Longstreet's Knoxville Campaign

• Lieutenant General James LongstreetCampbell's Station, Fort Sanders, Bean's Station

• Major General Ambrose E. BurnsideCampbell's Station, Fort Sanders
• Brigadier General James ShackelfordBean's Station

In East Tennessee during the fall of 1863, a string of engagements and troop movements known as the Knoxville campaign unfolded with the aim of wresting Knoxville from Union hands, along with the rail line that connected the eastern and western halves of the Confederacy, while also freeing up Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's First Corps so it could rejoin the Army of Northern Virginia. At the time, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside's Union forces held Knoxville, Tennessee. To keep Burnside from sending reinforcements to the Federal troops besieged at Chattanooga, Longstreet's Confederate command was pulled away from Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee for that purpose. The siege Longstreet then mounted against Knoxville came to a close only after Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman marched elements of the Army of the Tennessee, along with additional troops, to Burnside's aid, this after Federal forces had already shattered the Confederate hold on Chattanooga. Longstreet ranked among Gen. Robert E. Lee's finest corps commanders in the eastern theater with the Army of Northern Virginia, yet at Knoxville he could not break through its defenses or capture the city.

Opposing forces

The Union side is noted here, though no further details are given beyond that heading in this excerpt.

Confederate

President Lincoln viewed the mountainous, mostly Union-leaning territory of East Tennessee as a vital objective of the war. The area not only held a population largely faithful to the Union but also offered abundant grain and livestock and commanded the rail line connecting Chattanooga to Virginia. Across 1862 and 1863, Lincoln pushed one commander after another to push through the harsh terrain and seize control of the region. Ambrose Burnside, having suffered a heavy defeat at Fredericksburg in December 1862, was sent to the Western Theater and placed in charge of the Department and the Army of the Ohio that March. He received orders to press toward Knoxville as quickly as possible, while Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland were tasked with pressing Bragg in Middle Tennessee, a campaign that would unfold through Tullahoma and then Chickamauga.

Burnside intended to march from Cincinnati, Ohio with his two corps, the IX and the XXIII, but this plan stalled once the IX Corps was diverted to bolster Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant during the Vicksburg campaign. While he waited for that corps to return, Burnside sent Brig. Gen. William P. Sanders with a brigade of combined cavalry and infantry to strike Knoxville. In mid-June, Sanders's raid tore up railroads and threw communications into chaos around the city, which lay under the Confederate Department of East Tennessee, then led by Maj. Gen. Simon B. Buckner.

Burnside finally set his advance toward Knoxville in motion by mid-August. Rather than take the most direct path, which ran through Cumberland Gap, a location that heavily favored the Confederate defenders, he opted to outflank them. Col. John F. DeCourcy's brigade menaced the gap from the north, while Burnside's remaining two divisions swung roughly 40 miles to the south of the Confederate stronghold, pushing through rugged mountain roads toward Knoxville. Even with the poor state of the roads, his soldiers managed marches of up to 30 miles in a single day.

The advance began on August 16, 1863, starting from Lexington, Kentucky, and involved 18,000 men of the XXIII Corps under George Lucas Hartsuff. The IX Corps troops, upon their return from Vicksburg, were so ravaged by sickness that they were relegated to guarding the supply lines instead. Burnside personally guided the left column through Crab Orchard, London, and Williamsburg, Kentucky, on to Montgomery, Tennessee, while Hartsuff steered the right column through Somerset, Kentucky, and Chitwood, Tennessee, to meet at the same point. From Montgomery, the XXIII Corps infantry pressed on through Emory Gap and Winter's Gap toward Kingston, while the cavalry took a more northern route via Big Creek Gap.

With the Chickamauga campaign underway, Buckner was called south to Chattanooga, leaving behind just one brigade at Cumberland Gap and another east of Knoxville. Maj. Gen. Samuel Jones took over command of the department from Buckner. On September 2, one of Burnside's cavalry brigades reached Knoxville facing almost no resistance, and the next day Burnside himself arrived with the main body of troops, greeted enthusiastically by the townspeople.

Back at Cumberland Gap, Brig. Gen. John W. Frazer commanded 2,300 green troops who had constructed fortifications but received no guidance after Buckner's departure. On September 7, with DeCourcy pressing from the north and Brig. Gen. James M. Shackelford closing in from the south, Frazer declined to surrender. Burnside, together with Col. Samuel A. Gilbert's infantry brigade, covered 60 miles from Knoxville in just 52 hours. Realizing at last that his force was badly outmatched, Frazer gave up the position on September 9.

Burnside then sent a portion of his cavalry to assist Rosecrans and began organizing an expedition meant to open

Battles of the East Tennessee campaign

On September 22, 1863, at Blountville, Union Colonel John W. Foster brought his cavalry and artillery against Confederate Colonel James E. Carter and his men. The fight began around midday and stretched on for four hours, during which Foster's guns pounded the town while his forces worked a flanking maneuver against Carter's line. Facing this pressure, the Confederates had no choice but to pull back and abandon the field.

Blue Springs (October 10)

Cavalry under Confederate Brig. Gen. John S. Williams moved out with the goal of striking at Union supply lines and communication routes, aiming specifically to seize Bull's Gap along the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad. That advance brought him into contact on October 3 with Brig. Gen. Samuel P. Carter, commanding the Union Cavalry Division of XXIII Corps, near a spot called Blue Springs, roughly nine miles (14 km) from the gap along the rail line. Uncertain of the size of the force opposing him, Carter pulled back, and the two sides traded skirmishes over the following days.

By October 10, Carter returned to Blue Springs with a stronger body of troops, while Williams too had gained additional men. Fighting opened around ten in the morning, with Union horsemen pressing the Confederates through the early afternoon as a separate mounted column tried to maneuver into place to block any Southern withdrawal. Chief Engineer Capt. Orlando M. Poe scouted the ground to find the most favorable spot from which infantry could launch an assault. That attack came at 5:00 p.m., ordered forward by Brig. Gen. Edward Ferrero's 1st Division of IX Corps after they had moved into position at 3:30. Ferrero's soldiers tore through the Confederate line, inflicting significant losses and pushing nearly into the rear of the enemy position before their momentum was finally stopped.

Once night fell, Williams's men pulled back, and Union forces resumed the chase the next morning. Within a matter of days, Williams and his command had fallen back into Virginia. The clash at Blue Springs marked a step toward the broader goal Burnside had set for his East Tennessee campaign, which was to weaken or eliminate Confederate sway over the region.