Wofford, with his Georgians, and Humphrey, with his Mississippians, were to lead the forlorn hope in the assault on Fort Sanders, supported by Bryan’s (Georgia) Brigade and one regiment of Mississippians.  Kershaw stood to the right of the fort and Anderson, of Jenkins’ Division, on the left, supported by the other two brigades then present of Jenkins’.  The battle was to focus around the fort until that was taken or silenced, then Kershaw was to storm the works on the right, carry them, charge the second line of entrenchment, in which were posted the reserves and recent Tennessee recruits.  Jenkins, with Anderson’s Brigade on his right and next to McLaws, was to act as a brace to the assaulting column until the fort was taken, then by a sudden dash take the entrenchments to the left of the fort, wheel and sweep the line towards the north, and clear the way for Jenkins’ other brigades.

The expectant calm before the great storm was now at hand.  The men stood silent, grim, and determined, awaiting the coming crash!  The crash came with the thunder of the signal gun from Alexander’s Battery.  Longstreet then saluted his enemy with the roar of twenty guns, the shells shrieking and crashing in and around Fort Sanders.  Burnside answered the salutation with a welcome of fifty guns from the fort 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