John David Dyche: The Civil War In Kentucky.
The Civil War in Kentucky
Written by John David Dyche
Louisville never was in Confederate hands; it was a point through which traffic between North and South flowed, and as a result its economy flourished. The drawing shows the U.S. flag being raised atop the Jefferson County Courthouse in 1861. (from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 16, 1861)
Louisville never was in Confederate hands; it was a point through which traffic between North and South flowed, and as a result its economy flourished. The drawing shows the U.S. flag being raised atop the Jefferson County Courthouse in 1861. (from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 16, 1861)
The Civil War began 150 years ago today. The story of The Civil War in Kentucky is splendidly told in Lowell H. Harrison's book by that name. But another excellent source that Kentuckians may take for granted tells it, too.
The Kentucky Historical Highway Marker Program of the Kentucky Historical Society and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet connects “events and personalities with their place.”
Unlike the epics of filmmaker Ken Burns and historian Shelby Foote, Kentucky's familiar bronze placards are succinct. But their concise summaries (quoted liberally below) detail the commonwealth's prominent place in the struggle in interesting and often powerful ways.
A marker on Shelbyville Road in Louisville marks the birthplace of Robert Anderson, who was Fort Sumter's commander that fateful April 12, 1861 and became the conflict's first Union hero.
Hickman County has a marker describing the first, short-lived, Confederate move into Kentucky. On Sept. 3, 1861, General Leonidas Polk fortified a strategic line of bluffs, stretching a huge chain across the Mississippi River to prevent Union gunboat passage.
Kentucky's first Union death is recounted on a Barren County sign. On Oct. 10, 1861, a Union company slipped through a graveyard at night to arrest a Southern sympathizer. Confederate guards killed one.
A Logan County marker tells of Confederate leaders from Western Kentucky and portions of Central Kentucky creating a provisional government that seceded from the Union. i Thus Confederate Kentucky was admitted as the 13th Confederate state on Dec. 10, 1861, although the state as a whole did not withdraw from the Union during the Civil War.
Future president James Garfield's exploits are hailed on Floyd and Pike County markers. After winning battles to control the Big Sandy Valley in January 1862, Garfield was commissioned a brigadier general there.
Pulaski County markers relate Confederate Brig. Gen. Felix Zollicoffer's death that same month at Mill Springs. In heavy rain and battle smoke Zollicoffer mistakenly rode into Union lines and was shot. More than 100 Confederate soldiers rest in a mass grave there.
George W. Johnson, the first Confederate governor of Kentucky, is remembered in a Scott County marker. Johnson withdrew from the Confederate capital of Bowling Green in February 1862 and was killed while fighting as a private at Shiloh that April.
A marker on the Bracken-Mason county line chronicles one of Kentucky's last duels. Union Col. Leonidas Metcalfe arrested former Maysville mayor William T. Casto for aiding the Confederacy. Released, Casto challenged Metcalfe, who killed him on May 8, 1862, with a rifle shot at 60 yards.
Frankfort's Old State Capitol has a marker noting that in September 1862 Gideon Shryock's Greek Revival masterpiece became the only Union state capitol captured by Confederates.
A Jessamine County plaque honors Gen. William Nelson, who established the first Union recruiting center south of the Ohio River and persuaded Lincoln to abandon his “hands off” policy as to Kentucky. On Sept. 29, 1862, a fellow Union officer killed Nelson in a personal dispute at Louisville's Galt House.
The Battle of Perryville on Oct. 8, 1862, merits a major marker. The Confederates suffered 510 killed, 2,635 wounded, and never again seriously threatened Kentucky. The Union's strategic victory cost 845 killed and 2,851 wounded.
In Taylor County, a marker describes a July 4, 1863, encounter between John Hunt Morgan's Confederate cavalry and Col. O.H. Moore's entrenched Union infantry. Morgan demanded surrender. Moore replied that the Fourth of July was no day to entertain such a proposition and repulsed eight assaults. After losing 36 troopers Morgan moved on.
John Buford is among generals honored on a Woodford County marker. The cavalryman fought at Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, but is best remembered for holding key defensive positions at Gettysburg. Buford died on Dec. 16, 1863, of overexertion and wounds.
Markers in Owen and Franklin counties recall revenge killings of captured Kentucky Confederates. On Aug. 15, 1864, three such innocent prisoners were executed at Williamstown in reprisal for the guerrilla murder of two Unionists. On Nov. 2, 1864, four more were executed in Frankfort as payback for a Union supporter's murder there.
