Ebenezer Creek

[1] Complicating the situation, Confederate cavalry under General Joseph Wheeler were actively harassing the Federal rear guard during this period.

While Davis's engineers began assembling a pontoon bridge for the crossing, Wheeler's cavalry approached close enough to conduct sporadic shelling of the Union lines.

[3] The Confederate scouts of General Wheeler's army had shadowed Sherman's March to the Sea campaign, preying on the stragglers in the crowd of "contrabands", a term which referred to escaped slaves during the war.

As the last Union soldiers reached the eastern bank on the morning of December 9, Davis's engineers abruptly cut the bridge loose and drew it up onto the shore.

They "hesitated briefly, impacted by a surge of pressure from the rear, then stampeded with a rush into the icy water, old and young alike, men and women and children, swimmers and non-swimmers, determined not to be left behind.

[9] Davis's orders infuriated several of the Union men who witnessed the ensuing calamity, among them Major James A. Connolly and Chaplain John J.