CHAPTER XV.

SIEGE OF KNOXVILLE--ITS DEFENDERS AND DEFENCES--COL. SANDERS--HIS DEATH AND FUNERAL--PROGRESS OF THE SIEGE--BURNING OF NORTH KNOXVILLE.

“Flag of the free hearts’ hope and home, By angel hands to valor given; Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, And all thy hues were born in heaven; Forever float that standard sheet! Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom’s soil beneath our feet, And Freedom’s banner floating o’er us.” JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

From Campbell’s Station, Gen. Burnside, on November 16th, sent instructions to Capt. Orlando M. Poe, chief engineer of the Department of the Ohio, who was at Knoxville, to select lines of defence for the town, in readiness for the troops to occupy positions. This order Poe was able, from previous and frequent examinations of the ground and his familiar knowledge of the army, to fulfil quickly. Before leaving Kentucky he had organized an engineer battalion from the 23d corps and by great efforts had brought over the mountains engineering tools.

Knoxville is situated chiefly on a hill, about two hundred feet high on the north bank of the Tennessee river. The hill, at its top, has a wide table land, and is separated on the east and west by creeks from even higher hills that rise up from the river. In the valley immediately on the north, runs the road of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway Company, beyond which the town was then but partially extended.[38]

Capt. Sims’, 24th Indiana, and Henshaw’s battery (the first of six and the second of two James’ rifle guns), and also four brass six-pounders, occupied Temperance Hill on the east side of First Creek, supported by Chapin’s Brigade of White’s Division, and Riley’s Brigade of Hascall’s Division of the Twenty-third army corps. Shield’s battery, six twelve-pound Napoleons, and part of Wilder’s, occupied Mabry Hill, which is higher and farther east than Temperance Hill. These were supported by the brigades of Cols. Hoskins and Casement, extending from Bell’s house on the northern base of Mabry Hill to the river south of it. One section of twelve-pound howitzers was planted on Flint Hill, nigh to that point on the river manned by soldiers of loyal Tennessee regiments. On the west of the main town and Second Creek, Roemer’s battery of four three-inch rifle guns, occupied College Hill near the river, supported by Morrison’s brigade of the First Division, Ninth army corps. At the fort on the hill-top northwest of College Hill, were placed Benjamin’s battery of four twenty-pound Parrotts, and Buckley’s battery of six thirteen-pound Napoleons, supported by Humphrey’s and Christ’s brigades, of the First Division, Ninth army corps. The ground occupied by this Division extended from the river near the mouth of Second Creek around to the point where the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway crosses Second Creek, northwest of the older town, and was under the command of Gen. Ferrero. Gitting’s battery was on Vine street, overlooking the railroad depot on the north, and between it and First Creek was the Fifteenth Indiana battery of three three-inch rifle guns--these two batteries being supported by the Second Division, Ninth army corps, (Gen. Hartraupt’s), extending from Second to First Creek and parallel to the railroad.

On the south side of the river were Shackelford’s cavalry and Cameron’s brigade of Hascall’s Division, Twenty-third army corps, the latter supporting Koukle’s battery of four guns and two sections of Wilder’s battery (all three-inch rifles). Riley’s brigade was held in reserve in the streets of the town.

The defences at first raised by the troops were simply ditches four feet wide and deep, with the excavated earth embanked on the outside; except the more formidable structures on Temperance Hill and those held by Lieut. Benjamin’s battery built by the engineer battalion. Fatigued as were the soldiers who had been at Campbell’s Station, they as well as others, labored with energy upon the entrenchments throughout the whole day and night of November 17th, and would then have been compelled to cease, had not Col. Sanders, with his cavalry on the Kingston road, and Col. Pennybaker, with his mounted regiments on the Clinton road, held Longstreet’s forces in check. Capt. Poe says: “The hours in which to work, that the gallant conduct of our cavalry secured us, were worth to us a thousand men each.” The next morning two hours of rest were given them, and were used in sleep by the men without delay on the ground where they stood. At the same time Gen. Burnside, in consultation with Capt. Poe and Col. Sanders, was informed by the first that the rifle pits would be ready for defence before the end of many hours, and by the other, that with his cavalry, “seven hundred strong and in good fighting trim,” he could hold Longstreet at bay until that time had expired. For another day and night the men persevered in labor with ready wills and hands. The suggestion by one of their officers that the alternative of effective resistance to the enemy would be a visit to Libby prison, served as an incentive to both industry and heroism. Many of them had been without rest but for two hours in a hundred, and it was necessary for their relief that contrabands and citizens should be pressed into service. The former did heartily the tasks assigned them, the difficulty of which in some instances may be inferred from the fact that places for the guns of Benjamin’s and Buckley’s batteries could only be cleared by four hours diligent labor of two hundred men. Of the citizens who had to work on the entrenchments, they who were loyal to the United States did their duty cheerfully, but “many,” according the Chief Engineer, “were rebels, and worked with a very poor grace, which blistered hands did not tend to improve.”

