The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1884-10-30
THE CRACKER LINE
Brings Up Rations for the Army Of the Cumher
land.


To THE EDITOR :, In Gen. Towards Per-
sonal "reminiscences of the War;" of Sept. 4,
occurs this sentence: "The Tennessee must be
cleared from Confederatcs, for Thomas's little
steamer-The ChattanOoga-wa at last fin
ished, loaded with hard bread, and already
slowly winding its way up the river to supple
ment our venturesome march" The natural
inference to the reader of this is that to the
little steamer Chattanooga is due the credit OF
relieving the moststarving Army OF the Cum
bcrland from hunger, while, in point of fact
the credit is due to two other b0ats-the Paint
Rock and the Dunbar, but more especially to
the Paint Rock and her crew. This fact, for
the truth of history, will endeavor to show.
On the night after our troops had foated down
past Lookout Mountain, and driven the rebels
from the south bank of the river and estab-
lishcd pontoon- bridge at Browns Ferry, the
steamer Paint Rock, q stern wheel boat of about
800 tons capacity, which had belonged to Capt
Spiler, an old Tennessee River man, and had
been captured when we got possession of Chat
tanooga,-on which a crew of Ohio River men,
from the 18th Ohio, consisting of Capt. J. G.
McElroy and First Lieut.. q. w. Clark, and
their company (K), and myself then Second
Lieutenant), and few men from Co. c, had
been placed several days beforc,-ran past Look
out Mountain, then occupied in force by the
rebels. We were piloted by the former owner
of the boat Capt. Spiller), who had been forced
to take the wheel at the point of the bayonet.
We all felt that our chance for getting past
safely was about the same as our getting sunk
and captured, as we had every reason to expect
that the rebels would be looking for an attempt
of this kind, and have some of their artillery
in position to knock us clear out of the water;
but, fortunately, they had no guns they could
bring to bear on us, but their skirmishers along
the bank poured their musketry into US all the
way round the bend, and, as we were coming
out from the foot of the bend, one ball struck
the branch steam pipe leading from throttle to
starboard cylinder. The boat was marked all
over with musket- balls, but, fortunately, no
one was hit. We went on, passed through the
pontoon-bridge and landed. The Engineer
soon wrapped the steam-pipe and we then
passed on down through the mountains "-as
wild and difficult a piece of river to navigate
as can be found anywhere, to Bridgeport-a dis
lance from Chattanooga (by river of rs or 80
miles. There we were loaded with hard bread
and "sow belly" in an incredibly short time,
and the next night after leaving Chattanooga
we landed cargo of about 300 tons at Kelley's
Ferry, distance of 35 miles from Bridgeport,
from which q haul of eight miles in wagons
took the long-wished- for rations to the boys at
Chattanooga.
At Keleys Ferry were stationed one or two
regiments, from which a detail of about 100
men were always at the landing ready to I'M
load us the minute we got the boat landed. At
Bridgeport the Quartermaster's Department
had large gangs of "contrabands" ready to load
our boat with the utmost dispatch. For over
two weeks we landed a cargo at Kelley's Ferry
every SO hours and the little t-bottOmed,
square-bowed dinky, built at Bridgeport, called
the Chattanooga, did not carry pound of
ratiOns for the army until we had relieved the
distress and the boys were getting full rations.
The other boat l speak of-the Dunbar-was
side-wheel boat of tremendous power. but she
proved to draw too much water, and did not,
on that account, carry much freight. AS soon
as Lookout Mountain was captured by Hooker,
we extended our trips to Chattanooga and
landed a cargo there within few hours after
the rebels were driven from Lookout, and were
unloading cargo of rations while the battle of
Missionary Ridge was in progress.-CHARLEs
GRANT, GAINESVILLE, Ohio.