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Transcript
Hope and Humiliation:
Humphrey Marshall and the Confederacy's
Last Chance in Eastern Kentucky
BRIAN D. M C K N I G H T
T
he summer of 1862 found the Confederate army preparing for its
only comprehensive invasion of the Civil War. In the east, Robert E.
Lee'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 eastern 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 significant impact on the failure of the Confederate cause in the
eastern Kentucky mountains.1
Loyalty studies are hardly new to Civil War scholarship. 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
into contact on their journey likely fell into Degler's orderly and thoughtful
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, enemies.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 twentyfive thousand of the state's native sons fought for the Confederacy and twice
FALL
2005
Humphrey Marshall. The
Ftlson Historical Society
3
HOPE
AND
HUMILIATION
Humphrey Marshall to
Alexander Stephens, 22-23
February 1862, Humphrey
Marshall Papers in Edward
Owings Guerrant Papers
The Filson Historical
Society
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 regarding the complex loyalties 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
County's Civil War have turned under the old myths that suggested that loyalty
and support were predictable and static within geographic regions.4 Particularly
important are the findings of Inscoe, McKinney, and Groce who all focus on
the pro-Confederate sentiment within regions that were, until recently, often
mistakenly viewed as homogenously unionist. Within this complex fabric, the
leaders of the Confederate army that operated in eastern Kentucky's mountains
often misunderstood those people whom they promised to protect.
O
ne of these commanders, Humphrey Marshall, had a military education that belied his lack of martial skill. A member of one of
Kentucky'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
O H I O
V A L L E Y
H I S T O R Y
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 Stephens 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 Kentucky, 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
H
owever grandiose and optimistic were Marshall's expectations, the
merits of a Kentuckian delivering on the promises of the Confederacy 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 commission in the Confederate army, Marshall contended that the command be an
independent one, like many others throughout the southern army. From the
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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 Jefferson 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 Confederate 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 personal gain as a motive, a promotion would surely follow 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 subordinated 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
B
Alexander Stephens. The
Filson Historical Society
6
y August 1862, Marshall's incessant claims
for an independent command had not yet met
a highly placed and sympathetic ear. When
Bragg's Kentucky Campaign began, Marshall saw
an excellent opportunity to return to his home state.
Since Bragg's invasion of Kentucky would coincide
with Lee's thrust northward into Maryland, the
Confederacy's first attempt at a concerted offensive
provided Marshall with a chance to prove his worth to Jefferson Davis. If he
could mobilize, recruit, and thus cultivate his army effectively, Confederate
authorities would be forced to address his requests. Yet Marshall's self-interest
conflicted with the military mission in Kentucky. Although his force entered the
state as one of Bragg's detached columns and was expected to move to central
Kentucky to link with Kirby Smith's, the Kentuckian focused his attention solely
on recruitment and virtually ignored the responsibilities of his supporting role.
As long as he had authorization to enlist men and expand his force, Marshall's
hopes for an independent command remained alive. Believing that if he took
a large force into Kentucky it would impress the largely neutral populace and
motivate men to join him, he readied his command to move.13
O H I O
V A L L E Y
H I S T O R Y
The preparations for a major military campaign were innumerable, but
Marshall's first priority was to prod the War Department to shift as many
resources as possible to his command for the upcoming invasion. Like all
things coming from Richmond, this effort provided the general with endless frustrations. On August 9, one of Marshall's friends in the Confederate
capital went to work on the secretary of war to secure additional troops for
Marshall's movement across the Cumberland Mountains. Henry E. Read, a
Kentuckian serving in the Confederate Congress, met with Secretary Randolph
and "reminded him . . . of his promise" to supply Marshall with more men
who could aid in the invasion and recruitment. Unfortunately for Marshall,
Randolph had already sent to other theaters of the war those men who had
been earmarked for Marshall's campaign. In order to pacify the general, Randolph offered "to furnish any ammount [sic] of Artillery that you may want."
To prevent further disappointments, Read advised his friend to "make your
requisition immediately, for in this, his mind may change and his promise be
broken, as in the furnishing of troops to reinforce you."14
D
espite his disappointments in the Confederacy's political leadership,
Marshall's men were ready. Edward O. "Ned" Guerrant, a native
Kentuckian who served as an aide under Marshall, wrote on August
11, as if on cue, "I am tired! tired! tired! Tired of waiting on the slow motion
of our army in going to the land and people that I love."15 Four days later,
on a day in which he described in his diary as "500,000 degrees Fahrenheit!,"
Guerrant recorded the "Great expectation and suspense" that surrounded
Abingdon, Virginia, while awaiting orders from the War Department.16 The
expectations proved premature. The general and his force waited for nearly
a month before Edmund Kirby Smith called Marshall into Kentucky.17 By
that time, Bragg was already in central Kentucky while Kirby Smith stood
outside of Lexington.
During that month of waiting at Abingdon, Marshall continued, with
renewed vigor, his hounding of whomever would listen in Richmond. In his
August 28 letter, whose likely recipient was Alexander Stephens, Marshall addressed several points not only necessary to the success of his operations, but
proposed several radical suggestions regarding the prosecution of the entire
war. Marshall desperately wanted the additional manpower he believed he
had been promised and acted officiously in order to get it. He outlined his
objects to the Vice President with the first being "to let you see the mistake
which is being committed." As far as Marshall was concerned, his force should
be strengthened and take precedence over that of Edmund Kirby Smith. He
informed Stephens that he had been limited "to 2[,]000 while 8[,]000 are sent
to Kirby Smith."18 He based his argument on dual claims of the allegiance of
Kentuckians to him and him alone, and the large amounts of provisions that
could be extracted from the mountain counties of eastern Kentucky.
