unaccountably delayed the execution of the stringent orders which he received from Washington to go to the relief of Rosecrans. In the end it was proved that Burnside's cheerful optimism, which detained him in East Tennessee, served well the cause of the Union; his occupation of Knoxville, then and afterwards, was a source of great irritation to the Confederates; and it was this hold upon their lines of communication between the eastern and western divisions of their armies that induced Jefferson Davis to divide Bragg's forces in front of Chattanooga and thus make the defeat of that army easier to General Grant.

While Longstreet was making his way from the southeast towards Knoxville, Burnside was harassed from various points around Burnside's his position. In fact, although he maintained a tranquil situation. mind and apparently regarded his dispositions and those of his foes with great equanimity, his situation was daily becoming more critical. His main fighting force was stationed along a line reaching from Kingston to Knoxville, intersecting part of the valley which lies between the Tennessee River on the west and the Great Smoky Mountains on the east. With much firmness and skill, he resisted. the advance of Longstreet, contending every step of the way, and doing all in his power to delay his advance, in order that his own fortifications at Knoxville should be suitably strengthened, and putting off as far as possible an attack which, if precipitated, would only increase the perplexities of Grant's situation at Chattanooga.

Siege of

Knoxville.

When Burnside finally fell back to Knoxville, prepared for a long siege, he had about 12,000 effective men, exclusive of an unorganized force of about 1,000 loyal Tennesseeans who had joined his command. Longstreet brought with him over 15,000 wellseasoned troops; and the two brigades of Buckner's division which came up later increased his force to about 20,000 men. Both armies suffered from scantiness of supplies and minor articles of equipment. During the siege, Burnside's army received provisions that were floated down the Holston River, on which Knoxville is situated, on rafts built and launched by the loyalists living above the city. The defences of the place extended in an irregular line from the Holston River, westward of the city, northward and eastward to the river bank above, making a line of complete circumvallation, with a strong salient, subsequently named Fort Sanders, on the northwestern side. of the line. While these works were being finished, at the very last moment, General William P. Sanders, a graduate of the United States Military Academy, commanding the first division of Shackelford's Cavalry Corps, held the enemy in front of the fortification that afterwards bore his name; during the entire forenoon he was facing a fierce assault which was successful only when he fell, a heroic sacrifice for the final completion of the defences of Knoxville.

This assault was made on the 18th of November, and during the next succeeding days the besiegers strengthened their lines and made. occasional sorties against the besieged, the operations partaking of the usual character of such an investment of a town. Although Fort Sanders was the strongest point on the Federal line, its capture would enable an enemy to take the entire system of works and hold the town at his mercy. Here Longstreet, on the morning of the 29th, made a furious charge under the cover of an artillery fire. The work was constructed with great skill and the ground was made more difficult by the interlacing of mazes of telegraph wires among the treestumps in front, as well as by the thin ice with which the surface of the earth was coated. Although two or three battle-flags of the Confederates were planted at one time on the parapet of the fort, the assault was a disastrous failure. Only one man reached the inside of the fort alive, and the ditch outside was filled with the bodies of those who were slain or wounded while making their brave and abandoned. desperate attack. This assault cost Longstreet a thousand men; the Federal loss was less than twenty killed and wounded. When the broken and bleeding column returned to Longstreet's front, it was only to learn that Bragg had been defeated at Chattanooga and that the line of march must now be taken up to Virginia again. He abandoned the siege on the 2d of December, put his trains in

The siege

1863.]

THE GALLANT DEFENCE OF KNOXVILLE.

145

motion, and on the 4th he passed to the northward of Knoxville with his face turned to the east. He did not, however, immediately return to Virginia, nor did he rejoin Bragg, as he had been at first ordered. Crossing the Holston above Knoxville, he turned southward and passed the winter in the midst of a fertile and well-stocked country. The failure to pursue him was an error of judgment the responsibility for which was never satisfactorily ascertained.

