You're going to. Oh, Hey everyone. Thanks for tuning in to episode number 438 of our Civil War podcast.

I'm Rich.

And I'm Tracy.

Hello y'all.

Welcome to the podcast.

As y'all will recall with the last episode we got James Longstreet to Knoxville in November

1863 but once there he decided he needed more men if he was going to have much hope of successfully ejecting Ambrose Burnside from the town.

So Longstreet asked Braxton Bragg for more men, but with Ulysseseses Grant, clearly almost ready to launch

the long-awaited federal attack at Chattanooga, Brxton Bragg, who by this point was heavily outnumbered by Grant, had no troops to spare to

send to Long Street. That meant Old Pete was going to have to make do at Knoxville with what

he had.

The prospects of starving Burnside out of Knoxville weren't very promising, and besides

Long Street's own logistical situation and Bragg's dilemma down at Chattanooga meant that

Old Pete needed to win a quick victory, so he began casting about for a way to eject the Yankees from Knoxville by force.

The obvious place to strike the Federals was at the Earthwork fortification that the Confederates

when they had controlled Knoxville had named Fort Loudon, but which the Yankees had renamed Fort Sanders after one of their fallen officers.

The Federals had strengthened the works, but the rebels believed the fort did have one glaring weakness.

Although it was perched on a 200 foot tall hill, there was an area of dead ground in front of it that should allow a large body of troops to approach Fort Sanders relatively safely.

Using that dead ground about 200 yards from the fort's

parapet as a sheltered staging area, the Confederates could then rush

forward directly toward a projecting

angle of the works where the defenders would be able to bring the least

...