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7
HOPE AND
HUMILIATION
Within this lengthy letter, Marshall slipped into a brand of military pragmatism later attributable to federal commander William T. Sherman. Focusing on
the end result without regard to the competition for local loyalties, Marshall
proposed strong-arm tactics to provision his army. He suggested that partisan
rangers should guard "the one line of communications" into the mountains.
Once under control, his quartermaster could negotiate prices without the interference of outside market conditions or political influence. In sum, Marshall
proposed to "beat them [the mountaineers] as we do Indians, kindly if they
are faithful; but with terrible energy if they are false or hostile."18a In regard to
the most effective strategy for prosecuting the war, he proposed direct conflict
with Union armies in the hopes that the Confederate forces could drive their
adversaries back across the Ohio River. "If nothing else will do, we must send
our people across the river, break up his communications—fire his cities—shoot
upon the roads—and make them feel that it is a war of extermination which
has no particular location." On the subject of African Americans both free
and enslaved, Marshall promised renewed hostilities if Union commanders
decided to "arm our blacks."19
A
s if his proposed war on the North and its people were not enough,
Marshall continued on with what he considered a more pressing
problem. He had, for some time, been troubled by Kentuckians who
traveled through his lines to the South to collect debts and then return with
that money to their home state. As he saw it, these were men who called
themselves southerners but lived under the protection of the federal banner.
Furthermore, they took considerable amounts of currency out of the southern
economy and transferred it northward to where they could exchange it for
United States's legal tender. Frustrated, he lamented these "psalm-singers to the
union.... They should be driven out of our country or disposed of so they can
do no harm." He suggested dealing with these men he considered traitors by
"arresting] suspected persons and compel [ling] them to move into stipulated
or stated sections or to go into the army." He specifically wanted "power to
press Kentucky emigres into service." For his part, Marshall had closed all the
major gaps connecting Kentucky with Virginia and did not allow passage into
the latter state unless that person came to join his army. He estimated that he
had "turned two hundred back" to Kentucky who had traveled south to collect
monetary debts, instructing them to "go back and submit to Lincolnism." To
drive his point home, Marshall swore that there were "scores of them I would
rather hang than to spend an hour in Paradise."20
Marshall then turned to military exigencies. He had always felt that his
task was more formidable and important than that of Smith's; now he wished
to impress that view on the Vice President, even if the moment of decision
had already passed. Marshall lamented the fact that "Mr. Benjamin" paid
him "no more attention . . . than if I was an old dog baying the moon." 2I
8
OHIO
VALLEY
HISTORY
The general went on to relay that he had requested additional manpower
sufficient to "have the force to go to the Ohio River." Ever confident of his
appeal to Kentuckians, he added, "Ten thousand men would do it, and in six
weeks it would be 20,000 or lost."22 Marshall's plea for more troops signaled
an emergency. Time was passing and if Kentucky was to be rescued for the
Confederacy, more men were necessary. Although his original plan had been
to invade Kentucky with his Virginia regiments, out of fear that Kentuckians
would not embrace "foreign" troops the Confederate high command ordered
Marshall to leave all Virginia troops behind.23
I
n early September, Smith's orders finally arrived at
Marshall's headquarters. Understanding that the
Kentuckian's unflagging claims of independence
might slow his proposed movement, Smith enclosed
a "proclamation to the people of Kentucky in order
that you may fully understand the policy I have inaugurated and which I intend to pursue." Edmund
Kirby Smith did not trust Marshall and cautioned the
Kentuckian as to the expected behavior of his men:
"I urge upon you to enforce upon the troops under
your command the necessity of the most scrupulous
respect for the rights of persons and of property."
Fearful that Marshall might use any means necessary to entice recruits and compel loyalty, he called
the general's attention "to the order relative to horse
thieving, and ask that you will use every exertion to
prevent a species of rascality."24 Smith feared that
Marshall would take advantage of any opportunity
to aggrandize himself and his command without respect to the overall mission
of the campaign.
Beginning on September 4, Humphrey Marshall started his men on their
march into Kentucky. Because of the difficult terrain and narrow roads, he
had to be particularly creative in dispatching his men. Sending small regiments
forward at intervals created a long, snaking column consisting of relatively
small and geographically distant regiments. Indeed, Ned Guerrant described
Marshall's army of 4,600 as extending "from Abingdon, Va. to Mt. Sterling,
K'y, 200 miles."25 By then, both Smith and Bragg were firmly emplaced within
the state, thus accomplishing the dual objectives of forcing the Union army
to withdraw from Tennessee in pursuit of the Confederates and instilling in
Kentuckians the idea of a real and forceful Confederate presence. Marshall's
army was to move through the mountains and unite with the other commanders in time for the inevitable decisive battle of the campaign.
Owing to the disruption already caused throughout the state by Bragg's and
F A L L
2 0 0 5
Edmund Kirby Smith. The
Filson Historical Society
9
HOPE AND HUMILIATION
Smith's invasions, Marshall met little resistance on his route into the region
Guerrant termed "God's Country."26 The fact that small partisan units like
those of Col. Andrew Jackson May had begun new operations in Kentucky in
the weeks preceding the formal invasion contributed to this relative security.
May was representative of many of the men who operated in these borderland
areas. Originally from Pike County in eastern Kentucky but now in exile in
Virginia with his regiment, May prosecuted the war with a special skill and
verve that his physical and emotional proximity to the conflict only fostered.
