bragg started out for the ohio river, intending to cross it and capture the middle states; but buell heard of it and got there twenty-four hours ahead, wherefore bragg abandoned his plans, as it flashed over him like a clap of thunder from a clear sky that he had no place to put the middle states if he had them. he therefore escaped in the darkness, his wagon-trains sort of drawling over forty miles of road and "hit a-rainin'."