General O. M. Poe, by whose engineering skill the wonderfully planned defences were constructed, said of the gallant defenders: "The conduct of the men who stood in the trenches at Knoxville can not be overpraised. Half starved, with clothing tattered and torn, they endured without a murmur every form of exposure and hardship that falls to the lot of the soldier. The question with them was not whether they could withstand the assaults of the enemy, but simply whether sufficient food could be obtained to enable them to keep their places in the line. That they were not reduced to the last extremity in this regard is due to the supplies sent in by the loyalists of the French Broad settlements, who took advantage of Longstreet's inability to invest the place completely, and under cover of the nightfogs floated down to us such food and forage as they could collect." The total Federal loss in the siege and prior engagements was 693; the Confederates lost 1,392.

The deliver

nessee.

At last, long-suffering, much enduring Tennessee was delivered from the rough-riding hordes that had so harassed and lacerated the loyal population. The relief of Burnside was hailed ance of Tenas a good omen for the Union cause; but the deliverance of East Tennessee was greeted with real thankfulness by all whose hearts were enlisted in the general cause of oppressed humanity. On the 7th of December, President Lincoln issued a proclamation in which were given expression the sentiments of the loyal people of the United States. He said: "Reliable information being received that the insurgent force is retreating from East Tennessee, under circumstances rendering it probable that the Union forces cannot hereafter be dislodged from that important position, and esteeming this to be of high National consequence, I recommend that all loyal people do, on receipt of this information, assemble at their places of worship and render special homage and gratitude to Almighty God for this great advancement of the National cause." And on the following day he sent to General Grant a message tendering him and his command his thanks and "profoundest gratitude for the skill, courage, and perseverance with which" they had accomplished the ends and aims of the campaign which had now ended in the permanent occupation of Chattanooga and Knoxville.

CHAPTER V.

THE SIEGE OF CHARLESTON.

MUSTERING THE BLACK SOLDIERS. GREAT EXPECTATIONS OF THE MONITOR FLEET. - DESTRUCTION OF THE CONFEDERATE CRUISER NASHVILLE. - ATTEMPT OF THE CONFEDERATES TO RAISE THE CHARLESTON BLOCKADE. ADMIRAL DUPONT'S REPULSE. OTHER INEFFECTIVE NAVAL OPERATIONS. DESTRUCTION OF "THE LADIES' GUNBOAT." — DAHLGREN SUCCEEDS DUPONT. — DISASTROUS FEDERAL REPULSE AT FORT WAGNER. INVESTMENT AND CAPTURE OF THE FORT. — “THE SWAMP ANGEL."- FEDERAL OFFICERS PUT UNDER FIRE IN CHARLESTON. — DIFFICULTIES OF EXCHANGING PRISONERS. A LONG AND INEFFECTUAL SIEGE.

Colored troops.

ALTHOUGH there had been several tentative efforts towards raising colored troops for service in the Federal armies, it was not until the early part of 1863 that much progress was made in that direction. In April of that year, the adjutant-general of the army, General Lorenzo Thomas, was sent to the West and Southwest, charged with the duty of enrolling and organizing for service the so-called "contrabands," or black fugitives that had found their way into the Union lines. The experiment was not immediately successful, owing to the pressure of other military questions upon the energies of the generals commanding in those fields. In the free States, where there were large numbers of colored persons, born in the North, the work of enlisting negro soldiers was taken up tardily. Governor Sprague, of Rhode Island, asked and obtained permission to raise a colored regiment as early as September, 1862; and this led Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, to declare that other States should contribute to the work of raising regiments of colored men, the black population of Rhode Island -being insufficient to meet the necessity. Accordingly, in a general order for the enlistment of volunteers, sent to Governor Andrew, "persons of African descent" were, at the governor's suggestion, included. He provided at once for the raising of two regiments of Northern blacks. In May, the 54th Massachusetts Robert G. Shaw, colonel was reviewed on Boston Common, and embarked for South Carolina. A second, the 55th Colonel Norwood Hallowell - was soon after ready to take the field. If the question of inefficiency was not settled at the