On the morning of November 20th the defences were thought to be capable of resisting any probable foe, but during that entire day and night, the work of strengthening them was continued. Indeed such labor was prosecuted for a considerable period of time, in which the besiegers were also busy at work for a contrary purpose. All that skill and toil could effect was done to hold the town. First Creek was successfully dammed at the Vine Street bridge, and a dam that made a strong obstacle was built across Second Creek where it passes through a tunnel under the railroad. In front of the rifle pits, a _chevaux de frise_ was formed of pointed stakes, bound together by wire, and nearly five feet high, and at one place two thousand pikes, captured at Cumberland Gap, were used for a like purpose. In front of the stakes thick branches of trees were firmly set in the ground. The besiegers occupied a large brick dwelling house a short distance west of Fort Sanders, which the adult children of the Hon. Wm. B. Reese, Sr., deceased, had been compelled to vacate. The sharp-shooting carried on from it became at length so annoying that at night on the 20th, the Seventeenth Michigan regiment was sent to destroy the building. One might have supposed from the loud voice of the Colonel in giving orders and the ringing cheers of his men, that a small army was approaching the house, and in a great fright the inmates ingloriously fled without firing a gun. The dwelling and barns were burned to the ground. On that day, there was a repetition of the firing from a battery Longstreet had planted upon the Tazewell road, and which had thrown the first shells into the town--without harm at either time. For several days there were constant sharp-shooting, skirmishing and cannonading without important consequences.