USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 27
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General William Preston, distinguished in the political, diplomatic, and military history of the country, led another of the three brigades of Breckin- ridge's division in this murderous charge into the jaws of death. By sen- iority, he was second in command to General Breckinridge, and bravely carried forward his men in front of the fire of twenty pieces of artillery. Several of his staff were killed and wounded and his own clothing pierced. One of his regiments faltering, General Preston seized their colors and rode in their front toward the enemy and rallied them again. And not less brave and skillful were his displays of heroic generalship on the field of Chicka- mauga, where he commanded a division composed of three brigades, under Gracie, Trigg, and Kelly, respectively. Of the final assault on General Thomas' strong position, the correspondent of the London Times wrote : "General Preston's bearing on the slope of Missionary Ridge, under the
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
setting sun of the zoth of September, will, if ever the American war be- comes really historical, rank with that of Dessaix recovering the lost battle of Marengo, or with any other famous deeds of arms ever witnessed on the earth. Slowly, and under a withering fire, one of Preston's brigades, com- manded by Gracie, and fighting its first pitched battle, deployed into line. As they ascended the hill, they reeled and staggered under the iron tempest which rent them, and General Gracie, turning to General Preston, exclaimed in agony : ' We are cut to pieces !' Calm as though he had seen a hundred fights, General Preston replied : 'You have not suffered half such a loss as, my brigade sustained at Murfreesboro. Tell your men to fix bayo- nets, and take them at it again.' The order was given, and nobly was it obeyed. Right up and over the slope they went; their comrades swept upon the Federal flank. Hindman and Kershaw gallantly did their part. The Confederate right again advanced and drove the Federals from their works. The whole of Missionary Ridge was gained, and the Federals, in one long, confused, and huddled mass, burst down the ridge, and along every road and by-path they could find, and never stopped until they reached Chattanooga. One trophy of the desperate strife was shown by General Gracie's men-the flag of an Alabama regiment, pierced by eighty-three bullet-holes and the staff severed at three places, but carried to the last by the same color-sergeant."
Not long after the battle of Chickamauga, Maximilian having entered Mexico and occupied the throne of the improvised empire, supported by the armies of Napoleon III., General Preston was appointed minister to that Government by President Davis, in the interests of the Confed- eracy. Important matters of diplomacy carried him to England and France to confer with the Confederate ministers, Mason and Slidell, pro- longing his absence a year. Return- ing, he entered Texas by way of Matamoras, and, before crossing the Mississippi, learned of Lee's surren- der. General Preston's history in Congress, and as minister to Spain, as well as other important stations, is well known. Of magnificent personal appearance, of courtly bearing and address, and of unsurpassed elegance of conversational powers, General Preston was one of the most impress- ive men of the country. In general lore and information, in chaste and classic elocution, and in the plausible force of logic, he ranked among the first men of the nation.
GENERAL BEN HARDIN HELM.
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ELECTION OF 1863.
On the ensanguined field of Chickamauga fell General Ben Hardin Helm, another of the distinguished and favorite sons of Kentucky, bravely leading the Kentucky brigade in Breckinridge's division. Mortally wounded in the front and midst of the battle, as it most fiercely raged, he breathed out his life in martyrdom to the cause he had espoused, at midnight of the same day. Promoted for gallantry and efficiency since the beginning of the war to a brigadier commission, he had, shortly before the concentration for Chickamauga, held independent commands of the East division of the Gulf department, and afterward of the post of Chattanooga. The death of few Kentuckians was more lamented, or so sorely felt to the cause of his preference.
At the State election in 1863, Thomas E. Bramlette was elected gov- ernor, and Colonel R. T. Jacob lieutenant-governor, Joshua F. Bell having declined the nomination at the State convention previously held. Both these gentlemen had supported the Union as commanders of regiments.
