Early on the 29th fifty boats, each carrying fifty men, were brought out of the woods near Caperton's, rushed across an open field, launched, and quickly rowed to the opposite shore. The Confederate cavalry pickets were driven off and twenty-five hundred men held the south bank. The bridge was promptly laid. Davis was soon over, and then McCook's entire corps, with cavalry, started promptly for Valley Head, forty miles down the Lookout range. Reynolds collected boats at Shellmound, Brannan had built rafts and cut out canoes at the mouth of Battle Creek. The long bridge was successfully laid at Bridgeport, and before Bragg had recovered from his surprise, in fact before he had comprehended the extent of the movement, Rosecrans, with two corps, was over the river and moving on his communications. As soon as the crossing was assured, Crittenden marched with celerity by way of the Sequatchee Valley towards the bridges and was soon across with the main body and advancing on the left of it directly towards Chattanooga. This crossing of the Tennessee was a great feat. The bridges were not sufficient for the army. Reynolds gathered small boats and improvised his own means of crossing. Brannan's men had cut out canoes from immense poplars and launched them in Battle Creek out of sight. Some of them would hold fifty men. They also built rafts, one of them large enough to carry artillery. These, with an abandoned rebel pontoon boat, constituted Brannan's flotilla. When the signal was given the whole swept out from behind the bushes which concealed the mouth of Battle Creek and made for the opposite shore. The rebel pickets withdrew and the crossing was secured. Then all his men who could swim, piling their guns, clothing, and accouterments on a few fence rails, pushed these before them and thus gained the opposite bank. Later, Wilder swam his mounted brigade across the river and joined Crittenden south of Chattanooga. Halleck must have had this ability for crossing a river in the presence of an enemy in mind when he telegraphed Rosecrans, a few weeks before, to move at once and keep moving. But this crossing, and the grand diversion which made it possible, were only the preliminary, and by no means the formidable parts of the movement. To complete it, Rosecrans was to cut loose from his base, carry twenty-five day's supplies and sufficient ammunition for two battles, cross two precipitous and difficult mountain ranges wholly within the enemy's territory, and their passes presumably strengthened and defended, and, after crossing the last range at widely separated points, to descend into the valley in the rear of that enemy's stronghold, prepared for battle or any other contingencies which might arise on this distant and isolated theater of action.