Bloody Kentucky

Descendants find their soldier ancestors at Richmond museum

2013-08-04T10:22:00.002-04:00

Richard Wright came from his home in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to Central Kentucky to see where his great-grandfather fought at the Battle of Richmond. Inside the Battle of Richmond Visitor's Center he found a portrait of William Cook, a Union soldier who served in Company A, 71st Indiana Volunteer Infantry and was one of the many Union soldiers who were captured by invading Confederate forces. According to a story in the Richmond Register, Wright wrote a 30-page piece of historical fiction based on known facts about his great-grandfather.

The Battle of Richmond Visitor’s Center is located south of Richmond at the junction of US 25/421. The center is located in the Rogers House. Built in 1811, was a hub of activity during the Civil War fight. Battle lines were about a half-mile north and a half-mile south of the home.

The 2013 Battle of Richmond Reenactment is scheduled for August 24-25 at Battlefield Park on US 421 south of the visitor center.

Here are photos from last year's 150th anniversary event.

Photos from Corydon Civil War Days 2013

2013-07-13T22:19:00.004-04:00

Capt. Henry Tuttle of Clayton, Ind.,
explains how the armies used the telegraph.

Union cavalry pursue Morgan into Scott County

2013-07-11T23:13:00.000-04:00

Brig. Gen. Edward Henry Hobson

After leaving Salem, Ind., and its smoldering train depot on July 10, 1863, John Hunt Morgan and his cavalry headed east into the tiny crossroads town of Canton where they relieved a farm wife of a few loaves of freshly-baked bread. They would have taken her horses, too, if she hadn't hidden them in the woods after being warned that the raiders were in the area.

Morgan's men couldn't afford to stay around and look for fresh mounts. At about the time they had left Salem, a Union cavalry force of about 4,000 men was leaving Corydon, about 25 miles behind the Confederates.

The pursuers were led by Brigadier General Edward Henry Hobson from Greensburg, Ky. Hobson was a veteran of the Mexican-American War who had commanded a regiment at the Battle of Shiloh and a brigade at Perryville.

Site of the burned depot in Vienna, Ind.

Morgan pushed on into Scott County through the farm towns of Leota and Vienna, just below Scottsburg. At Vienna, Morgan's ace wiretapper George Ellsworth took over the telegraph office at the railroad depot where he eavesdropped on dispatches and tried to send a message saying Morgan's men were still at Salem.

A year earlier, Ellsworth was able to trick other operators along the line to divulge troop movements. But this time an operator in Jeffersonville became suspicious and Ellsworth broke off before cutting the wires and burning the depot.

The raiders continued riding well into the night until they stopped in the town of Lexington where Morgan spent the night in a private home on the town square.

References:
The Longest Raid of the Civil War, by Lester V. Horwitz

The not quite Battle of Salem

2013-07-10T22:59:00.000-04:00

Morgan's raiders burn the railroad depot in Salem

After leaving Corydon on July 9, 1863, John Hunt Morgan's cavalry camped several miles north of the town, then moved on toward Salem the following morning, traveling along the road now known as Ind. 135. Once again, a party of local militia were waiting to greet them. This time the numbers were much smaller on both sides: about a dozen riders in Morgan's advance party with about 150 men lined up to defend the town.

Basil Duke, Morgan's brother-in-law and his second in command, said the locals were "badly armed and perfectly raw" and when the cavalry charged their position, then quickly broke and ran for the town. Another 200 men were gathered near the center of town where a small swivel gun had been loaded with steel scraps and a young man was stationed near it, holding a burning coal to light a fuse. But when then raiders charged into the center of town, the man dropped the coal before he could fire the gun. The defenders, Duke said, "fled in haste, scattering their guns in the street."

Although Salem offered far less resistance to the raiders than Corydon, it was treated much worse than it's neighbor to the south. One of their first targets was the depot for the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago Railroad on the south side of the town where they discovered a locked wooden box. Warned that Morgan was approaching, the railmaster had taken the railroad's store of gold and buried it under a nearby home. When Morgan's men broke open the box, they found only tools. In retaliation for the trick, they burned the depot along with a water tank and two wooden railroad bridges. The box with its broken lid sits in a place of honor inside The Depot, Salem's railroad museum.

As he did in Corydon, Morgan also demanded a ransom of $1,000 from Salem's mill owners. In return, they received a note signed by Morgan promising that no harm would come to their property. The raiders also went shopping in Salem stores and homes, carting off whiskey, bakery goods, and an odd assortment of souvenirs.

