When Longstreet had drawn off his troops from the scene of his defeat, General Burnside kindly directed General Potter to send out a flag of truce, granting the enemy permission to remove his dead and wounded from the field. The flag was courteously received, and for the space of several hours there was a complete cessation of all hostilities. As a reward for its services in this action, the regiment was retained in Fort Sanders as a part of its garrison, and consequently relieved from much severe picket duty, only occasionally going on to the line immediately in front of the fort. But the duties of the fort, while not so arduous as those of the rifle-pits, were very important, and called for the exercise of constant vigilance. By day, one-third of the men were allowed to sleep in camp, one-third to rest in the fort with their belts on, and one-third stood to arms at the parapet; while at night all the men except a camp guard were required to be in the fort, one-half under arms and one-half resting with their belts on. At three o’clock each morning, the whole garrison was called up and stood to arms till six o’clock. One-half of the officers could be in camp by day, one-fourth must be at the parapet, and the remainder at rest in the works; and at three o’clock in the morning, all the officers were ordered to stand to arms with their men.
The casual mention, in the course of this chapter, of the telegraph wires which were stretched over the field in front of the fort, leads the author to speak of another device employed by our engineers who constructed these fortifications,—a defensive preparation, as ingenious in its nature as it was destructive in its results. The whole open space within our lines, directly in front of the fort, had been carefully plowed, with furrows leading generally to the work, not parallel, but converging towards a point opposite the main battery. It is natural for men when passing over broken ground to avoid the ridges and seek the smooth places and hollows. The furrows were quite wide and well defined, and when the enemy’s column charged in the gray of the morning, his men coming suddenly upon the plowed ground, were thrown into great confusion. They took to the furrows, as was expected, and by the time they had reached the point where the furrows converged, the whole of the first battle line, consisting of a brigade, was huddled together in a disorganized mass, and in this condition received the concentrated fire of every gun on the works, which poured into them several very destructive charges of canister and grape.
At midnight on the 4th of December, as our men in Fort Sanders were standing to arms, something of an unusual nature was observed to be going on in the enemy’s camp. Lanterns were seen flitting about in their batteries; night signals were at work, a fixed lantern low down near the ground and a movable one above it bobbing about from right to left. Our pickets all along the siege line were doubled, and the troops in the fort ordered to the parapets. All sorts of speculations were indulged in by our officers and men; some thought the enemy was preparing for another and final assault upon our works, and others that he was retreating.
General Sherman had for some days been marching to the relief of Burnside, and a rumor was prevalent that his cavalry had already attacked the rear of the enemy’s army. The army of General Bragg, of which Longstreet’s forces were a part, had fallen back from Chattanooga, and was then moving South. These circumstances, together with the hopeless nature of the siege, forced upon Longstreet the abandonment of his undertaking. Daylight revealed the fact that the enemy had gone. “Stack arms! All but the camp guard may rest!” was the order given to the garrison of Fort Sanders, when this state of things became officially known. The order was indeed a welcome one, for our soldiers in Knoxville had not tasted the pleasure of absolute repose for many long weeks. The termination of the siege was an important and joyful event to the whole nation; it was also a great crisis in the lives of the soldiers there, and what they said and did on this important occasion, our readers may be curious to know. The answer shows how utterly unromantic and prosaic were the Yankee soldiers who made so much history during the four years of war. “Thank God! now I can have a good snooze,” said one, in no irreverent spirit. “Captain, can I go down to the run and wash my shirt?” said another. “Sergeant, has the company got any soap?” asked a third. Probably the thought of one-half of the men in Knoxville, at that moment, was sleep, and of the others, a wash, either of clothes or person. A few officers of the staff, a few orderlies, and surgeons rode out to visit the deserted camp, while our pickets were thrown out to capture the stragglers. In the course of an hour the loiterers and laggards of the late besiegers began to come into our lines in crowds. Some of them had overslept, others had strayed away, and others still had lost heart and skulked in the woods.
A report reached the ears of General Ferrero about noon, that a full regiment of the enemy had been left behind their main army, at a point about five miles distant. Colonel Christ’s brigade, with the Twenty-ninth, was ordered out at once to capture these troops, and a forced and fruitless march was the result. No enemy, save a few worthless stragglers, were found, and the Brigade toward the close of the day returned, tortured with the conviction that they had been made the victims of a practical joke. The men had taken just so much wear out of their last pair of shoes, so travel-worn already, and had been brought just ten miles nearer to raw-hide moccasins. On the same day (December 5), Major-General Sherman, with his own corps and that of General Granger and a portion of General Howard’s, arrived at Marysville (near Knoxville), and sent by his aid-de-camp to General Burnside the following hearty message:—
“I am here, and can bring twenty-five thousand men into Knoxville to-morrow; but Longstreet having retreated, I feel disposed to stop, for a stern chase is a long one. But I will do all that is possible.... Send my aid, Captain Audenried, out with your letters to-night. We are all hearty, but tired. Accept my congratulations at your successful defence and your patient endurance.”
The endurance of the men had indeed been patient, and their sufferings and privations very great; but they had saved to the Government the stronghold of East Tennessee, and consequently both East Tennessee and Kentucky.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Movements After the Siege—The Regiment Leaves Knoxville—The Condition of the Troops—Blaine’s Cross-Roads—The Men Re-enlist—Strawberry Plain—Fight with the Confederate Cavalry—The Regiment Goes to Knoxville—Erin Station—The Corn Expedition—Transfer of Non-re-enlisting Men to the Thirty-sixth Massachusetts Regiment—Long Marches—The Snow-storm—Ordered Home—March Over the Cumberland Mountains—The Regiment Reaches Boston—The Receptions.