Battle of Fort Sanders

Assault on Fort Sanders, by Kurz and Allison, 1891.

Date	November 29, 1863 (1863-11-29)
Location	Knox County, Tennessee
Result	Union victory

Belligerents

United States (Union)

Confederate States of America

Commanders and leaders

Ambrose Burnside

James Longstreet

Units involved

Army of the Ohio

Confederate Forces in East Tennessee

Strength

440

~3,000

Casualties and losses

13 total
8 killed
5 wounded

813 total
129 killed
458 wounded
226 captured

The Battle of Fort Sanders was the crucial engagement of the Knoxville Campaign of the American Civil War, fought in Knoxville, Tennessee, on November 29, 1863. Assaults by Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet failed to break through the defensive lines of Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, resulting in lopsided casualties, and the Siege of Knoxville entered its final days.

The Confederacy had never had effective control of large areas of East Tennessee. There had been little slavery practiced in East Tennessee, because of moral opposition to the practice and the fact that little of the land was suitable to plantation agriculture; pro-Union and Republican sentiment ran high and most East Tennesseans had not been in favor of secession. Therefore, Union forces had little trouble from the local populace when Burnside occupied Knoxville in September 1863; the Army had considerably more difficulty reaching Knoxville over the rugged mountainous roads of the region.

Union engineers commanded by Captain Orlando M. Poe built several fortifications in the form of bastioned earthworks near Knoxville. One was Fort Sanders, just west of downtown Knoxville across a creek valley. It was named for Brig. Gen. William P. Sanders, mortally wounded in a skirmish outside Knoxville on November 18, 1863. The fort, a salient in the line of earthworks that surrounded three sides of the city, rose 70 feet (21 m) above the surrounding plateau and was protected by a ditch 12 feet (3.7 m) wide and 8 feet (2.4 m) deep. An almost vertical wall rose 15 feet (4.6 m) above the ditch. Inside the fort were 12 cannons and 440 men of the 79th New York Infantry.

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