Many markers concern courthouse burnings. Confederate General Hylan B. Lyon invaded Kentucky in December 1864 to enforce Confederate conscription and draw federal heat from Nashville. He burned seven courthouses. In all, 22 Kentucky courthouses were torched: 12 by Confederates, eight by guerrillas, and two by Union accident.
Near the Gen. John B. Castleman monument on Louisville's Cherokee Road a marker describes his 1864 attempt to free Confederate prisoners in Indianapolis. Imprisoned until war's end, exiled, then pardoned, this rebel is fondly remembered today as “Father of Louisville Park System.”
Louisville markers also note “Newspaper Row,” with the pro-Union Journal and the pro-Southern Courier; a March 1864 Galt House meeting between Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman to plan the latter's famous “March to the Sea;” and a John Wilkes Booth stage performance nearby that year.
A Shelby County marker entitled “Horrible Massacre” tells of Confederate guerillas near Simpsonville slaughtering 22 members of a U. S. Colored Calvary company that was driving cattle to Louisville on Jan. 25, 1865. The victims lie in a mass grave.
Near the penitentiary in Lyon County a marker recalls the last significant Civil War skirmish east of the Mississippi. It occurred there on April 29, 1865, almost three weeks after Lee's surrender.
Clinton County native Champ Ferguson had Confederate leanings but launched guerilla attacks on both sides. An Albany marker headed “Civil War Terrorist” ascribes over 100 murders to him. Hunted by Confederate and Union soldiers alike, he was hanged on Oct. 20, 1865.
A Vanceburg marker apprises that the Union monument there is the only non-cemetery one below the Mason-Dixon line erected by public subscription. Lewis County lost 107 soldiers in Union service.
The war raged for four years. While traveling Kentucky through April 2015 consider using the Kentucky marker program's searchable database to find and visit the state's many Civil War sites.
When at one, meditate on Gen. Polk's post-Perryville prayer that is engraved on a Harrodsburg marker. Polk, an Episcopal Bishop shaken by the horrors of war, prayed, “Peace to the land and blessings on friend and foe alike.” Amen.
John David Dyche is a Louisville attorney who writes a political column on alternating Tuesdays in Forum His views are his own, not those of the law firm in which he practices. Read him on-line at www.courier-journal.com; email: jddyche@yahoo.com.
Written by John David Dyche
Louisville never was in Confederate hands; it was a point through which traffic between North and South flowed, and as a result its economy flourished. The drawing shows the U.S. flag being raised atop the Jefferson County Courthouse in 1861. (from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 16, 1861)
Louisville never was in Confederate hands; it was a point through which traffic between North and South flowed, and as a result its economy flourished. The drawing shows the U.S. flag being raised atop the Jefferson County Courthouse in 1861. (from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 16, 1861)
The Civil War began 150 years ago today. The story of The Civil War in Kentucky is splendidly told in Lowell H. Harrison's book by that name. But another excellent source that Kentuckians may take for granted tells it, too.
The Kentucky Historical Highway Marker Program of the Kentucky Historical Society and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet connects “events and personalities with their place.”
Unlike the epics of filmmaker Ken Burns and historian Shelby Foote, Kentucky's familiar bronze placards are succinct. But their concise summaries (quoted liberally below) detail the commonwealth's prominent place in the struggle in interesting and often powerful ways.
A marker on Shelbyville Road in Louisville marks the birthplace of Robert Anderson, who was Fort Sumter's commander that fateful April 12, 1861 and became the conflict's first Union hero.
Hickman County has a marker describing the first, short-lived, Confederate move into Kentucky. On Sept. 3, 1861, General Leonidas Polk fortified a strategic line of bluffs, stretching a huge chain across the Mississippi River to prevent Union gunboat passage.
Kentucky's first Union death is recounted on a Barren County sign. On Oct. 10, 1861, a Union company slipped through a graveyard at night to arrest a Southern sympathizer. Confederate guards killed one.
A Logan County marker tells of Confederate leaders from Western Kentucky and portions of Central Kentucky creating a provisional government that seceded from the Union. i Thus Confederate Kentucky was admitted as the 13th Confederate state on Dec. 10, 1861, although the state as a whole did not withdraw from the Union during the Civil War.
Future president James Garfield's exploits are hailed on Floyd and Pike County markers. After winning battles to control the Big Sandy Valley in January 1862, Garfield was commissioned a brigadier general there.
