We stopped briefly at Louisville, then went on again through Nashville, and past the battle-field of Murfreesboro. We debarked from the cars at Stevenson, Alabama, on Sunday morning, just a week from the time we had started. We certainly were glad enough to be released after seven days and nights of railroad travelling, cramped up so tightly that there was scarce room either to sit up or lie down. Our arrival was none too soon. The long line of railroad from Nashville southward, had been practically unguarded, and the enemy's cavalry under General Wheeler succeeded soon after our arrival in tearing it up in several places.
We now had several weeks of racing up and down the railroad line, infantry after cavalry, and with the usual result. In the end, however, the road was cleared, with the whole "Red Star" Division distributed between Murfreesboro and Stevenson. Our Regiment was stationed at Wartrace, where there was a junction with a short railroad running to Shelbyville--the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. It was a curiosity. The cross-ties were about five feet apart, and the rails were of wood, surmounted by a running surface of light iron. Frequently the wooden rails would spread, and then there would be a wreck; in fact, scarcely a day passed on which there would not be an accident of some kind. Large details of men from our Regiment were set to work to bring the road in repair, and by Christmas it was in fairly good condition.
Shortly after we were established at Wartrace, I secured leave of absence to go to Chattanooga in search of my brother, who had enlisted in the Tenth Wisconsin. I had not heard of him since the battle of Chickamauga. My route was by rail to Bridgeport on the Tennessee River, then in a small captured Confederate steamer called "Paint Rock," up the Tennessee to Chattanooga.
The "Paint Rock" was loaded to its utmost capacity with hardtack for the starving Union men who held Chattanooga. The river route to that town had only recently been opened up by General Hooker, with the Eleventh Corps and the Second Division of our Corps. Previously it had been necessary to wheel all supplies sixty miles over a mountain road, where teams could scarcely haul the forage for their own trip. Even now the boats could run only to within eight miles of the city.