“No more shall the war-cry sever, Or the winding rivers be red; They banish our anger forever When they laurel the graves of our dead! Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day;-- Love and tears for the Blue; Tears and love for the Gray.” F. M. FINCH. Captain Poe, towards the conclusion of his official report to Gen. Burnside, has given a judicious estimate of the events just narrated. He says: “The siege of Knoxville passed into history. If mistakes were made in the defence, they were covered by the cloak of success. That many were made in the attack was apparent to us all.[50] That the rebels made a great error in besieging, is as evident as it now is, that to accept siege at Knoxville was a great stroke of military policy. The results of the successful defence are, the defeat of Bragg’s army and consequent permanent establishment of our forces at Chattanooga, with tolerably secure lines of communication; the confirmation of our hold upon East Tennessee; the discomfiture and loss of prestige of the choicest troops of the enemy’s service.... Is there any man of that part of the army of the Ohio which was in Knoxville, who would exchange his nineteen days of service there for any other of the achievements of his life? Was there a regiment there which will not put Knoxville on its banners as they now bear Roanoke or Newbern, Williamsburg or Fair Oaks, Chantilly or South Mountain, Antietam or Vicksburg?” The news of Burnside’s successful defence carried joy to Washington and to all friends of the United States everywhere. The President issued a proclamation concerning it, in which he spoke of the retreat of the enemy from before Knoxville “under the circumstances rendering it probable that the Union forces” could not thereafter “be dislodged from that important position.” He recommended that “all loyal people” should “on receipt of this information, assemble at their places of worship and render special homage and gratitude to Almighty God, for this great advancement of the National cause.” Congress joyfully thanked Burnside and his army. Maj. Gen. John G. Foster, Gen. Burnside’s successor in command of the Department, was a wholly different type of man, and could not have sustained rivalry with Burnside in his characteristic lines of life and conduct. Nor was Foster at all emulous to excel him in that way. He sought to do his duty after his own fashion, and the fault-finding to a limited extent, with which his administration met, was largely due to the comparison civilians would silently make in their minds between him and his predecessor, to his depreciation, as the lesser of the two chief lights in their military firmament.