Civil War memorabilia at the Salem museum

"They did not pillage with any sort of method or reason—it seemed to be a mania, senseless and purposeless," Duke wrote several years after the adventure. "One man carried a bird-cage, with three canaries in it, for two days. Another rode with a chafing-dish, which looked like a small metallic coffin, on the pummel of his saddle, until an officer forced him to throw it away. Although the weather was intensely warm, another, still, slung seven pairs of skates around his neck, and chuckled over his acquisition."

After acquiring fresh horses, Morgan and his men left Salem early in the afternoon of July 10. They followed the route of Old Highway 56 through Canton and Leota to Vienna and Lexington in Scott County.

References:

History of Morgan's Cavalry, by Basil W. Duke
The Longest Raid of the Civil War, by Lester V. Horwitz

The Battle of Corydon

2013-07-09T12:28:00.000-04:00

Corydon Battle Park

The day after John Hunt Morgan's raiders crossed the Ohio River at Brandenburg, a motley collection of about 400 Indiana militia and citizen volunteers set up a defensive line just south of Corydon, a small town that had been the state's frontier capitol. With only light weapons and little training, the defenders were quickly overrun by Morgan's 1,800 seasoned cavalry troops.

Morgan's men easily flanked the defenders, drove them off their hilltop position and sent them scurrying back into town. Three Hoosiers and eight Confederates were killed in the skirmish. After Morgan fired a few cannon rounds into downtown Corydon, the home guard surrendered.

Morgan and his men entered the town at about 1 p.m. on July 9. The Confederates turned the town's Presbyterian Church into a hospital for their wounded while Morgan took his lunch at Kintner's Eagle Hotel, across from the Old Capitol. It was there that he read in the town's Weekly Democrat newspaper that Lee had been whipped at Gettysburg and that Grant had taken Vicksburg.

Corydon Presbyterian Church

Morgan's troops replenished their horses and food stocks and took what they could carry from local stores and some citizens. Morgan also extracted a ransom of $1,000 each from three area mills, vowing to burn them if the owners didn't pay.

Fearing that Morgan would head east and target a Union arms depot in Jeffersonville, troops turned out to defend the roads leading into New Albany. But instead, Morgan's men moved
north through New Salisbury and Palmyra toward Salem.

The Union defenders lost about 360 killed or wounded, including several civilians. One was Rev. Peter Glenn, who tangled with the raiders when one of their men was shot near Glenn's home about four miles south of Corydon. When raiders entered the home and began to set fire to it, Glenn resisted and was shot in the struggle. Confederate losses were 11 killed and another 30 wounded. The names of those killed in the fight are listed on a monument in Corydon's Battle Park which stands along the defensive line.

References:
The Longest Raid of the Civil War, by Lester V. Horwitz

Morgan's raiders invade Indiana

2013-07-08T15:08:00.000-04:00

The Alice Dean was one of two
ships to ferry Morgan's troops to Indiana

While the nation was celebrating Independence Day in 1863, the Union Army was winning critical victories at Gettysburg and at Vicksburg. That was the same time that Gen. John Hunt Morgan and 2,000 Confederate troops marched into Kentucky on what was to be the longest rebel raid of the war and one that would take the rebels deepest into Union territory.

As he approached Meade County, Morgan sent 130 men east toward Louisville. Their orders were to burn railroad bridges, cut telegraph lines and generally act as if they were Morgan's main force preparing to invade the city. Meanwhile, on July 7, Morgan sent another advance party to Brandenburg to secure passage across the Ohio River.

The Confederates had free access to the town. Writing in in "The Longest Raid of the Civil War," Lester V. Horwitz said "The town was so far north, it was not garrisoned by any Union troops. Many of the town's citizens were so apathetic or Confederate in sympathy, there was no resistance." The Union-leaning sheriff, he said, hid under a bed.

One of Morgan's captains asked a local resident to help him flag down a passing boat while his men hid nearby. When the John T. McCombs packet boat pulled into the Brandenburg warf, the Confederates jumped aboard, took control of the ship and ushered about 50 passengers to the shore.

The raiders then anchored the boat in the middle of the river hoping a passing boat would stop to offer assistance. When the Alice Dean pulled alongside, the rebels captured it as well. Word was sent to Morgan that his river transportation had been secured and he and his men arrived at Brandenburg on the morning of July 8.

Confederate reenactors enter Brandenburg
during Civil War Days 2012

It would take almost a full day for all of Morgan's men to cross to the Indiana shore. First hey were harassed by a single cannon on the Indiana bank and later by three different Union gunboats. The Union defense slowed Morgan's progress, but his long-range Parrott guns were able to disperse the crew manning the long shore gun and drive off all three gunboats.

