rt and angles along the entrenchments. Salvos after salvos sounded
deep and loud from the cannon's mouth, and echoed and re-echoed up and
down the valleys of the Holston. After the early morning compliments
had continued ten or fifteen minutes, the infantry began to make ready
for the bloody fray. Wofford commenced the advance on the northwest
angle of the fort, Humphrey the South. Not a yell was to be given,
not a gun to be fired, save only those by the sharpshooters. The dread
fortress was to be taken by cold steel alone. Not a gun was loaded in
the three brigades. As the mist of the morning and the smoke of the
enemy's guns lifted for a moment the slow and steady steps of the
"forlorn hope" could be seen marching towards the death trap--over
fallen trees and spreading branches, through the cold waters of the
creek, the brave men marched in the face of the belching cannon,
raking the field right and left. Our sharpshooters gave the cannoneers
a telling fire, and as the enemy's infantry in the fort rose above the
parapets to deliver their volley, they were met by volleys from our
sharpshooters in the pits, now in rear of the assaulting columns, and
firing over their heads. When near the fort the troops found yet a
more serious obstruction in the way of stout wires stretched across
their line of approach. This, however, was overcome and passed, and
the assailants soon found themselves on the crest of the twelve foot
abyss that surrounded Fort Sanders. Some jumped into the moat and
began climbing up upon the shoulders of their companions. The enemy
threw hand bombs over the wall to burst in the ditch. Still the men
struggled to reach the top, some succeeding only to fall in the fort.
Scaling ladders were now called for, but none were at hand. Anderson
had moved up on Wofford's left, but finding the fort yet uncovered,
instead of charging the entrenchment, as ordered, he changed his
direction towards the fort, and soon his brigade was tangled in wild
confusion with those of Worfford and Humphrey, gazing at the helpless
mass of struggling humanity in the great gulf below.

Kershaw's men stood at extreme tension watching and waiting the result
of the struggle around the fort. Never perhaps were their nerves so
strung up as the few moments they awaited in suspense the success or
reverse of the assaulting column, bending every effort to catch the
first command of "forward." All but a handful of the enemy had left
the fort, an