Appalachian History Series – The Battle of Kingston: Wheeler’s Failed Strike in Roane County
On the morning of November 24, 1863, Kingston, Tennessee became the scene of a sharp Civil War fight that is easy to miss beside the larger stories of Knoxville and Chattanooga. In official military language, the fight is often called the Action at Kingston. In local memory, Battle of Kingston is the stronger and more understandable name. Either way, it was not a grand battle with massive armies spread across miles of ground. It was a hard reconnaissance in force, a fast Confederate cavalry movement meant to test, threaten, and possibly capture the Union force holding the Roane County town.
The fight came during one of the most tense moments of the Knoxville Campaign. Confederate General James Longstreet was pressing toward Knoxville, where Union General Ambrose Burnside’s army had taken position. East Tennessee mattered because of its roads, rivers, mountain passes, Unionist population, and railroad lines. Kingston sat west of Knoxville near the Clinch and Tennessee Rivers, close enough to the campaign’s main movements to become a target, but local enough that the fight belonged deeply to Roane County.
For the people of Kingston, the war was not far away. It came down the road at daylight.
Roane County in a Divided War
Roane County was not a simple Confederate or Union place. Like much of East Tennessee, it had strong Unionist feeling before secession, but the war divided families, neighbors, and churches. Confederate forces controlled much of East Tennessee during the earlier part of the war, but Union troops under Burnside entered Kingston in September 1863. By late November, Union forces held the town as the wider campaign around Knoxville tightened.
That local division gives Kingston’s fight more meaning than a normal cavalry probe. Some of the Union soldiers defending the area were not strangers from the North. They included Tennessee Unionists, men who had chosen the United States in a region where that choice could carry danger at home. Colonel Robert K. Byrd of the First Tennessee Infantry was one of the officers connected to the defense. The presence of Tennessee Union troops made the Kingston action not only a military episode, but also a local East Tennessee story.
The town itself mattered because roads through Kingston connected the country west of Knoxville with the campaign zone around Loudon, Knoxville, and the Tennessee River. Whoever controlled those routes could threaten supplies, movements, and communications. In November 1863, that was enough to bring Confederate cavalry to Kingston before dawn.
Longstreet, Burnside, and the Road to Kingston
The Kingston fight cannot be understood apart from the Knoxville Campaign. After the Confederate victory at Chickamauga, Longstreet’s corps was detached from the Army of Tennessee and sent toward East Tennessee to deal with Burnside. The movement was slow and difficult. Rail delays, bad roads, poor supplies, and the rugged country all shaped the campaign. Longstreet wanted to pressure Knoxville and force Burnside into retreat or surrender.
Confederate cavalry under Major General Joseph Wheeler moved in this larger setting. Cavalry could scout, raid, screen movements, threaten supply lines, and strike isolated posts. Longstreet received information that the Union force at Kingston might be small enough to capture. If Kingston could be taken or scattered, Wheeler could weaken the Union hold west of Knoxville and create alarm in Burnside’s rear.
Wheeler was ordered to move on Kingston, drive in the pickets, learn whether the Union force had been reinforced, and attack if the opportunity appeared. This was not simply a ride through the countryside. It was a serious movement against a Union post during a campaign where every road and river crossing mattered.
The Union Line East of Town
The Union force at Kingston was larger and better placed than Wheeler expected. Colonel Samuel R. Mott commanded the First Brigade, Second Division, 23rd Corps. Units connected to the action included the 80th Indiana Infantry, 16th Kentucky Infantry, 25th Michigan Infantry, 118th Ohio Infantry, and artillery including Elgin’s Illinois Battery. The National Park Service also associates the Kingston action with Indiana artillery, Kentucky infantry, Michigan infantry, Ohio infantry, and Illinois light artillery.
These were not helpless troops scattered in town. They held ground on a ridge east of Kingston. That ridge gave them a strong defensive position. Confederate cavalry approaching from the Loudon Road had to deal with infantry, dismounted cavalry, and artillery in a prepared line. The ground itself helped the defenders. Wheeler later described Union troops posted along a crest with their flanks advanced, creating direct fire and crossfire against his men.
