Hope and Humiliation: Humphrey Marshall and the Confederacy's Last Chance in Eastern Kentucky BRIAN D. MCKNIGHT he summer of 1862 found the Confederate army preparing for its only comprehensive invasion of the Civil War. In the east, Robert E. TLee's Army of Northern Virginia would take the war to the enemy by invading Maryland. West of the Appalachian Mountains, the invasion would be broader. Braxton Bragg would lead his Army of Tennessee into Kentucky by way of Nashville, augmented by Edmund Kirby Smith's force that would drive through the Cumberland Gap. A third column, albeit an afterthought to both Bragg and Smith, would be led out of southwestern Virginia into the mountains of eastern Kentucky by Humphrey Marshall. Although the failures of the Kentucky Campaign have become legend, perhaps the most important result of the invasion was the Confederacy's realization that the east- ern Kentucky mountaineers, a population long thought friendly to the southern cause, had chosen to remain loyal to the Union. The complex nature of the Civil War in the Appalachian region, combined with Humphrey Marshall's flaws as both man and commander, would have a signifi- cant impact on the failure of the Confederate cause in the eastern Kentucky mountains.1 Loyalty studies are hardly new to Civil War scholar- ship. One of the most important, Carl Degler's The Other South, sought to explain the South's intellectual and cultural diversity more fully than any other existing work. In it, Degler found the same complex loyalties that dogged Marshall during his invasion of eastern Kentucky. Although many of the mountaineers with whom Marshall and his men came Humphrey Marshall. The into contact on their journey likely fell into Degler's orderly and thoughtful Ftlson Historical Society categories, the lion's share likely viewed the Civil War as a family's personal struggle for self-preservation while caught between two, equally dangerous, en- emies.2 William Freehling, in his recent study of disloyalty to the Confederacy within the South, bolsters the argument that Kentuckians largely approached the war from a pragmatic angle. While he notes that approximately twenty- five thousand of the state's native sons fought for the Confederacy and twice FALL 2005 3 HOPE AND HUMILIATION that number fought for the Union, Freehling acknowledges that nearly 200,000 avoided military service, a conclusion that altogether minimizes the importance of patriotism and suggests that self-interest was the primary motivator for the Kentucky mountaineers in the war.3 Other recent scholarship has sought to answer the myriad questions re- garding the complex loyal- ties along the Civil War's borderland. Works such as John Inscoe's and Gordon McKinney's The Heart of Confederate Appalachia, Todd Groce's Mountain Rebels, Victoria Bynum's The Free State of Jones, and Martin Crawford's Ashe Humphrey Marshall to County's Civil War have turned under the old myths that suggested that loyalty Alexander Stephens, 22-23 and support were predictable and static within geographic regions.4 Particularly February 1862, Humphrey important are the findings of Inscoe, McKinney, and Groce who all focus on Marshall Papers in Edward Owings Guerrant Papers the pro-Confederate sentiment within regions that were, until recently, often The Filson Historical mistakenly viewed as homogenously unionist. Within this complex fabric, the Society leaders of the Confederate army that operated in eastern Kentucky's mountains often misunderstood those people whom they promised to protect. ne of these commanders, Humphrey Marshall, had a military edu- cation that belied his lack of martial skill. A member of one of OKentucky's most renowned families, young Humphrey was raised in Frankfort before winning an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1832. At age twenty, he graduated the Academy forty-second of forty-five cadets in his class. Just as he had not thrived in his military education, Marshall quickly grew tired of armed service and left the army in 1833, only one year after graduating from West Point. From 1833 to 1846, he spent his time practicing law in Frankfort and later in Louisville, where he supported the cause of the Whig party. After serving in Mexico, where he was a colonel of Kentucky volunteers, Marshall returned home, farming briefly in Henry County before winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1848. He resigned his seat in 1852 to serve as U.S. minister to China until 1854, when he won election again to the U.S. House, this time as an American Party, or "Know-Nothing." Renominated by acclamation in 1858, he declined to run and later supported fellow Kentuckian John C. Breckinridge's Southern Democratic presidential candidacy.5 By 1862, Humphrey Marshall was back in the military fold as brigadier general in charge of southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky. On August 8, 1862, Marshall returned to Abingdon, Virginia, from Knoxville, where he 4 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY had met with Edmund Kirby Smith and been told of the proposed invasion of Kentucky. An ambitious and self-confident man whose brusque mannerisms often put off those around him, Marshall's mind whirred with the possibilities. The sight of forty new Kentuckians in camp doubtlessly stoked his imagination. These men were only a handful of the estimated four hundred who had flocked to John Hunt Morgan's party during his recent incursion deep into the state. Indeed, the Confederate raider had entered Kentucky with eight hundred men and departed with some 1,200. Marshall was sure he could meet or exceed the success of the relatively unknown Morgan.6 Marshall was confident that Kentuckians would rally to his cause for both personal and political reasons. As early as 1861, Marshall, displaying his trademark confidence, informed Confederate Vice President Alexander Ste- phens that "One of my old soldiers of Mexico has just come into my camp here to offer me 100 men to serve under me but unwilling to go under any body else."7 In an August 1862 letter to Secretary of War George Randolph, Marshall relayed further information with growing assurance. "The news I have," he wrote optimistically, "is that the people of the mountains in Ken- tucky, where I was last fall and winter, are excited and can be induced now to come into the contest, but we must have arms." To outfit the numerous recruits behind enemy lines, he requested "5,000 stand of arms (Enfield rifles and muskets) to be sent to me here at once."8 Again, this time in a letter to Stephens, Marshall reiterated his confidence that he could draw soldiers out of Kentucky. His February 1862, letter described Kentucky as "the region inhabited by my friends" and suggested, "the people will flock around my banner as the Italians did to that of Garibaldi." He further strengthened his case to Stephens by reassuring him that "they have sent me word and they have been looking for me as their deliverer from accursed bondage."9 owever grandiose and optimistic were Marshall's expectations, the merits of a Kentuckian delivering on the promises of the Confed- Heracy was an attractive proposition. Even Edmund Kirby Smith felt that the Confederate invasion might fail if no Kentuckians played the role of liberators. Kirby Smith wrote Jefferson Davis, "I regret extremely, however, that I have no prominent Kentuckian with me, whose name can influence the wavering in this state." To remedy this, he suggested the President "order General Marshall to advance at once through Pound Gap."10 Without doubt, the Confederate high command, along with Humphrey Marshall, expected that any attempt to align Kentucky with the Confederacy would benefit from the petulant and proud general's help. Marshall's belief that Kentuckians would gravitate to his command bolstered one of the central issues encumbering his command. Since his initial commis- sion in the Confederate army, Marshall contended that the command be an independent one, like many others throughout the southern army. From the FALL 2005 HOPE AND HUMILIATION time of his commission in early November 1861, Marshall fought with both the then-secretary of war, Judah P. Benjamin, and Confederate President Jef- ferson Davis over the nature of his command, with Vice President Stephens often acting as intermediary. Citing one of the South's major concerns of the early war, Marshall claimed that his independence was important to the Con- federate effort in Kentucky. Because he reportedly had been "fully authorized to take into the service such number of armed men as you may be enabled to raise," his enlisting large numbers of Kentuckians would strengthen the cause of the South while personally empowering Marshall. Building his small force into a much larger organization would likely give him added leverage in his fight with the Confederate government. Although he denied per- sonal gain as a motive, a promotion would surely fol- low his success. He reminded the Vice President, "you had told me Davis said to you about his willingness to make me a Major General—you will remember that yourself."11 Whatever his motives, Marshall would be disappointed in his quest. Davis never relented nor acknowledged the alleged promises and soon subordi- nated Marshall to an old Kentucky political nemesis, George B. Crittenden,who in late 1861 Davis named to command an army of invasion into Kentucky that was defeated at Mill Springs.12 y August 1862, Marshall's incessant claims for an independent command had not yet met B a highly placed and sympathetic ear. When Bragg's Kentucky Campaign began, Marshall saw an excellent opportunity to return to his home state.