A Vast Depot

A Vast Depot. . "Nearly every house in the place is filled with government stores. There is a pile of meat larger than our house, besides flour, hay, corn, coffee, rice, sugar, salt, tea, vinegar, etc. etc.... If one family of ten persons had these rations to eat they would last them 2,465 years." , A.S. Bloomfield, Co. A, 1st Ohio Lt. Artillery, Fortress Rosecrans was one of many Union defenses along the vital Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. It protected one of the largest supply depots in the war's Western Theater. A vast complex of weapons, ammunition, and food storehouses sprawled across the open ground within the fort - mostly beyond Lytle Creek to your left. The fort also included four sawmills and a fifty-acre vegetable garden used by the large hospital here., The depot helped supply Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans's army during its advance toward Tullahoma and Chattanooga in the summer of 1863., (Caption of main illustration): , This view shows a depot in Virginia that probably looked much like the one here at Fortress Rosecrans. For a time, warehouses at Fortress Rosecrans held enough supplies to feed 50,000 men for ninety days., (Caption for lower illustration): , This is the only known view of the interior of Fortress Rosecrans. It shows the camp of the 115th Ohio Infantry, drawn by a member of the regiment in November 1863. The works are clearly visible in the background.