In the afternoon of the 18th the skirmishing between Sanders’ dismounted cavalry and Longstreet’s advance, two miles west of the town, was concluded by a fire of artillery upon Sanders, which compelled him to retreat after he had successfully resisted--with rail fences as shields--the charges of his powerful foe. At the close of the contest he received a mortal wound, reeled upon his horse and falling, was caught in the arms of his men and taken to a house in town. In full possession of his mind, there was no disturbance of its calmness by the answer of the surgeon to his question as to the nature of his wound. Death had no terrors for him. “He had done his duty and served his country as well as he could.” That was all in few and simple words he had to say. The following day, being informed that the end of his life was nigh at hand, he asked for a Christian minister, and then that he should be baptized in the faith and name of Jesus, the Son of God. The Rev. Mr. Hyder, chaplain of the post, complied with this earnest desire, and a writer in the _Atlantic Monthly_[39] relates that, “then the minister in prayer commended the believing soul to God, General Burnside and his staff, who were present, kneeling around the bed. When the prayer was ended, General Sanders took General Burnside by the hand. Tears dropped down the bronzed cheeks of the chief as he listened to the last words which followed. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was now about to be administered, but suddenly the strength of the dying soldier failed, and like a child he gently fell asleep.” To this pathetic recital its author appends the quotation from the sayings of Him who spake as never man spake: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

It was found impossible to assemble the chief officers of the United States army by day at the funeral of their slain companion. Longstreet’s troops had advanced to the ridge for which they fought and planted themselves within rifle range of the defences on the northwest, and the town had become fairly besieged, north, from the river above to the river below. Lines parallel with and in cannon range of Burnside’s, had been established, and redoubts had been thrown up for batteries, which on the third day opened a continuous fire that met with prompt answer. There was need of constant vigilance and alertness upon the long line of defences, and those in command could not prudently leave their posts of duty in daylight.

In the afternoon, a resident minister of the Gospel was requested by General Burnside to attend after nightfall the funeral of the officer, whose wound unto death had signalized the beginning of the siege and thrown a dark shadow upon the spirits of his companions. They gathered together at their commander’s headquarters, and among them was the Chief Engineer of the Department, who was a personal friend of the deceased--his only class-mate at the siege--who spoke of him as a “most gallant, chivalric soldier and noble gentleman.” To Capt. Poe, Gen. Sanders had communicated the premonition he had, that death awaited him in battle on the day he fell. And with the Captain, he had left on going to the field, some personal treasures, among which were a few letters from one who he had hoped would in the future be his bride. He was yet young, his age being 28.

As the party of mourners passed down the street to the hotel where the body lay, Gen. Burnside spoke of the extraordinary personal daring of the departed man. With sad emphasis he said, “I told Sanders not to expose himself, but he _would_ do it.” Upon reaching the hotel, the company’s number was increased by waiting friends, and after religious offices a procession was formed upon the silent street. There was no plumed hearse, drawn by well-fed horses, but kindly hands of brother-soldiers to bear the dead, at the end of

“The path of glory that leads but to the grave.”

A sort of weird solemnity invested the darkened scene. Its features were in such strong contrast with those which might be expected in the fitness of things it would wear. No funeral strains of martial music floated on the air. Its quiet was not even disturbed by the dull thumping of the solitary drum and the heavy tread of armed soldiers. It seemed as if War, disrobed of its pomp and pageantry, had taken its departure and its absence was supplied by heaven-born Peace, clothed in plain and simple attire, disdaining through profound grief all trappings of woe. An observer might fancy that the army, which with dauntless courage refused to surrender to men in superior force, had now surrendered to God, and that its chieftains, having yielded up their swords, were marching along the way into captivity.

