Longstreet besieged Knoxville with a veteran corps — then launched a frontal assault on a fort protected by wire entanglements, losing 813 men in minutes while the defenders lost 13.
The Knoxville Campaign (fall 1863) was a Confederate attempt to retake East Tennessee and its critical railroad, which connected the eastern and western halves of the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis detached Longstreet's entire corps from Bragg's army at Chattanooga — a decision that weakened Bragg just as Grant was preparing to attack him.
Union General Burnside, still recovering his reputation after the Fredericksburg disaster, occupied Knoxville and skillfully maneuvered to keep his army intact as Longstreet pursued. His fighting withdrawal to Knoxville at the Battle of Campbell's Station bought time and preserved his force for the siege ahead.
The campaign's decisive moment came on November 29 at Fort Sanders, a Union earthwork protecting Knoxville. Longstreet's men charged across ground strung with telegraph wire at ankle height — an early form of entanglement — stumbled into the fort's ditch, found the walls too steep to scale, and were cut down. 813 Confederate casualties; 13 Union.
The Fort Sanders assault was one of the war's most lopsided failures. Longstreet had excellent troops and a capable staff, but the attack was poorly coordinated, launched in darkness without adequate reconnaissance, and the wire entanglements — a novel defensive measure — were completely unexpected.
On December 4, Sherman arrived with a relief force from Chattanooga, and Longstreet abandoned the siege. Rather than retreating back to Bragg's army, Longstreet wintered in East Tennessee, effectively removing his corps from the war's main action for months.
The campaign's strategic consequences favored the Union doubly: Burnside held Knoxville and East Tennessee, and Longstreet's absence during the Battle of Chattanooga had denied Bragg the reinforcements that might have allowed him to hold Missionary Ridge.