504

WALLACE'S DEFENSE OF CINCINNATI.

diers for the battle,"-Wallace had demanded the services of all able-bodied men. The response was wonderful. In the course of a few hours he had at his command an army of workers and fighters forty thousand strong. While many did not believe that danger was so nigh,' all confided in the General, and the citizens and soldiers of Cincinnati, and Dickson's brigade of colored men, and the "Squirrel Hunters" from the rural districts of Ohio, streamed across a pontoon bridge that had been erected in a day under Wallace's

directions, and swarmed upon the hills around Covington. There was a most stirring and picturesque night-march over that floating bridge, on which tons of supplies and many heavy cannon were also passing. Within three days after the proclamation was issued, a line of intrenchments, ten miles in length and semicircular in form, was thrown up, extending from the river bank above Cincinnati to the river bank below it, well armed and fully manned. Steamers had been suddenly converted into gun-boats, and the river above and below the pontoon bridge was patroled by a large number of them.

The work for protection, so promptly commenced and vigorously carried forward, was scarcely completed when General Heath, with full fifteen thousand of Smith's invading troops (whose ranks had been swelled by volun

1 "If the enemy should not come, after all this fuss," said a doubting friend to the General, "you will be ruined."-"Very well," he responded; but they will come, and if they do not, it will be because this same fuss has caused them to think better of it."

2 This is a view of the passage of the troops over the pontoon bridge at Cincinnati on the night of the 3d of September, 1862. The bridge was laid along the line of the Suspension Bridge since erected. The unfinished piers of that bridge are seen on each side of the Ohio, in the picture.

The principal work was named Fort Mitchel, in honor of the brave commander and philosopher then in the army.

BRAGG'S MARCH TOWARD KENTUCKY.

a

505

Sept. 12, 1962.

tcers from among the Kentucky secessionists), appeared. He was astounded and alarmed by the preparations to receive him, and retreated in haste under cover of darkness and a heavy thunder-storm, dismayed and disheartened. When the danger was averted, Wallace led several of the volunteer regiments back to Cincinnati, where he was greeted with the huzzas of thousands of citizens, who regarded him as their deliverer,' and he was the recipient of public honors suggested by a sense of gratitude.'

Sept. 12.

Foiled in his attempt against Cincinnati, Smith turned his face toward Louisville. He took possession of Frankfort, the capital of Kentucky, on the day when Heath fled from before Wallace's lines. There he organized a city government, and issued a proclamation, telling the inhabitants that they must join his standard or be considered his enemies. Here he awaited an opportunity to join his forces to those of Bragg, which for almost three weeks had been moving northward.

Bragg crossed the Tennessee River at Harrison, just above Chattanooga, on the 21st of August, with thirty-six regiments of infantry, five of cavalry, and forty guns. Louisville was his destination. He pushed forward among the rugged mountains around the Sequatchee Valley, that lie well eastward of Nashville, and, sending out a strong cavalry force toward Buell's left at McMinnsville as a feint, had fairly flanked that leader's army, gained his rear, and was well on his way toward the Cumberland before the latter had fairly penetrated the Confederate general's designs.

The cavalry movement toward McMinnsville resulted in a serious fight near there. The horsemen were under General Forrest, who for several days had been hovering around Lebanon, Nashville, and Murfreesboro', and finally, on Saturday afternoon, the 30th of August, appeared a short distance from McMinnsville, making their way toward the road from that place to Murfreesboro', to cut off Buell's communications. Colonel E. P. Fyffe, of the Twenty-sixth Ohio, was ordered to take three regiments and prevent the threatened disaster. With his own regiment in advance, and the Seventeenth and Fifty-eighth Indiana following, he pressed forward five miles in sixty minutes, through woods, fields, and creeks, and soon afterward, when nine miles from his starting-place, encountered the foe, fifteen hundred strong. After a short struggle the Confederates were routed, and driven in such haste and confusion that they left every encumbrance behind them. Fyffe's troops were of General T. J. Wood's division, and were highly complimented by that commander in a general order.

Supposing Bragg was aiming at Nashville, Buell now took measures

1 Wallace issued an address to the citizens of Cincinnati, Covington, and Newport, commending their alacrity, fortitude, and bravery. "The most commercial of people," he said, “you submitted to a total suspension of business, and without a murmur adopted my principle-Citizens for labor-Soldiers for battle.' In coming times, strangers viewing the works on the hills of Newport and Covington will ask, Who built those intrenchments? You can answer, We built them. If they ask, Who guarded them? you can reply, We helped in thousands.' If they inquire the result, your answer will be, 'The enemy came and looked at them, and stole away in the night.""

