Bean's Station was a Civil War engagement fought in Tennessee, 1863. It was a Confederate victory.
Lt. Gen. James Longstreet abandoned the Siege of Knoxville, on December 4, 1863, and retreated northeast towards Rogersville, Tennessee. Union Maj. Gen. John G. Parke pursued the Confederates but not too closely. Longstreet continued to Rutledge on December 6 and Rogersville on the 9th. Parke sent Brig. Gen. J.M Shackelford on with about 4,000 cavalry and infantry to search for Longstreet. On the 13th, 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 am on the 14th, 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 tipped the scales. 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. The Knoxville Campaign ended following the battle of Bean's Station. Longstreet soon went into winter quarters at Russellville. Their success meant little to Confederate efforts except to prevent disaster.
On December 14, 1863, Confederate and Union forces clashed at Bean's Station in Grainger County, Tennessee, part of the broader Knoxville campaign of the Civil War. Lieutenant General James Longstreet led the Confederate assault against Union horsemen under Brigadier General James M. Shackelford. Fighting continued until darkness fell, and by then Longstreet's men had forced the Federals to pull back. Two Confederate cavalry columns had been sent to close around Shackelford's command, but neither succeeded in trapping the Union riders, though one did seize 25 Federal wagons. The following day, southwest of Bean's Station, Shackelford linked up with Union infantry, and the combined force traded fire with the Confederates before pulling out once more.
The roots of this engagement stretched back to November 19, when Longstreet's men had opened the Siege of Knoxville. That siege ended on December 4, when Major General Ambrose Burnside's besieged garrison was relieved by a far larger Union army under Major General William T. Sherman. Longstreet then withdrew to the northeast toward Rogersville, with Union forces under Major General John Parke following before halting near Rutledge and Bean's Station. Once Longstreet learned that most of Sherman's army had departed the region, he chose to strike again. His aim was to encircle and destroy Shackelford's cavalry, but the Union troopers held firm, and the Confederate pincer movement never closed as intended. On December 16, Shackelford rejoined Parke's main force at Blaine's Crossroads. With his plan undone, Longstreet pulled his army back toward the northeast.
Even within the seceded Confederacy, East Tennessee held a stubborn pocket of Union sentiment among its people, and this fact generated political pressure on Lincoln's administration to send federal soldiers into the area. Military planners recognized a serious obstacle: keeping an army supplied across more than 200 mi (322 km) of rough terrain would prove enormously difficult. Despite this, Burnside received command of the Army of the Ohio, comprising the IX Corps and XXIII Corps, with orders to push into East Tennessee from Kentucky. Those plans hit a snag on June 3, 1863, when the IX Corps was pulled away to assist in the Siege of Vicksburg. Meanwhile, the Confederate push northward collapsed at Gettysburg, and Vicksburg fell to Union hands, giving the North control over the Mississippi River. By August 16, Burnside was moving again, leading 18,000 troops of the XXIII Corps through Kingston into East Tennessee. His infantry took Knoxville on September 3, and six days later the Confederate garrison at Cumberland Gap surrendered to him. From there, Burnside pushed the remaining Confederate units northeast toward Virginia.
The tide turned when Union forces suffered defeat at Chickamauga on September 19 and 20, 1863, prompting Burnside to shift the bulk of his army southwest to protect Knoxville. Around this time, 6,000 additional troops from the IX Corps joined him in East Tennessee. Then, on November 14, Longstreet's corps, detached from Bragg's Army of Tennessee stationed near Chattanooga, struck the Union position. Following the clash at Campbell's Station on November 16, Burnside managed an orderly retreat into Knoxville's fortifications, where Longstreet's men laid siege to the city. Grant delivered a crushing blow to Bragg at Missionary Ridge on November 25, and shortly thereafter dispatched Sherman with a substantial force to break the siege at Knoxville. Sensing Sherman's approach, Longstreet pulled his troops northeast on December 4. Sherman left behind Granger's IV Corps to support Burnside and marched the rest of his army back to Chattanooga. Having asked to be relieved, Burnside handed command of the Army of the Ohio to Foster on December 11.
Before pulling back, Longstreet convened his officers for a council of war. They concluded that rejoining Bragg was impractical given the punishing mountain route to Dalton, Georgia. Instead, McLaws urged that the corps stay put in East Tennessee to bolster the morale of Confederate sympathizers there. By December 5, Longstreet's men had reached Blaine's Crossroads, roughly 18 mi (29.0 km) northeast of Knoxville, linking up with Ransom's division. The Confederates then rested at Rutledge until December 8 before marching on to Rogersville, where they remained from the 9th through the 14th. Many soldiers under Longstreet had hoped for a return to Virginia and felt let down at staying in Tennessee instead. Supply shortages during the withdrawal drove the troops to plunder farms in the countryside without restraint, and Johnson noted that desertion had become a persistent issue within his Tennessee brigade.
Burnside had already set his cavalry after Longstreet on September 5. By December 7, his infantry, under Parke's direction, marched out of Knoxville, each soldier stripped down to 60 rounds of ammunition, half a shelter tent, and minimal rations, having left knapsacks behind. A shortage of horses forced the Federals to abandon some artillery pieces. Granger's troops, worn out from their trek from Chattanooga, stayed behind to hold Knoxville. Shackelford's cavalry trailed the retreating Confederates and rounded up about 150 stragglers before reaching Bean's Station on December 9. That same day, Parke's infantry stopped at Rutledge, some 9 mi (14.5 km) southwest of Bean's Station, unable to advance further since Longstreet's men had already stripped the region of food. Foster reached Knoxville on December 11 and formally took command the next day.
On December 10, Confederate President Davis granted Longstreet authority over all Confederate forces in East Tennessee. Two days later, word arrived that Sherman's army was returning to Chattanooga, and Longstreet also learned that Parke had called off pursuit, freeing the Confederates to gather local provisions.
Every infantry regiment shown in the table had been serving in a mounted role at the time.
Parke gave the order for his infantry to head toward Bean's Station, and at 2:30 in the morning on December 15, Brigadier General Milo S. Hascall's division from the XXIII Corps linked up with Shackelford's mounted troops as they fell back. Together these forces settled into a defensive line half a mile, or 805 meters, east of Godwin's House, where the soldiers set about stacking fence rails into a makeshift breastwork spanning the valley. This spot sat three miles (4.8 kilometers) from Bean's Station on the west side and five miles (8.0 kilometers) from Rutledge on the east. Both Shackelford and Hascall asked Parke to bring up Potter's IX
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