USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 25
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I Collins, Vol. 1., Annals of Kentucky.
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628
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
wishes to such an executive. Without a satisfactory assurance to that effect, you must admit that, in justice to my friends, I can not and ought not to re- sign."
1Senator John F. Fisk having been elected speaker on the death of Lieu- tenant-Governor Lynn Boyd, and thus put in the line to succeed to the gu- bernatorial vacancy, by previous concert, resigned, and James F. Robinson was elected speaker of the Senate in his stead, before the announcement of Governor Magoffin's resignation. Governor Robinson was then installed .in office, and D. C. Wickliffe appointed secretary of state.
There is little doubt but that to effect this change of governors was a main object of the severe pressure brought to bear by the commandant. General Boyle, concertedly endorsed by the leading Union civilians of the State, upon the Southern rights sympathizers thereof. At the same date of the change, Provost-Marshal Dent, of Louisville, announced that " no arrests must be made except for causes set forth in General Boyle's order No. 4. The charge must be specific and supported by the written affidavit of one or more responsible persons ; " that General Boyle orders that " he execute his office under the governor, and that provost-marshals who, directly or indi- rectly, take money from persons arrested, in the shape of fees for oaths, bonds, or otherwise, will be arrested and brought to headquarters." The severity of martial law was generally relaxed, for that period. The facts and inferences go far to relieve General Boyle, a gentleman of irreproach- able personal honor, from the mistaken imputations of malice and cruelty so inconsiderately put upon him. Fortunate, indeed, for the people of Ken- tucky would it have been had he been retained in authority until 1865.
Kentucky was now detached from the department of the Cumberland, within the command of General Buell, and made part of the new "depart- ment of the Ohio," placed under command of General H. G. Wright, sent out from the East by Halleck.
2 In the latter half of the summer, the incidents of military operations gave premonition of coming campaign and battle on a scale of magnitude to mark an epoch in the history of the war, of important bearing on its final issue. The main Confederate force in the Tennessee valley was moved from Tupelo to Chattanooga, where under the chief command of General Braxton Bragg, it was re-enforced to thirty thousand men, well armed and accoutered. General Kirby Smith held East Tennessee above, with fifteen thousand troops, and headquarters at Knoxville. General Stevenson, with five thousand men, lay south of Cumberland Gap, to guard against invasion there, while General Humphrey Marshall, with three thousand troops, was on the border line of South-west Virginia. There were bodies of cavalry and detached forces that swelled the total army within the command of Bragg to fifty-five thousand effective troops. General Buell held at his
I Collins, Vol. I., Annals of Kentucky.
2 Official reports ; General Duke, in History of Morgan's Cavalry.
629
THE FEDERALS DEFEATED.
command about forty thousand veteran Federal troops in Middle Tennessee, with Nashville the base of operations and supplies. General Morgan held Cumberland Gap, with eight thousand, and there were fifteen thousand more effective men at different points in Kentucky. Van Dorn and Price held General Grant yet in Mississippi.
Skirmishes and fighting were of daily occurrence, in advance of the great struggle to come. Morgan's cavalry had been ordered by Bragg to obstruct the railroad north of Nashville to Bowling Green. He found Gallatin guarded by Colonel Boone, of the Twenty-eighth Kentucky, with two hun- dred and fifty soldiers, and soon captured these and destroyed the army stores. Capturing a train of freight cars, they were run into the tunnel, some miles south of Gallatin, and set on fire. The wooden bracings of the tunnel were burned, and, the debris falling in from the top and sides, made the railroad impassable for weeks at this point, cutting transportation be- tween Nashville and Kentucky. Falling back toward Hartsville, Morgan's force of seven hundred men was pursued and boldly attacked by eight hundred cavalry, under General R. W. Johnson, of Kentucky, at the junc- tion of the Scottsville and Hartsville turnpikes. After several hours of stubborn battle, both commands showing great gallantry, General Johnson was defeated, with a loss of one hundred and sixty killed and wounded, and as many prisoners, among the latter General Johnson and Major Tom Winfrey.
