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consin battery. Four thousand stand of arms, destined for east Tennessee, but left at Nicholasville and Crab Orchard during the winter on account of the impassable state of the roads, were now sent forward to Cumberland Gap with a large supply of ammunition, and magazines and an arsenal were got ready for them. A vast store-house, capable of containing supplies for 20,000 men for 6 months, was also built by Captain W. F. Patterson. The nerves and muscles of every man were stretched to the utmost tension, and the Gap became a vast workshop. Captain S. B. Brown, assistant quartermaster and acting commissary of subsistence, a man of fine intelligence and great energy, put on the road in small trains over four hundred wagons, and by this means the various munitions of war were dragged from the bluegrass region through the wilderness to Cumberland Gap.
Colonel De Courcy and Captain Joseph Edgar (afterward killed in action under De Courcy at Tazewell) were detailed as instructors of tactics for the officers of the new regiments of east Tennessee troops, who were brave, ambitions men and anxious to learn. Forage was collected with difficulty by armed parties.
About the middle of August Stevenson went into position in my immediate front. On the morning of the 17th I received intelligence, probable in its character, that Stevenson would attempt to carry the Gap that night. At