ge and trestle
crosses the Holston River, 2100 feet in length, a place to become
very familiar to us in later campaigning. Crossing the Holston at
Flat Creek, where other bridges were burned, he moved up the left
(east) bank of the river to attack the guard at the big bridge, the
Confederate forces being on that side. He drove them off, capturing
150 of the party and five cannon. He not only destroyed the bridge,
but captured and burnt large quantities of military stores and camp
equipage. On he went along the railway to Mossy Creek, where another
bridge 300 feet long was burned. He now turned homeward toward the
north-west, having greatly injured a hundred miles of the East
Tennessee Railroad. Turning like a fox under the guidance of his
East Tennessee scouts, he crossed the Clinch Mountains and the
valley of the Clinch, and made his way back by way of Smith's Gap
through the Cumberland Mountains to his starting-place in Kentucky.
He had captured over 450 prisoners, whom he paroled, had taken ten
cannon and 1000 stands of small arms which he destroyed, besides the
large amounts of military stores which have been mentioned. He
marched about five hundred miles in the whole circuit, and though
frequently skirmishing briskly with considerable bodies of the
enemy, his losses were only 2 killed, 4 wounded, and 13 missing. Of
course a good many horses were used up, but as a preliminary to the
campaign which was to follow and in which Sanders was to have a
prominent place, it was a raid which was much more profitable than
most of them. He was gone ten days. [Footnote: Sanders' Report,
Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i. pp. 385, 386.]

The expedition under Brigadier-General Julius White was sent to beat
up the Confederate posts in the Big Sandy valley and to aid
incidentally the raid under Sanders into East Tennessee. Burnside
sent another southward in the direction of Monticello, Kentucky. The
object of these was to keep the enemy amused near home and prevent
the raids his cavalry had been making on the railway line by which
Rosecrans kept up his communication with Louisville. They seem
rather to have excited the emulation of the Confederate cavalryman
Brigadier-General John H. Morgan, who, a few days before Rosecrans's
advance on Tullahoma, obtained permission to make a raid, starting
from the neighborhood of McMinnville, Tenn., crossing the Cumberland
near Burkesville, and thence moving on Louisville, which he thought
he