Opening the Cracker Line "Waterborne Attackers" October 24 - November 1, 1863

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant arrived at Chattanooga, TN, a town besieged by Confederate forces, on October 23. 1863. He had traveled to the town over the same torturous 60-mile route that supply wagons had to traverse in the futile effort to provide the starving Union garrison with rations. Grant saw that the steep, narrow rod "was strewn with the debris of broken wagons and the carcasses of thousands of starved mules and horses." As the new commander of Chattanooga, Grant knew the opening of a more efficient supply line had to be his first priority.

The next day the garrison's chief engineer, Gen. William F. Smith, submitted his plan for reopening the Tennessee River supply route from Bridgeport, AL. To implement the new route, Union troops would have to secure the Rebel-held section of the river below Raccoon Mountain. On October 26 at 3:00am, 50 pontoon boats and two flatboats landed with a detachment of engineers and 1,500 infantrymen pushed off into the Tennessee River at Chattanooga and floated downstream into Rebel territory. The boats drifted silently for the two hours it took to float the seven miles to Brown's Ferry; darkness and fog hid them from Rebel sentries on shore.

Just as the first rays of sunlight began to light up the river, the bboats reached Brown's Ferry and the men scrambled ashore on the west bank to do battle with the 1,000 Confederate troops there. The Rebel commander, Col. William C. Oates, heard the gunfire of the pickets and quickly ordered his six companies to counterattack the Union force. Oates told his officers "to deploy their men at one pace apart and instruct them to walk right up to the foe, and for every man to place the muzzle of his rifle against the body of a Yankee when he fired." In the desperate fighting that followed, Oates found that his men were outnumbered and were flanked each time they managed to push the Yankees back toward the river.

Fascinating Fact:  On the way to Chattanooga, Grant met Gen. William S. Rosecrans, the previous commander of the city. Grant recalled that Rosecrans "made some excellent suggestions as to what should be done" to break up the  siege. "My only wonder," added Grant, "was that he had not carried them out."


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