But yet, not all is peaceful. For hark! there comes the sound of booming cannon. And every little while it again peals forth upon the hushed air. From the presence of these night obsequies, War is gone, but he lingers near and bids defiance to the encroacher on his domain. Little heed, though, do the mourners give to his hoarse notes. And the heavens appear to sympathize in the grief, for their face is covered with mist as with a veil, and hanging low in the western sky, a young moon sheds her dimmed luster on the scene, and from above all, the loving eye of One looks down, without whose notice, although He rules the army of heaven, not a sparrow falls to the ground.

At the head of the procession went the Commander-in-chief and the minister. By their side walked the Medical Director of the army,[40] bearing a lighted lantern in his hand. Said the clergyman:

“I am reminded of the lines on ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore.’”

Gen. Burnside quickly replied, striking his hand on his thigh, “I have thought of them twenty times to-day.”

That lantern did duty at the grave, as the body was committed, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” in hope of the resurrection of the dead. When all was over, the General said to the minister a thoughtful word concerning the event, inevitable, awaiting all men; and then every one went his way, some to watch and some to sleep: but probably few of the company could forget the burial of Gen. R. M. Sanders, in the likeness of its circumstances to the “Burial of Sir John Moore.”

“Not a drum was heard nor a funeral note As his corse to the ramparts we hurried, Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O’er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night, The sod with our bayonets turning, By the struggling moonbeams’ misty light, And the lantern dimly burning.

Few and short were the prayers we said And we spoke not a word of sorrow, But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

* * * * *

But half of our heavy task was done, When the clock struck the hour for retiring, And we knew by the distant random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down From the field of his fame, fresh and gory, We carved not a line, we raised not a stone But we left him alone in his glory.”

On the morning of November 20th the defences were thought to be capable of resisting any probable foe, but during that entire day and night, the work of strengthening them was continued. Indeed such labor was prosecuted for a considerable period of time, in which the besiegers were also busy at work for a contrary purpose. All that skill and toil could effect was done to hold the town. First Creek was successfully dammed at the Vine Street bridge, and a dam that made a strong obstacle was built across Second Creek where it passes through a tunnel under the railroad. In front of the rifle pits, a _chevaux de frise_ was formed of pointed stakes, bound together by wire, and nearly five feet high, and at one place two thousand pikes, captured at Cumberland Gap, were used for a like purpose. In front of the stakes thick branches of trees were firmly set in the ground. The besiegers occupied a large brick dwelling house a short distance west of Fort Sanders, which the adult children of the Hon. Wm. B. Reese, Sr., deceased, had been compelled to vacate. The sharp-shooting carried on from it became at length so annoying that at night on the 20th, the Seventeenth Michigan regiment was sent to destroy the building. One might have supposed from the loud voice of the Colonel in giving orders and the ringing cheers of his men, that a small army was approaching the house, and in a great fright the inmates ingloriously fled without firing a gun. The dwelling and barns were burned to the ground. On that day, there was a repetition of the firing from a battery Longstreet had planted upon the Tazewell road, and which had thrown the first shells into the town--without harm at either time. For several days there were constant sharp-shooting, skirmishing and cannonading without important consequences.

It was believed by some that had Gen. Longstreet attempted with concentrated forces to take the town upon his arrival, he would have succeeded, but the judgment of mere civilians upon the subject is of little or no account, and competent military strategists would probably differ in opinion concerning it. There can be no doubt that his delay in a vigorous and determined assault increased the hazard of defeat, by giving Burnside time and opportunity, which he took care to improve, for adding to the strength of his defences. Perhaps Longstreet felt that he had Burnside in a trap from which there was no reasonable hope of escape, and that instead of sacrificing men in capturing him by violent conflict, he would compel the surrender of the United States army by starvation. To all appearances the Confederate commander had plenty of time to that end. Armed help could not come to the besieged, except from Gen. Grant at Chattanooga, whose predecessor had not long before sustained a _quasi_ defeat at Chicamauga, who was confronted by a powerful foe, and who, Gen. Bragg, from his own advantageous position, thought was at his mercy. Could Longstreet have foreseen the complete rout of Bragg at Missionary Ridge, no doubt he would more actively have prosecuted his undertaking at Knoxville, but alas! for the shortness of human prevision. Important events in the womb of the near future, military as well as civil, are foreknown but by Him who only is wise. As Longstreet could not anticipate the serious disaster to the Confederate arms at the battle of Chattanooga, he sat down before Knoxville with composure and wariness, and rather toyed with his supposed victim than contended with him as an equal adversary.