Colonel Cluke's Confederate cavalry, detached from Morgan's command, ventured a raid through Kentucky in March, and on the 21st, after a des- perate fight of four hours, captured Mount Sterling, with four hundred and twenty-eight prisoners, two hundred and twenty wagons laden with valuable military stores, five hundred mules, and nearly one thousand stand of arms. On the 24th, another body of Confederate cavalry, under General Pegram, occupied Danville. Colonel Wolford's cavalry resisted their advance all day, falling back toward Lexington. There was a loss of thirty or forty men on each side. On the same day, General Humphrey Marshall's forces made an attack upon General White's Federal troops, ten miles from Louisa, and the latter fell back on the main body. On the 30th, Colonel Charles J. Walker's Tenth Kentucky cavalry defeated Colonel Cluke's Confederate cavalry, six miles east of Mount Sterling, and drove them beyond Licking river. On the same day, General Gilmore, with twelve hundred Federal cavalry, including Wolford's regiment, defeated Pegrant's Confederate cavalry, causing a loss to them of two hundred and fifty in killed, wounded, and prisoners ; the Federal loss was about sixty. On May 11th, a spirited engagement in Wayne county between Colonel Jacob's Ninth Kentucky cavalry and eight hundred of General Morgan's Confederate cavalry, resulted in the Federals falling back across Greasy creek, with a loss of over forty men, the loss of the enemy being about thirty.
About the middle of June, Colonel Peter Everett, with a battalion of Confederate cavalry, occupied Maysville, capturing considerable arms and stores. After several skirmishes in Mason, Bath, and Fleming counties, he was defeated near Morehead. Kentucky, by a regiment of Kentucky cavalry. This desultory fighting seems to have been the main experience of the war in Kentucky for the first half of the year 1863.
1 In the month of June, General Morgan was gathering his clans and
I Duke's History, p. 414; Collins' Annals of Kentucky.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
preparing for the most formidable ride in the rear of the Federal lines which had yet been known to the military operations of the West. The Fifth Kentucky regiment, under Colonel D. Howard Smith, and the Sixth Ken- tucky, under Colonel Warren Grigsby, had been added to Morgan's com- mand, which now consisted of two brigades. The first was composed of the Second, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Kentucky, and Ninth Tennessee, and the Second brigade of the Third, Eighth, Eleventh, and Tenth Kentucky, making a total force of about twenty-five hundred men. The expedition, conceived and mapped out, intended an extensive raid through Kentucky and across the Ohio river through Indiana and Ohio, for the purpose of diverting Federal re-enforcements to the army on the Potomac, and to Gen- eral Rosecrans, in Tennessee, to break up the lines of transportation, and to capture the Federal troops detached to guard these lines in Kentucky. On the 2d of July, this force crossed the Cumberland river, near Burksville. Twelve miles above, at Marrowbone, Morgan was confronted by a large body of Federal cavalry, under General Judah; these were defeated and driven back, until a temporary check was given to Morgan by a battery of artillery. Moving on through Columbia, on the Lebanon pike, the Con- federates were resisted by Colonel Moore, of the Twenty-fifth Michigan infantry, entrenched on a bluff in a bend of Green River. On a summons to surrender, Colonel Moore answered, that "The 4th of July was a bad day for surrenders, and he would rather not." The regiment of Colonel Chenault imprudently assaulted this strong position, and was several times repulsed. The Confederates finally withdrew, with a loss of nearly one hundred men, among whom were Colonel Chenault and Major Brent, killed, and passed on toward Lebanon. This place was defended by three regi- ments, including Colonel Hanson's Twentieth Kentucky. After a hotly contested fight, the Federals were defeated and captured. Passing on through Bardstown and Garnettsville, in Meade county, the entire force crossed the Ohio river at Brandenburg, Kentucky. Previous to this, a detachment, under the skillful leadership of Captain Thomas H. Hines, had explored this portion of Indiana, and reported to Morgan that the way was clear as far out as Seymour. Yet some resistance was offered at the crossing of his forces by irregular troops hastily gathered, aided by a gunboat. These were driven off and dispersed. Passing on to Corydon and Salem. they reached Vienna, on the Indianapolis & Jeffersonville railroad. Here Ellsworth, Morgan's telegraph operator, took possession of the office at the station, and put himself in communication with Louisville and Indianapolis, and learned that the entire country around him was thoroughly aroused and in consternation. Orders had been issued to the militia to fell timber and blockade all the roads likely to be traveled. to armand organize, and to fall in with the troops and resist the movements of Morgan in every way pos- sible. Morgan moved on eastward to Paris, where Colonel Smith was detached to make a feint against Madison, in order to hold troops there
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MORGAN'S RAID.