A heavy fog around midnight helped Morgan finish ferrying his troops to Indiana, although a few that missed the last crossing were captured in Kentucky. The Alice Dean was set afire on the Indiana shore but Col. Basil Duke knew the captain of the McCombs and he allowed the ship to head north toward Louisville. By Thursday, July 9, Morgan's forces were ready to push north toward Corydon.

References:
The Longest Raid of the Civil War, by Lester V. Horwitz
Rebel Raider: The Life of General John Hunt Morgan, by James A. Ramage

Sarah Edmonds, Union soldier

2013-04-25T21:45:00.000-04:00

Sarah Emma Edmonds

Among the Union supporters passing through Louisville in the spring of 1863 were Private Frank Thompson of the Michigan 2nd Infantry and Sarah Emma Edmonds, a Canadian-born farmer's daughter from Nova Scotia. The secret no one knew at the time was that Frank and Sarah were the same person.

Sarah Edmonds was one of an estimate 400 women who disguised themselves as men in order to enlist in the Union Army. In those days, the army was eager to get volunteers and physical examinations were not particularly thorough. She initially served as a nurse during the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia, but when a Federal spy was caught and executed in Richmond, she volunteered to take his place.

In her biography "Memoirs of a Soldier, Nurse, and Spy: A Woman's Adventures in the Union Army," Sarah said she darkened her skin using silver nitrate before entering the Confederacy disguised as a black man names "Cuff." Later, she passed as an Irish peddler woman.

At the end of 1862, Pvt. Thompson's regiment followed Gen. Ambrose Burnside to the Western theater. In Louisville, she adopted the role of a young man and infiltrated a Southern spy network in the city. She also reportedly worked as a dry goods clerk.

Pvt. Thompson left with his unit to fight in the siege of Vicksburg. But when Sarah contracted malaria, she left slipped away from the Army rather than risk being discovered in a hospital exam. She recovered, but could not return to duty because Pvt. Thompson was now listed as a deserter. Instead she went east where she worked in a hospital caring for wounded soldiers. After the war, Sarah married a fellow Canadian and together they settled in Texas.

In 1884, Sarah Emma Edmonds Seelye was granted a soldier's pension and in 1897 she became the only woman to be mustered into the Grand Army of the Republic as a regular member of the organization for Union veterans. In 1988, she was inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.

Sources:
Wikipedia
Civil War Home
Liberty Letters

This Month In The War: Burnside targets traitors

2013-03-15T12:37:00.000-04:00

Gen. Ambrose Burnside

Blame for the Union Army's humiliating defeat at Fredericksburg, Md., in December of 1862 fell to Gen. Ambrose Burnside and by the end of January, the colorful general with the distinctive whiskers had been replaced by President Lincoln. Burnside was sent west and in March of 1863, he replaced Brig. Gen. Horatio Wright as commander of the Department of the Ohio, the military agency responsible for operations in five states, including Kentucky.

According to Robert McDowell's City of Conflict, Burnside inherited a department that was "literally riddled with traitorous organizations." Groups such as Knights of the Golden Circle, the Sons of Liberty and the Butternuts worked in secret to support the Confederate cause and undermine Union activities.

Louisville in particular was becoming increasingly sympathetic to the Rebel cause. Paroled Confederate soldiers wore their gray uniforms on the street and in at church services. The soldiers would be honored guests at balls at the homes of prominent families where young women would sing "The Bonnie Blue Flag." One of the leaders of the underground movement was Joshua Fry Bullitt, a judge on Kentucky's Court of Appeals.

Burnside was determined to wipe out what Lincoln had called "the enemy behind us." In April he issued General Order Number 38 that made it illegal to criticize the war. Enemies of our country, it stated, "will be tried as spies or traitors, and, if convicted, will suffer death."

Sources:
Louisville & The Civil War, by Bryan S. Bush
City of Conflict, by Robert E. McDowell

This Month In The War: The Hazen Monument

2013-02-15T10:21:00.000-05:00

With the new year came one of the bloodiest battles in the western theater when Union forces repulsed a Confederate attack along Stones River near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Kentuckians were deeply involved on both sides of the fight.

The Southerners struck first, causing the Yankees to continually retreat and regroup until units from Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky were compressed into an area the locals called the Round Forest. A Union brigade led by Col. William B. Hazen, with help from artillery and the 6th Kentucky Infantry, turned back four successive charges. The fighting that was so severe the soldiers named the place "Hell's Half Acre."

Two days later, on January 2, the Confederates made one last attempt to drive Federal artillery off a hill overlooking the river. That attack included units of Kentucky's "Orphan Brigade," so named because the men could not return to a home state that was still part of the Union. The brigade was under the command of Maj. Gen. John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky. A popular describes Breckenridge riding among the brigade's survivors lamenting the carnage inflicted on "My poor orphans."

