Download Print, “Head-Quarters at Camp Dick Robinson, Near Bryantsville

Print, “Head-Quarters at Camp Dick
Robinson, Near Bryantsville, Kentucky,”
1861
This November 23, 1861 wood-engraving
print from Harper’s Weekly depicts Camp Dick
Robinson in Garrard County, Kentucky. A twostory federal-style home is in the background,
surrounded by a white rail fence. Various Union
soldiers on foot and on horseback are in the
scene.
Background Information
Camp Dick Robinson was a large Union Army
organizational and training center located
near Lancaster, in Garrard County, Kentucky.
The property had been an early 19th-century
stagecoach stop called Hoskin’s Crossroads that
came into the possession of Captain Richard
Collections of the Kentucky Historical Society • Accession Number 2004.41.175 • 5 1/2” x 5 5/8”
Robinson in the 1840s. When the Civil War began,
Robinson, a staunch Unionist, allowed the Federal government to use his farm as a recruitment station for the
Union Army. The camp was established on August 6, 1861, and named Camp Dick Robinson in honor of Captain Robinson.
Major General William “Bull” Nelson commissioned T. T. Garrard, future governor Thomas Bramlette, and
Speed S. Fry as colonels of infantry and W. J. Landrum as a colonel of cavalry and instructed the men to raise
Union regiments at the camp. By late August 1861, the colonels had organized the Third, Fourth, and Seventh
Kentucky Infantry Regiments, the First Kentucky Cavalry, the First and Second Tennessee Infantry Regiments,
and Hewitt’s artillery battery.
In 1861 and 1862, many Union troop maneuvers throughout Kentucky originated at Camp Dick Robinson,
including the battles of Camp Wildcat and Mill Springs, and the Cumberland Gap campaign. When Confederate
forces established a tenuous grasp on the region in 1862, they seized Camp Dick Robinson and renamed it Camp
Breckinridge, in honor of Kentucky native General John C. Breckinridge. However, when Union forces advanced
into the area, Confederate troops fled the camp and it was reclaimed. Knowing that the camp was not wellprotected from the enemy, the Federal government had the Union forces stationed there move to Camp Nelson,
several miles north in a more defensible location.
Significance
At the beginning of the Civil War, Kentucky’s legislature had officially declared neutrality, offering neither men
nor arms to either side. If a man wanted to enlist in the Union or Confederate armies, he had to travel to a neighboring state that had chosen a side, such as Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, or Tennessee. In August of 1861, the state
held an election that would prove critical to Kentucky’s course in the war. Many Southern Rights legislators were
voted out, and the Unionist party heavily dominated both the House and Senate.
Using those favorable election results as a cue, Major General William “Bull” Nelson established Camp Dick
Robinson in Garrard County as a Union recruitment and training center. This move outraged Southern-leaning
citizens and politicians, including Governor Beriah Magoffin, who wrote to President Abraham Lincoln in protest over the camp’s establishment. Lincoln replied, “… I do not believe it is the popular wish of Kentucky that
this force be removed beyond her limits; and, with this impression, I must respectfully decline to so remove it. I
most cordially sympathize with your Excellency in the wish to preserve the peace of my own native State, Kentucky; but it is with regret I search, and cannot find, in your not very short letter, any declaration or intimation,
that you entertain any desire for the preservation of the Federal Union.”
In early September 1861, Confederate forces led by General Leonidas Polk invaded Columbus, Kentucky, citing
the Union presence at Camp Dick Robinson as his reason for entering the state. He wrote to Governor Magoffin,
“A military necessity having required me to occupy this town, I have taken possession of it by the forces under
my command. The circumstances leading to this act were reported promptly to the President of the Confederate
States. His reply was, “the necessity justified the action.” Several days later, Federal troops under General Ulysses
S. Grant marched into Paducah as a counter to Polk’s actions.
The state legislature created a resolution to oust Confederate forces, but not Federal forces. Governor Magoffin vetoed the resolution, stating that, “the withdrawal of the army of one belligerent force from Kentucky,
and failing to demand a like withdrawal of the forces of the other, can be construed no otherwise than as an
acquiescence on your part in the occupation of the State by the other.” Magoffin believed that by allowing one
side to stay while ejecting the other would nullify the state’s neutrality, which would “not only result in making
Kentucky the theater of large military operations, but will produce, and be followed by, civil war at home.” The
Kentucky Senate, however, overruled the veto with a 25 to 9 vote. Kentucky was no longer neutral and was a part
of the Union through the remainder of the war.
Related Resources
• See a print of a religious service at Camp Dick Robinson on the Library of Congress website. http://www.
loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a05542
• Read a letter from a soldier stationed at Camp Dick Robinson, in which he describes traveling through
Kentucky, on The College of William and Mary Digital Archive website. https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/
bitstream/10288/1509/1/Taylor18630416.pdf
• See another Harper’s Weekly print of Camp Dick Robinson on a website collection of the newsmagazine’s
digitized archives. http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1862/november/camp-dickrobinson.htm