who might prove troublesome if they came out. Moving around Vernon, where a strong Federal force was stationed, and through Versailles and Har- rison, he marched on directly to the rear of Cincinnati. By this time the entire population of Indiana, Ohio, and North Kentucky had become intensely excited over the feats of the impudent and daring raider. Troops were being rapidly concentrated around him on every side, by the thousands. All the gunboats or naval forces on the river were put in active motion ; troops were transported by water and rail to points in his front, to intercept his advance, while the guards at all the crossings of the river were-heavily strengthened. Passing around Cincinnati in force, Morgan directed his course eastward, through Batavia and Williamsburg, to Piketon, on Scioto river, opposed and harassed more and more each day. From the Scioto, his final march around through Jackson and Binton brought him to the Ohio river again at Portland, above the mouth of the Great Kanawha, in West Virginia. By this time the skirmishing and fighting with the troops. and overcoming obstacles thrown in the way by the militia, were almost continu- ous. Unable yet to effect a crossing of the river, worn down with fatigue and fighting, this command divided ; and much demoralized with the gloomy prospect of escape across the river, Morgan moved up to Pomeroy, above Buffington island, for a last desperate effort to escape to the south bank of the Ohio. Here, however, he was vigorously attacked by superior forces of infantry and cavalry, supported by gunboats, which had arrived in time to participate. All hope of escape had now apparently vanished. After fighting and maneuvering to the last point of desperation, Morgan surren- dered with the greater portion of his command. About one-third of the command at different points along the Ohio, and near Buffington island, had managed to effect their escape across the river in detachments. Four com- panies, under Captain Kirkpatrick, passed safely through West Virginia, and escaped to the vicinity of Knoxville. The prisoners taken were carried back to Cincinnati. Morgan and his officers, including Colonels Duke, Ward, Smith, Morgan, and Hoffman, Majors Elliott and Bullock, and Captains Hines and Thorpe, were incarcerated in the penitentiary of Ohio, at Colum- bus, by order of General Burnside, with the instruction to Governor Todd that they be subjected to the usual prison discipline.
This imprisonment continued until the latter part of November, when the ingenuity and enterprise of Captain Hines conceived and executed a plan of escape by excavating a passage-way through the floors and under the walls of the prison. On the 28th of November, seven of the captives- General Morgan and Captains Thomas H. Hines, Jacob C. Bennett, Ralph Sheldon, James D. Hockersmith, G. S. McGee, and Samuel B. Taylor- passed safely through the subterranean passage-way and effected their escape. Four days after, Taylor and Sheldon were recaptured near Louisville. Morgan and Hines boarded a train for Cincinnati, crossed in a skiff to Lud. low in Kentucky ; thence, by easy stages, they passed as disguised travel-
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
ers through Owen, Henry, Shelby, Nelson, Green, and Cumberland counties safely into Tennessee.
This raid of Morgan's is said to have been undertaken against the coun- sel and views of General Bragg, who would have confined Morgan's opera- tions to Kentucky. Though Morgan visited Richmond, he was received with apparent coldness and indifference by the president of the Confeder- acy. It was not until the spring of 1864 that he was again given a com- mand, in South-western Virginia. This command was made up of two cavalry brigades, under General Cosby and Colonel Henry S. Giltner and some militia reserves of that region. The material of his command was good, but Morgan seemed, since the breaking up of his old command, to have lost much of his prestige and brilliant fortune. In June, 1864, he undertook his last raid into Kentucky with a command of three brigades, making a total of twenty-five hundred men, under Colonels Giltner, Alston, and D. Howard Smith. Passing through Pound Gap, he pushed on to Mount Sterling, which place was captured, with nearly four hundred prison- ers and stores. Dividing his forces into several detachments, a portion of his command, under Colonel Giltner, was suddenly surprised and attacked by General Burbridge, who had made an extraordinary march of ninety miles in thirty hours, with a largely-superior force. A desperate fight ensued, in which the Confederates lost over three hundred in killed, wounded, and captured. Morgan had moved upon and captured Lexington, with large military stores, on the 10th. From thence to Georgetown, he moved upon Cynthiana, with his forces again united, where he captured the garrison and entire command of General Hobson, together nearly two thousand men. His following, now weakened by losses and by details to guard prisoners and . wagon trains and to destroy the railroad, was again attacked by General Burbridge, whose command had been re-enforced to near four thousand men. The fighting was disastrous, yet in the vicinity of Cynthiana. The Confederates were defeated, with heavy losses, and Morgan, gathering up his broken forces, retreated through Flemingsburg and West Liberty to Ab- ingdon, Virginia.
