Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[52] help, the Federals appeared on the southern road. When the Confederate general received from Burnside a summons to surrender, he was disconcerted. He had hoped that Buckner would detain in the Tennessee Valley the forces of the enemy. Seeing himself isolated and surrounded, he did not think of defending himself, and without firing a single shot he surrendered to the enemy by a shameful capitulation the two thousand men and all the materiel which had been entrusted to him. By a singular coincidence, among these men were many soldiers from North Carolina, whom Burnside had already made prisoners in the preceding year on Roanoke Island.

Two days before, the Confederates had achieved on the confines of Virginia a success which could not, it is true, compensate for the disaster which had occurred to Frazer. On receipt of the news of the invasion of East Tennessee, General Jackson, leaving the banks of the upper Kanawha, where we have left him, had come to reinforce Jones between Bristol and Abingdon. In another direction, Burnside, as soon as he had arrived at Knoxville, had sent out a large detachment of infantry toward Abingdon to threaten its salt-works and destroy the railway as far as possible. The road being clear, four hundred Federals got on a train and proceeded as far as Carter's Depot, ninety-three miles from Knoxville, where they found the bridge over Watauga River occupied by the enemy. Hearing of this bold dash, Jackson set out to cut off their retreat. He reached Jonesborough on the 7th. The Unionists, going back on the same train which had brought them, had passed beyond that town, but they had stopped at a short distance, thinking, no doubt, that they were pursued only by an insignificant body of Confederates. After having vainly tried to cut the track behind them, Jackson drove them as far as Limestone Station, where, finding a good position, they determined to fight him while the train returned to Knoxville for reinforcements. But this expected aid was not destined to reach them. After a stubborn resistance, surrounded by Jackson's superior troops and crushed by his artillery, the Federals, about three hundred strong, were obliged to surrender. Foster's brigade was immediately sent out to avenge this defeat, but the Confederates, satisfied with their success, had already fallen back upon Watauga,