On the 23d, Colonel John Scott's regiment of cavalry, forming an advance scout of Kirby Smith's army, was attacked by Colonel Metcalfe's mounted regiment. After a sharp fight, the latter was routed, with a loss of fifty men. This was but an introductory skirmish. General Kirby Smith, after re-enforcing Stevenson, to watch Morgan at Cumberland Gap, to eight thousand men, left Knoxville with twelve thousand troops, and entered Kentucky through Big Creek Gap, twenty miles west of Cumberland Gap. Wishing to make a secretive and swift march, in order to strike the enemy by surprise, he left upon the route some five thousand of his command, under General Heath, to follow after, and traversed over one hundred miles of rugged mountain country by forced marches. On the 29th of August, his army of seven thousand engaged the Federal army, eight thousand in number, at Richmond, Kentucky, and heavy skirmishing ensued. On the morning of the 30th, General Manson, in command of the Federals, marched out in full force to renew the attack. Heavy fighting was brought on, and after three successive stands by General Manson, driven back each time. with severe carnage to either side, the Federal army was defeated, and driven into disorderly and hopeless rout. General Nelson, in chief com- mand of these forces, rode fifty miles on a relay of horses on that day, and, on reaching the broken army, made heroic efforts to rally it, and renew the fight, but in vain. He was desperately wounded in the effort, and only escaped with his life by the discreet bravery of Colonel Green Clay Smith,
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
who safely bore him from the field and danger. The Federal loss was over eleven hundred killed and wounded, and forty-five hundred prisoners ; that of the Confederates, eight hundred and fifty in killed and wounded
The remnants of the Federal troops retreated in disorder back upon Lexington, from whence, with some fifteen hundred troops stationed there, they rapidly fell back toward the Ohio river. Lexington and entire Ken- tucky east of Louisville were now abandoned to the control of the Confed- erate forces. On the Ist of September, the advance of General Smith's army occupied Lexington, soon joined by the remainder, under General Heath, with headquarters there. On the 4th, Morgan's cavalry, having come from Tennessee by way of Glasgow, Liberty, and Danville, reported for duty at Lexington. General Heath, with five thousand men, was sent along the line of the Kentucky Central railroad to a position in the rear of Covington, threatening Cincinnati. The Federals evacuated Paris, Frank. fort, and every other guarded point east of the Louisville & Nashville railroad, the scattered forces all hastening toward the Ohio river.
The Federal General George Morgan, with eight thousand troops, was fairly entrapped at Cumberland Gap. His condition seemed almost hopelessly critical. Yet it was one of those occasions that sometimes occur to try the courage and heroism of men. Morgan proved his manhood to be equal to the emergency, and fortune favored him. He got two days the start of General Stevenson, from whom pursuit was expected. Orders had been sent to
GENERAL HUMPHREY MARSHALL, a grandson of the Kentucky historian, was born at Frankfort, January 13, 1812, and graduated at West Point, in 1832 ; after a brief army service, studied law, and lo- cated for practice in Louisville, in 1834. In 1846, joined Taylor's army in the Mexican war. as colonel of the First Ken- tucky cavalry regiment, and distinguished himself in the battle of Buena Vista : re- turned to his farm and the law in Henry county ; in 1849-51-55-57, was elected to Congress; in 1852-54, was minister to China; pursued farming and the law until 1861, when he entered the Confederate army, as brigadier-general, with the com- mand of East Kentucky; resigned his GENERAL HUMPHREY MARSHALL. commission in the army in 1863, and was elected to the Confederate Congress from Kentucky. At the close of the war, after a year at New Orleans, he located and resumed the practice of law in Louisville, from 1866 until his death, March 28, 1872. General Marshall was of a line of ancestors illus- trious in State and national history, among whom there was, perhaps, no member of more massive and powerful intellect than he. Horace Greeley said of him, when in Congress, that " his was the greatest mind of that body."
631
ACTIVITY OF THE CONFEDERATES.
General Humphrey Marshall, then at Mount Sterling in full force, to throw himself on Morgan's front or flank, while John H. Morgan's cavalry har- assed him, and together bar his passage, and fasten him in the mountain passes until forced to surrender, or re-enforcements could be sent to capture him. For some reason, General Marshall did not respond to the order. Marshall claimed that no authoritative order was given him, and that he was chafing to go in pursuit of the retreating Federals. General Morgan passed Cumberland Ford, Manchester, Proctor, and Compton, without ob- struction. From this point through Hazel Green to Grayson, John H. Morgan's cavalry was in his front, felling trees across the passes, skirmish- ing with the front, and obstructing in every way, until aid might come from Stevenson in pursuit, or Marshall on the flank. But it never arrived ; and the Federal command reached Greenupsburg in sixteen days from the Gap, after a retreat of two hundred miles through the rough mountains of Kentucky, in safety. The failure to capture was a mischance to the Con- federates.
