By Mike Steely
Senior Writer
steelym@knoxfocus.com
You probably know that Knoxville’s Fort Sanders neighborhood was named for General William Sanders, a Kentucky native who played a vital role in the Union capturing and holding East Tennessee during the Civil War. But do you know the rest of the story and what connection he had with a historic and still-standing downtown building?
October 1863 was important in the war effort, which finally led to the capture of the long-held Confederate-controlled region. The role Sanders played was vital, and the Yankee force lost a true hero at the hands of a sniper.
Here’s the story and it’s worth retelling.
Colonel Sanders Hits and Runs
In the spring of 1863, Cumberland Gap was firmly in Confederate hands again, and it seemed, for a few months, that the war had moved elsewhere. However, by September the historic pass would again come under siege and then fall to the forces of General Ambrose Burnside in a confusing situation that is still debated.
Burnside’s route to take the gap was similar to General George Morgan’s the year before, in that he bypassed a direct attack by taking to the mountains to the west and approaching the fortifications from the south. Yet the eventual route of the mass march was tested and tried a month earlier in a daring raid by some 1,500 cavalry under the noted William P. Sanders, a colonel at the time.
Burnside planned two actions against the Rebels at the same time, sending General Julius White against the salt works at Prestonburg, Kentucky, and Sanders on a quick hit-and-run excursion aimed primarily at the East Tennessee railroads.
White’s raid petered out because of weather and a shortage of men, but Sander’s mission was more than completed. Sanders commanded volunteers of different units, which included 700 men of the East Tennessee Infantry under Colonel R.K. Byrd; 200 men of the 112 Illinois; 150 men of the Seventh Ohio; 150 men of the Second Ohio; 100 men of the First Kentucky Volunteers; and an unknown number of men of the First Regiment of Ohio Artillery.
Sergeant “Studs” Reynolds, of Cooper’s original First Tennessee, served as guide for the ambitious raid. A year earlier he had guided various raids from Camp Spears and Cumberland Gap into the mountain Rebel camps.
The raiders left Mount Vernon, Kentucky, on June 14, rode to Williamsburg, then to Marsh Creek in McCreary County, Kentucky, and south to Huntsville, Tennessee, up Brimstone Branch, and over Cumberland Mountain to exit at Wartburg.
At Wartburg, Sander’s force surprised a Rebel camp and captured the garrison. Sanders then went to Lenoir Station, burned the depot, a cotton factory, and destroyed telegraph lines and railroad track there. Sanders captured an artillery detachment there, three cannons, eight officers, and 47 lower-ranked Rebel soldiers.
He was preparing to burn the Lenoir Cotton Mill when Dr. Benjamin Ballard Lenoir passed among the Union troops displaying secret Masonic signs and the historic mill was spared.
The Yankee raiders also set fire to three railroad bridges, including the long span at Strawberry Plains just east of Knoxville.
By June 19, Sander’s force, with prisoners and captured equipment, began an assault on Rebel forces in Knoxville. Union loyalists, mountaineers and bushwhackers had been operating openly in Campbell County, and had lured forces under Confederate General Simon Bolivar Buckner out of Knoxville to search for them near Big Creek Gap, leaving the city with few Rebel troops.
Sanders attacked from the north, against perhaps 1,000 Confederates, and the artillery battery lasted about an hour. He realized that even if he captured the town, he could not hold it against returning Rebel forces.
Remembering his original orders to destroy communications, he ended the assault and galloped his force to Strawberry Springs. He continued the destruction and, on June 21, was in New Market. Following two brief fights near there, he decided to circle back into the safety of Kentucky, having proven that a Union force could penetrate East Tennessee by way of the distant Cumberland Plateau. He then took his force toward Roger’s Gap west of Cumberland Gap, crossing the Holston River at Hayworth Bend, going through Clinch Mountain at Powder Springs Gap, reaching Powell Valley and skirting the Rebel stronghold at Cumberland Gap.
By then his captives had risen to 120 Rebels, and his train of stores, equipment, cannon and soldiers stretched out some distance. When he approached Roger’s Gap, he found the high gap, used the year before by Morgan’s Yankees and Kirby-Smith’s Rebels, was heavily blockaded with fallen timbers and guarded by Rebel artillery.
Big Creek Gap, to the west, was likewise fortified, so Sanders was forced to look for a third way out of the Rebel lines and into the safety of Kentucky. He chose, no doubt with the advice of Sergeant Reynolds, a little-known mountain pass some three miles from Roger’s Gap known as “Smith’s Gap.”
This path across was extremely narrow; Sanders called it a “wood path.” It permitted the passage, with care, of only one man or one horse at a time. To reach Kentucky this way, Sanders was forced to dump most of his equipment and artillery, including much of what he had captured.
“The guns, carriages, harnesses, and ammunition were completely destroyed and left,” he reported. “The artillery was simply abandoned.”
On June 24, his force rode into Boston (now Lot), Ky., near Jellico, and camped in safety at the site of old Camp Spears. He reported that part of his force became separated after climbing Cumberland Mountain, but had rejoined him at Boston.
Sanders reported to his superiors that during the entire expedition he lost only two men killed by the enemy, four wounded, and thirteen missing, of which five drowned. In his final report of the mission, he also praised Sergeant Reynolds and other guides loaned to him from the First Tennessee.
