Author Archives: Dick Stanley

About Dick Stanley

Retired Texas daily newspaperman

Colonel Solon Z. Ruff

SOLON Z. RUFF, colonel of the 18th Georgia which followed the Phillips Georgia Legion in the attack on Fort Sanders, was a graduate of the Georgia Military Institute and a professor there until the war began, according to the web … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Confederate Veteran Magazine, Eighteenth Georgia, The Phillips Georgia Legion | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Tail coats

“Men in claw-hammer coats and tall, beaver hats and ladies in silk dresses and sunbonnets were standing looking down at us from above the red-clay walls we had tried so hard to climb…” So says Private Lafayette Bolton of the … Continue reading

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Reprise:Susan Brownlow

Parson William Gannaway Brownlow was as popular in the North as he was despised in the South. So when the Confederates finally kicked him out of Knoxville, he and his wife Elisa and their daughter, Susan, enjoyed great acclaim in … Continue reading

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Find Fort Sanders

Curious caption, since I can’t figure out where Fort Sanders is, and this only a year or so after the battle. Given that the river would be more or less on the east side of Knoxville, I think the fort would … Continue reading

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Those sharpshooters

Sharpshooters, like the unknown Rebel one who felled Fort Sanders’ namesake, General William P. Sanders, from more than a mile away, were special troops with their own drill and esprit. It helped that they often had special arms such as … Continue reading

Posted in Bleak House, Civil War armament, Gen. William P. Sanders | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Reprise: General McLaws’ courts martial

Although convened in February, 1864, McLaws’ courts martial for dereliction of duty in the assault on Fort Sanders at Knoxville, was on-again, off-again, for the next several weeks. Finally, on March 11, the trial commenced at a private home in … Continue reading

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Jacob Lyon, Fort Sanders defender

Simon Lyon of Chicago has written me of his great grandfather, Jacob Lyon, who fought in the defense of Fort Sanders as a member of Lieutenant Benjamin’s battery E of the 2nd U.S. Artillery. Benjamin commanded the defense in the … Continue reading

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Grave of Fort Sanders’ commander

First Lieutentant Samuel Nicoll Benjamin, who commanded Fort Sanders while the political general who was its nominal commander spent his time drinking, is buried at Saint Phillips Church Cemetery in Garrison, New York. The cemetery is across the Hudson River … Continue reading

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