Bragg's army suffered from the delays. The area his troops occupied, known as the Barrens, was a zone of poor farmland that made it difficult for him to obtain subsistence for his army while he waited for Rosecrans to attack him. Ironically, though the Confederates were stationed for the protection of agricultural supplies of the South moving by rail through Chattanooga, they were close to starving while large portions of those agricultural supplies were shipped east to General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.