After the fight, Union troops built the Hazen Brigade Monument, which became one of the oldest Civil War monuments. The 55 graves that surround the monument include the graves of eight Union soldiers from Kentucky.

Sources:
Hidden History of Kentucky in the Civil War, by Berry Craig

Conrad-Caldwell House opens Civil War exhibit

2013-01-27T15:56:00.002-05:00

An exhibit featuring photos, maps, diaries, uniforms, firearms and other items from the Civil War opened Jan. 26 at the Conrad-Caldwell House in Old Louisville.

To introduce the exhibit, Louisville author Bryan Bush delivered a lecture on Louisville's role in the war. The stone mansion from the Victorian era also houses artifacts from Civil War reunions and from the Great Southern Exposition.

The exhibit will be open to the public through May of 2013. The house is located at 1402 Saint James Court.

This Month In The War: Champ Ferguson's revenge

2013-01-21T16:58:00.000-05:00

On the first day of 1863, as John Hunt Morgan was ending his Christmas raid into Kentucky and heading back to Tennessee, one of the more notorious members of his party took time to attend to some bloody personal business.

Champ Ferguson was a Confederate guerrilla from Clinton County who served as a scout during Morgan's venture into Kentucky. While Ferguson helped Morgan, he also pursued his own agenda, which included finding and killing Union soldiers and supporters who he said had abused his wife and daughter. When he learned that one of the men on his hit list, Elam Huddleton, was living nearby, he left the main party on New Year's night.

Ferguson described his attack to Basil Duke who included it in his book "Reminiscences." Ferguson said he and his band of three men approached the Huddleton house where they fired on the windows. Then Ferguson broke through the front door, grabbed Huddleton as he was rising from a pallet by the fire and stabbed him with a long knife. Duke said Ferguson showed him the knife, still clotted with blood, a sight that left Duke nauseated.

By the war's end, Ferguson claimed he had killed more than 100 men, not all of them in battle. He was captured and tried in Tennessee in 1865 and made this statement before he was hanged: "I am yet and will die a Rebel … I killed a good many men, of course, but I never killed a man who I did not know was seeking my life."

Source:
Rebel Raider: The Life of General John Hunt Morgan, by James A. Ramage

This Week In The War: Morgan returns to Tennessee

2013-01-02T23:36:00.000-05:00

Artist Mort Kunstler depicts Morgan inspecting
the troops prior to his Christmas Raid

On January 4, John Hunt Morgan and his men returned Smithville, the Tennessee town where his Christmas raid into Kentucky had begun. By most accounts, the foray had been a success. His men had wrecked four railroad bridges, captured almost 2,000 Union soldiers and destroyed millions of dollars of Union property. With the rail lines closed for five weeks, the Union was unable to ship food and supplies to the Federal Army that was challenging Confederates camped south of Nashville near Murphreesboro.

But the adventure had its costs. Morgan's trusted officer and brother-in-law, Colonel Basil Duke, was wounded and nearly killed in a December 29 attack on a rail bridge over the Rolling Fork River. A shell fragment struck Duke in the head, knocking him off his horse and into the river. The unconscious Duke was rescued by one of his officers and taken to Bardstown where he later recovered.

And, Morgan might have had more impact on the war if he had stayed in Tennessee. While he was raining Kentucky, Union forces under Gen. William Rosecrans clashed with Braxton Bragg's Confederates on December 31 and January 1 in the Battle of Stones River near Murphreesboro. Bragg came close to routing the Federals and might have prevailed if Morgan's cavalry had been in the fight. Instead, Bragg withdrew deeper into Tennessee.

This Week In The War: Morgan air mails a present for Elizabethtown

2012-12-28T11:51:00.000-05:00

Two days after Christmas, Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan ordered his advance regiments to move toward Elizabethtown. Today, visitors to the city can see the souvenir he left behind.

With Morgan's forces approaching, the Union colonel in charge of defending the town tried a bold bluff. He sent a message to Morgan, scrawled in pencil on the back of an envelope. It asserted that Morgan was surrounded by Federal troops and demanded "an unconditional surrender of all your forces." An amused Morgan sent back a reply telling the colonel that it was he who was outnumbered and should surrender.

When the Union commander refused, Morgan set up his artillery and began to pound several brick houses that the Federals occupied. After shelling the town for about half an hour, the defenders surrendered, giving up 652 Union soldiers and officers.

One cannonball fired during the attack became embedded in the wall of a building known as the Depp Building, at the corner of the public square and West Dixie Avenue. The building damaged by a fire in 1887 but it was retrieved and later placed in the wall of the present building, at a site close to the original building.