Intense excitement and commotion extended on both sides of the Ohio river, and the Federal authorities began rapidly to fortify, re-enforce, and organize their defensive forces at Louisville and Cincinnati. In a short time, . ten thousand soldiers were organized and equipped at each of these points, and the numbers swelled daily. The arrival of General Morgan's escaped army added much strength to the organized defense. A Federal force of eight thousand, assuming the offensive, marched out from Covington to demonstrate on the command of Heath. The latter fell back slowly toward Georgetown. He might easily have captured Cincinnati on his first approach to the rear of Covington. before there was an organized defense of any im- portance. But General Kirby Smith gave no orders for such attack, for the same reason that he spared no adequate force to intercept and capture Gen- eral George Morgan. Bragg's main army was soon expected in Kentucky, and the entire force of Kirby Smith, forming its right wing, would be sum- marily needed in the anticipated decisive struggle with the Federal army, under Buell. The troops could not be spared to capture and hold Cincin- nati, or to intercept General George Morgan.
1 The greatest activity was displayed by the Confederate commands in recruiting men, in collecting army supplies, and in generally strengthening every arm of the service. General Bragg had left Chattanooga with his army, and was pushing on through Sparta, Tennessee, and Glasgow, to in- tercept Buell, and prevent his falling back on Louisville. On the 14th, Bragg was at Glasgow in full force, while Buell had not yet fully reached Bowling Green. The former moving on to Green river, at the crossing of the Louisville & Nashville railroad, captured the Federal fortifications, and the garrison of four thousand troops, at Munfordville. His army, fully equal to Buell's in number, now occupied the strongest natural position be-
I Duke's History ; General Gilbert, in Bivouac. Official Reports.
632
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY:
tween Bowling Green and Louisville, and lay right across the only easy and convenient military route for the passage of the Federal army to Louisville, its only refuge from destruction.
Never before, in the history of the war, had the cause of the Union been put in such jeopardy. Never were the friends of that cause more abjectly despondent; never before, the friends of the Southern cause more exuberant with hope and joy. News had come of the disastrous defeat of the Union army of the Potomac, under General Pope, at the second battle of Manas- sas Plains, with a loss of twenty-two thousand killed, wounded, and prison- ers; the capture of eleven thousand Federal soldiers at Harper's Ferry, and the advance of General Lee into Maryland, and on the flank of Washing- ton. Already ten thousand of Buell's supports had melted away by the results of Richmond and Munfordville, and the captures by the Confederate cavalry commands, in the department of the Cumberland. Some three thousand new recruits had joined the several Confederate commands, during the two or three weeks from Kirby Smith's entrance into Lexington, to the occupation of Green river heights by Bragg's army; and thousands more were in busy preparation to cast in their fortunes in the same direction. Throughout the country, expectation was on the hourly strain to hear of the great battle, on terms of Bragg's own advantageous choosing; the convic- tion was all-pervading that Buell would suffer disastrous defeat-probably the annihilation of his whole command. Repeatedly was the sentiment uttered by Union men in those hours of suspense, in hearing of the author : " It is the darkest hour the Union cause has ever yet known!" and on the part of Southern sympathizers, "Lee has driven the enemy out of Virginia. and Bragg is sure to destroy the army of the Cumberland; the independence of the Confederacy is almost won !" To reconcile the coincidences of those phenomenal events that wrought such a miracle of change within the next thirty days, the God of peace and of war, and His mysterious providences, must be taken into the account. Ten thousand re-enforcements and abun- dant provisions could have met Bragg at Munfordville, for battle in front or flank, from Central Kentucky.
Hourly and impatiently intelligence was awaited at Kirby Smith's head- quarters at Lexington. In consternation, then, it was learned about the 2 Ist of September, that General Bragg had abandoned his impregnable stronghold in Buell's front, retreated before his enemy to Bardstown, and given him a clear and undisputed passage to his base at Louisville. The news came with the stunning force of a powerful current from an electric battery. It was at first treated with incredulity and discredit, as an event impossible to sanity. Soon the confirmation followed, and with it an alterna- tion of blank despair to the Confederates, and of buoyant hope to the Union men. This strangest phenomenon of military strategy, of all the strange episodes of the war, was doubtless the most disastrous in its moral, as well as its physical, results, of any other that occurred. The highest subordinate
633
CONFEDERATE OPPORTUNITIES LOST.
officials on the Confederate side were dumb and passive, when they dared not censure, and could not extenuate ; the soldiers and people everywhere gave vent to imprecations not to be characterized in the phrases of history. All confidence was broken down in the author of a calamity so fatal, so inexcusable. Utter demoralization of hope came over the spirits of the army and people, and the presentiment was well-nigh universal that blun- ders and disasters would follow the Confederate army of the West, as long as General Bragg remained in chief command. That he would again lose Kentucky, and abandon the territory won by Kirby Smith, to Federal occu- pation again, was more than a presentiment. Thousands of volunteer recruits who, in the past two weeks had been making their preparations to join the Southern forces, abandoned the idea, to remain at home and care for their families and kindred, under Federal rule restored.
