This page intentionally left blank. History of the 3d, 7th, 8th and 12th Kentucky BY • HENRY GEORGE May, 1911 p. T. DlEARIN G PRINTI I4G CO. IHCORPORATCD LO UISVILLE, K Y. III:M."I i.i.i ii:i.i CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Constitutional Rights to Secede, incjucling the Origin of the Negro Traffic ...'................: n CHAPTER n. Organization of the Third and Eighth Kentnckv; Their Move­ ment up to and IncUiding the Battle of Fort Donalson and Shiloh 19 CHAPTER HI. Organization of the Seventh Kentucky; Their Movement up to and' Including the Battle of Shiloh 2^ CHAPTER IV. Operations About Corinth; Movement Back' to Tupelo and on to Vicksburg 33 CHAPTER V. Movement South Under John C. Breckinridge; Battle of Baton Rouge, and Occupancy of Port Hudson 36 CHAPTER VI. Movement in the North Mississippi under Van Dorn. Price and Van Dorn Unite Their Commands and Make an l^nsuccessful Attack on the Federals under Rosecrans at Corinth 47 CHAPTER VII. Movement in Front of Grant; Holly Springs, Grenada and Talla­ hatchie, Back to Vicksburg; Big Black and to the Battle of Baker's Creek 54 CHAPTER VIII. Mistakes of Pemberton. General Joseph E. Johnston, at Jackson, Movfid to Big Black in Rear of Grant; Fell Back to Jackson, Where There Was Some Fighting; Moved Back to Meridian; Moved to Canton, Where They Remained During the Winter. Organization of the Twelfth Kentucky, and the Battle of Okolona 64 CHAPTER IX, Kentuckians Mounted and Put Under Forrest; Moved North Through Tennessee; Captured Union City and Attacked Pa- ducah. Command Visited Their.Homes First Time in Three Years or Since the War Commenced 74 CHAPTER X. Erice's Cross-Roads, the Most Brilliant Victory of the War; It Has No Parallel 87 CHAPTER XI. PAGE Battle of Harrisburg, Miss. Federals, under A. J. Smith, about Fifteen Thousand Strong; Confederates, about Seven Thou­ sand Strong, under S. D. Lee. Illy Advised and Badly Man­ aged by the Confederates 98 CHAPTER XII. Operations about Oxford and Memphis .^ 112 CHAPTER XIII. Forrest's Raid or Campaign into Middle Tennessee. Capture of Athens, Sulphur Springs Trestle and Engagement about Pu­ laski. Recrossing the Tennessee River in the Face of a Large Force of the Enemy. Johnsonville Aflfair. Capture of Steamers , 119 CHAPTER XIV. Hood's Campaign to N'ashville. Federal Army Escapes from C6- lumbia. Battle of Franklin. Forrest at Murfreesboro. Re­ pulse and-Retreat of Hood's Army from Nashville. Forrest Covering Retreat , 131 CHAPTER XV. From Montevaiio to Sclma 139 CHAPTER XVI. Biographical Sketches 146 Edward Crossland 146 Hylan B. Lyon ; 147 Virgil Y. Cook 147 Abram Buford 148 Charles Wickliffe 149 Albert P. Thompson 150 Daniel R. Merritt 151 Charles F. Jarrett 151 G. A. C. Holt 152 Henry S. Hale 153 Robert A. Browder 154 J. A. Collins * 154 Henry George 155 MUSTER ROLL OF KENTUCKY VOLUNTEERS. C. S. A. Eighth Regiment Infantry 157 Third Regiment Mounted Infantry 163 Twelfth Regiment Cavalry 175 Seventh Regiment Mounted Infantry 182 WOMEN OF THE SOUTH 191 SOURCES OF INFORMATION 193 PREFACE. Histories of war are always attractive and fascinating to the human mind. With all its horror^ and ravages, it ever appeals to the admiration and sympathetic emotion of mankind. ^ No war which covered a period of four years ever witnessed so many battles or was marked by such tremendous mortality as was that between the States. The seven hundred thousand men who fell in that gigantic struggle attest the terrible determination of the combatants on either side. The war lasted i ,530 days, and five hundred men died on every day of this lengthened period. These were the offerings North and South tendered in the conflict for that which they deemed right. It required one-third of a century for the men who participated in the war to settle the questions its political calamities presented, and then there came up from the South the demand that the true history of the great conflict should be written. The story of what the soldiers on both sides did must ever be full of interest and pathos. Such a tre­ mendous tragedy could only find a full report in countless pages of print, and the recitals of those who participated in such awful scenes will ever awake keenest interest with the American people. No war ever developed so much in the three branchs of army organization. The rapid movements of artillery, the tedious marches and unparalleled mortality of the infantry «ind the long and successful raids of the cav­ alry in either army, will ever attract the attention of military students and find eager study in men of every calling. Cavalry in this conflict performed niore arduous service and ac­ complished greater results than had ever marked its use in any pre­ vious war. The raids of Morgan, Forrest, Stuart, Wheeler