2 On the 17th of October following, the authorities of Cincinnati publicly expressed their gratitude to Wallace for his services rendered to the city in its hour of peril; and on the 14th of March, 1863, the Legislature of Ohio, by joint resolutions, thanked him for "the signal service he had rendered the country at large" in the Army of the Republic, and especially for the promptness, energy, and skill exhibited by him in organizing the forces, planning the defense, and executing the movements of soldiers and citizens under his command at Cincinnati, which prevented the rebel forces under Kirby Smith from desecrating the free soil of our noble State."

506

BRAGG'S INVASION OF KENTUCKY.

accordingly. He pushed his army forward to Lebanon to cover it; but was soon satisfied, by an intercepted dispatch, that his opponent was pressing toward Louisville, and was threatening the main line of supplies for Buell's army, the Louisville and Nashville railway.

A RAILWAY STOCKADE.

At assailable points on this important highway he posted troops as soon as possible, and had strong stockades built for its protection.

Bragg crossed the Cumberland at Carthage, eastward of Lebanon, entered Kentucky on the 5th of September, and made his head

quarters at Glasgow, the capital of Barren County, where a railway connects with that between Nashville and Louisville. Breckenridge had been left in Tennessee with a large force of all arms, to retard Buell and invest Nashville, then garrisoned by the divisions of Thomas, Negley, and Palmer, under the command of General Thomas.

Bragg's advance under General J. R. Chalmers, about eight thousand strong, with seven guns, pushed on toward Louisville, and on the a Sept. 1862. 14th, two brigades' of the division of the Kentucky traitor, S. B. Buckner, under General Duncan, of Mississippi, encountered a little more. than two thousand National troops, under Colonel T. J. Wilder,' at Mumfordsville, where the railway crosses the Green River, and where a stockade and strong earth-works had been hastily constructed on

the south side of the stream and on each side of the road. Duncan arrived on Saturday evening, and demanded an unconditional surrender. It was refused,

STOCKADE

CONFEDERATES,

PONTOON BRIDGE

FORTIFICATIONS AT MUMFORDSVILLE.

FORT

CONFEDERA

-

and at four o'clock the next morning' the Confederates drove in ⚫ Sept. 14. the National pickets. A battle began in earnest at dawn, and raged for about five hours, when four hundred of the Fiftieth Indiana, under Colonel C. L. Dunham, came to the aid of the garrison. The assailants were repulsed with heavy loss.3

Assured of final success, the Confederates remained quiet until the 16th,

1 Composed of Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama troops.

2 These consisted of about 200 recruits of the Seventeenth Indiana, and Sixty-seventh and Eighty-ninth of the same State, and one company each of the Eighteenth Regulars, of cavalry, and of the Louisville Provost Guards. Their guns consisted of three 12-pounders and a 3-inch rifled cannon, under Lieutenant Mason. The Thirteenth Indiana and Thirty-third Kentucky batteries were also there and in position.

3 The writer is indebted to Stephen Bowers, chaplain of the Sixty-seventh Indiana, for the above plan of the fortifications, and also for an interesting account of the affair we are considering.

BRAGG'S PROCLAMATION.

507

a Sept.17, 1562.

when a large portion of Bragg's main body, under General (Bishop) Polk, appeared upon the hills on the north side of the river, overlooking the National camp, not less than twenty-five thousand strong. Wilder had been re-enforced by two regiments (Sixtieth and Eighty-fourth Indiana), but opposed the invaders with only four thousand effective men. He sustained a severe fight nearly all day, hoping Buell, then at Bowling Green, would send him promised relief. But relief did not come; and when, at sunset, the demand for a surrender was repeated, and Wilder counted forty-five cannon in position to attack his little force, he called a council of officers. It was agreed that further resistance would produce a useless sacrifice of life. At two o'clock in the morning" Wilder surrendered, and his troops marched out at six o'clock with all the honors of war.' Bragg was greatly elated by this event, and, counting largely on the usual tardiness of Buell, as Lee had done on that of McClellan, he felt assured of soon making his head-quarters in Louisville, or, at least, of plundering rich Kentucky as much as he desired. On the 18th he issued a proclamation from Glasgow, in which he repeated the declarations of his subordinates, that the Confederate Army had come as the liberators of Kentuckians "from the tyranny of a despotic ruler," and "not as conquerors or despoilers. Your gallant Buckner," he said, "leads the van; Marshall [Humphrey] is on the right; while Breckenridge, dear to us as to you, is advancing with Kentucky's valiant sons to receive the honor and applause due to their heroism." He told them that he must have supplies for his army, but that they should be fairly paid for; and he appealed to the women of Kentucky for encouragement, assuring them that he had come as a chival rous knight-errant to succor them from "fear of loathsome prisons or insult ing visitations" thereafter. "Let your enthusiasm have free rein,” he said. Buckle on the armor of your kindred-your husbands, sons, and brothers— and scoff with shame him who would prove recreant in his duty to you, his country, and his God."

b Oct. 4.