And really, the investment of the town was so closely maintained, that a surrender of the besieged army, because of starvation before relief could be had from any quarter, seemed within the range of probabilities. The amount of its supplies when the siege began was very limited. Cattle and hogs were at once slaughtered and salted down, but there were in the commissary department only one or two days’ rations for the whole army. Only quarter rations were at first issued. Within a few days these were wholly stopped, as all that could be served were needed by the hospitals, and no sugar or coffee could be had. Possession was taken of the mills for Government use. Citizens were living upon plain food in reduced quantities, but these were necessarily drawn upon to meet the army’s necessities. The larders of people who sympathized with the Confederacy had especially to suffer. In some cases Union families befriended their neighbors, who in the exigency would otherwise have been put to great straits. A Union man might be troubled by the thought that he was giving “aid and comfort to the enemy,” by keeping under his bedstead a sack of flour for a Secessionist who had a wife and five children to feed (of which there was an instance), but his troubled mind would easily find refuge in the thought that he was obeying the teachings of humanity. A spirit of fear was widely diffused, under the influence of which money as well as provisions, were temporarily transferred for safety from one person to another. The fright was greatest in respect to cash, at the beginning of the siege, when not only small sums thus changed hands, but a place of secure deposit for large ones was eagerly sought. A citizen was surprised by a night visit, the object of which was to leave with him a hundred thousand dollars, belonging to a stranger who the next morning had sufficient nerve to decamp to Kentucky, carrying the money with him.

By the pontoon bridge over the river, free access was had by Burnside’s troops to a portion of the country that was intensely loyal to the United States, including the southern side of Knox county and the whole of Sevier County. Some of the people of that region voluntarily furnished supplies to the besieged; and foraging parties from the army were sent out, who returned with corn, wheat, &c. By these means, conducted by Capt. Doughty, spoken of by the commander-in-chief as “a most excellent officer,” the commissary department was enabled to issue during the siege after its first few days, bread made of mixed flour, meal and bran, but then only in half and quarter rations. Even for this bread, corn on the cob, eaten in some instances unroasted, had to be substituted several times late in the siege. Soldiers often ate at once the small piece of bread which was their whole allowance of nourishment for twenty-four hours. Some of them, whether from a prudent regard to the returning excesses of hunger, or to keep up the fiction of three meals a day, divided their bread into as many parts, which gave them a single mouthful for each meal. This scanty fare was increased on occasional days by a piece of fresh pork.

The besiegers wisely thought it important to deprive Burnside of his supplies from south of the river, and for that purpose to destroy his bridge. Therefore Confederate soldiers were sent a few miles up the Tennessee to Boyd’s Ferry--a point near its junction with the French Broad River, for the construction of a raft, which floating down would carry away the pontoon. News of this intended feat was conveyed to headquarters. Townsmen understood that one of the patriotic and courageous women, who never failed in East Tennessee to serve the United States upon opportunity, from her home in the country saw the hewing down of timber and building of the raft, then adroitly she made her way by night through the Confederate lines with information to Knoxville, at the risk of liberty and life. In consequence, on the 22d, at the General’s order, Lieut. Col. Babcock and Capt. Poe constructed a boom, by stretching an iron cable 1,000 feet long across the river above the bridge. Begun at 5 P. M., it was finished at 9 A. M. the next day, and three days later upon renewed alarms, a second boom was laid, of long timber fastened with chains, on the surface of the water.

