Battle of Fort Sanders

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. Slavery wasn't practiced as widely in East Tennessee as in the other portions of the state. This led to, unlike the rest of the state, pro-Union sentiment before and after the Battle of Fort Sumter. Because of the fact that the few slaves there were in East Tennessee were household slaves for luxurious purposes, East Tennesseans felt disconnected from the economic practice of plantation slavery. Many East Tennesseans were classified as Yeoman farmers, and held a high spirit for the Union. In fact, Tennessee would furnish more volunteers for the Union than all other Confederate states combined; the majority of these volunteers were from East Tennessee. 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.

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