With Rosecrans limited to bringing most of his supplies into Chattanooga along a difficult, 60-mile wagon route across Walden's Ridge, on Wednesday, September 30, 1863 Confederate General Braxton Bragg ordered General Joseph Wheeler and approximately seven hundred cavalry on an extended raid against Rosecrans’ supply lines.
On October 2 at Anderson's Cross Roads, Wheeler’s raiders surprised and overwhelmed a Union supply train of 800 mule-drawn wagons. The Southerners began to kill the mules and burn the Union supplies, only to discover whiskey in several of the wagons.
Confederate officers were unwilling or unable to stop what became an eight hour orgy of plundering, which ended only when Union forces successfully counterattacked. Hundreds of mules and several wagons were recaptured, as Wheeler’s drunken Confederates suffered casualties of some 270 dead and wounded.