Major General Buckner had marched toward Big Creek Gap with all the artillery and all the other disposable force at this post, except Colonel Trigg’s 51st (54th) Virginia Regiment, and Colonel J. J. Finley’s 7th (6th) Florida Regiment; effective force about 1,000 men; leaving Colonel Trigg temporarily in command at Knoxville. On the morning of the 19th, Maj. Von Sheliha, Acting Chief of Staff, was informed that the enemy in large force had passed by Loudon, and were at Lenoir’s Station, twenty-four miles from Knoxville, and he requested Lieut. Col. Haynes to take charge of the artillery defence of the city, and to organize his force from the convalescents in the hospitals and from citizens, to man his guns then in the city. At the same time he ordered Maj. S. H. Reynolds, Chief of Ordnance, to issue to Lieut. Col. Haynes as many field pieces as could possibly be put in condition within a few hours, and to furnish him with all necessary equipments and one hundred rounds of ammunition. This order was fulfilled as far as was practicable. In the mean time the citizens of Knoxville had been ordered to report to Col. Haynes or to Col. (E. D.) Blake for duty for the defence of the city. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon of that day it was known that the enemy was within five miles of the city, and their advance were skirmishing with thirty-seven of our cavalrymen, being all that were then in Knoxville. The eight pieces of artillery at the ordnance department were immediately posted in sections. First, at College Hill, under Maj. Baker (the exposed point); second, on McGhee’s Hill, under Capt. Hugh L. McClung, and third, under Lieut. Patterson and Lieut. J. J. Burroughs, at Summit Hill. This last battery had been fortified during the afternoon, under the superintendence of Capt. (W. F.) Foster, of the engineers, with a cotton bale revetment. During that evening, the enemy failing to advance, Colonel Trigg removed Major Baker’s battery from College Hill to a point near the Asylum Hospital. In the evening about 200 persons, citizens and convalescent soldiers from hospitals, had reported for duty, and each of the batteries was fully manned, although in the morning of the same day there was no artillery force whatever in the city. During the night the pickets of the enemy advanced upon the city, but the Confederate pickets, thrown out by Col. Trigg, after an hour’s skirmish, drove them back at about 2 o’clock in the morning.