Knoxville Campaign Totally Explained

Everything about The Knoxville Campaign totally explained

The Knoxville Campaign was a series of American Civil War battles and maneuvers in East Tennessee during the fall of 1863. Union forces under Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside occupied Knoxville, Tennessee, and Confederate forces under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet were detached from General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee at Chattanooga to prevent Burnside's reinforcement of the besieged Union forces there. Although Longstreet was one of Gen. Robert E. Lee's best corps commanders in the East, he was unsuccessful in his role as an independent commander in the West and accomplished little in the campaign.

Background and initial movements

The mountainous, largely Unionist region of East Tennessee was considered by President Abraham Lincoln to be a key war objective. Besides possessing a population loyal to the Union, the region was rich in grain and livestock and controlled the railroad corridor from Chattanooga to Virginia. Throughout 1862 and 1863, Lincoln pressured a series of commanders to move through the difficult terrain and occupy the area. Ambrose Burnside, who had been soundly defeated at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, was transferred to the Western Theater and given command of the Department and the Army of the Ohio in March 1863. Burnside was ordered to move against Knoxville as swiftly as possible while, at the same time, Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland was ordered to operate against Braxton Bragg in Middle Tennessee (the Tullahoma Campaign and the subsequent Chickamauga Campaign).
   Burnside's plan to advance from Cincinnati, Ohio, with his two corps (IX and XXIII Corps) was delayed when the IX Corps was ordered to reinforce Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Vicksburg Campaign. While awaiting the return of the IX Corps, Burnside sent a brigade under Brig. Gen. William P. Sanders to strike at Knoxville with a combined force of cavalry and infantry. In mid-June, Sanders' men destroyed railroads and disrupted communications around the city, controlled by the Confederate Department of East Tennessee, commanded by Maj. Gen. Simon B. Buckner.
   By mid-August, Burnside began his advance toward the city. The direct route to Knoxville ran through the Cumberland Gap, a position strongly favoring the Confederate defenders. Instead, Burnside chose to flank them. He threatened the gap from the north with the division commanded by Colonel John F. DeCourcy, while his other two divisions swung around 40 miles (64 km) to the south of the Confederate position, over rugged mountain roads toward Knoxville. Despite poor road conditions, his men were able to march as many as 30 miles (48 km) per day.
   As the Chickamauga Campaign began, Buckner was ordered south to Chattanooga, leaving only a single brigade in the Cumberland Gap and one other east of Knoxville. Maj. Gen. Samuel Jones replaced Buckner as commander of the department at East Tennessee. One of Burnside's cavalry brigades reached Knoxville on September 2, virtually unopposed. The following day, Burnside and his main force occupied the city, welcomed warmly by the local populace.
   In the Cumberland Gap, 2,300 inexperienced soldiers commanded by Brig. Gen. John W. Frazer had built defenses but had no orders about what to do following Buckner's withdrawal. On September 7, confronted by DeCourcy to his north and Brig. Gen. James M. Shackelford approaching from the south, Frazer refused to surrender. Burnside and an infantry brigade commanded by Col. Samuel A. Gilbert left Knoxville and marched 60 miles (96 km) in only 52 hours. Finally realizing that he was significantly outnumbered, Frazer surrendered on September 9.
   Burnside dispatched some cavalry reinforcements to Rosecrans and made preparations for an expedition to clear the roads and gaps from East Tennessee to Virginia and if possible secure the saltworks beyond Abingdon. During this time, the Battle of Chickamauga loomed, and frantic requests from Washington, D.C., to move south and reinforce Rosecrans were effectively ignored by Burnside, who didn't want to give up his newly occupied territory and its loyal citizens. Furthermore, Burnside was encountering difficulties in moving supplies through the rugged territory and was concerned that if he moved even farther from his supply base, he might get into serious difficulty.

Battles of the East Tennessee Campaign

There were two relatively minor battles in East Tennessee that occurred while Burnside was being urged to reinforce Rosecrans:

Battle of Blountsville (September 22, 1863) ť On September 22, Union Col. John W. Foster, with his cavalry and artillery, engaged Col. James E. Carter and his troops at Blountsville. Foster attacked at noon and in the four-hour battle, shelled the town and initiated a flanking movement, compelling the Confederates to withdraw.