and Hamp­ ton in fierceness of battle and demands of endurance on protracted marches, were something new in the history of this department, and the introduction by General Morgan of the system by which cavalry were dismounted and fought as infantry, created a new field for this arm of the service, and at once arrested the examination and study of military men in all parts of the world. Stuart died in May, 1864; Morgan followed him in September of the same year. These men had exemplified all that was gallant and glorious in war and met a soldier's fate with noblest courage and resig­ nation. Both had great opportunities and both improved their oppor­ tunities with grim determination and unfaltering zeal. To Nathan Bedford Forrest, fate dealt a kindlier measure. This imtutored soldier—all things considered, and, judged by his opportuni­ ties, the greatest cavalry soldier the war produced—was yet to achieve his most magnificent victories and stamp his name in brilliant colors upon the pages of history. Between the death of Stuart, in May, 1864, and Morgan, in Sep­ tember, 1864, Forrest fought and won the greatest purely cavalry vic­ tory of the war—or the world^Brice's Cross-Roads. In this battle Kentuckians were to play a distinguished and valor­ ous part. The Kentucky brigade, under Lyon, was composed of men who had come through the fiercest of military experiences and who from the inception of hostilities in 1861 had Seen educated by the most strenuous privations to the dangers and horrors of war. Three of the regiments, the Third, Seventh and Eighth Infantry, ^ere not mounted until March, 1864. They had eagerly sought to serve as cavalry and when the longings of years were gratified and they be­ came horsemen rather than footmen, they believed they had reached a military Utopia and were henceforth to enter a soldier's earthly para­ dise. In grateful recognition of the kindness bestowed upon them in this long-sought cliance, they felt a new enthusiasm in danger and a quickened zeal in behalf of the Southern cause, for which they had made such protracted and such willing sacrifice. To these three regiments of newly-mounted men was added the Twelfth Kentucky Cavalry, a command that had been drilled, trained and seasoned for military service for nearly two years, and who in many sharp conflicts had demonstrated that in all that made great cav­ alry, they had few equals and no superiors. This brigade was placed under General A. Buford, a man of gVeat courage and soldiery genius. He had behind him an array of magnifi­ cent lieutenants—Lyon, Crossland, Hale, Tyler, Tompson, Shacklette, Faulkner and other Kentuckians, and who did a full share in giving to General Forrest the splendid fame and renown he both won and deserved as a very, very great cavalry leader. Waiving the numerous engagements in which the Forrest Ken­ tucky brigade took part, two battles must ever stand out as the places in which it demonstrated its courage and steadiness under fire and its calmness and power in close range fighting. At Brice's Cross-Roads the Kentucky brigade, under Lyon, acquitted itself sp superbly that impartialhistory must assign them in the defeat of the Federal cavalry in the first half of the battle, the chiefest and hig:hest renown. Outnumbered and under the rays of a burning sun that was almost suffocating through a dense black-jack thicket, they faced their enemies, and, relying largely upon their ever-trusted revolvers, drove them in confusion from the field. Conditions considered, no men ever acquitted themselves more brilliantly or successfully, and no cavalry conflict in a war marked by the highest cavalry achievements of the world, was carried on more gallantly or crowned with more glorious victory than came to these Kentucky men at Brice's Cross-Roads. When the, days of the Confederacy began to be darkened by great adversity, the genius of Forrest shone with intensest brilliance, and in these varying experiences, overcoming all difficulties, he added new lustre to his own and the Confederate name. Great as were the achievements at Brice's Cross-Roads, thirty-five days later at Harrisburg, Miss., a crowning sorrow was to mark the career of the Forrest Kentucky brigade. It is needless now to argue why it came and who was responsible for it. Divided authority, dif­ fering judgments, a lack of confidence and zeal, was marked by a disastrous defeat, and the greatest decimation attached to the Ken­ tucky brigade. They faced disaster with courage, they undertook a hopeless task with intrepidity, and though shattered and torn, they met the demand of an evil hour with a valor that added new radiance to their fame. Little is known by Confederates at large of the heroism of these Kentuckians who served under General Forrest.