountain and descend into Will's Valley between Trenton and Johnson's Crook.

On the 4th, at the time when Baird's last troops are crossing the Tennessee, two divisions of the Fourteenth corps are near Trenton with Sheridan, and the third division bivouacs above that town, while McCook, climbing, on the right, the side of Lookout Mountain, already causes Davis to occupy the pass of Winston's Gap, and Johnson the approaches to Stevens' Gap at Johnson's Crook. Lastly, the six brigades which, since the departure of Hazen and Wagner, compose Crittenden's corps, have, by a rapid flank movement, gained the edge of the Tennessee, and already crossed the river without accident. As soon as Rosecrans saw the completion of his preparations to cross he recalled Crittenden. This order was received on the 31st of August: the Twentieth corps, covered by the forces posted beyond Walden's Ridge, has descended into the valley of the Sequatchie as far as Jasper, and reached, on the 1st and the 2d of September, the edge of the Tennessee; the trains and the artillery have gone toward the bridge at Bridgeport. Three brigades have passed at Shell Mound between the 3d and the 4th in the morning; the other three, finding at Battle Creek the rafts still used by Brannan, have not been able to reach the left bank before the 4th, some time in the day. In the evening the corps is gathered in the vicinity of Shell Mound. The entire Union army, with the exception of Hazen's four brigades, has therefore cleared the Tennessee, crossed or turned around the chain of Raccoon Mountain, and is collected upon the eastern side of that mountain. It is true that the formidable steeps of Lookout Mountain still rise before the Federals and offer to the Confederates, if they wish to arrest the progress of the enemy, some impregnable positions.