Operating with his command in East Tennessee, on the 3d of Septem- ber, 1864, his troops lay encamped around Greenville, ready to move on Bull's Gap the next day. Morgan made his headquarters at Mrs. Williams' in Greenville. A daughter-in-law, a younger Mrs. Williams, of intense Union sympathies, and enraged at Morgan for some alleged harsh treatment to a Federal officer, mounted her horse and rode in the direction of Bull's Gap, at the first rumors of the approach of the Confederate forces, to give the alarm to the enemy. Before midnight. the Federal force moved out to make a surprise attack upon Morgan at Greenville, doubtless directed by the information given. About daylight, one hundred Federal cavalry dashed into Greenville and surrounded the headquarters of General Morgan and staff. Finding escape hopeless, General Morgan passed into the garden of
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KENTUCKY FURNISHES RECRUITS.
Mrs. Williams, where he was discovered by his enemy and shot to death. Thus, on the 4th of September, in this little village of East Tennessee, fell the great partisan leader, whose genius and daring had left him a name con- spicuous among the remarkable characters produced in this period.
The events occurring for the remainder of the year 1863 were of much the same nature as those we have before described in both the civil and military affairs within the State. The military operations for the year seem to have been transferred to the territory of Southern States beyond the bor -. ders of Kentucky. Large calls for new volunteers to recruit the Federal armies upon the Potomac and on the Cumberland were made, of which Kentucky furnished her quota, besides furnishing many more for the sup- - port of the Union authorities in the State. General Burnside, command- ing this department, on July 31st, declared martial law over the State, " for the purpose only of protecting the rights of loyal citizens and the freedom of suffrage, and preventing any disloyal person from voting at the election on Monday, August the 3d."
Under the military surveillance of the election, the Union candidates were all elected with little opposition, excepting the three counties of Boone, Carroll, and Trimble. In January, General Boyle having resigned was relieved as military commandant, and General Ammen succeeded him. On February the Ist, President Lincoln, by proclamation, ordered a draft on March roth, for five hundred thousand men, to serve three years or during the war. Adjutant-General Finnell's report at this time showed that Ken- tucky had already sent in the United States service 35,760 infantry, 15,362 cavalry, and 823 artillerymen, besides 2,957 sixty-days' men, a total of 54,902 men. On February the 29th, Provost-Marshal General James B. Fry ordered the enrollment without delay of all colored males of military age, in Kentucky. The enrollment of colored troops was denounced by some of the most active and leading Federal officers in Kentucky, among whom were Colonel Frank Wolford and Lieutenant-Governor Jacob. For lan- guage used in condemnation of this policy, Colonel Wolford was arrested; and afterward was dishonorably dismissed from the United States military service, for speaking disrespectfully of the president, and for disloyalty ; but in June, was commissioned by Governor Bramlette to raise a regiment of men. Governor Bramlette, by proclamation, recommended the people to submit quietly to the negro enrollment; and General Burbridge, now in military command, issued a general order for their enlistment, to be sent to camps of instruction and drill outside of the State.
On February the 5th. the Legislature passed a resolution of protest against the enlistment of Kentucky negroes, and requested the president to remove the camps of such soldiers from the limits of the State. These were but expressions of a sentiment. the instinctive outgrowth of the relation of the negro in slavery, of the property rights in him, and of the prejudices against his uses in any position of equality with the white race. But this
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
opposition of a prejudiced sentiment gradually gave way with the familiarity of the practice of such enlistments, and the people became reconciled, or passively submissive. to this expediency of the Government; and other cir- cumstances made this usage more tolerable to the people of Kentucky. The increased demands and calls of the Federal Government for new levies of troops, to recruit and strengthen the armies in the field, had exhausted the ardor and resources of the volunteer element, and compelled the Gov- ernment to the alternative of decimating drafts. As by lot, many white citi- zens of means were among the drafted, who were unwilling or unprepared to enter upon a soldier's life.
