Historical research is much like a jigsaw puzzle with many of the pieces missing.
The historian must recreate an image of the past with the pieces of the puzzle that are available and extrapolate from those pieces to fill in the gaps. Libraries and historical agencies supply the historian with the pieces of the puzzle. Here is a brief account of the Civil War in Knoxville, with illustrations highlighting sources for research, located in the UTK Libraries' Special Collections. The shortest rail route from Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, to Chattanooga and hence the rest of the South was through Knoxville. Without Knoxville in Confederate control, supplies, soldiers and information had to travel longer routes on either side of East Tennessee.