The Confederate plan depended on speed and surprise. Kingston’s defenders had enough time to form.
Daybreak on November 24, 1863
Wheeler’s command moved through the night toward Kingston, but the march was exhausting. Bad roads, darkness, and the strain of previous movements weakened the column before it reached the fight. Wheeler later wrote that many of his men had lost sleep for two nights and that part of the command had fallen behind.
About an hour before daybreak, Confederate troops encountered Union pickets several miles from Kingston. Wheeler hoped to reach the town before the Union force could form in line. That hope failed. By the time his men came into view of the main position, Union troops were ready on the hill east of town.
The attack opened at daylight. Mott’s report described the fight as a brisk engagement that lasted seven hours. Byrd’s same-day report from Kingston said the Confederate force attacked near daylight and that Union troops drove it back. The fighting appears to have centered on the Union line east of town, where Wheeler’s mounted men faced infantry and artillery rather than an exposed outpost.
For Confederate cavalry, this was a bad situation. Cavalry could move fast, but speed mattered less once the enemy was formed on strong ground with cannon covering the approaches. Wheeler found the ridge held by infantry and dismounted cavalry, supported by artillery. The Union guns were especially important. Confederate General William T. Martin later wrote that the strength of the position, the weight of the Union artillery, and the steadiness of the defenders helped defeat the attempt.
A Fight Remembered by the Regiments
The Kingston action appears in several different kinds of sources. The Official Records give the formal military reports. Regimental histories and diaries give a closer soldier-level view.
The 25th Michigan’s postwar regimental history remembered the Confederates making several attacks and using woods and underbrush for cover. It also remembered the Union artillery answering effectively. The men of the 25th Michigan were under fire, but the regiment reportedly escaped without serious loss in that account. Other units were not as fortunate. Union casualty figures vary somewhat by source, but the losses were small compared with the large battles then unfolding elsewhere in Tennessee.
The 80th Indiana material also connects the regiment to the Kingston fight and places the action on the morning of November 24. These regimental accounts help show how the battle was experienced by the men in line. To a campaign historian, Kingston may be a small action. To the soldiers on the ridge, it was hours of firing, uncertainty, and waiting to see whether Wheeler’s cavalry would break through.
Why Wheeler Withdrew
Wheeler decided that Kingston could not be taken at acceptable cost. The surprise had failed. The Union force was larger than expected. The defenders held a strong ridge. Artillery covered the approaches. The Confederate cavalry was tired from the march. Martin and Frank Armstrong, whose divisions were part of the movement, agreed that withdrawal was the sensible choice.
The Confederate withdrawal was orderly. Wheeler reported that his men pulled back quietly and were not seriously pursued. Mott’s Union report claimed a much heavier Confederate loss than Confederate sources suggest, while Byrd reported prisoners taken and several Confederates killed. Modern battlefield summaries tend to use more cautious numbers, recognizing that casualty claims in Civil War reports were often shaped by confusion, distance, and the desire to show success.
The safest conclusion is that Kingston was a Union defensive success. Wheeler’s cavalry failed to capture the post, failed to scatter the defenders, and failed to open a major advantage west of Knoxville.
After the Battle
After the failed attempt at Kingston, Wheeler left the command with Martin and went to report to General Braxton Bragg. Martin moved the cavalry back toward Knoxville, where Longstreet’s campaign continued. Five days later, on November 29, Confederate troops made their famous assault on Fort Sanders at Knoxville and were repulsed.
Kingston did not decide the Knoxville Campaign, but it belonged to the chain of events that shaped it. The Union hold on Kingston survived. Roane County remained in Union hands. Longstreet did not receive the kind of cavalry success west of Knoxville that might have added pressure on Burnside’s rear.
For East Tennessee Unionists, the fight also carried symbolic weight. Men from the region helped defend a town in their own part of the state against Confederate cavalry. That fact matters in a place where the Civil War was not only army against army, but neighbor against neighbor and home against home.
