The nearest parallel to this assault afforded by the war was that on Fort Saunders at Knoxville, where the Highlanders had their revenge. They manned the exposed salient of the fort when Longstreet tried to carry it by storm, November 29, 1863. This work was not so strong either in profile or position as Fort Lamar. It was subjected to a severe shelling and fire of sharpshooters, and then three veteran brigades, fifteen regiments, rushed upon both faces of the salient angle. The Highlanders and Benjamin’s Battery E, of the 2d artillery, repulsed every attack. No enemy raised his head above the parapet and lived. And in the midst of the fight, amid the noise and fury of battle, as the Highlanders plied their muskets and rolled by hand 20-pounder shells with fuses cut short and lighted into the ditch, filled with the struggling mass of men, the Highlanders grimly passed the word along the line, “Remember James Island! Remember James Island!”
The Highlanders here lost four killed and five wounded. The entire loss in the fort was inconsiderable. The enemy lost 813 men, three flags, and 600 small-arms. This would seem almost incredible, were it not attested by the official reports, both Union and Confederate.
Why the assault failed, it is not far to seek. The principal cause was the strength of the work, manned as it was by a resolute garrison, and the destructive fire of its heavy guns. Although the alarm was given by the outposts nearly a mile from the work, the column reached it upon the heels of the fleeing picket, and was actually within five hundred yards before the first gun could be fired. But this gun, an 8-inch columbiad charged with grape, shattered the centre of the leading regiment, cutting it completely in two. Then the canister from the big howitzer and other guns doubly decimated them, yet the brave fellows gained the parapet. Had the next two regiments, the 7th Connecticut and 28th Massachusetts, following close upon the Michiganders as ordered, joined them at this instant, the work would undoubtedly have been taken. But they were green troops, never having been under fire; the 28th, indeed, was fresh from home, and under the terrible storm of grape and canister they were beaten to the left, and entangled in the bushes and broken bank there. Although Lieutenant-Colonel Hawley lost no time in disentangling his regiment and moving it out into the field and again forward, it is significant, and well shows the difficulty of handling green troops under fire, that the Highlanders rushed past the right of the 7th Connecticut, and the Roundheads broke through or ran over its centre, and both assaulted the fort and were repulsed—nearly all who reached the parapet being killed, and the remainder forced to give back—by the time the Connecticut regiment had advanced to within a hundred yards of the work, where Hawley received the order to withdraw.
Certainly the rapid advance and onset of the Michiganders, Highlanders, and Roundheads were all that men could do. Their loss was so great and the parapet so difficult that not enough men could surmount it to be able to hold it; but the chief reason for the failure was the deadly fire from the woods and cover behind the fort. The work was fairly stormed, but the stormers, too few to hold it, were destroyed by the deadly fire from its rear.
These three regiments had already smelt powder, and had been well drilled and disciplined by General Stevens. The others, new and inexperienced, could not be expected to equal them, yet they evinced no lack of bravery.
General Stevens says in his report:—
“I must confess that the coolness and mobility of all the troops engaged on the 16th surprised me, and I cannot but believe, had proper use been made of the artillery, guns from the navy, and our own batteries, fixed and field; had the position been gradually approached and carefully examined, and the attack made much later in the day, when our batteries had had their full effect, all of which, you will recollect, was strongly urged by me upon General Benham the evening of the conference,—the result might have been very different.” [18]
General Stevens commends the gallantry of his troops in strong terms, and the brave and efficient service of his staff, already mentioned, of Lieutenant Orrin M. Dearborn, of the 3d New Hampshire, aide in place of Lieutenant Cottrell, who, having been promoted captain, had command of his company, and of Lieutenant Jefferson Justice, of the Roundheads, acting division quartermaster, who served upon the field as his aide. Lieutenant Lyons, who so bravely led the stormers, died of his wound in hospital at Hilton Head soon afterwards.
For his wrong-headed and disobedient conduct Benham was placed under arrest by General Hunter and sent North. His appointment as brigadier-general was revoked by the President. Later, by unwearied importunity and the pressure of influence, he managed to get himself reinstated, but never again was he trusted with the lives of brave men.