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The order to retreat to Tullahoma spared Polk the movement that he had argued so vigorously against but caused a new problem for the Confederate command. Infantry units retreating from Shelbyville early on the 27th ran into the units of Patrick Cleburne’s division moving back from Fairfield at a single bridge over the Duck River. The constant rain had made the river unfordable and, as the Union troops had already learned, the roads nearly impassable. Fortunately the two Union divisions emerging from Hoover’s Gap abandoned the chase and followed Reynolds to Manchester. Had the Federal troops continued the pursuit there would certainly have been a battle in which the Confederates would have found themselves with their backs against the swollen river. As it was however, the two armies were once again moving in opposite directions.
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