On the 23d, after night had fallen, the Second Division, Ninth army corps, (Gen. Hartraupt), was attacked and forced to fall back through that part of the town lying north of the railroad. In this retreat, houses that were occupied, or in danger of being so, by Confederate sharp-shooters, were set on fire and burned. For that purpose the Federal troops made some gallant sorties. Among the buildings destroyed in the course of the general battling in that quarter, were dwellings of citizens. In a few instances families were able to save some of their household goods, to which work officers and men contributed help when it was possible, but on the night of the 23d, little or nothing could be done in that way. The railroad machine shops, numbering eighteen or twenty buildings, and a former Confederate arsenal containing a large quantity of war material, shared in the conflagration. The flames that with crackling noise wrapped many houses in their glowing arms, the billows of smoke brightly spotted with huge sparks and burning fragments of wood, the crash of breaking timbers and falling roofs, the explosion of shells in the arsenal, the firing of guns by the contending armies which the light of the flames made conspicuous, and their defiant shoutings at each other in tumultuous anger, altogether combined to form a remarkable scene. To a lively imagination, it might seem a panorama of the infernal region--that the roar of guns was the music of its orchestra, and that evil spirits joined in the _melee_, were struggling for the mastery in the smoky air above the blazing houses and fighting men. The conflagration lasted nearly all night.

Next morning the ground from which the Union army had been driven was recovered by Lieut. Colonel Hawkes of the Twenty-first Massachusetts.

The 24th witnessed a brave sally of the Second Michigan Volunteers upon the enemy’s advanced rifle pits north of Fort Sanders. They were at first successful, but not being properly supported, were finally repulsed, with some loss. On the night of the same day, a pontoon bridge was thrown across the river below the town, upon which a portion of Longstreet’s forces passed over, and on the 25th they made a desperate attempt to seize the heights commanding Knoxville, but Gen. Shackelford, reinforced by Col. Riley’s brigade, encountered and defeated them. Failing in that object, they planted a battery upon a high bluff close to the river’s southern bank, more than a mile distant from Fort Sanders, but partially commanding it and also the nearer earthworks on College Hill.

The 26th was thanksgiving day, and Gen Burnside issued an order for its observance, not in customary feasting, which was impossible, but by gratitude to God; and he recalled to his men’s minds the trials of those who established the Republic, as an encouragement to endure their own hardships. And indeed they had need of fortitude, for not only were they hungry, but the weather was cold--the overcoats and blankets of many had been cast away at Campbell’s Station, with their tents--and their resource for warmth was to crawl, when off duty, into holes which they dug in the bank, back of the trenches. Still as they ate their bits of bread, their thoughts were turned to loved ones at home, and their hearts might be thankful. After dark, important positions were made stronger in front with telegraph wires stretched from stump to stump.

On the 27th Longstreet kept up active firing chiefly with artillery, but Burnside’s army was silent. Early that evening there was much cheering by the besiegers and music from their bands. In the night men were employed in chopping down trees, clearing the way for a battery on the south side river bluff, two thousand yards and more from Fort Sanders. The signs of their taking positions in the front for attack were so strong in the afternoon that the Federal soldiers stood in the trenches awaiting it.

Both armies were hard at work on Saturday, the 28th. The battery of six guns on the river bluff opened fire upon Roemer’s battery between Fort Sanders and west of College Hill, but did no harm. About 11 o’clock at night, which was cloudy and very dark, the enemy attacked and drove in the pickets in front of Fort Sanders, captured many of them and occupied their lines about one hundred yards away from the Fort. The fighting was hot, and lasted two hours. Capt. Buffum, with a fresh detail, established a new line of pickets and by hard work, new pits were thrown up before day. There was skirmishing all night long, and a slow cannonading from the enemy’s guns, principally upon Fort Sanders. The hours of darkness seemed long to Burnside’s men, for they had to stand in the trenches, with no extra clothing to protect them from the cold.

Evidently, Fort Sanders was to be assaulted. Longstreet had had his arms around Knoxville for ten days, and had closed its doors to all messages from Burnside’s friends. Grant had sought to send encouraging words from Chattanooga to the besieged commander, but could only dispatch them to Gen. Wilcox at Cumberland Gap, in the hope that by some means or other they might be transmitted to Knoxville. And now, the Confederate commander determined to come into close wrestle with his adversary and bring the siege to a triumphant conclusion.