Sources:
Elizabethtown tourism website
Trails R Us

This Week In The War: Morgan's Christmas Raid

2012-12-21T10:23:00.005-05:00


A sketch from a collection at the Filson Club of Louisville shown the Bacon Creek bridge after it was wrecked in 1861

On December 22, 1862, John Hunt Morgan left his new bride in Tennessee and returned to his home state of Kentucky bringing along 3,100 cavalrymen and seven pieces of artillery. His targets were the bridges that allowed the L&N Railroad to deliver supplies to the Union Army camped at Nashville.

By Christmas Eve, the force had traveled about 90 miles and advance units were entering Glasgow, Ky., where they encountered a battalion of the 2nd Michigan Cavalry. After a brief skirmish, the Federals surrendered, giving up a number of Christmas turkeys in bargain.

In Christmas Day, Morgan moved toward Munfordville where more Union cavalry were blocking his approach to the Green River. The Federals set up an ambush and had some initial success capturing and wounding several of Morgan's scouts. But when Morgan's main column arrived, they charged the defenders, killed a Union colonel and forced the rest to surrender.

From Munfordville, Morgan split his forces, sending one group to burn a rail bridge at Bacon Creek near Bonnieville, Ky. In his article about the Christmas Raid, author Bryan Bush said "Several fires were started on the bridge, but the incessant cold rain put out the flames." After shelling the Union stockade guarding the bridge, the defenders eventually surrendered.

A similar scenario played out at the rail bridge over Nolin River where a Union detachment surrendered without a fight. The Confederates destroyed the bridges and cut telegraph lines leaving the main Union force in Nashville cut off for several days.

While part of his forces were attacking the Nolin and Bacon Creek bridges, the rest were preparing to attack Elizabethtown.

This Week In The War: Morgan takes a bride

2012-12-13T10:32:00.000-05:00

John Paul Strain's recreation of the Morgan Wedding

As Christmas approached in the winter of 1862, the Union army had occupied Nashville while Confederate forces were settled into camps just 40 miles away at Murfreesboro. And the Rebel raider John Hunt Morgan was mixing business with pleasure.

On December 7, 1862, Morgan attacked on a Federal garrison at Hartsville and brought more than 1,800 Union prisoners back to Murfreesboro. Some of the Confederates said the prisoners were an early birthday present for his wife.

Morgan called Kentucky home, but he gave his heart to a Tennessee belle. A week after the Hartsville raid, Morgan married 22-year-old socialite Martha "Mattie" Ready, the daughter of a former congressman. The Murfreesboro Post described her as an "elegant model of the trim-figured Southern belle with dark brown hair, fair complexion, rosy cheeks and gray eyes sparkling with intelligence and strength."

They were married at the Ready home on December 14, a day after Confederate President Davis had come to Murfreesboro to reorganize the army and hand out several promotions, including one to Morgan who was made a brigadier general. Davis returned to Chattanooga before the wedding, but generals Braxton Bragg, William Hardee, Benjamin Cheatham, and Kentuckian John Breckinridge attended the wedding at the Ready home on the courthouse square in Murfreesboro. Another general, Episcopal Bishop Leonidas Polk, performed the ceremony.

The marriage was Morgan's second. His first wife, Rebecca Gratz Bruce who died in 1861 and is buried in the Lexington Cemetery.

A few days after his Murfreesboro wedding, Morgan rejoined his men and headed back to Kentucky on December 22, leading the so-called Christmas Raid that would target the L&N railroad bridge near Elizabethtown.

Kentucky musicians perform in Spielberg's 'Lincoln'

2012-12-02T09:59:00.000-05:00

Reese Land and Michael Tunnell

University of Louisville music professor Michael Tunnell and three other members of an ensemble called the Kentucky Baroque Trumpets have a small role in Steven Spielberg’s new film "Lincoln."

The four played with other musicians from the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., region. They were part of a Civil War band that played during a scene shot near Petersburg, Va.

The piece was called "We are Coming Father Abraham," according to an arrangement by film composer John Williams, who scored the film.

Read more at courier-journal.com

This Week In The War: The 15th Regiment's 'Boy Colonel'

2012-11-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

James Brown Forman

The Battle of Perryville had left Louisville's beloved Union regiment, the 15th, without its leaders. Major William Campbell and Lt. Col. George Jouett had died on the battlefield. Col. Curran Pope was wounded and died a few days later.

On November 8, just three days after Pope's death, James Brown Forman became the regiment's colonel. Forman and his friend William Preston McDowell had recruited a company of volunteers the year before. He was elected first lieutenant of Company C and later made its captain.

