 In the latter part of the war, Bridgeport was the site of a major Union shipyard that built gunboats and transports for the Union Army.The "USS Chattanooga" was built here; it became a vital part of the famous "Cracker Line," which broke the Confederates' siege of Chattanooga in November 1863.In the early 1880s, brothers Frank and Walter Kilpatrick, investors from New York, along with their father, Edward, established a lumber company in Bridgeport.