wounded. I know of no instance in history where a storming party was so nearly annihilated. It is very doubtful whether 100 men of this brigade returned unhurt to their lines. The capture were: Three battle-flags, belonging, respectively, to the Thirteenth Mississippi Volunteers, the Seventeenth Mississippi Volunteers, and the Sixteenth Georgia Volunteers, between 200 and 300 prisoners, and some 500 stand of arms. These are not given as strictly accurate, but I have endeavored to keep the numbers so small that more accurate reports will not diminish them.

The garrison of Fort Sanders was made up of Benjamin's battery, part of Buckley's, part of the Seventy-ninth New York Volunteer Infantry, and part of the Second Michigan Volunteer Infantry, making an aggregate of about 220 men.

A short description of Fort Sanders may be appropriate here. It is a bastioned earth-work, built upon an irregular quadrilateral, the sides of which are, respectively, 125 yards southern front, 95 yards western front, 125 yards northern front, and 85 yards eastern front. The eastern front was entirely open, and is to be closed with a stockade; the southern front was about half done; the western front was finished except cutting the embrasures, and the northern front was nearly finished. Each bastion was intended to have a pan coupe. The bastion attacked was the only one that was completely finished. A light 12-pounder was mounted at the pan coupe, and did good service. The ditch of the fort was 12 feet in width, and in many places as much as 8 feet in depth. The irregularity of the site was such that the bastion angles were very heavy, the relief of the lightest one being 12 feet. The relief of the one attacked was about 13 feet, and together with the depth of the ditch, say 7 feet, made a height of 20 feet from the bottom of the ditch to the interior crest. This, owing to the nature of the soil, the dampness of the morning, and the steepness of the slopes, made the storming of the fort a very serious matter, and when taken in connection with the neglect of the enemy to provide themselves with scaling ladders, the confusion in their ranks, caused by passing through obstacles of stumps, wire entanglement,and brush in front of the fort, and the cool and steady fire to which they were exposed, coming from the very best troops in our service, sufficiently account for the repulse of one of the best divisions in the rebel army, from that point of attack. A short time after the repulse of the enemy a truce was offered him, during which he might bury his dead and take care of his wounded. It was accepted, and extended until 7 p.m.

During the assault on Fort Sanders and for some time after that had been repulsed, sharp fighting took place on the south side of the river, but we were everywhere successful.

Monday, November 30.-Very quiet. Our forces at work as usual. The line of rifle-trenches from the Sevierville road to the central hill was staked out. The work on that part of the line, from Sevierville Hill to the road, was finished.

A two-gun battery was located just east of Second Creek, and good progress was made upon it.

The design of this battery was to enfilade the railroad cut to the westward, and to flank the northern front of Fort Sanders, throwing a fire upon ground which that fort could not reach. The work upon the large fort on our right, in front of Bell's house, was so far advanced as to make it defensible. During the day the enemy apparently did little or nothing, as though he were stunned by the severe punishment he had received the day before.