Many of these partisans found significant success in the mountain war, largely
because they knew the terrain, the people, and their habits better than any
outsider. The support that local partisans could count on made all the difference in their operations. In May's case, he had so many friends in Pike County
that misinformation clouded Union knowledge of his whereabouts and forced
federal commanders in the region to act on any report that May had returned
home. Col. Jonathan Cranor, commanding the 40th Ohio, stationed at Louisa,
Kentucky, reported to his commander, Brig. Gen. Jeremiah Boyle, that "Jack
May has never been at home to my knowledge since I have had command in
this valley." He added, "I was informed that he had come home or to his
mother-in-law's near Prestonsburg while we were stationed there." To investigate the rumor, Cranor "sent out a scouting party in the night to effect his
arrest but was disappointed as my informant was mistaken."27 Countering
their efforts were the pro-Confederate Home Guards who sought to provide
some oversight of civilians with questionable loyalties in this divided region.
Significantly, Marshall ordered May into eastern Kentucky with orders to recruit in the region, clear it of anti-Union guerrillas, and inform the populace
of the general's impending movement.28
W
hile the partisan support of men like Jack May could have been beneficial, it frequently proved troublesome. These men often fought
their own small guerrilla wars in an effort to save their hometowns
or counties for the Confederacy. For Humphrey Marshall to give them orders,
and for them to obey them, was simply unfeasible. Even if Marshall wished
to limit the activities of the partisan guerrillas, he likely could not have done
so. In one case, he confided in Secretary Randolph: "A man by the name of
Menefee is in Kentucky recruiting for General Floyd's Virginia State Line, and
has gathered some 300 men in the mountains." 29 Menefee, he continued, "has
committed violence on private property, taking all the property, for instance,
from the store of a citizen of Kentucky." While Marshall's opposition to
Menefee smacks of hypocrisy (the general himself having suggested similar
tactics), he voiced his reservations because of the trouble such activities might
stir in the proposed path of his invasion. Complaining about Menefee's having pushed deep into Kentucky "on the line of my contemplated movement,"
Marshall lamented that the guerrillas were "no doubt plundering and exciting
10
O H I O
VALLEY
H I S T O R Y
the whole country."30 Marshall wrote his letter as if he had little knowledge
of the man; indeed, he referred to him distantly as "Menefee." Union commander James A. Garfield, however, believed Menefee and Marshall to have
had at least a command relationship. In March 1862, Garfield sent Capt.
Daniel Garrard of the 22nd Kentucky Volunteers out "to capture or drive out
a predatory band of rebels under the command of Captain Menifee, who is
also acting as a scout for Marshall." 31
I
ndeed, Menefee's activities acted as a catalyst to pro-Union sentiment in
the upper Sandy River valley. In the wake of Garfield's victory there and
the expected increase in social stability, a large segment of the populace
of eastern Kentucky had begun to develop into ardent unionists. Nathaniel
Menefee's raid on unionist John Dils's store in Piketon, Kentucky, helped
crystallize regional loyalties. A veteran of the Mexican War, the one-legged
Menefee came to eastern Kentucky and raised a guerrilla company early in
the war. In August 1862, Menefee and his band launched
one of their frequent raids into Pike County, Kentucky,
with the private property of Dils, one of the county's
most outspoken unionists, in mind. Stealing thousands
of dollars in goods and stock, the activity brought about
unintended results. Remembering the progress of the war
in the region during the summer and fall of 1862, Ephriam
Dunbar noted, "Menifee's rob[b]ery over in Ky was like
stirring up a hornet's nest."32
With the southern army's reappearance in heavily
divided Kentucky, sympathetic, and pragmatic, men and
women found it a good time to confirm their loyalties.
In such places under similar conditions, sympathies
frequently vacillated depending on which side held the
ground. Ned Guerrant recorded in Floyd County, Kentucky, how a Mrs. Vance "wished all the Union men in
HELL" and remembered that Kentucky had offered "a
warm reception,"33 an anomalous stance in light of the
strong Union support the region had recently given James
Garfield's federal army. Edmund Kirby Smith noted the
sympathies when he wrote General Bragg, "Thus far the people are universally
hostile to our cause. This sentiment extends through the mountain region of
Eastern Kentucky."34 As Marshall's force moved out of the mountains and
into the rolling hills of northeast Kentucky, they entered strongly unionist
territory, some of whose population, Guerrant noted, were even glad to see
the Confederates.35
Judah Benjamin. The
Filson Historical Society
Aside from being a man of military training, Humphrey Marshall was also
an astute politician. He had the ability to either convince men like Guerrant
F A L L
2 0 0 5
11
H O P E AND
HUMILIATION
to follow, and nearly worship, him, or to stoke the ever-present debate among
the Confederate high command in Richmond over his claimed independent
command. While stopped in a small mountain village, Guerrant observed
Marshall as "the most incorrigible democrat I ever saw." He "'jawed' with
the old women," ate "'bacon and beans' with 'the old man,'" and "'proposed
to dance with [the] girls.'"36
A
Map of the Theater of the
Rebellion in the United
States, 1861. Gibson
& Co., Cincinnati.
