By the pontoon bridge over the river, free access was had by Burnside’s troops to a portion of the country that was intensely loyal to the United States, including the southern side of Knox county and the whole of Sevier County. Some of the people of that region voluntarily furnished supplies to the besieged; and foraging parties from the army were sent out, who returned with corn, wheat, &c. By these means, conducted by Capt. Doughty, spoken of by the commander-in-chief as “a most excellent officer,” the commissary department was enabled to issue during the siege after its first few days, bread made of mixed flour, meal and bran, but then only in half and quarter rations. Even for this bread, corn on the cob, eaten in some instances unroasted, had to be substituted several times late in the siege. Soldiers often ate at once the small piece of bread which was their whole allowance of nourishment for twenty-four hours. Some of them, whether from a prudent regard to the returning excesses of hunger, or to keep up the fiction of three meals a day, divided their bread into as many parts, which gave them a single mouthful for each meal. This scanty fare was increased on occasional days by a piece of fresh pork. The besiegers wisely thought it important to deprive Burnside of his supplies from south of the river, and for that purpose to destroy his bridge. Therefore Confederate soldiers were sent a few miles up the Tennessee to Boyd’s Ferry--a point near its junction with the French Broad River, for the construction of a raft, which floating down would carry away the pontoon. News of this intended feat was conveyed to headquarters. Townsmen understood that one of the patriotic and courageous women, who never failed in East Tennessee to serve the United States upon opportunity, from her home in the country saw the hewing down of timber and building of the raft, then adroitly she made her way by night through the Confederate lines with information to Knoxville, at the risk of liberty and life. In consequence, on the 22d, at the General’s order, Lieut. Col. Babcock and Capt. Poe constructed a boom, by stretching an iron cable 1,000 feet long across the river above the bridge. Begun at 5 P. M., it was finished at 9 A. M. the next day, and three days later upon renewed alarms, a second boom was laid, of long timber fastened with chains, on the surface of the water.