The force consisted of 1500 mounted men, being detachments from
different regiments of cavalry and mounted infantry, among which
were some of the loyal men of East Tennessee under Colonel R. K.
Byrd. Sanders was a young officer of the regular army who was now
colonel of the Fifth Kentucky Cavalry. He rapidly made a first-class
reputation as a bold leader of mounted troops, but was unfortunately
killed in the defence of Knoxville in November of this same year.
His expedition started from Mount Vernon, Kentucky, on the 14th of
June, marched rapidly southward sixty miles to Williamsburg, where
the Cumberland River was fordable. Thence he moved southwest about
the same distance by the Marsh Creek route to the vicinity of
Huntsville in Tennessee. Continuing this route southward some fifty
miles more, he struck the Big Emory River, and following this
through Emory Gap, he reached the vicinity of Kingston on the Clinch
River in East Tennessee, having marched in all rather more than two
hundred miles. Avoiding Kingston, which was occupied by a superior
force of Confederates, he marched rapidly on Knoxville, destroying
all the more important railway bridges.
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