Cincinnati Museum Center,
Cincinnati Historical
Society Library
12
t first glance, Guerrant's observations of the general's gracious behavior toward the Kentucky mountaineers appear innocuous. But,
when transposed against the official correspondence coming from
Kirby Smith's army, it becomes clear that Marshall did not give up his own
designs. Having received orders to move into Kentucky in a supporting role,
he remained fully committed to his
own motives of recruiting soldiers and
building a positive relationship with
the populace. As Marshall focused his
attention selfishly, Kirby Smith found
himself deep inside the state with little
expected support, whether from Marshall or Kentuckians. Over the coming
weeks, Smith repeatedly prodded the
tardy Marshall to "hasten as rapidly
as you can your march toward Cynthiana" 37 and to "again urge upon you to
come to Paris as rapidly as possible."38
Smith's frustration with Marshall's apparent disinterest even compelled him
to write Braxton Bragg about the increasingly disturbing situation. In his
letter of September 18, Kirby Smith updated Bragg as to his army's progress
in central Kentucky. He notified Bragg that "Marshall should advance to
Mount Sterling" but added, "I fear he will not come."39 Finally, on September
19, President Jefferson Davis became personally involved and sent a tersely
worded letter to Marshall in the hopes of settling, once and for all, the question of independent commands. Davis, an old soldier himself now charged
with holding together a rebellion based on state rights within a federal type
of government, wrote directly: No one can have an independent command.
Co-operation is necessary to success, and the senior officer present for duty
must command the whole. It was expected that you would have moved with
General Smith into Kentucky.40
As badly as Humphrey Marshall wanted the president to make a decision
on his matter, he did not appreciate Davis's answer. As if the weight of the
world had been removed from his shoulders, Secretary Randolph notified
President Davis that he had received "The telegram from General H. Marshall,
O H I O
V A L L E Y
H I S T O R Y
stating that he had made an arrangement for acting in concert with General
E. Kirby Smith."41 Now with the question of an independent command now
officially, albeit negatively, decided, Marshall found no reason to speed his
movements.42
Throughout his correspondence with Confederate civil and military leaders,
Marshall stood firm on his claims that he should operate unfettered. His August
28,1862, letter to Alexander Stephens serves as a fine illustration of Marshall's
character and the extent to which he felt the war should be prosecuted. Without
doubt, George W. Randolph's letter, written three days before, spurred Marshall
to write to one of the seemingly few Confederate administrators who would
acknowledge the Kentuckian's perspectives. In that earlier note, Randolph
laid down firm guidelines regarding the recruitment of Kentuckians into the
Confederate army, cautioning Marshall that a recent act of the Virginia state
legislature "does not and cannot permit the enlistment of men in Kentucky, nor
can the Department allow such enlistment."43 Virtually everyone in the War
Department had correctly guessed that Marshall planned to use the Virginia
regiments he commanded to enlist and build his personal army. Confederate
Major General W. W. Loring, who was operating on the east side of the Sandy
River in the westernmost region of Virginia, told the secretary of war "it seems
to me ill-judged for him to take Virginia regiments into Kentucky in search of
other enemies."44 Randolph reminded the general, "If we get possession of
that state, the Conscript Act will be enforced."45 Humphrey Marshall could
not help but recognize that his hopes for governmental approval for raising
his own army of Kentuckians had suffered a considerable blow.
D
espite Marshall's overwhelming confidence in the loyalty of Kentuckians to him and to the Confederacy, the expected deluge of recruits
never came. Very early in the campaign, most of Marshall's contemporaries and superiors doubted the receptiveness of Kentuckians, mountaineers
and not, to his efforts. General Loring, in complaining about his colleague's
lack of cooperation with his own movement to the Ohio River, criticized
Marshall's promised army as the "recruits which he has not yet found of the
patriotic Kentuckians." Loring continued on to remind Secretary of War
Randolph that "the advantage of the public service lies in restoring between
General Marshall's command and my own the usual military relations." Even
Loring, who had a limited knowledge of the situation in Kentucky, surmised
the situation in the state correctly when he wrote, "the condition of things in
Kentucky so little invites invasion."46 In Marshall's defense, Loring knew few
details of his colleague's situation but believed Marshall was acting selfishly,
even petulantly, by refusing to assist in Loring's mission to save the dissenting section of Virginia. In his reply, Secretary Randolph informed Loring of
Marshall's larger role in the campaigns of Bragg and Smith.
Fully expecting the mountains to empty with recruits for the southern
F A L L 2 0 0 5
13
HOPE AND HUMILIATION
army, all were surprised by the mountain populace's tepid interest. Very early
in the Confederate invasion, stories abounded of the deluge of new recruits
from the mountains, stretching existing supplies and arms in their new regiments to the point of collapse. Andrew Jackson May reported to Marshall
in late August that recruits were coming into his camp at a rate of fifteen to
twenty per day "at Piketon alone."47 Edward Guerrant took advantage of a
stall in the advance and secured a ten-day furlough and visited friends, during
which Guerrant, one of Marshall's staunchest supporters, began to question
the general's estimation of popular support among the mountaineers. In an
entry that very much defines the complex nature of the Appalachian Civil War,
the Confederate writes, "Went to see many of my old friends in Sharpsburg.
Union people glad to see me. Volunteering going on peacefully." In few places
outside Kentucky could a Confederate officer be so unreservedly accepted into
enemy circles. He went on to note that although the recruiting process was
peaceful, men were "Not turning out as they ought."48
P
erhaps Humphrey Marshall's greatest military weakness was his propensity to view Kentuckians monolithically. As a longtime politician,
he prided himself on his ability to speak to local constituents, but his
Bluegrass roots did not translate to an understanding of the complexity of the
mountain population. Because an overwhelming portion of Marshall's political experience and social contacts came from outside the mountain region, he
failed to comprehend the profound differences between the mountain residents
and those from the Bluegrass and beyond. Unfortunately for Marshall, the
logic and arguments that brought results in the central and northern parts
of the state held little sway over residents of the mountainous east. Despite
Marshall's inflated expectation of local support for his campaign, most Kentuckians were decidedly dispassionate toward both causes, especially in the
war's early years.