At Perryville, Forman had picked up the regiment's fallen colors and used the flag to rally the men after the other officers had fallen. Now, at age 19, Forman was in charge of the entire regiment. Before the regiment left Kentucky to follow retreating Rebels into Tennessee, he returned home to Louisville where the residents had raised $125 to make a new silk flag. On November 25, Forman accepted the flag in a ceremony at the Jefferson County Courthouse, then returned to Bowling Green the following morning.

About five weeks later, on New Year's Eve, as the 15th Regiment was preparing to go into battle at Stones River near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Forman encountered his old friend William McDowell. "Will," he said, "you have always wanted this horse; now it is my desire that after this battle you should have him." Forman said he was sure that he would be killed in the coming fight.

McDowell shrugged off Forman's prediction and tried to lighten the mood. "Jimmy, if you are going to be killed, let me have him now and take my horse." But Forman repeated his prediction.

A few hours later, the 15th found itself on the extreme right wing of the Union line, a position much like the one that proved to be a disaster for the regiment at Perryville. Forman was behind the regiment's line as the Confederates swept through and, in the thick of the fighting, he was shot dead from his horse. His body was eventually returned to Louisville and buried at Cave Hill Cemetery.

Source:
The Battle Rages Higher: The Union's Fifteenth Kentucky Infantry, by Kirk C. Jenkins

This Week In The War: Emancipation bypasses Kentucky

2012-11-16T03:00:00.000-05:00


Historical marker in Louisville on First St. between Market and Jefferson streets

About two weeks before Kentucky's bloody battle at Perryville, President Lincoln announced his intention to free the slaves in rebellious states. All slaves in Confederate states that did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863, would be emancipated.

Lincoln's announcement made slavery a central tenet of the war and it put Kentucky in a curious position. Because the state had never left the Union, the emancipation plan did not apply to Kentucky. The the state had one of the largest slave populations in the country and Louisville was a major center for slave sales and shipments to Cotton Belt.

The city also had apologists for the "peculiar institution." Robert Emmet McDowell, writing in "City of Conflict," said George Prentice, editor of the Louisville Daily Journal, and Martin John Spalding, the Catholic Bishop of Louisville, were both strong opponents of abolition.

With the city filling up with troops from northern states and slave refugees, the issue continued to boil. On November 19, the 77th Illinois Regiment arrived in Louisville from the South along with a group of Negro "contrabands" that had followed the troops. The soldiers prevented owners from claiming escaped slaves and when one of the slaves was arrested, the troops marched on the local jail.

Officials sided with the current laws. The mayor of Louisville defended the slave-owner's rights and Gen. Jerry Boyle, the military commander in Louisville, issued an order barring slaves from entering military camps.

Sources:
City of Conflict, by Robert E. McDowell

This Week In The War: Death of a Kentucky Gentleman

2012-11-05T06:00:00.000-05:00

Col. Curran Pope

Hundreds of Louisville men volunteered for the Union Army during the Civil War but no unit was more embraced by the city than the 15th Kentucky Regiment. The 15th was organized in the summer of 1861 by Curran Pope, a West Point graduate and a member of one of Jefferson County's pioneer families.

After serving in the army in the 1830s, Pope left the service and returned to Kentucky where he became clerk of the Jefferson County Clerk of Common Pleas, a director of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, an organizer of the Louisville Water Works and a trustee of Danville College.

Pope was the colonel in charge of the regiment and his top officers Major William Campbell and Lt. Col. George Jouett. The recruits came primarily from the City of Louisville and surrounding counties, including Bullitt, Shelby and Spencer. When it joined the regular army, under another Louisvillian, Brig. Gen. Louvell Rousseau, soldiers in other regiments derided the recruits calling them "paper collar" soldiers because they had never been in a fight and also because Pope insisted on neatness.

Author Bryan Bush at the gravestone of Col. Curran Pope
in Louisville's Cave Hill Cemetery.

The regiment would get its baptism in the Battle of Perryville. Facing a battery of Confederate artillery, the 15th was riddled by rounds of cannister fire. Pope's horse was shot from under him. Pope himself was shot in the armpit and shoulder but he continued to encourage his men to hold their position. Jouett and Campbell were both killed as the regiment lost nearly 40 percent of its men, one of the highest casualty rates of any Union regiment at Perryville.

Pope's wounds were not thought to be especially serious and he stayed with the regiment for after the battle as the Federals pursued the retreating Confederates. But after a few days, he went to Danville to seek medical care and to recuperate at the home of a relative. Although his wounds improved, Pope contracted typhoid fever and died on November 5.

Pope was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery. Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman told Pope's widow, "Among all the men I have ever met in the progress of this unnatural war, I cannot recall one whose every act and expression was so manifest the good and true man; one who so filled the type of the Kentucky gentleman."

