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The Knoxville Civil War Trail begins at Fort Dickerson on Chapman Highway, continues through the Fort Sanders area and concludes in Farragut, TN.


Fort Dickerson
By late in 1863, the Union army had turned Knoxville into one of the most fortified cities in the country. Chief Engineer Capt. (later Gen.) Orlando M. Poe used civilians and slaves to assist his 300-man engineering battalion, while Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside marched south to block Confederate Gen. James Longstreet’s approach. On returning, Burnside’s men joined in the digging and surrounded the city with 16 forts and batteries, miles of earthworks, and two dams to flood the area just north of Knoxville.
3000 Fort Dickerson Rd., Chapman Hwy, Knoxville, TN 37919 • Map It

Fort Sanders
In mid-November 1863, Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside’s army was frantically digging earthworks to defend Knoxville from the approaching Confederate army under Gen. James Longstreet. This ridge overlooked the route of the Confederate advance along Kingston Road. The Confederates had begun a fortification named Fort Loudon before evacuating the city the previous August.
Redeemer Church of Knoxville, 1642 Highland Ave., Knoxville, TN 37916 • Map It

Old Gray Cemetery
Since the Civil War, the thirteen-acre Old Gray Cemetery has been the final resting place for Union and Confederate veterans. During the conflict, control of Knoxville shifted from Confederate to Union forces, so it is appropriate that both sides are represented here. The cemetery was established in 1850 and reflects the Rural Cemetery Movement that swept the urban South in the decade before the war. There are no political divisions within Old Gray. Tennessee’s Reconstruction era governor William G. “Parson” Brownlow (1805–77) lies buried just across the way from Henry M. Ashby (1836–68), one of the Confederacy’s youngest colonels.
Corner of 17th Street and Highland Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37916 • Map It

Bleak House
Bleak House, the home of Robert Houston Armstrong and Louisa Franklin Armstrong, is an Italianate-style mansion completed in 1858. During the Siege and Battle of Knoxville, November 17–December 4, 1863, the house was Confederate Gen. James Longstreet’s headquarters. A sharpshooter unit, “The Elite Twenty,” occupied the house’s second-floor east-facing windows, as well as the tower. They were armed with British Whitworth rifles, accurate to about 1,500 yards.
3148 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919 • Map It

Campbell’s Station
The fighting along the Kingston Turnpike in front of you here at Campbell’s Station on a cold, rainy, and miserable November 16, 1863, helped to set the stage for the decisive Battle of Knoxville. Confederate Gen. James Longstreet’s corps had been moving north from Chattanooga to recapture Knoxville from Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside and establish a base in East Tennessee. Knoxville was a vital strongpoint for both armies because it was where supplies for the Confederacy arrived by rail from Virginia.
11408 Municipal Center Dr, Farragut, TN 37934 • Map It


Source: www.tn.gov