In addition to Marshall's commitment to looking after the friendly and
undecided of eastern Kentucky, his actions toward Unionist citizens exhibited
an unexpected level of patience, given his recent suggestion of the employment of "hard war" tactics against them. While at Mount Sterling, Marshall
commanded from the residence of Alexander Barnes. On the return trip to
Virginia, Ned Guerrant recalled the general regaling a small group of his officers of how he commandeered the Barnes house over the protests of a woman
identified only as Mrs. French:
Mrs[.] French. "Whom Have I the h-o-n-o-r to address"?
Gen[.] Marshall. "Genl. Marshall Madam".
Mrs[.] French. "I suppose Genl. Marshall thinks he can do here as
he pleases"?
Genl. Marshall. "He does Madam"!
14
O H I O
V A L L E Y
H I S T O R Y
Mrs[.] French (cooling down from blood heat,) Federal Generals would
not thus take possession of private property".!
Genl[.] Marshall. "Union Genls. are immaculate Madame"! We rebels
claim no angelic virtues. It could not be expected of rebels. Therefore
we must be excused if we shelter ourselves beneath our enemies' roof!!
Union Generals never do such things! With extreme regret we rebels
are compelled to do it!!
Mrs[.] French exit!!49
Although Marshall never lost his optimism regarding the possibility of Kentucky and Kentuckians joining the Confederacy, such exchanges provide stark
illumination of the palpable hostility of the populace to
the Confederates and their cause.
Marshall's dilatory pace following his arrival in the vicinity of Mount Sterling troubled both Bragg and Smith,
who, by late September, were massing near Harrodsburg
to resist Don Carlos BuelPs approaching federal army.
By October 5, officially rebuffed, Marshall had girded
himself and gotten his army moving toward Harrodsburg. Making excellent progress, the men were deflated
when, only fifteen miles from their objective, they were
ordered back to Lexington. Camping at the local fairgrounds, Marshall's men inexplicably sat out the battle
at Perryville, which turned back the Kentucky Campaign,
perhaps owing to Bragg's and Smith's respectively low
expectations of Marshall's motives and the small size of
his force.50
F
or Humphrey Marshall and his men, the Kentucky
Campaign had been a long series of disappointments. On October 12, Guerrant expressed his
frustration about the recent campaign and his impending return to Virginia. He noted that "Genl. Wm. C.
Preston defined the position of K'y as one of 'General Sympathy and Feeble
Resistance!'" Another soldier lamented, "'did ye never call the spirits from the
vastly deep, and they didn't come'!" Guerrant added, "So of K'ys volunteers!
. . . God save our native State. We came and offered her help! She refused
and we go away!"51 The day before the retreat began, one he referred to as
the "Day of blasted hope and ruined fortunes!! Day of evil. Dark Day!," he
described the retreating force as "unaided and unassisted by the people of the
state they came to deliver." Clearly wounded by Kentucky's spurning of southern protection, Guerrant saw Marshall's tired army as "standing] now like a
lion at bay, surrounded by 100[,]000 hungry minions of a ruthless despot."52
F A L L
2 0 0 5
Edward Guerrant. The
Filson Historical Society
15
HOPE AND HUMILIATION
"We came into the state to meet and deliver friends," he lamented. "We met
rather the scowl of enemies!" Where Marshall's army came to "meet Kentuckians with arms and doors open and welcome," what they found instead were
"clenched teeth, and closed doors." In return for southern charity, Guerrant
observed, "provisions were driven and carried away. . . . The mills stopped or
burnt. Storehouses closed or emptied." Despite his anger over the failure of
his fellow Kentuckians to appreciate his cause, Guerrant was careful not to cast
all of the same mold. He recognized that "a glorious self sacrificing few—are
excepted honorably!"53 As for those ungrateful souls who had rejected the
southern charity, he wrote: •
T
B rax ton Bragg. The
Filson Historical Society
16
o those others who prefer the Northern despotism, and association with abolitionists, fanatics and Infidels—we leave behind us our "God
speed" in their new alliance and the recollection of our
generous conduct towards them while they were in our
power. But those we love shall never breathe the same
air nor drink of the same streams that gives vitality to
such Kentuckians. They will bid farewell to the skies
and fields and rivers that were once beautiful in the
sunlight of liberty—and glorious in the consciousness
of an untarnished fame! To a sunnier—a freer and
happier clime we will remove them—and live or die
free,—if nothing more!54
The disappointment of the Confederacy's Kentucky
Campaign overwhelmed Ned Guerrant. The mountains of eastern Kentucky did not spill forth the men
the Confederate army so desperately needed to survive,
nor did they rise to Marshall's private call. It seemed
that the people of eastern Kentucky were content living within the Union.
The normally perceptive Guerrant clearly missed obvious signs of Kentuckians' tepid interest in joining the Confederacy. Upon arriving home, the young
officer noticed that the people "are afraid even yet to speak out of a whisper.
So thoroughly were they subjugated!" Days later, on Sunday morning, October 5, Marshall's army entered Lexington "when people were crowding the
way to the churches." Guerrant, picking up on the situation better than he
even realized, described the scene, "Demonstrations of joy were curbed by the
sacredness of the day and the fear here entertained by all our friends that we
were 'evacuating the city—as Frankfort had been yesterday.'"''55 Rather than
seeing scarred suppression or sacred restraint, Guerrant likely witnessed sincere
solemnity, not from respect for the Sabbath or fear of Union repression, but
out of fear that an opposing force was threatening the federal army with which
they had become accustomed to living and conducting business.
