170 BATTLE OF RINGGOLD. reached Ringgold, the rear of the pursued had just left it. A little beyond is a narrow gap in Taylor's Ridge, sufficiently wide for the passage of the East Chickamauga River and the railway, with margins rising several hundred feet. There General Cleburne (called, as we have observed, the "Stonewall Jackson of the West"), covering Bragg's retreat, had made a stand, with guns well posted, determined to impede the pursuers as long as possible. Hooker's guns, detained at the crossing of the Chickamauga, were not yet up. His troops, flushed with success, could not be easily restrained, and they were allowed to attack with small-arms only. The Thirteenth Illinois made a desperate attempt to dislodge the foe, but failed, with heavy loss. Yet the struggle went on, and finally, in the afternoon, when some of Hooker's guns were brought into position and the post was flanked by his infantry, Cleburne retreated, having inflicted a loss on the Nationals of four hundred and thirty-two men, of whom sixty-five were killed. Cleburne left one hundred and thirty killed and wounded on the field. So ended THE BATTLE OF RINGGOLD.“ • Nov. 27, 1863. General J. C. Davis's division, which had been attached to Sherman's command, reached Ringgold just after Cleburne fled, ready to press on in pursuit; but there it ended. Grant would gladly have continued it, and would doubtless have captured or destroyed Bragg's army; but he was compelled to refrain, because Burnside needed immediate relief, so as to save East Tennessee from the grasp of Longstreet. He had informed Grant that his supplies would not last longer than the 3d of December, a week later. This statement was a powerful appeal. Grant was in a condition to respond with vigor, for his foe was utterly demoralized by defeat and almost mutinous discontent among his troops,' and Sherman's forces were interposed between him and Longstreet, so as to prevent any possibility of their forming a junction. The victorious troops fell back toward Chattanooga, and the campaign against Bragg ended.3 The Confederate retreat was continued to Dalton, where the army established a fortified camp. Ridge, at 757 killed, 4,529 wounded, and 330 missing, making a total of 5,616. Bragg's loss was about 3,100 in killed and wounded, and a little over 6,000 prisoners. Of the latter, 239 were commissioned officers. Grant also captured 40 pieces of artillery, with caissons and carriages, and 7,000 small-arms. 1 Bragg, at this time, as at the battle of Chickamauga, tried to cover up his own incompetence under censures of others. He attributed his failure to gain a victory in the former case to the tardiness of Polk and Hindman; now he attributed his defeat to what he was pleased to call "the shameful conduct of the troops on the left," commanded by Breckinridge. And Jefferson Davis, in order to shield from censure this, his creature and favorite, disparaged his troops, who fought as gallantly and successfully as the bad management of their commander would allow. "It is believed," Davis said, "that if the troops who yielded to the assault [Hooker's] had fought with the valor which they had displayed on previous occasions, and which was manifested in this battle in the other parts of the line, the enemy would have been repulsed with very great slaughter, and our country would have escaped the misfortune, and the army the mortification, of the first defeat that has resulted from misconduct by the troops."-Pollard's Third Year of the War, 159. 2 Gross's brigade visited the battle-field of Chickamauga for the purpose of burying the Union dead, whom Bragg had inhumanly left to decay on the surface. The name of each soldier thus buried, whenever it could be ascertained, was placed upon a board at the head of his grave, with the number of his regiment. 3 "Considering the strength of the rebel position and the difficulty of storming his intrenchments," said Halleck, "the Battle of Chattanooga must be regarded as the most remarkable in history. Not only did the officers and men exhibit great skill and daring in their operations in the field, but the highest praise is also due to the commanding general for his admirable dispositions for dislodging the enemy from a position apparently impregnable." BURNSIDE IN KNOXVILLE. 171 CHAPTER VI. SIEGE OF KNOXVILLE-OPERATIONS ON THE COASTS OF THE CAROLINAS AND GEORGIA. E left Burnside in Knoxville, closely besieged by LongHis head-quarters were at the pleasant brick mansion of Mr. Crozier, on Gay Street, in the central part of the town. During the dark days of the siege his bearing toward the citizens and his soldiers-kind, generous, and humane-won for him the profound respect of all, even the most rebellious. He visited the families of Dr. Brownlow, Mr. Maynard, Colonel Baxter, Colonel Temple, and other prominent citizens who were then exiles from their homes, and gave them every comfort and encouragement in his power; and at the office of the Knoxville Whig, Brownlow's newspaper, through which that stanch Unionist had so long and effectively fulminated his scathing thunderbolts of wrath against secessionists and rebels, Burnside's orders, and other printing, was done by willing Union hands. In the lurid light of the Civil War, that long, low building, in an obscure alley, looms up into historical importance. Who shall estimate the value of the influence of that sheet, which went out daily from its walls, to the cause of the Union in East Tennessee? BURNSIDE'S HEAD-QUARTERS. Burnside's forces, as we have observed, were well intrenched, and he had little to fear, excepting a failure of his supplies. KNOXVILLE WHIG OFFICE. He was cheered with hope, because of his confidence in Grant, that aid would come before they were exhausted. Longstreet, doubting Bragg's ability to cope with his new adversary, anxiously pressed, forward the siege, with the mistaken idea that starvation would compel a surrender in a few days. He was diligent in closing every avenue of supply, and in 1 See page 158. 