What Kingston Teaches
The Battle of Kingston is a reminder that Appalachian Civil War history is often found in actions that look small on a national map. These fights happened at river towns, mountain gaps, road junctions, courthouse villages, farms, ridges, and bridges. They were shaped by terrain as much as by generals. They were remembered by local families long after larger campaigns took most of the attention.
Kingston’s fight was a reconnaissance in force, but it became more than a scouting mission. It showed the limits of Confederate cavalry when surprise failed. It showed the importance of prepared ground and artillery. It showed how Roane County fit into the struggle for East Tennessee. It also showed how Unionist soldiers from Tennessee stood in the line during a campaign fought across their own mountains and valleys.
Today, the Kingston battlefield is not as widely known as Knoxville, Chickamauga, or Chattanooga. Yet its story deserves a place in Roane County history. On November 24, 1863, Wheeler’s cavalry came toward Kingston expecting an opportunity. Instead, they found a ridge, a Union line, and a town that did not fall.
Sources & Further Reading
United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series I, Volume XXXI, Part I: Reports and Union Correspondence. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1890. See Samuel R. Mott report, 381-382; Robert K. Byrd report, 422; Joseph Wheeler report, 543-544; and William T. Martin report, 545. https://archive.org/details/cu31924077699852
United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series I, Volume XXXI, Part III: Union and Confederate Correspondence. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1890. https://archive.org/details/cu31924077699845
Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association. “Kingston.” Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.tcwpa.org/battle-site/kingston/
Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association. “Kingston Battlefield Assessment.” Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.tcwpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Kingston.pdf
National Park Service. “Tennessee Civil War Battles.” U.S. Department of the Interior. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/tennessee.htm
National Park Service. “80th Regiment, Indiana Infantry.” U.S. Department of the Interior. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UIN0080RI
National Park Service. “25th Regiment, Michigan Infantry.” U.S. Department of the Interior. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UMI0025RI
80th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. “80th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, November 1863 History.” 80th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://80thindiana.net/hist/80-nov63.htm
Travis, Benjamin F. The Story of the Twenty-Fifth Michigan. Kalamazoo, MI: Kalamazoo Publishing Company, 1897. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003104737
Andes, John W., Will A. McTeer, and Charles S. McCammon. Loyal Mountain Troopers: The Second and Third Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry in the Civil War: Reminiscences of Lieutenant John W. Andes and Major Will A. McTeer. Maryville, TN: Blount County Genealogical and Historical Society, 1992. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/601177
Hess, Earl J. The Knoxville Campaign: Burnside and Longstreet in East Tennessee. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2013. https://utpress.org/9781572339958/the-knoxville-campaign/
O’Connell, Daniel F. “The Knoxville Campaign.” Essential Civil War Curriculum. Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech, 2014. https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-knoxville-campaign.html
Morris, Andrew N. The Civil War in the West, 1863. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2016. https://history.army.mil/Publications/Publications-Catalog/The-Civil-War-in-the-West/
McMurray, John. “The Civil War in Roane County.” Roane County TNGenWeb, from archived Roane County Heritage Commission website. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://tngenweb.org/roane/the-civil-war-in-roane-county-by-john-mcmurray/
National Park Service. Update to the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Report on the Nation’s Civil War Battlefields: State of Tennessee. Washington, DC: National Park Service, 2009. https://npshistory.com/publications/battlefield/cwsac/updates/tn.pdf
Longstreet, James. From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1896. https://archive.org/details/frommanassastoap00long
Cozzens, Peter. The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles for Chattanooga. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994. https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p065958
Sword, Wiley. Mountains Touched with Fire: Chattanooga Besieged, 1863. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312155933/mountainstouchedwithfire/
Pinney, Nelson A. History of the 104th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry from 1862 to 1865. Akron, OH: Werner and Lohmann, 1886. https://archive.org/details/historyof104thre00pinn
Ohio Civil War Central. “118th Ohio Infantry.” Ohio Civil War Central. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.ohiocivilwar.com/cw118.html
Author Note: This article follows the Official Records first, then compares those reports with regimental accounts, local history, and modern battlefield assessments. Kingston was not one of the Civil War’s largest battles, but it shows how deeply the Knoxville Campaign reached into Roane County.