O H I O
V A L L E Y
H I S T O R Y
During the trip to Virginia, Marshall's force clearly lacked the optimistic
enthusiasm that had been present a little more than a month before. "As
starvation stared so large an army in the face on the Cumberland Gap road,"
Marshall had requested and received permission from Kirby Smith to choose
his own route out of Kentucky, spurring Guerrant to view the delegated power
as "simply placing him in his former and proper position of an independent
commander." More than a month after Jefferson Davis abruptly settled the
issue, the idea of Marshall's independence still floated through his command.56
On the retreat, Guerrant and others had an opportunity to appraise their efforts
over past two months.
"Since the confederate armies entered the state of Kentucky, the
recruits to our army has not exceeded 40 p'r c't of the losses sustained
by sickness—death—desertion, stragglers, wounded, &c. Lost more
than twice as much as we gained. Oh Kentucky!"57
I
ndeed, Marshall had accomplished little aside from weakening his own force
and destroying his reputation within the Confederate State's military and
political arenas. The march back to the "Old Dominion" proved torturous.
As the army returned to Virginia, Marshall's prophecy that "many of us will
never see its end; for it will be dreadful!!!" held considerable truth. When Kirby
Smith reported his arrival at Cumberland Gap to Braxton Bragg, he opened
his letter with "My men have suffered on this march everything excepting
actual starvation." He added, "There must be not less than 10,000 of them
scattered through the country trying to find something upon which to live."58
The Abingdon Virginian noted that Marshall "can't remain in these parts long
unless he brings his 'grubb' with him, for both man and beast."59 Expecting
Marshall's return, the newspaper wondered, "How they are to be subsisted the
Lord only knows as there is scarcely a sufficiency in this part of the country to
keep the souls and bodies of the permanent population together."60
Throughout the return trip to Virginia, Marshall's command suffered desertion, disease, and starvation. Ned Guerrant described the trek ahead of him
as "105 miles through a wild, poor, hostile, mountainous country. God grant
we survive it!"61 Along the way, the already suffering morale of the army deteriorated further. As Guerrant noted on October 15, "Most of Peyt Miller's
Company resigning." Indeed, many of the men of 5th Kentucky Volunteers
reenlisted only to become famous as part of the Orphan Brigade, suggesting the
soldiers' referendum on their leader more than on the southern cause. Guerrant,
however, did get the opportunity to have breakfast at "Mr. Shaw's—a Secessionist! Few of the genus found in this soil." On October 17, "the sick (ahead
of the trains) and stragglers by hundreds committed very many depredations."
Humphrey Marshall reacted with anger at his men's emptying "a barrel of
whiskey at 'Ticktown'." Guerrant noted the command was "more demoralized than ever I knew before. Result of evacuation and cowardly 'skedaddling'
F A L L 2 0 0 5
17
HOPE AND HUMILIATION
Kentuckians—following the army for protection! Glorious Kentuckians!!"62
Ironically, once out of the Bluegrass and back in the mountains, Confederate
soldiers began to see more sympathy among the populace. Guerrant noted newfound support in the region near Hazel Green and once again noted Marshall's
idealism "as he stopped to talk to every Clodhopper about 'Constitutional
Liberty', &c." After lamenting that he had worn a single pair of pants since
April, Guerrant was given a new suit of clothes sewn by a Mrs. Ellen Hamilton
with a "Patriotic, sensible, hopeful note." Guerrant added,
"The women of Ky—are the only remaining diadem in the once illustrious
Crown of old Kentucky. May Heaven preserve it with care. They deserve
anything and everything. Hurrah for the women—the rebel women of my
native state!!"63
S
uch buoyed hopes were only temporary. In Guerrant's mind, his fellow
Kentuckians had abandoned the Confederacy. By the end of the Kentucky
Campaign, he had been away from home for only seven months, but
during that time, much had changed. The Union army had moved throughout
Kentucky and brought a significant amount of economic prosperity and social
order with it, particularly along the railroads and turnpikes. Indeed, the loyalties of those in the more isolated region of eastern Kentucky had been secured
for the federals in January 1862, when Marshall's Confederates lost at Middle
Creek to troops under James Garfield, the future president. When Garfield
pushed Marshall's men through Pound Gap and back into Virginia, only isolated pockets of pro-Confederate sentiment could be found. The failure of
the Confederates at Middle Creek had convinced the vacillating populace that
the South could not win against the larger, better trained, and better equipped
northern armies-at least not in their section.
Sidney Barnes, a native of eastern Kentucky and a Union colonel, suggested
the pragmatic nature of eastern Kentucky's mountaineers when, during the previous year, he wrote to Gen. George H. Thomas, encouraging him to establish
a camp in the region. He reasoned that if Thomas could supply "Blankets,
tents, guns, andc," the move "will help us and give our people confidence." He
went further to explain, "More depends on this than men ordinarily imagine.
The mountain people are peculiar, and I know them."64 The mountaineers,
being small farmers living in near perpetual poverty, likely wished to side with
whichever side they believed would ultimately carry their region. By aligning
themselves with the potential victor, these Kentuckians could ensure themselves
good treatment and security from, as they judged correctly, the union rather
than the Confederate army.