The opportunity of capturing Louisville and Cincinnati, and of making a military front of the Ohio river, had been thrown away; of paralyzing or annihilating Buell's army, lost ; and of holding Kentucky, more than put in jeopardy. When Buell reached Louisville on the 25th of September, all was felt to be lost that had been hoped for by this invasion of Kentucky. Bragg had suffered himself to be put upon the defensive, with an all-pervading sense of defeat and disorder oppressing the military and civil authorities.
After Buell established himself at Louisville, at the end of September, the Confederate line extended from Bardstown, on the left, through Frank- fort and Lexington, to Mount Sterling, on the right-an admirable line for easy movement of supports by turnpike or railroads, while the base at Bry- antsville was as secure as could be made. The force available for the de- fense of this line was fifty thousand men.
1On the Ist of October, Buell moved out of Louisville seventy thousand strong. From the direction of Cincinnati and other supporting points, yet not in striking distance, there were twenty thousand more troops, swelling the Federal army of the Cumberland to ninety thousand. Skirmishes and picket fights were of daily occurrence. On the 18th of September, a com- pany of Texas rangers were beaten off at Falmouth by the Home Guards, with several killed and wounded. At Owensboro, on the 19th, the Confed- erates attacked and defeated the Federals, killing the colonel of their regi- ment; and, in turn, were attacked and driven out by a body of neighboring Home Guards. A body of Confederate cavalry were beaten off, with a loss of forty men, by Granger's command, at Shepherdsville, and the railroad bridge saved. On the 21st, about one hundred and seventy Home Guard cavalry, under Provost Marshal-Morris, of Lagrange, had a sharp fight with Colonel George M. Jessee's Confederate command, at Newcastle, with sev- eral killed and wounded on both sides, and the capture of Morris' forces, with their arms and horses and one piece of artillery. General Duke's de- tachment of Morgan's cavalry captured a company of Federals at Walton,
I Collins' Annals of Kentucky ; General Gilbert in Bivouac. Official statements.
634
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
and at Augusta, in an attempt to cross the Ohio river and operate in the rear of Cincinnati, they were fiercely attacked by a body of Home Guards, under Dr. Bradford, who fired from the houses and behind shelter with deadly effect. Some forty Confederates were killed and wounded, and the movement across the Ohio checked. The Union loss was quite severe, and they were forced to surrender only after the burning of two squares of houses to dislodge them.
General Wharton's Confederate cavalry engaged the advance guard of Buell's army at Bardstown, and drove it back on the main body, with loss, on the 4th of October. An exciting hand-to-hand fight took place at Law- renceburg between Colonel Scott's Confederate and Colonel R. T. Jacob's Federal regiments of cavalry. On the 7th, near Bardstown, the Seventy- eighth Indiana regiment was surprised, captured, and paroled by Confed- erate troops. These are but a few of similar conflicts occurring almost daily between the shifting scouts and moving bodies of cavalry over the State, apart from the main commands of the two armies.
1 Just as the Federal army was about to leave Louisville for its grand ad- vance, an order came from Washington removing Buell from the chief com- mand and appointing General George H. Thomas to succeed him. Buell had evidently not been a favorite with Halleck and Stanton since the cam- paign against Forts Henry and Donelson, and even the good fortune that attended his campaigns from Kentucky to Shiloh and return to Louisville, thrice victorious in as many great issues, could not stay the shafts of preju- dice from that august and fruitful source of blundering interference. The patriotic and disinterested good sense of General Thomas discerned the mis- take and its probable fatal consequences, and he promptly declined the com- mand, with a protest against Buell's removal, which was heeded. Retaining command, the latter sent out a detachment of six thousand men, under General Dumont, through Shelbyville, as a demonstration on Frankfort, and another of like number, under General Sill, through Taylorsville, to deploy in the front of General Kirby Smith at Lawrenceburg, while he marched his main body of fifty-eight thousand, by way of Bardstown and Springfield, to the vicinity of Perryville.
