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- Jul 29, 2013
The Battle of Middle Creek was fought on January 10, 1862. Maintaining control of the state of Kentucky was very important to President Abraham Lincoln. This battle (skirmish) was part of an overall strategy designed to keep his native state within the Union fold. The Battle of Middle Creek was a tragic example of the fratricidal, neighbor-against-neighbor warfare that characterized the struggle for Kentucky. Men of the 14th Kentucky Infantry, U.S.A. and the 22nd Kentucky Infantry, U.S.A., charged up the steep hillsides overlooking Middle Creek and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with men of the 5th Kentucky Infantry, C.S.A. The battle was also a testing-ground on which reputations were made and lost. The badly-needed Union victory brought national attention to an obscure Ohio preparatory school principal and teacher named James A. Garfield. This conflict launched him on a military career that would lead to the White House. The precipitous Confederate retreat which followed the battle cast a shadow over Brigadier General Humphrey Marshall and called into question his competence as a military commander.
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