On October 30, 1862, Ned Guerrant passed yet again through Pound Gap
into Virginia. Behind him lay months of disappointment. Kentuckians, upon
whom he and Humphrey Marshall believed fervently they could count, had
given just enough support early in the campaign to whet the army's appetite-
18
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VALLEY
H I S T O R Y
before wholly abandoning their "liberators." Obviously, their suffering had
been slight and their allegiance to the Union cause great. The coming months
in southwestern Virginia would prove torturous as little fighting took place
and the men had ample time to reflect on their disappointments in Kentucky.
Marshall continued his harassment of the Confederate high command, using
the shortcomings in Kentucky as evidence that his force should be strengthened and allowed to act independently. He did so even more sharply, and
publicly, in 1863, after he resigned his commission and was he was elected
to the Second Confederate Congress from Kentucky. When Ned Guerrant
returned to Castle's Woods, Virginia, on November 2, 1862, he summed up
the feelings of most of his Kentucky comrades, and likely his own commander.
In Virginia, and not in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, Guerrant "Felt like
I was getting home." 65
The author wishes to thank Christopher Phillips, Wayne
Durrill and the journal's anonymous reviewer for their support,
encouragement and thoughtful critique of this article. Special
thanks should also be extended to Brian S. Wills of The
University of Virginia's College at Wise.
3.
1. The historiography of the complex nature of loyalty
along the borderland during the Civil War has grown
exponentially during the past decade. Regional studies such
as Martin Crawford, Ashe County's Civil War: Community
and Society in the Appalachian South (Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia, 2001); Noel C. Fisher, War
at Every Door: Partisan Politics and Guerrilla Violence
in East Tennessee, 1860-1869 (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1997); W. Todd Groce, Mountain
Rebels: East Tennessee Confederates and the Civil War,
1860-1870 (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press,
1999); and John C. Inscoe and Gordon B. McKinney,
The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North
Carolina in the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2000), are among the best outgrowths of
earlier and more geographically and intellectually broad
studies. See also Carl N. Degler, The Other South: Southern
Dissenters in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Harper
and Row, Publishers, 1974); Mark Grimsley, The Hard
Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern
Civilians, 1861-1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1995); Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla
Conflict in Missouri During the Civil War (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1989); Stephen V. Ash, When the
Yankees Came: Conflict and Chaos in the Occupied South
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995);
and Daniel W. Crofts, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South
Unionists in the Secession Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1989). More recently, William W.
Freehling, The South vs. The South: How Anti-Confederate
Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001), has returned broad issues
to the forefront of the study of the divided South.
2. With regard to the Appalachian region of Kentucky,
Degler's The Other South deals largely with the antislavery
current running through the area in the middle decades of
the nineteenth century, largely because of the activities of
noted abolitionist, Cassius M. Clay. Degler outlines several
schools of thought popular among southern unionists,
FALL
2 0 0 5
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
but the lack of widespread education and literacy likely
combined with the immediacy of the conflict in hotly
contested areas like the mountains of eastern Kentucky to
preclude the development of well-thought-out philosophies
of loyalty among most of the population.
For more on Confederate failures within the South,
particularly in Kentucky, see Freehling, The South vs. The
South, 68-69, 72-73. See also Richard Nelson Current,
Lincoln's Loyalists: Union Soldiers from the Confederacy
(Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992; reprint New
York: Oxford University Press, 1994). Although Current
studies only those states that seceded from the Union, he
deals with Kentucky tangentially by way of his evaluation of
Tennesseans who joined the federal armies.
Inscoe and McKinney, The Heart of Confederate
Appalachia; Groce, Mountain Rebels; Victoria E. Bynum,
The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Longest Civil War
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); and
Crawford, Ashe County's Civil War.
Mark M. Boatner, III, The Civil War Dictionary (New York:
David McKay Co., Inc., 1959), 513-14; David S. Heidler
and Jeanne T. Heidler, eds., Encyclopedia of the American
Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History (Santa
Barbara, Cal.: ABC-CLIO, 2000), 1255; John E. Kleber,
ed., The Kentucky Encyclopedia (Lexington: University
Press of Kentucky, 1992), 610-11; James L. Harrison, ed.,
Biographical Dictionary of the American Congress, 17741949 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing
Office, 1950), 1503; Humphrey Marshall autobiographical
sketch, undated [ca. 1858], Charles Lanman Collection, The
Filson Historical Society, Louisville, KY.
William C. Davis and Meredith L. Swentor, eds., Bluegrass
Confederate: The Headquarters Diary of Edward O.
Guerrant (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1999), 126.
Typescript of Humphrey Marshall to Alexander Stephens, 30
November 1861, Humphrey Marshall Miscellaneous Papers,
The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, KY, hereinafter
cited as TFHS-Marshall.
Marshall to George W. Randolph, August 19, 1862, The
War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records
of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1880-1901), ser. I, vol. 16,
pt. 2, 765-67, hereinafter cited as OR (unless otherwise
indicated, all citations are to series I).
19
HOPE AND HUMILIATION
9. Humphrey Marshall to Alexander Stephens, 22-23 February
1862, Humphrey Marshall Papers in Edward Owings
Guerrant Papers, The Filson Historical Society, Louisville,
KY, hereinafter cited as TFHS-Guerrant.
10. E. Kirby Smith to Jefferson Davis, August 21, 1862, OR,
vol. 16, pt. 2, p. 768-9.
11. Typescript of Humphrey Marshall to Alexander Stephens,
30 November 1861, TFHS-Marshall.
12. Charles M. Spearman, "Crittenden, George B.," in Richard
N. Current et al; Encyclopedia of the Confederacy (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), vol. 1, 428.
13. Earl J. Hess, Banners to the Breeze: The Kentucky
Campaign, Corinth, and Stones River (Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 2000), 80.
