Sharp skirmishing in the evening. About 11 p.m. the enemy attacked our picket lines, and after a couple of hours of hot fighting occupied them, thus throwing their advanced line within about 120 yards of the northwestern salient of Fort Sanders. The skirmishing was continued all night, with a slow cannonade, from all the guns upon the enemy's right, principally directed upon Fort Sanders. It now became evident that this was the real point of attack.

Sunday, November 29.-At 6 a.m., under cover of a fog, the enemy assaulted Fort Sanders, moving along the capital of the northwestern bastion. In spite of the gallantry and persistency of the attack, it was handsomely repulsed, with a loss to the enemy of almost the entire which led the assault. Our loss was 4 killed and 11 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 captures were 3 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 number so small that more accurate reports would not diminish them.) The garrison of Fort Sanders was made up of Benjamin's battery, part of Buckley's part of 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 the obstacles of stumps, wire entanglement, and brush in front of the fort, the cool and steady fire to which they were exposed, coming from the very best troops in our service, sufficiently accounts for the repulse of one 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, and accepted, during which he might bury his dead and take care of his wounded. The truce extended until 7 p.m.

During the assault on Fort Sanders, and for some time after that