Category Archives: Fort Sanders

Civil War Trust’s “battlefield”

The corner of W. Summit Hill Drive and South Gay Street is the Civil War Trust’s designated field for the Battle of Fort Sanders. All 69 acres of it. It doesn’t seem likely (it should be farther west in the … Continue reading

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Orlando Poe’s map

Topographical map of the approaches and defenses of Knoxville, surveyed under the direction of Union Capt. O.M. Poe, dated November 14, 1863, provided his commanding general Burnside with unequaled decision-making information. “In his official report Poe stated, ‘And here I … Continue reading

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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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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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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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Phillips Legion at Knoxville

The Phillips Georgia Legion (or Phillips Legion of Georgia or simply Phillips Legion) rates its own chapter in the novel, for its co-starring part in the attack on Fort Sanders. Although this stirring little animation of its battle flag does … Continue reading

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Colonel Kennon McElroy’s grave

Here’s a possible correction in the Afterword—not in the novel itself. In the Afterword, I asserted that the grave of Colonel Kennon McElroy was unknown. It was as far as I knew at the time I wrote the novel. Apparently … Continue reading

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Firing the 1861 Springfield

This Hungarian fellow who styles himself capandball on the Internet has a really thick accent but if you listen closely you can get the gist of his description of the 1861 Springfield percussion rifle-musket he’s firing here. Most Confederates, if … Continue reading

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