In mid-September 1863, General John M. Palmer’s division of the 21st Army Corps was assigned to guard the fords on West Chickamauga Creek as part of a Federal effort to keep Confederates on the east side of the creek while the army moved into position. Two of the most important crossings were Owen’s and Gower’s Fords. On September 15, Palmer marched into Chickamauga Valley by way of Crawfish Spring and posted two brigades at Gower’s crossing and one at Matthew’s new Owens’ Ford. Early on September 17, about 4:00 a.m., a mounted contingent of the 4th Georgia Cavalry Regiment overran the pickets of General William B. Hazen’s Brigade on Dry Valley Road near Gower’s Ford while Hazen and an aide were at the post; Hazen recalled that the attack was so sudden that some horsemen passed through and were captured before they could check their horses, and the brief action ended in a repulse with the enemy losing one captain and several men. On September 18, more prolonged fighting developed north of Gower’s Ford near Owen’s Ford and Bird’s Mill. Around 9:00 a.m., Federal pickets near Owen’s Ford saw the enemy advancing in force on the opposite bank, and shortly afterward Confederate artillery, probably from A.L. Huggin’s Tennessee Battery, shelled the camps of Colonel Sidney M. Barnes’s Brigade, causing confusion but no injuries. As Barnes formed his men for battle, they then moved 200 yards to the rear to a commanding open field, and to protect the front and flank from advancing infantry he ordered the 26th Pennsylvania Battery onto a nearby hill. The next day the troops at the ford were moved farther north to take part in the Battle of Chickamauga. Near the ford, a small church cemetery established by Cove Methodist Church, sometimes called the Porter Cemetery, contains the grave of the “widow” Glenn, a young woman whose husband had recently been killed in Confederate service and whose house on the battlefield was used as Federal headquarters by General William S. Rosecrans. The cemetery also holds other members of the wartime local civilian population, and one or two unmarked graves may be unidentified Confederate casualties from nearby fighting.

Photo: David Tibbs

Photo: David Tibbs

Photo: David Tibbs

Photo: David Tibbs

Photo: David Tibbs

Photo: David Tibbs

Photo: David Tibbs