Fort Dickerson

On November 4, 1863, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet led two reinforced divisions from Chattanooga to attack Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside's garrison at Knoxville. Burnside confronted Longstreet below Knoxville, then withdrew on November 12, and Longstreet followed and besieged the city. At the end of the month, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's army defeated Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg's forces at Chattanooga, and Grant ordered Gen. William T. Sherman to reinforce Burnside. Longstreet withdrew on December 4 as Sherman's 25,000 men approached, and Sherman soon rejoined Grant. By late 1863, the Union army had turned Knoxville into one of the most fortified cities in the country. Chief Engineer Capt. Orlando M. Poe, later a general, used civilians and slaves to assist his 300-man engineering battalion while Burnside marched south to block Longstreet's approach. After Burnside returned, his men joined the digging and surrounded the city with 16 forts and batteries, miles of earthworks, and two dams to flood the area just north of Knoxville. Three forts, Dickerson, Higley, and Stanley, stood on ridges across the Tennessee River. As Confederate infantry advanced on the river's north side, Longstreet sent 4,000 cavalrymen under Gen. Joseph Wheeler through Maryville and Blount County to capture the heights overlooking the river. Gen. William P. Sanders blocked Wheeler with 1,500 Federal cavalrymen, slowing the Confederate advance and allowing Federal troops time to prepare defenses on what became Fort Dickerson. When the Confederate cavalry reached the base of the heights on the land side, they found the slope too steep and the defenders too numerous for a successful attack. After two tentative assaults, they withdrew and rejoined Longstreet. On November 25, Confederates attacked earthworks on Armstrong Hill adjoining the site of Fort Higley and drove the Federals from their trenches, but Union troops rallied and forced the Confederates back to their original position on Cherokee Heights. A Confederate diversionary attack took place in this area four days later in conjunction with the attack on Fort Sanders. The Confederate defeat in November 1863 was largely due to Poe's design of Knoxville's extensive fortifications.

Knoxville, Tennessee · United States