en trained to
sweep the ditch, now opened a most destructive fire. Lieutenant Benjamin
also took shells in his hand, and, lighting the fuse, tossed them over
the parapet into the crowded ditch. One of the Rebel brigades in reserve
now came up in support, and planted several of its flags on the parapet
of the fort. Those, however, who endeavored to scale the parapet were
swept away by the fire of our musketry. The men in the ditch, satisfied
of the hopelessness of the task they had undertaken, now surrendered.
They represented eleven regiments. The prisoners numbered nearly three
hundred. Among them were seventeen commissioned officers. Over two
hundred dead and wounded, including three colonels, lay in the ditch
alone. The ground in front of the fort was also strewn with the bodies
of the dead and wounded. Over one thousand stands of arms fell into our
hands, and the battle-flags of the Thirteenth and Seventeenth
Mississippi and Sixteenth Georgia. Our loss was eight men killed and
five wounded. Never was a victory more complete; and never were brighter
laurels worn than were that morning laid on the brow of the hero of Fort
Sanders,--Lieutenant Benjamin, Second United States Artillery.

Longstreet had promised his men that they should dine that day in
Knoxville. But, in order that he might bury his dead, General Burnside
now tendered him an armistice till five o'clock, P. M. It was accepted
by the Rebel general; and our ambulances were furnished him to assist in
removing the bodies to his lines. At five o'clock, two additional hours
were asked, as the work was not yet completed. At seven o'clock, a gun
was fired from Fort Sanders, the Rebels responded from an earthwork
opposite, and the truce was at an end.

The next day, through a courier who had succeeded in reaching our lines,
General Burnside received official notice of the defeat of Bragg. At
noon, a single gun--we were short of ammunition--was fired from Battery
Noble in our rear, and the men of the brigade, standing in the trenches,
gave three cheers for Grant's victory at Chattanooga. We now looked for
reinforcements daily, for Sherman was already on the road. The enemy
knew this as well as we, and, during the night of the 4th of December,
withdrew his forces, and started north. The retreat was discovered by
the pickets of the Thirty-sixth Massachusetts, under Captain Ames, who
had the honor of first declaring the siege of Knoxville raised.

It would be intere