noxville on the 3d of September. Part of the
Twenty-third Corps had been sent toward London on the 2d, and upon
their approach the enemy burned the great railroad bridge at that
place. A light-draught steamboat was building at Kingston, and this
was captured and preserved. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. p. 333.] It
played a useful part subsequently in the transportation of supplies
when the wagon-trains were broken down and the troops were reduced
nearly to starvation. No sooner was Burnside in Knoxville than he
put portions of his army in motion for Cumberland Gap, sixty miles
northward. He had already put Colonel John F. DeCourcey (Sixteenth
Ohio Infantry) in command of new troops arriving in Kentucky, and
ordered him to advance against the fortifications of the gap on the
north side. General Shackelford was sent with his cavalry from
Knoxville, but when Burnside learned that DeCourcey and he were not
strong enough to take the place, he left Knoxville in person with
Colonel Samuel Gilbert's brigade of infantry and made the sixty-mile
march in fifty-two hours. Frazer had refused to surrender on the
summons of the subordinates; but when Burnside arrived and made the
demand in person, he despaired of holding out and on the 9th of
September surrendered the garrison. A considerable number got away
by scattering after the flag was hauled down, but 2,205 men laid
down their arms, and twelve pieces of cannon were also among the
spoils. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. pp. 548, 599, 604, 611.]
DeCourcey's troops were left to garrison the fortifications, and the
rest were sent to occupy the upper valley of the Holston toward the
Virginia line.

On the 10th, and while still at Cumberland Gap, Burnside received a
dispatch from General Crittenden with the news that he was in
possession of Chattanooga, that Bragg had retreated toward Rome,
Ga., and that Rosecrans hoped with his centre and right to intercept
the enemy at Rome, which was sixty miles south of Chattanooga.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 523.] Everything
was therefore most promising on the south, and Burnside had only to
provide for driving back the Confederates under Jones, at the
Virginia line, a hundred and thirty miles northeast of Knoxville. It
becomes important here to estimate these distances rightly.
Knoxville is a hundred and eleven miles distant from Chattanooga by
the railroad, and more by the country roads. From Bristol on the
northeast to Chattan