om Bowlinggreen to Clarksville, running through many
important points, and affording communication with every thing upon that
flank. Excellent roads run from Bowlinggreen to Monticello upon the
south side of the Barren, affording secure communication with the right.
Were both of these lines interrupted, there would remain means of
certain and speedy communication with both flanks, in the railroad and
turnpike running from Bowlinggreen to Nashville, the turnpike from
Glasgow to Nashville, and the Cumberland river navigable to Fort
Donelson on the one side and Burkesville on the other.

The country thus commanded is fertile, and almost exhaustless of
supplies. The railroad from Bowlinggreen to Louisville, and the two
turnpikes, respectively, from Bowlinggreen and from Glasgow to
Louisville, and with which good roads running in every direction are
connected, afford admirable facilities for offensive operations. These
two turnpikes cross Green river within eight miles of each other, but an
army, once on the north side of the river, and in possession of both
roads, could march with perfect ease in any direction. It will scarcely
be denied that if General Johnson had done nothing else to establish his
high reputation as a strategist, his selection of this line would be
enough to sustain it. In this advance into Kentucky, the Kentucky
regiments under Buckner, about thirteen hundred strong in all, took the
lead; the 2nd Kentucky infantry under Colonel Roger W. Hanson, to which
were temporarily attached Byrne's battery of four pieces, and one
company of Tennessee cavalry, was pushed on to Munfordsville on Green
river. The rest of the Kentuckians and two or three thousand
Tennesseeans (and some odds and ends) were stopped at Bowlinggreen.

All the cavalry which were available for that purpose, were sent to
scout the country between the Cumberland and Green rivers, and
subsequently Forrest's regiment was stationed at Hopkinsville, watching
the country in that vicinity. Shortly after he was sent there, Forrest
attacked and defeated at Sacramento, a little village not far from
Hopkinsville, a regiment of Federal cavalry. This was the first cavalry
fight in the west, and the Federals were completely routed.

Zollicoffer was sent to take position at Monticello, as has been
described before, at or nearly about the same time of the advance to
Bowlinggreen. Thus, it will be seen, that all the important points of
the line were almost si