Nov. 1863. |
Dec. 2. |
Dec. 5. |
Dec. 11. |
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[175]
dozen bullets, rolled, with his flag, into the ditch, which Benjamin's guns in the salient swept with a murderous enfilading fire.
That hero actually took shells in his hand, ignited the fuses, and threw them over into the ditch with terrible effect.
The storm was too heavy for the assailants there, and about three hundred of them surrendered.
Then the assault ceased.
Fort Sanders was saved, and with it, without doubt, Knoxville, and possibly Burnside's army.1 Longstreet had promised his soldiers that they should dine in Knoxville that day; but they were otherwise engaged, in burying their dead outside of its defenses, by permission of General Burnside, who lent them ambulances to remove the bodies of their comrades within the Confederate lines.
While Burnside was thus resisting Longstreet, heavy columns were, moving to assist him. So soon as he was assured of victory at Chattanooga, on the night of the 25th,
General Grant ordered General Granger, with his own (Fourth) corps, and detachments from others, twenty thousand strong, to re-enforce Burnside.
Sherman was ordered in the same direction, so as to make the business of relief surely successful, and on the night of the 30th he was at Charleston, where the East Tennessee and Georgia railway crosses the Hiawassee River.
There was also Howard, Davis, and Blair, who had concentrated at Cleveland the day before; and there Sherman received orders from Grant to take command of all the troops moving to the relief of Knoxville, and to press forward as rapidly as possible.
This was done.
The army crossed the Hiawassee the next morning, and pushed on toward Loudon, Howard in advance, to save the pontoon bridge there.
The Confederates stationed at that point burned it when Howard approached, and fled,
and Sherman's entire force, including Granger's troops, was compelled to move along the south side of the river, with the expectation of crossing Burnside's bridge at Knoxville.
Sherman sent forward his cavalry, which entered the Union lines on the 3d, when Longstreet, finding his flank turned and an over-whelming force of adversaries near, raised the siege and retreated toward Russellville, in the direction of Virginia, pursued by Burnside's forces.
Thus ended the siege of Knoxville, a day or two before.the beginning of which occurred the memorable raid of General Averill upon the railway east of it, already mentioned.2 Burnside issued
a congratulatory order to his troops after Longstreet's flight,3 and a few days afterward
another was promulgated, which directed the naming of the forts and batteries at Knoxville, that constituted its defenses, in honor (of officers who fell there.4
1 The ground in front of the fort was strewn with the dead and wounded. In the ditch, alone, were over two hundred dead and wounded, including two colonels — McElroy, of the Thirteenth Mississippi, and Thomas, of the Sixteenth Georgia--killed. “In this terrible ditch,” says a Confederate historian, “the dead were piled eight or ten feet deep. In comparatively an instant of time we lost 700 men, in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Never, excepting at Gettysburg, was there in the history of the war a disaster adorned with the glory of such devoted courage, as Longstreet's repulse at Knoxville.” --Pollard's Third Year of the War, 168. The National loss in the fort was only eight killed and seven wounded. Pollard says: “The Yankees lost not more than twenty men killed and wounded.” The entire Union loss in the assault was about one hundred.
2 See page 113.
3 “The Army of the Ohio,” he said, “has nobly guarded the loyal region It redeemed from its oppressors, and rendered the heroic defense of Knoxville memorable in the annals of the war.”
4 The following is a list of the forts and batteries, their position and their names, as mentioned in Burnside's order: Battery Noble, south of Kingston road, in memory of Lieutenant and Adjutant William Noble, Second Michigan. Fort Byington, at the College, in memory of Major Cornelius Byington, Second Michigan. Battery Galpin, east of Second Creek, in memory of Lieutenant Galpin, Second Michigan. Fort Comstock, on Summit Hill, in memory of Lieutenant-Colonel Comstock, Seventeenth Michigan. Battery Wiltsie, west of Gay Street, in memory of Captain Wiltsie, Twentieth Michigan. Fort Huntington Smith, on Temperance Hill, in memory of Lieutenant Huntington Smith, Twentieth Michigan. Battery Clifton Lee, east of Fort H. Smith, in memory of Captain Clifton Lee, One Hundred and Twelfth Illinois Mounted Infantry. Fort Hill, at the extreme eastern point of the Union lines, in memory of Captain Hill, Twelfth Kentucky Cavalry. Battery Fearns, on Flint Hill, in memory of Lieutenant and Adjutant C. W. Fearns, Forty-fifth Ohio Mounted Infantry. Battery Zoellner, between Fort Sanders and Second Creek, in memory of Lieutenant Frank Zoellner, Second Michigan. Battery Stearman, in the gorge between Temperance Hill and Mabrey's Hill, in memory of Lieutenant William Stearman, Thirteenth Kentucky. Fort Stanley, comprising all the works on the central hill on the south side of the river, in memory of Captain C. B. Stanley, Forty-fifth Ohio Mounted Infantry. Battery Billingsley, between Gay Street and First Creek, in memory of Lieutenant J. Billingsley, Seventeenth Michigan. Fort Higley, comprising all the works on the hill west of the railway embankment, south side of the river, in memory of Captain Joel P. Higley. Fort Dickerson, comprising all the works between Fort Stanley and Fort Higley, in memory of Captain Jonathan Dickerson, One Hundred and Twelfth Illinois Mounted Infantry.
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