The U. S. S. _Chattanooga_ was the first steamboat built by the Federals
on the upper Tennessee River. Had the gunboats on the Ohio been able to
come up the Tennessee River nearly three hundred miles, to the assistance
of Rosecrans, Bragg could never have bottled him up in Chattanooga. But
between Florence and Decatur, Alabama, Muscle Shoals lay in the stream,
making the river impassable. While Bragg's pickets invested the railroad
and river, supplies could not be brought up from Bridgeport; and besides,
with the exception of one small steamboat (the _Dunbar_), the Federals had
no boats on the river. General W. F. Smith, Chief Engineer of the Army of
the Cumberland, had established a saw-mill with an old engine at
Bridgeport for the purpose of getting out lumber from logs rafted down the
river, with which to construct pontoons. Here Captain Arthur Edwards,
Assistant Quartermaster, had been endeavoring since the siege began to
build a steamboat consisting of a flat-bottom scow, with engine, boiler,
and stern-wheel mounted upon it. On October 24th, after many difficulties
and discouragements had been overcome, the vessel was launched
successfully and christened the _Chattanooga_. On the 29th she made her
trial trip. That very night, Hooker, in the battle of Wauhatchie,
definitely established control of the new twelve-mile "Cracker Line" from
Kelley's Ferry, which Grant had ordered for the relief of the starving
army. The next day the little _Chattanooga_, with steam up, was ready to
start from Bridgeport with a heavy load of the much-needed supplies, and
her arrival was anxiously awaited at Kelley's Ferry, where the
wagon-trains were all ready to rush forward the rations and forage to
Chattanooga. The mechanics were still at work upon the little vessel's
unfinished pilot-house and boiler-deck while she and the two barges she
was to tow were being loaded, and at 4 A.M. on November 30th she set out
to make the 45-mile journey against unfavorable head-winds.
[Illustration: THE WELCOME NEWCOMER