Pulaski County markers relate Confederate Brig. Gen. Felix Zollicoffer's death that same month at Mill Springs. In heavy rain and battle smoke Zollicoffer mistakenly rode into Union lines and was shot. More than 100 Confederate soldiers rest in a mass grave there.
George W. Johnson, the first Confederate governor of Kentucky, is remembered in a Scott County marker. Johnson withdrew from the Confederate capital of Bowling Green in February 1862 and was killed while fighting as a private at Shiloh that April.
A marker on the Bracken-Mason county line chronicles one of Kentucky's last duels. Union Col. Leonidas Metcalfe arrested former Maysville mayor William T. Casto for aiding the Confederacy. Released, Casto challenged Metcalfe, who killed him on May 8, 1862, with a rifle shot at 60 yards.
Frankfort's Old State Capitol has a marker noting that in September 1862 Gideon Shryock's Greek Revival masterpiece became the only Union state capitol captured by Confederates.
A Jessamine County plaque honors Gen. William Nelson, who established the first Union recruiting center south of the Ohio River and persuaded Lincoln to abandon his “hands off” policy as to Kentucky. On Sept. 29, 1862, a fellow Union officer killed Nelson in a personal dispute at Louisville's Galt House.
The Battle of Perryville on Oct. 8, 1862, merits a major marker. The Confederates suffered 510 killed, 2,635 wounded, and never again seriously threatened Kentucky. The Union's strategic victory cost 845 killed and 2,851 wounded.
In Taylor County, a marker describes a July 4, 1863, encounter between John Hunt Morgan's Confederate cavalry and Col. O.H. Moore's entrenched Union infantry. Morgan demanded surrender. Moore replied that the Fourth of July was no day to entertain such a proposition and repulsed eight assaults. After losing 36 troopers Morgan moved on.
John Buford is among generals honored on a Woodford County marker. The cavalryman fought at Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, but is best remembered for holding key defensive positions at Gettysburg. Buford died on Dec. 16, 1863, of overexertion and wounds.
Markers in Owen and Franklin counties recall revenge killings of captured Kentucky Confederates. On Aug. 15, 1864, three such innocent prisoners were executed at Williamstown in reprisal for the guerrilla murder of two Unionists. On Nov. 2, 1864, four more were executed in Frankfort as payback for a Union supporter's murder there.
Many markers concern courthouse burnings. Confederate General Hylan B. Lyon invaded Kentucky in December 1864 to enforce Confederate conscription and draw federal heat from Nashville. He burned seven courthouses. In all, 22 Kentucky courthouses were torched: 12 by Confederates, eight by guerrillas, and two by Union accident.
Near the Gen. John B. Castleman monument on Louisville's Cherokee Road a marker describes his 1864 attempt to free Confederate prisoners in Indianapolis. Imprisoned until war's end, exiled, then pardoned, this rebel is fondly remembered today as “Father of Louisville Park System.”
Louisville markers also note “Newspaper Row,” with the pro-Union Journal and the pro-Southern Courier; a March 1864 Galt House meeting between Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman to plan the latter's famous “March to the Sea;” and a John Wilkes Booth stage performance nearby that year.
A Shelby County marker entitled “Horrible Massacre” tells of Confederate guerillas near Simpsonville slaughtering 22 members of a U. S. Colored Calvary company that was driving cattle to Louisville on Jan. 25, 1865. The victims lie in a mass grave.
Near the penitentiary in Lyon County a marker recalls the last significant Civil War skirmish east of the Mississippi. It occurred there on April 29, 1865, almost three weeks after Lee's surrender.
Clinton County native Champ Ferguson had Confederate leanings but launched guerilla attacks on both sides. An Albany marker headed “Civil War Terrorist” ascribes over 100 murders to him. Hunted by Confederate and Union soldiers alike, he was hanged on Oct. 20, 1865.
A Vanceburg marker apprises that the Union monument there is the only non-cemetery one below the Mason-Dixon line erected by public subscription. Lewis County lost 107 soldiers in Union service.
The war raged for four years. While traveling Kentucky through April 2015 consider using the Kentucky marker program's searchable database to find and visit the state's many Civil War sites.
When at one, meditate on Gen. Polk's post-Perryville prayer that is engraved on a Harrodsburg marker. Polk, an Episcopal Bishop shaken by the horrors of war, prayed, “Peace to the land and blessings on friend and foe alike.” Amen.
John David Dyche is a Louisville attorney who writes a political column on alternating Tuesdays in Forum His views are his own, not those of the law firm in which he practices. Read him on-line at www.courier-journal.com; email: jddyche@yahoo.com.
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 10:19 AM
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