Sources:
City of Conflict, by Robert E. McDowell
Perryville Under Fire: The Aftermath of Kentucky's Largest Civil War Battle, by Stuart W. Sanders
The Battle Rages Higher: The Union's Fifteenth Kentucky Infantry, by Kirk C. Jenkins

This Week In The War: Bragg stays but Buell is sacked

2012-10-26T14:12:00.000-04:00

William S. Rosecrans

With the Battle of Perryville behind them, the leaders of both armies were called to answer for their actions - or inaction.

Confederate General Braxton Bragg took the brunt of the criticism for the failed invasion of Kentucky. The confederate troops were dispirited after having marched hundreds of miles in a loop through Kentucky and and emerging with nothing to show for it but sore feet and lost comrades.

General Edmund Kirby Smith, who had paved the way into Kentucky by winning the Battle of Richmond and occupying Lexington and the Bluegrass, asked for a transfer to anywhere, so long as it was far away from Bragg. Amid calls for his removal from Confederate officers, President Jefferson Davis summoned Bragg to Richmond for a conference but decided to keep him in charge of the Army of Tennessee.

Union commander Don Carlos Buell wasn't so fortunate. President Lincoln had tried to replace Buell with Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas in September when Buell was still in Louisville but relented when Thomas refused to take the command. But when Buell failed to pursue the retreating Bragg after Perryville, Lincoln installed Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans on October 24. Buell never again had a field command.

Rosecrans took the Federal army to Nashville while Bragg dug in a few miles south near Murfreesboro. The two armies would clash again on New Year's Eve.

Sources:
War In Kentucky, by James Lee McDonough

Hoosier reenactor tells why he loves to fight

2012-10-23T23:18:00.000-04:00

Here's a nice profile of Tom Lowe, a Jeffersonville, Ind., attorney who talked about why he loves to participate in Civil War battle reenactments. Lowe was in the 80th Indiana Infantry in this month's reenactment of the Battle of Perryville.

Lowe's great-great-grandfather, George Thomas Lowe, was in the militia that tried to stop John Hunt Morgan's 1863 raid at Corydon, Ind., and later served in the 3rd Indiana Cavalry.

The article appeared October 23 in the Jeffersonville News & Tribune.

This Week In The War: The battle in Henry Clay's back yard

2012-10-17T00:01:00.000-04:00

Basil W. Duke

With the fighting over at Perryville and Confederate troops moving back toward Tennessee, the war must have seemed far away for the 300 Union soldiers camped on outskirts of Lexington. The troops had a pleasant bivouac in the woods behind Ashland, Henry Clay's pastoral estate and most of them were sleeping on the night of October 18, 1862, when John Hunt Morgan decided to pay a visit to his hometown.

Morgan was supposedly protecting the rear of the retreating Rebels when he brought three groups of cavalry across the Kentucky River and headed toward Lexington. Unsure of the roads in the darkness, Morgan and his brother-in-law, Basil Duke, knocked on a farmer's door to ask for assistance. Suspecting that the farmer likely sided with the Union, Duke later wrote that he introduced Morgan as a Union officer.

Riding along with the officers, the farmer complained about the scoundrel Morgan, calling him a horse thief who ought to be shot. When the party approached Ashland, Duke ended the ruse and told the farmer that man he was helping was actually Morgan. Duke said the man fell from his saddle and began begging for his life, much to the amusement of Morgan and his men.

The farmer was allowed to hurry back to his home while about 1,800 of Morgan's men surrounded the Union camp. And there was no compromise in the back yard of the Great Compromiser's home. Morgan's men quickly overwhelmed the Union camp and historian Kent Masterson Brown said the "battle" was over in five minutes.

Four Union solders were killed in the attack and about 20 were wounded. Among the few Confederate casualties was Maj. George Washington Morgan, a second cousin to John Hunt Morgan. A wounded "Wash" Morgan was taken to the Hunt Morgan House in downtown Lexington where he lingered for several days.

Ashland curator Eric Brooks said Morgan eventually asked to be placed in chair and given a glass of bourbon and a cigar “and he would then show them how a Morgan man dies, which he did.”

Sources:
History of Morgan's Cavalry, by Basil W. Duke
HenryClay.com
Lexington Herald-Leader

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/09/25/2350244/tom-eblen-henry-clay-estate-will.html#storylink=cpy

Thousands turn out to fight the Battle of Perryville

2012-10-08T11:33:00.001-04:00

The 150th anniversary of the Battle of Perryville drew thousands of spectators to the Boyle County site and nearly 2,000 reenactors clad in blue and gray.

In addition to the battles, the event included portrayals of Civil War camp life, artillery demonstrations, lectures by authors and tents featuring medicine, cooking, quilting and music from the 1860s.

Here's a link to coverage in the Lexington Herald-Leader and video from WKYT.