Battle of Blue Springs (October 10, 1863) ť Confederate Brig. Gen. John S. Williams, with his cavalry force, set out to disrupt Union communications and logistics. He wished to take Bull's Gap on the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad. On October 3, while advancing on Bull's Gap, he fought with Brig. Gen. Samuel P. Carter's Union Cavalry Division, XXIII Corps, at Blue Springs, about nine miles (14 km) from Bull's Gap, on the railroad. Carter withdrew, not knowing how many of the enemy he faced. Carter and Williams skirmished for the next few days. On October 10, Carter approached Blue Springs in force. Williams had received some reinforcements. The battle began about 10:00 a.m. with Union cavalry engaging the Confederates until afternoon while another mounted force attempted to place itself in a position to cut off a Rebel retreat. Captain Orlando M. Poe, the Chief Engineer, performed a reconnaissance to identify the best location for making an infantry attack. At 3:30 p.m., Brig. Gen. Edward Ferrero's 1st Division, IX Corps, moved up to attack, which he did at 5:00 p.m. Ferrero's men broke into the Confederate line, causing heavy casualties, and advanced almost to the enemy's rear before being checked. After dark, the Confederates withdrew, and the Federals took up the pursuit in the morning. Within days, Williams and his men had retired to Virginia. Burnside had launched the East Tennessee Campaign to reduce or extinguish Confederate influence in the area; Blue Springs helped fulfill that mission.
   While Longstreet's men prepared for rail transport, a small skirmish occurred in Greeneville, Tennessee, on November 6. Maj. Gen. Robert Ransom, Jr., and Brig. Gen. William E. "Grumble" Jones dispersed Union cavalry and infantry in the area, resulting in numerous prisoners from the 7th Ohio Cavalry and the 2nd East Tennessee Mounted Infantry regiments.
   Longstreet's plan was to travel by railroad to Sweetwater, Tennessee, approximately halfway to Knoxville, but it was a journey fraught by problems. The expected trains didn't arrive on time, and the men started off on foot. When the trains did arrive, they were pulled by underpowered locomotives that couldn't negotiate all of the mountain grades under load, forcing the men to dismount and walk alongside the cars in the steeper sections. The engineers had insufficient wood for fuel, and the men had to stop and dismantle fences along the way to continue. It took eight days for all of Longstreet's men and equipment to travel the 60 miles (96 km) to Sweetwater, and when they arrived on November 12, they found that promised supplies were not available. The men, who had traveled from the campaigns in Virginia, wouldn't be equipped with adequate food or clothing for the winter to come.
   The Lincoln administration became concerned about Burnside's situation and, despite weeks of urging him to leave Knoxville and head south, now ordered him to hold the city. General Grant attempted to organize a relief expedition from Chattanooga, but Burnside calmly suggested that 5,000 of his men would advance southwest toward Longstreet, establish contact, and gradually withdraw toward Knoxville, which would ensure that the Confederates couldn't easily return to Chattanooga and reinforce Bragg. Grant readily accepted. On November 14, Longstreet erected a bridge across the Tennessee River west of Loudon and began his pursuit of Burnside.
   Wheeler's cavalry approached Knoxville on November 15 and attempted to occupy the heights overlooking the city from the south bank of the Holston River, but resistance from the Federal cavalrymen under William Sanders and the threat of artillery in the forts on the river's southern bank caused him to abandon his plan and rejoin Longstreet's main body on the northern side of the river.

Battles of Longstreet's Knoxville Campaign

There were three significant battles fought during Longstreet's Knoxville Campaign:

Battle of Campbell's Station (November 16, 1863) ť Following parallel routes, Longstreet and Burnside raced for Campbell's Station, a hamlet where Concord Road, from the south, intersected Kingston Road to Knoxville. Burnside hoped to reach the crossroads first and continue on to safety in Knoxville; Longstreet planned to reach the crossroads and hold it, which would prevent Burnside from gaining Knoxville and force him to fight outside his earthworks. By forced marching on a rainy November 16, Burnside's advance reached the vital intersection and deployed first. The main column arrived at noon with the baggage train just behind. Scarcely 15 minutes later, Longstreet's Confederates approached. Longstreet attempted a double envelopment: attacks timed to strike both Union flanks simultaneously. McLaws's Confederate division struck with such force that the Union right had to redeploy, but they held. Jenkins's Confederate division maneuvered ineffectively as it advanced and was unable to turn the Union left. Burnside ordered his two divisions astride Kingston Road to withdraw three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km) to a ridge in their rear. This was accomplished without confusion. The Confederates suspended their attack while Burnside continued his retrograde movement to Knoxville.
Battle of Fort Sanders (November 29, 1863) ť Longstreet decided that Fort Sanders was the only vulnerable place where his men could penetrate Burnside's fortifications, which enclosed the city, and successfully conclude the siege, already a week long. The fort, named in honor of slain cavalry chief William Sanders, surmounted an eminence just northwest of Knoxville. Northwest of the fort, the land dropped off abruptly. Longstreet believed he could assemble a storming party, undetected at night, below the fortifications and overwhelm Fort Sanders by a coup de main before dawn. Following a brief artillery barrage directed at the fort's interior, three Rebel brigades charged. Union wire entanglements—telegraph wire stretched from one tree stump to another to another—delayed the attack, but the fort's outer ditch halted the Confederates. This ditch was twelve feet (3.5 m) wide and from four to ten feet (1-3 m) deep with vertical sides. The fort's exterior slope was also almost vertical. Crossing the ditch was nearly impossible, especially under withering defensive fire from musketry and canister. Confederate officers did lead their men into the ditch, but, without scaling ladders, few emerged on the scarp side, and the few who entered the fort were wounded, killed, or captured. The attack lasted twenty minutes and resulted in extremely lopsided casualties: 813 Confederate versus 13 Union. This was the decisive battle of the Knoxville Campaign.
Battle of Bean's Station (December 14, 1863) ť On December 13, Shackelford was near Bean's Station on the Holston River. Longstreet decided to go back and capture Bean's Station. Three Confederate columns and artillery approached Bean's Station to catch the Federals in a vice. By 2:00 a.m. on December 14, one column was skirmishing with Union pickets. The pickets held out as best they could and warned Shackelford of the Confederate presence. He deployed his force for an assault. Soon, the battle started and continued throughout most of the day. Confederate flanking attacks and other assaults occurred at various times and locations, but the Federals held until Southern reinforcements arrived. By nightfall, the Federals were retiring from Bean's Station through Bean's Gap and on to Blain's Cross Roads. Longstreet set out to attack the Union forces again the next morning, but as he approached them at Blain's Cross Roads, he found them well-entrenched. Longstreet withdrew, and the Federals soon left the area.
Burnside's competent conduct of the campaign, despite apprehensions in Washington, partially restored his military reputation that had been damaged so severely at Fredericksburg. His successful hold on Knoxville, plus Grant's victory in Chattanooga, put much of East Tennessee under Union control for the rest of the war.

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