On the 25th I had a telegram from General Bushrod R. Johnson at Loudon, who was marching with two brigades to reinforce us, saying that the enemy was throwing his cavalry forward towards Charleston. This, in connection with the advance of the enemy towards General Bragg, reported by his despatch of the 23d, I took to be an effort to prevent reinforcements coming to us, or to cut in and delay their march.
That night General Leadbetter, chief engineer of General Bragg’s army, reported at head-quarters with orders from General Bragg that we should attack at Knoxville, and very promptly. I asked him to make the reconnoissance and designate the assailable points. At the same time he was asked to consider that the troops from Virginia were on the march and would join us in eight or ten days, when our investment could be made complete; that the enemy was then on half rations, and would be obliged to surrender in two weeks; also whether we should assault fortifications and have the chance of repulse, rather than wait for a surrender. From his first reconnoissance he pronounced Fort Sanders the assailable point, but, after riding around the lines with General Jenkins and General Alexander, he pronounced in favor of assault from our left at Mabry’s Hill. On the 27th, after more thorough reconnoissance in company with my officers, he came back to his conclusion in favor of assault at Fort Sanders. I agreed with him that the field at Mabry’s Hill was too wide, and the march under fire too long, to warrant attack at that point. He admitted that the true policy was to wait and reduce the place by complete investment, but claimed that the crisis was on, the time imperative, and that the assault must be tried.
Meanwhile, rumors reached us, through the telegraph operator, of a battle at Chattanooga, but nothing official, though outside indications were corroborative. In the afternoon Colonel Giltner, of the command from Virginia, reported with his cavalry, and next day (28th) General W. E. Jones, of that command, reported with his cavalry. The brigades from Chattanooga under General B. R. Johnson were at hand, but not yet up. The artillery and infantry coming from Virginia were five or six days’ march from us; but General Leadbetter was impatient.
General McLaws was ordered to double his force of sharp-shooters and their reserve, advance during the night and occupy the line of the enemy’s pickets, and arrange for assault. The artillery was to open on the fort as soon as the weather cleared the view. After ten minutes’ practice the assaulting column was to march, but the practice was to hold until the near approach of the storming party to the Fort. The assault was to be made by three of McLaws’s brigades, his fourth, advancing on his right, to carry the line of works in its front as soon as the fort was taken. Three brigades of Jenkins’s division were to follow in echelon on the left of McLaws’s column, G. T. Anderson’s, of his right, leading at two hundred yards’ interval from McLaws’s, Anderson to assault the line in his front, and upon entering to wheel to his left and sweep up that line, followed by Jenkins’s and Benning’s brigades; but, in case of delay in McLaws’s assault, Anderson was to wheel to his right and take the fort through its rear opening, leaving the brigades of Jenkins and Benning to follow the other move to their left.
The ditch and parapets about the fort were objects of careful observation from the moment of placing our lines, and opinions coincided with those of reconnoitring officers that the former could be passed without ladders. General Alexander and I made frequent examinations of them within four hundred yards.
After careful conference, General McLaws ordered,—
“First. Wofford’s Georgia and Humphreys’s Mississippi brigades to make the assault, the first on the left, the second on the right, this latter followed closely by three regiments of Bryan’s brigade; the Sixteenth Georgia Regiment to lead the first and the Thirteenth Mississippi the second assaulting column.
“Second. The brigades to be formed for the attack in columns of regiments.
“Third. The assault to be made with fixed bayonets, and without firing a gun.
“Fourth. Should be made against the northwest angle of Fort Loudon or Sanders.