At midnight on the 4th of December, as our men in Fort Sanders were standing to arms, something of an unusual nature was observed to be going on in the enemy’s camp. Lanterns were seen flitting about in their batteries; night signals were at work, a fixed lantern low down near the ground and a movable one above it bobbing about from right to left. Our pickets all along the siege line were doubled, and the troops in the fort ordered to the parapets. All sorts of speculations were indulged in by our officers and men; some thought the enemy was preparing for another and final assault upon our works, and others that he was retreating.
General Sherman had for some days been marching to the relief of Burnside, and a rumor was prevalent that his cavalry had already attacked the rear of the enemy’s army. The army of General Bragg, of which Longstreet’s forces were a part, had fallen back from Chattanooga, and was then moving South. These circumstances, together with the hopeless nature of the siege, forced upon Longstreet the abandonment of his undertaking. Daylight revealed the fact that the enemy had gone. “Stack arms! All but the camp guard may rest!” was the order given to the garrison of Fort Sanders, when this state of things became officially known. The order was indeed a welcome one, for our soldiers in Knoxville had not tasted the pleasure of absolute repose for many long weeks. The termination of the siege was an important and joyful event to the whole nation; it was also a great crisis in the lives of the soldiers there, and what they said and did on this important occasion, our readers may be curious to know. The answer shows how utterly unromantic and prosaic were the Yankee soldiers who made so much history during the four years of war. “Thank God! now I can have a good snooze,” said one, in no irreverent spirit. “Captain, can I go down to the run and wash my shirt?” said another. “Sergeant, has the company got any soap?” asked a third. Probably the thought of one-half of the men in Knoxville, at that moment, was sleep, and of the others, a wash, either of clothes or person. A few officers of the staff, a few orderlies, and surgeons rode out to visit the deserted camp, while our pickets were thrown out to capture the stragglers. In the course of an hour the loiterers and laggards of the late besiegers began to come into our lines in crowds. Some of them had overslept, others had strayed away, and others still had lost heart and skulked in the woods.