14. Henry E. Read to Marshall, August 10, 1862 (copy),
Edward O. Guerrant Papers, Private Collection of Wallace
Guerrant, Winchester, Ky., hereinafter cited as WGGuerrant.
15. Davis and Swentor, Bluegrass Confederate, 127.
16. Ibid., 129.
17. G. W. Randolph to W. W. Loring, August 21, 1862, OR,
vol. 12, pt. 3, 938.
18. Humphrey Marshall to [Alexander Stephens?], 28 August
1862, TFHS-Guerrant
18a.Ibid.
19. Humphrey Marshall to Alexander Stephens, 22-23 February
1862, TFHS-Guerrant.
20. Ibid.
21. Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin.
22. Humphrey Marshall to Alexander Stephens, 22-23 February
1862, TFHS-Guerrant.
23. Marshall to George W. Randolph, August 28, 1862, OR,
vol. 16, pt. 2, 786.
24. E. Kirby Smith to Marshall, September 7, 1862, OR, vol.
16, pt. 2, 801.
25. Davis and Swentor, Bluegrass Confederate, 143. Guerrant
counts Marshall's forces as "Consisting of 5h. Ky. (700)
43d. Tenn (750) 29h. Va. (700) 21st. Va. Battn. (350) M'td
Rifles (350), Shawhan's Cavalry (150) Georgia Battn. (500)
and 12 cannon, Jeffress Battery (6 pieces), Davidson's
battery (4 pieces) besides the Va. cavalry (400)."
26. Davis and Swentor, Bluegrass Confederate, 141.
27. J. Cranor to J. T. Boyle, August 13, 1862, OR, ser. II, vol. 4,
(only 1 part in series 2), 384.
28. Davis and Swentor, Bluegrass Confederate, 143, 146.
29. Nathaniel M. Menefee, a former soldier in the Mexican
War, employed his talents as a recruiter, trainer, or scout to
various Confederate commanders. With a band of around
twenty-five Virginians, Menefee terrorized Pike County,
Kentucky, for a time in 1862. He spent considerable time
working on the behalf of John B. Floyd as well as Marshall.
30. Marshall to George W. Randolph, August 19, 1862, OR,
vol. 16, pt. 2, 765.
31. f. A. Garfield to Daniel Garrard, March 5, 1862, OR, vol.
10, pt. 2, 9.
32. Your uncle E. A. D. to Dear Nephew, May 20, 1923, in
Elihu Jasper Sutherland, Pioneer Recollections of Southwest
Virginia (Clintwood, VA. H. S. Sutherland, 1984), 117.
33. Davis and Swentor, Bluegrass Confederate, 146.
34. E. Kirby Smith to Braxton Bragg, August 24, 1862, OR,
vol. 16, pt. 2, 775-6.
20
35. Davis and Swentor, Bluegrass Confederate, 148, 150.
36. Ibid., 145.
37. E. Kirby Smith to Marshall, September 10, 1862, OR, vol.
16, pt. 2, p. 807.
38. E. Kirby Smith to Marshall, September 12, 1862, OR, vol.
16, pt. 2, p. 814-15.
39. E. Kirby Smith to Braxton Bragg, September 18, 1862, OR,
vol. 16, pt. 2, p. 845-6.
40. Jefferson Davis to Marshall, September 19, 1862, OR, vol.
16, pt. 2, p. 851.
41. G. W. Randolph to Jefferson Davis, September 23, 1862,
OR, vol. 16, pt. 2, p. 867.
42. E. Kirby Smith to Marshall, September 21, 1862, OR, vol.
16, pt. 2, p. 859.
43. George W. Randolph to Marshall, August 25, 1862, WGGuerrant.
44. W. W. Loring to George W. Randolph, August 11, 1862,
OR, vol. 12, pt. 3, 928.
45. George W. Randolph to Marshall, August 25, 1862, WGGuerrant.
46. W. W. Loring to George W. Randolph, August 11, 1862,
OR, vol. 12, pt. 3, 928.
47. Davis and Swentor, Bluegrass Confederate, 137.
48. Ibid., 150.
49. Ibid., 169.
50. Ibid., 154-58.
51. Ibid., 157.
52. Guerrant's estimate of 33,000 men under Marshall appears
unfounded. Estimates hold that Marshall entered Kentucky
with about three thousand men.
53. Davis and Swentor, Bluegrass Confederate, 158.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid., 150, 54.
56. E. Kirby Smith to Braxton Bragg, October 15, 1862,
OR, vol. 16, pt. 2, p. 949; Unpublished manuscript on
the Kentucky Campaign, 9, Edward O. Guerrant Papers,
Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC,
hereinafter cited as UNC-SHC-Guerrant Manuscript; Davis
and Swentor, Bluegrass Confederate, 160.
57. Davis and Swentor, Bluegrass Confederate, 159.
58. E. Kirby Smith to Braxton Bragg, October 22, 1862, OR,
vol. 16, pt. 2, 975.
59. Abingdon Virginian, October 24, 1862.
60. Ibid., October 31, 1862.
61. Davis and Swentor, Bluegrass Confederate, 159.
62. Ibid., 161-63, 166.
63. Ibid., 164.
64. Sidney M. Barnes to George H. Thomas, September 23,
1861, OR, vol. 4 (only one part in ser 1, vol 4), p. 269-70.
65. Davis and Swentor, Bluegrass Confederate, 172, 173; Ezra
J. Warner, Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate
Commanders (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1959), 212-13.
O H I O
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