From Mumfordsville Bragg's troops moved northward without opposition, and, on the 1st of October, formed a junction with those of Kirby Smith, at Frankfort, where they performed the farce of making Richard Hawes, formerly a Congressman, "Provisional Governor of Kentucky." At the same time Bragg's plundering bands were scouring the State under the "provisional" administration of bayonets, dashing up sometimes almost to Louisville, and driving away southward thousands of hogs and cattle, and numerous trains, bearing in the same direction bacon and breadstuffs of every kind. In every town the goods of merchants were taken, and worthless Confederate scrip given in exchange.3

1 Report of Colonel J. T. Wilder, September 18th, 1862. Wilder reported his entire loss during the siege at thirty-seven killed and wounded. "The enemy," he said, "admit a loss of 714 killed and wounded on Sunday alone."

2 It is notorious that Bragg, who was a supple instrument of Jefferson Davis, and was his special favorite on that account, had not the means, nor manifested the least intention to pay for any thing. When, a little later, he retreated from Kentucky, he plundered the region through which he passed of cattle, horses, and supplies of every kind that came in his way, without inquiring whether he took from friends or foes, or offering even promises of remuneration. The invasions of Kirby Smith and Braxton Bragg were plundering raids, like John Morgan's, on a greater scale. It was the wealth of Kentucky, and Southern Ohio and Indiana, which they marched from the Tennessee River to secure, and not the hope of subjugation or permanent occupation.

The Lexington Observer, in an article on the amount of plunder carried away by the marauders, says the Richmond Examiner was not far wrong when it said that "the wagon-train of supplies brought out of Ken

508

BUELL TURNS UPON BRAGG.

Regarding Kentucky as a part of the Confederacy, for her professed representatives were in the "Congress" of the conspirators at Richmond, the conscription act was enforced there at the point of the bayonet. And so the insane policy of "neutrality," which had brought the war into Kentucky, yielded its fruit of wide-spread distress, until the whole people held out their hands imploringly to the National Government, which many of them had affected to despise, begging for deliverance from Buckner and Breckenridge, and other native and foreign "liberators."

To that cry for help Buell responded, but in a manner that seemed to the impatient loyalists and suffering Kentuckians almost as if he was in league with Bragg for the punishment of that Commonwealth. He left Nashville on the 15th of September, and made his way to Louisville, in an apparent race with Bragg for that city. He won it in the course of a fortnight, but all that time his opponent was gathering in the spoils he came for without hindrance. The Government was dissatisfied, and relieved Buell, but at the urgent request of his general officers he was reinstated, with the understanding that he should take immediate measures for driving the marauders from Kentucky. Buell's army was then about one hundred thousand strong, while Bragg had not more than sixty-five thousand, including Kirby Smith's troops.

Buell turned toward his opponent on the 1st of October. His army was arranged in three corps, commanded respectively by Generals Gilbert, Crittenden, and McCook. General George H. Thomas, who was Buell's second in command,' had charge of the right wing. It moved over a broad space, its right under the immediate command of Crittenden, marching by way of Shepherdsville toward Bardstown, to attack Bragg's main force, and the remainder moving more in the direction of Frankfort. The right soon began to feel the Confederates. Bragg fell slowly back to Springfield, impeding Buell as much as possible by skirmishing, that his supply-trains might get a good start toward Tennessee.

a Oct., 1862.

At Springfield Buell heard that Kirby Smith had evacuated Frankfort and crossed the Kentucky River, and that Bragg was moving to concentrate his forces at Harrodsburg or Perryville. He at once ordered the central division of his army, under Gilbert, to march on the latter place; and, toward the evening of the 7th," the head of the column, under General R. B. Mitchell, fell in with a heavy force of Confederates within five miles of Perryville, drawn up in battle order. These were pressed back about three miles without fighting, when General Sheridan's division was ordered up to a position on heights near Doctor's Creek, and General Schoepff's was held in reserve. When these dispositions for battle were completed it was nightfall.

Buell was with Gilbert. Expecting a battle in the morning, he sent for

tucky by General Kirby Smith was 40 miles long, and brought a million of yards of jeans, with a large amount of clothing, boots and shoes, and two hundred wagon-loads of bacon, 6,000 barrels of pork, 1,500 mules and horses, and a large lot of swine." This was a very small portion of the property swept out of the State during this raid. Seventy-four thousand yards of jeans were stolen from one establishment in Frankfort, and one person in Lexington was plundered of jeans and linseys valued at $106,000. For four weeks," said the Observer, "while the Confederates were in the vicinity of Lexington, a train of cars was running daily southward, carrying away property taken from the inhabitants, and at the same time huge wagon-trains were continually moving for the same purpose."

1 Placed in that position on the 1st of September.