Fort Wiltsie: Requires a gate at entrance, a service magazine, and platforms for its eight guns.

Battery Galpin: Has no platforms for its nine guns.

Battery Zoellner: Requires platforms for its four guns.

Battery Karnasch: Platforms for three guns needed and a few days' labor upon the parapet.

Battery Elstner: Requires four gun platforms and some labor upon the parapet.

Fort Sanders: This large for of bastion form is intended for twenty-one guns, the embrasures for which are nearly all finished. The work needs a good magazine and twenty-one platforms. The interior is not excavated deep enough to give good cover to its defenders. The ditches should be deepened and the scarp trimmed.

Battery Noble: Finished, excepting platforms for eight guns.

Battery Harker: Is in an unfinished condition. It is intended for five guns. The parapets and embrasures need revetments.

Fort Byington: Requires a service magazine, gate, and platforms for fifteen guns.

Forts Dickerson and Lee, south of the Holston, are finished for forty-one guns; each possesses a good magazine. Infantry parapet connecting forts and batteries is finished excepting a portion 200 yards long on the left of the line. A deep ditch extends from Battery Clifton Lee to the inundation in front to prevent surprise in that direction. There is a large magazine by the road passing near Fort Byington. The accompanying sketch shows the general character and arrangement of the forts and batteries just described.*

The defensive of Knoxville, commenced by Captain Poe, Engineer Corps, immediately after its occupation by our army, owes much of its progress to General Davis Tillson, commanding at this post during the past year. He has evinced much skill in laying out the connecting lines, and an uncommon energy in their execution, and it is a pleasure to bring his services in the defense of his post to the notice of the commanding general. It would require a large army to invest the city on the north and south banks of the Holston. If the south side is threatened, the garrison, by the aid of Forts Dickerson and Lee with temporary lines, can hold at bay a large force. It is probable that an attacking force would take position on the north bank of the river. In this view the inundation would prove doubly serviceable, protecting a portion of the line and covering the valley to the north, thus forcing the enemy to confine his attack either to the east or west front of Knoxville. The garrison therefore will only be required to meet the attack on a short line, simply watching the other portions of the defenses vigilantly. Hence, though the line from river to river is three miles long, the garrison need not be proportionately large-5,000 infantry with artillerists for service of the guns will be able to hold the lines against 20,000 men. The works are designed for 192 guns; 100 will suffice for the ordinary garrison, for should the city be threatened by an approaching army, it will doubtless be re-enforced in time by an army with its material. The garrison of Knoxville can complete the defensive line so nearly finished, and keep it in order, commencing no new work.

Loudon.-At this place the railroad from Chattanooga to Knoxville crosses the Tennessee. The preservation of the bridge across the river is necessary for supplying the forces of East Tennessee. For this purpose three redoubts on the south bank and one on the opposite side,

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* See Plate CXI, Map 5, of the Atlas.

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