Fort Higley

In November 1863, to divert Federal forces from Chattanooga, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet led two reinforced divisions to attack Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside's garrison in Knoxville. Burnside confronted Longstreet outside the city, then withdrew to his fortifications on November 17, and Longstreet besieged Knoxville. After Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's army defeated Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg's forces at the end of the month in Chattanooga, Grant ordered Gen. William T. Sherman to reinforce Burnside, and as Sherman marched toward Knoxville, Longstreet withdrew on December 4. Fort Higley was the southwestern-most work in the ring of fortifications that Union Capt. Orlando M. Poe designed in November 1863 to protect Knoxville and Burnside's army. Named for Capt. Joel P. Higley, who was killed at Blue Springs on October 10, 1863, it was the last of four hilltop works built south of the Holston River, along with Sevierville Hill, Fort Stanley, and Fort Dickerson. During the siege, Longstreet ordered a battery established half a mile west on a hill overlooking the river and city, and after searching the Federal defenses for a weak spot, he chose to attack Fort Sanders near the present-day campus of the University of Tennessee. At first light on the foggy Sunday morning of November 29, the Confederates launched their main assault on Fort Sanders north of the river while the gunners west of Fort Higley, reinforced with cavalry brigades, made a diversionary demonstration near the fort to hold Federal reinforcements on that side of the river. The attack on Fort Sanders failed; Union forces there suffered few losses, though many more were killed and wounded south of the river, while the Confederates suffered 813 casualties at Fort Sanders but few in the Fort Higley area. After the battle, U.S. Colored Troops manned Fort Higley, and it continued to protect Knoxville during the war.

Knoxville, Tennessee · United States