In early September 1863, a major Federal army entered Georgia for the first time since the outbreak of war when a division of Union Major General William S. Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland arrived at Trenton on September 4th, the first of at least 25,000 troops to pass through from northeast Alabama and southern Tennessee after crossing Sand Mountain with an ultimate goal of capturing Atlanta. While Rosecrans made his headquarters in Trenton, his men spread over all of Dade County, foraging for food and animals. At 3:30 AM on the 9th, Rosecrans ordered 14th Corps commander Major General George H. Thomas to consult with him at once, saying Chattanooga had been evacuated by the rebels and would be occupied in the morning, and pressing pursuit despite Thomas pleading that the army, then spread over fifty miles, be consolidated. A major portion of the Federal army then crossed Lookout Mountain about four miles southeast at Johnson's Crook and continued toward their bloody defeat at Chickamauga from September 18 through 20. In November 1863, during the Confederate siege of the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga, Union Major General William T. Sherman brought reinforcements from Mississippi and ordered Brigadier General Hugh B. Ewing and an infantry division to the Trenton area in an ineffective attempt to divert attention from Chattanooga; they destroyed some mills and factories while many local citizens fled to nearby mountains and hid what belongings they could. For the next year and a half, the remaining citizens of Trenton endured great distress, facing constant raids by Union loyalists from Alabama and Tennessee, some of whom had been driven from their homes in the area by Confederate supporters. Nevertheless, the civilian population remained solidly behind the Confederacy. With most men away at war, women and children, helped by slaves, kept farms going, supported themselves, and produced a surplus for the war effort, while women also met regularly to roll bandages, make uniforms, and prepare food to send to men at the front. At war's end in 1865, Confederate Colonel James Cooper Nisbet, a local farmer who had organized an 85-man company in the summer of 1861 just south of Trenton at Easley's Store, returned home, and he and other surviving veterans rebuilt their homes and community with the same devotion to duty they had shown on the battlefield. Trenton, the county seat of Dade County, and the county itself were known as the banner volunteer county of the Confederacy because the number of Dade County men who served in the Confederate Army was much greater than the number of voters.