A great demand sprang up for substitutes, which were allowed and ac- cepted by the Government. These substitutes came now in great demand, at an appreciable market value, in every part of the State. From seven hundred to fifteen hundred dollars were offered and paid by citizens upon whom the lot of draft had fallen, according to the demand and supply of the community. Quite a brokerage speculation sprang up among the horde of mercenary men who swarmed out of the ranks of citizenship and of official and military ranks to seize upon the thousand opportunities that a civil war affords of speculative gain. This dealing in substitutes. a sudden source of profit, was largely carried on by provost-marshals or some favored second who could control this singular traffic in human bodies. At this time, the negro was still the slave property of his master in Kentucky, as the emancipation proclamation did not apply to this State. As the destruc- tion of the institution seemed inevitable and near at hand, and as the slaves were unmerchantable otherwise, many owners seized upon the opportunity to convert this species of property into money, and bargained with the re- cruiting authorities, conceding a good percentage of the sale money. But few masters were distinctively inclined to thus dispose of their slaves, for whom they entertained humane and kindly feelings of attachment ; but the new policy of enlisting negroes, so captivating to the African a lifetime in bondage, was rapidly sweeping from the country the negro males capable of military service. Their owners felt that such slaves would soon desert them under the irresistible influences of the recruiting agencies, who would transfer them to the ranks of the Union army.
In the earliest days of 1864, the natural fruitage of protracted civil war became more cruelly and distressingly manifest than at any previous time. So intensely and fiercely were the passions of men inflamed by constant crimi- nations and recriminations, by daily injuries and retaliations, and by tyran- nous exactions and annoyances, that even men in authority of good intentions and of ordinary humane impulses were betrayed into measures of injustice and wrong which themselves would not seek to justify on the return of sober reason. But far worse than all for the peace and safety and good order of the people, there began to appear actively in the field organized bands of armed, mounted " guerrillas," intesting and raiding the State in many directions.
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CONDUCT OF GUERRILLAS.
The members of these bands of raiders were mainly men who had formerly given their allegiance to the Confederate service ; but, under different pretext and from different causes, had abandoned that service and defied the author- ity of the Government, and lent themselves to the lives of marauders and freebooters. Apparently reckless of all responsibility to the laws of God or man, they gave themselves to an unrestrained license of revengeful murder, of bold and daring robbery, and of deeds of violence and outrage, which were without the pale of the laws of civilized warfare. Men in Federal uni- forms, whether paroled and unarmed prisoners, sick and wounded in hos- pitals, or with or without means of defense, were massacred in cold blood wherever opportunity offered. Banks, railroad trains, public depositories and stores were robbed, and outrages marked everywhere the frequent paths of these flying troopers, who scudded from one retreat to another like phantom scourges. These bands were made up of a strange medley of characters. Here, one had become a desperado, devoting his life to revenge for an outrage by some military enemy upon mother or wife or sister. An- other, in fierce wrath, had declared undying war for the wanton murder, by armed violence, of a father or brother. Yet another, because his house and · property had vanished in smoke and ashes in the destroying track of an op- posing army, had sworn to reimburse or revenge himself on guilty or inno- cent. These cruel wrongs are but the incidents of war, which even the best men in authority are unable to avert; so this outgrowth of desperate char- acter is the exceptional result of war, which good men and good government can not repress or be responsible for.
But the more fruitful source and cause for the appearance at this time of this most disturbing and destructive element of lawlessness and anarchy is graphically set forth by a recent historian in the following language : 1" Im- agine the situation in which the Confederate soldier was placed. Almost destitute of hope that the cause for which he fought would triumph. and fighting on from instinctive, obstinate pride, no longer receiving from the people the sympathy, hospitality, and hearty encouragement once accorded to him; almost compelled for comfort, if not for existence. to practice op- pression and wrong upon his own countrymen, is it surprising that he be- came wild and lawless, that he adopted a rude creed. in which strict conformity to military regulations and a nice obedience to general orders held not very prominent places? This condition obtained in a far greater degree with the cavalry employed in the 'outpost' departments than with the infantry or the soldiery of the large armies. There is little temptation and no necessity or excuse for it among troops that are well fed, regularly paid in good money, and provided with comfortable clothing, blankets, and shoes in the cold winter ; but troops whose rations are few and scanty, who flutter with rags and wear ventilating shoes which suck in the cold air, who sleep at night under a blanket which keeps the saddle from a sore-backed
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