In November 1863, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet led a force from Chattanooga to attack Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s army at Knoxville, but after the campaign failed his men moved east along the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad to winter quarters at Russellville, where they remained until March 1864 as numerous small engagements occurred during the winter. On January 28, 1864, as Union General Samuel D. Sturgis’s cavalry pursued Confederate cavalry along the road to Cowan’s Ferry on the French Broad River, they met strong opposition at Blant’s Hill, where Confederate Col. George G. Dibrell’s 8th Tennessee Cavalry had dismounted, occupied the heavily timbered hill, and built breastworks and rifle pits. Though outnumbered, the Confederates held back the leading Union forces under Col. Frank L. Wolford and Col. Oscar H. LaGrange with stubborn resistance from formidable defenses, and the rifle fire was described by one participant as so intense that the bullets sounded like a swarm of bees. Unable to advance there and with Confederate Gen. Bushrod R. Johnson’s infantry crossing the river behind him, Sturgis broke off the fight and withdrew his forces forty miles toward Maryville to obtain food for his men and horses. This was his last attempt to drive Longstreet’s army from East Tennessee, and afterward Confederate soldiers called the place Dibrell’s Hill. Union losses were estimated at 300, while Confederate losses were reported as minimal.