172 SIEGE OF KNOXVILLE. these efforts skirmishes frequently occurred, for sorties were made from the trenches. Finally, on the 25th, the day when the Nationals were carrying the Missionaries' Ridge, he threw a considerable force across the Holston, near Armstrong's (his head-quarters), to seize the heights, south of the river, that commanded Knoxville. Quite a severe struggle ensued, in which the Confederates were worsted. They succeeded, however, in seizing another THE HOLSTON, NEAR ARMSTRONG'S. 3 knob, lower Bragg's defeat at Chattanooga. He well knew that columns from Grant's victorious army would soon be upon his rear, so he determined to take Knoxville by storm before aid could reach Burnside. He was now strengthened by the arrival of troops under Generals Sam. Jones, Carter, "Mudwall" Jackson, and "Cerro Gordo" Williams, and he could expect no more. For thirteen days he had been wasting strength in pressing an unsuccessful siege, and from that moment he must grow weaker. Burnside was cheered by the same news that made Longstreet desponding, and he resolved to resist the besiegers to the last extremity. Nov. 28. 1863. Such was the situation of affairs, when, at eleven o'clock on Saturday night, the air cold and raw, the sky black with clouds, and the darkness thick, Longstreet proceeded to attack Fort Sanders, then occupied by the Twenty-ninth Massachusetts, Seventy-ninth New York, two companies of the Second and one of the Twentieth Michigan. The fort was bastioned, and the northwest was the salient of the angle, the point seen in the engraving on the next page. In front of it the woods had been cleared over several acres, sloping gently to a ravine. From 1 When the siege commenced there was in the commissary department little more than one day's rations, and supplies could then be received only from the south side of the Holston, across a pontoon bridge, the foo holding the avenues of approach to Knoxville on the north side of the river. Burnside's efforts were directed to keeping open the country between the Holston and the French Broad, and every attempt of Longstreet to seize it was promptly met. A considerable quantity of corn and wheat, and some pork, was soon collected in Knoxville, but almost from the beginning of the siege the soldiers were compelled to subsist on half and quarter rations, without coffee or sugar. Indeed, during the last few days of the siege, the bread of their half rations was made of clear bran. Longstreet tried to break the pontoon bridge, by sending down the swift current from Boyd's Ferry, a heavy raft. Captain Poe, Burnside's able engineer, advised of this work, stretched an iron cable across the Holston above the bridge, a thousand feet in length, and farther up the river he constructed a boom of logs. These foiled the attempts of the Confederates to destroy the pontoon bridge. 2 See page 157. 9 This is from a sketch by the author, taken from the piazza of Mr. Armstrong's house. The knob seen over the low point of land around which the Holston sweeps, is the one on which the Confederates planted the battery that commanded Fort Sanders. ATTACK ON FORT SANDERS. 173 thirty to eighty rods in front were rifle-pits and abatis for the shelter and use of the advanced line, should it be driven back; and between these and the fort strong wires were stretched from stump to stump, a foot above the Nov. 29, 1868. ground, in an entangling net-work that would trip and confuse a storming party. The armament of the fort consisted of four 20-pounder Parrott guns, forming the battery of Lieutenant Benjamin, Burnside's chief of artillery; four light 12-pounders, forming Buckley's battery, and two three-inch guns. All that was done by Longstreet on the night of the attack was to drive in the National advance, and seize and hold the rifle-pits. Just after six o'clock the next morning" he opened a furious cannonade from his batteries in advance of Armstrong's. This was answered by Roemer's battery, on College Hill, and was soon followed by a tremendous yell from the Confederates, as they rushed forward at the double-quick to storm the fort. These were picked men, the flower of Longstreet's army; and, in obedience to orders, one brigade pressed forward to the close assault, two brigades supporting it, while two others watched the National line, and kept up a continual fire. The tumult was awful for a few minutes, for it was composed of the yells of voices, the rattle of musketry, the thunder of cannon, and the screams of shells. The charging party moved swiftly forward to the abatis, which somewhat confused their line. The wire network was a worse obstacle, and whole companies were prostrated by it. While they were thus bewildered, the double-shotted guns of General Ferrero, the skillful commander of the fort, were playing fearfully on the Confederates, under the direction of Benjamin. Yet the assailants pressed on, gained the ditch, and attempted to scale the parapet. One officer (Colonel McElroy) actually gained the summit, and planted the flag of the Thirteenth Mississippi there, but a moment afterward his body, pierced by a 1 This is from a sketch made by the author in the spring of 1866, looking in the direction of Longstreet's approach. Below the single bird is seen Longstreet's head-quarters-Armstrong's. Below the two birds, in the middle-ground, was the place of Longstreet's principal batteries, in advance of Armstrong's. The man and dog, in front, are on the bastion where the principal assault was made. The stumps to which the wires mentioned in the text were attached, and some of the net-work, was yet there when the sketch was made. 2 The storming party consisted of three brigades of General McLaws's division-Wolford's, Cobb's, and Phillips's, all Georgians; General Humphreys's brigade of Mississippians, and a brigade composed of the remains of Anderson's and Bryant's, consisting of South Carolina and Georgia regiments. The leader of the Mississippi troops was the present (1868) Governor Humphreys, of Mississippi |