[254] with his whole division, one brigade of mounted infantry,1 and seventeen hundred of Minty's cavalry. This time the Federals pushed as far as McMinnville, to where Morgan had retired after the affair of Snow Hill, and which he occupied with about seven hundred men. He had no idea of offering any resistance to the powerful column sent against him; McMinnville was hastily evacuated. The Federals picked up nearly one hundred prisoners in the place and destroyed the Tullahoma railroadbridge. This operation drove Morgan beyond Caney Fork along the Cumberland plateau, and cut off the supplies which Bragg's army was receiving from the country circumjacent to McMinnville.
The reinforcements which had reached Rosecrans' army during the month of March had weakened the Federal troops in Kentucky, that everlasting battlefield of partisans, who, to whichever army they might belong, were sure to find sympathizers among the sharply divided population of that unfortunate State. Consequently, the Confederates immediately thought of taking advantage of the opportunity to organize a new raid against the depots and lines of communication of the Army of the Cumberland.
General Pegram's troops, stationed in the south-eastern portion of the State, along the western slopes of the Cumberland Mountains, received some reinforcements from Knoxville. Toward the middle of March, in order to divide the attention of the Federals, he sent Colonel Cluke with two regiments to gather booty in the plain extending between Winchester and Rogersville. Cluke came down from the mountains where the Kentucky River takes its source, striking the Lexington road, which the Confederates had already followed the previous month, and, meeting with no resistance, imprudently came to a halt in the neighborhood of Owensville and Mount Sterling.
At the news of his incursion, Burnside—who, as we have stated, has been invested with the supreme command in Kentucky—prepares to make him pay dear for his audacity. Taking advantage of the time lost by the Confederates, two Federal regiments proceed to post themselves at Hazel Green in order to bar their passage, while other troops are sent from Lexington to assist
