Battle of Ft. Sanders

29 November 1863 

On this date in 1863...

Confederate troops under Gen. James Longsreet tried to penetrate the defenses of Knoxville, Tennessee with a doomed attack on Ft. Sanders. Confederates were slowed by the first use of wire entanglements made of telegraph wire. This Confederate defeat, plus the loss of Chattanooga on November 25, secured much of East Tennessee under federal control.

Other Years:

• 1813 - Red Stick Creeks and a force of almost 1000 Georgia militia, and 400 pro-American Creeks under General John Floyd meet at the the Red Stick Creek stronghold of Autossee, in modern Macon County, Alabama. Artillery wins the day for the allies. The Red Sticks suffer 200 fatalities, while the Americans have only eleven dead. 
• 1929 - The first airplane flight over the South Pole was made by U.S. Navy Lt. Comdr. Richard E. Byrd of Winchester, Virginia. 
• 1963 - U.S. President Johnson named a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the Dallas, Texas assassination of President Kennedy.
• 1971 - The Professional Golf Championship was held at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida for the first time. 
• 1987 - Cuban detainees released 26 hostages they'd been holding for more than a week at the Federal Detention Center in Oakdale, Louisiana. 

Read: Why Know Southern History?

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