Sanders' Knoxville Raid (June 14–24, 1863) saw 1,500 Union cavalry and mounted infantry led by Colonel William P. Sanders raid East Tennessee before the Knoxville campaign during the American Civil War. The successful raid began at Mount Vernon, Kentucky and moved south, passing near Kingston, Tennessee. Moving east from the Kingston area, the raiders struck the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad at Lenoir Station. The Union horsemen rode northeast along the railroad, destroying track, bridges, and property useful to the Confederate States of America. Blocked from seizing Knoxville by its 1,000 Confederate defenders, Sanders' horsemen destroyed a major bridge across the Holston River at Strawberry Plains on the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad. After wrecking a smaller bridge at Mossy Creek, the raiders turned northwest, evading pursuers by slipping through an obscure gap in the Cumberland Plateau. Sanders' men reached Boston, Kentucky on June 24, having captured and paroled over 400 Confederate soldiers while sustaining minimal losses in men but considerable losses in horses.
Since the start of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln and other government authorities urged Union generals to invade East Tennessee. There were two reasons for this. First, a large part of the East Tennessee population remained loyal to the government in Washington, D.C. and seethed under Confederate occupation. Second, a key railroad through the region connected Virginia with the western Confederate states. The East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad linked Knoxville with Chattanooga, Tennessee and Dalton, Georgia, while the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad connected Knoxville with Bristol, Virginia. Logistics was the major obstacle keeping Union forces from seizing East Tennessee. There were no railroads linking the region with Union-occupied areas of Kentucky, and the wagon roads across the Cumberland Plateau became very difficult to use in bad weather. Supplying an invading army with necessities by wagon promised to be challenging. Lincoln hoped to build a railroad, but its construction was not attempted because it would have taken too long. Therefore, Union commanders directed their efforts to capturing Middle Tennessee in 1862.
On April 27, 1863, the Union XXIII Corps was formed from the regiments stationed in Kentucky and put under the command of Major General George Lucas Hartsuff. The Army of the Ohio, led by Major General Ambrose Burnside consisted of the XXIII Corps plus the IX Corps from the Eastern Theater. Burnside was tasked with the invasion of East Tennessee at the same time that the Army of the Cumberland was ordered to capture Chattanooga. On June 2, Burnside left his Cincinnati headquarters to lead the expedition. However, the following day he was ordered to send 8,000 troops to assist in the Siege of Vicksburg. Burnside sent the veteran IX Corps under Major General John Parke and this caused the planned invasion to be delayed until August 16.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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