Bragg was completely deceived and bewildered by these movements. Kirby Smith's army was now gathered about Frankfort, Versailles, and Law, renceburg, having been increased by the arrival of Stevenson with eight thousand troops and Marshall with thirty-five hundred, to over twenty thou- sand effective men. On the 4th, the empty ceremonies of inaugurating the venerable Richard Hawes provisional governor of Kentucky, as one of the Confederate States, were gone through with at Frankfort as the rear guards of Smith's army retired from the place, and in sight and hearing of Dumont's advancing artillery. So misled was General Bragg into the belief that Buell
I Duke's History, p. 263; Collins' Annals of Kentucky ; General Gilbert in Bivouac. Official re- ports.
635
BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE.
was marching his main army to attack Kirby Smith at Frankfort or Law- renceburg that he ordered General Polk, on the 2d, to move his corps from Bardstown, through Bloomfield, toward Frankfort, to strike Buell in the flank and rear. On the 3d, General Polk ventured to disobey, in the following response to Bragg : "A condition of things on my right and left flank has developed, which I shadowed forth to you in my last note, which make compliance with your order eminently inexpedient. I shall, therefore. pur- sue a different course, assured that when the facts are submitted to you, you will justify my decision." Buell's army was then less than a day's march fronting Bardstown.
1On the 6th, Bragg ordered Kirby Smith to concentrate at Versailles, and make his headquarters at Harrodsburg. where Polk's corps was soon in camp, made up of Cheatham's and Withers' divisions; in all, some fifteen thousand men. Hardee was near Perryville, with the two divisions of Gen- erals Buckner and R. H. Anderson, probably twelve thousand men. On the morning of the 8th, the corps of Hardee was re-enforced with Cheat- ham's division, Generals Bragg and Polk having moved up from Harrods- burg at the time. Of the Federal army, there were in front of these, McCook's corps, fourteen thousand strong, made up of Generals Rous- · seau's division, seven thousand : Jackson's, fifty-five hundred, and Gooding's brigade, fifteen hundred: also in reach, General Gilbert's Third army corps, eleven thousand, made up of Generals Mitchell's Ninth division, Sheridan's Eleventh division, and Schoepff's First division, a total of twenty-five thou- sand, opposed to which was about sixteen thousand Confederates, in three divisions. Both armies had been preparing for battle since early morning, skirmishing while getting into position.
At half-past twelve in the afternoon, the Federals still delaying for General Thomas L. Crittenden's corps to come up, General Polk began a vigorous attack upon McCook's forces, and soon brought on a general en- gagement. The battle raged with fierceness and terrible carnage until nightfall along the entire line, with varying results. in the main in favor of the Confederates. The Federals were driven back from one to two miles along the whole line, losing fifteen pieces of artillery and four hundred prisoners, when nightfall put an end to the contest.
For the numbers engaged, the battle of Perryville is recorded as one of the bloodiest and most stubbornly contested of the war. General Bragg being present, in his official report, says : "For the time engaged, this battle was the severest and most desperately contested within my knowledge." General Buell, in his report, says: "This battle will stand conspicuous for its severity in the history of the rebellion." The Federal officials report, in the two corps, their loss at 931 killed, 3, 018 wounded, and 397 missing, a total of 4,346. The Confederate losses altogether were 3.396 in the three divisions engaged. Both commanders-in-chief were misled in this battle.
I Collins' Annals of Kentucky ; Duke's History ; Gilbert in Bivouac. Official reports
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
General Buell, with headquarters but a few miles in the rear, failed to hear the roar of the cannon for three hours after the battle began, and was ig- norant that the engagement was going on. General Bragg, from failure to keep himself posted of the enemy's movements, though advised by the sub- ordinate generals, again lost the opportunity of concentration, and of signal victory. That confusion and vacillation which seemed to have beset him since his entrance into Kentucky, he yet acted under. The delusion, that the feint of Dumont on Frankfort was the forward movement of Buell's main army, left idly in camp Withers' division, at Harrodsburg, and Kirby Smith's army, at Versailles, thirty thousand men, which he might easily have concentrated with the three divisions at Perryville, and, with an army of near fifty thousand men, beaten the divided corps of the Federal army in succession, and retrieved by a splendid victory mainly what he had lost by the abandonment of the Munfordville route to Buell three weeks before.
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