More photos from Perryville.

This Week In The War: A soldier's view of Perryville

2012-10-08T04:00:00.000-04:00

The tiny Boyle County town of Perryville was not supposed to be the site of the grand battle for the soul of Kentucky. After Union cavalry ruined his attempt to install a Confederate governor in Frankfort, General Braxton Bragg had taken his invading army deeper into Kentucky hoping to fight the pursuing Federals at Harrodsburg. But advance Union troops under General Don Carlos Buell found the Rebels in the drought-parched farm fields around Perryville and what started as a skirmish between small groups hoping to find water grew into the largest and bloodiest battle on Kentucky soil.

Tennessee farmboy Sam R. Watkins had been part of the Confederate invasion force, serving the state's 1st Infantry Regiment. Twenty years later, he published his recollections of the war in a book called Company Aytch. Watkins fought at Shiloh Chickamauga, and Atlanta, but he called Perryville "the hardest battle of the war."

Sam R. Watkins

"I was in every battle, skirmish and march that was made by the First Tennessee Regiment during the war," he wrote, "and I do not remember a harder contest and more evenly fought battle than that of Perryville. If it had been two men wrestling, it would have been called a 'dog fall.' Both sides claim the victory - both whipped."

At mid-day, Watkins' regiment was told to fix bayonets and attack a line of Union cannons. "Fom this moment, the battle was a mortal struggle. Two lines of battle confronted us. We killed almost every one in the first line, and qwere soon charging over the second, when right in our immediate front was their third and main line of battle, from which four Napoleon guns poured their deadly fire. The two armies were now surging together like the jaws of a monster vise. . ."

Watkins was wounded during the fight but survived day and spent the night carrying wounded comrades off the battlefield. That night, Bragg chose to withdraw rather than resume the fight the next day. Within a few days, he would turn south toward the safety of Tennessee. Buell chose not to resume his pursuit, a decision that would soon cost him his job.

The battle had indeed been a "dog fall" with both sides suffering similar casualties. About 3,000 Confederates and 3,800 Federals were killed or wounded. Historians would call the battle a tactical victory for the Union. Although the Federals had more casualties than the Rebels, the fight pushed Bragg's army out of Kentucky and ended any hopes that the state would leave the Union.

Sources:
Company Aytch, by Sam R. Watkins
The Civil War At Perryville, by Christopher Kolakowski

This Week In The War: Buell ruins Bragg's ball

2012-10-04T04:00:00.000-04:00

Richard Hawes

^{After a month in the Bluegrass State, Confederate General Braxton Bragg had control of the state capital and almost every town from Owensboro to Cynthiana. What he didn't have was a civilian government to manage the newly-minted Confederate state or an army of Kentucky soldiers to help him hold it.

Bragg and Edmund Kirby Smith had been drawn to Kentucky at the urging of Kentucky rebels like John C. Breckinridge, John Hunt Morgan and Simon Bolivar Buckner who said Kentucky was full of Southern sympathizers who just waiting for a leader to arrive to and call them to the Confederate banner. When Bragg invaded Kentucky, he brought along thousands of guns to arm new recruits who would either volunteer or be drafted into the Confederate Army.

But by October of 1862, Bragg's please had produced cheers at courthouse speeches, but few able-bodied recruits. Historians say Bragg should have taken the hint and returned to Tennessee or prepared to fight the Union army that was being rearmed and reorganized in Louisville. Instead he decided to install a Confederate governor in Frankfort.

Kentucky had had a government in exile since early in 1861. It's first governor, George W. Johnson, had been killed in the Battle of Shiloh. His successor was Richard Hawes, a Transylvania College graduate who had represented the Lexington area in the United States Congress before the war.

On October 4, Bragg brought Hawes to Frankfort for a formal installation. With a provisional governor in place, Bragg believed he would have an easier time drafting reluctant Kentuckians into the Rebel army.

Speaking at the Capitol under the Confederate flag, Bragg praised "victorious armies which have driven the invaders from your capital and restored civil liberties to your land." After the ceremony, the generals and politicians retired to enjoy a luncheon and make plans for a festive ball that evening.

But the luncheon was interrupted by the sound of cannon fire from the west. Union troops had marched east from Shelbyville and were now skirmishing with a Rebel cavalry unit on the outskirts of Frankfort. The luncheon adjourned and the ball cancelled. As Kirby Smith put it, Bragg and his generals mounted up and he told everyone to "skedaddle."
By that evening, Federal troops were back in charge the capital city.}

^Sources:
^{War In Kentucky, by James Lee McDonough

The Civil War At Perryville, by Christopher Kolakowski

Perryville: Battle For Kentucky, by Kenneth Hafendorfer}