- Joined
- Feb 23, 2013
- Location
- East Texas
Part I - Confederate Invasion Of Kentucky
Capt. James P. Douglas' 1st Texas Battery attached to the division of Brig. Gen. Pat Cleburne, pictured above earlier in 1862 by Texan artist Andrew Jackson Houston, fired the first rounds of the Confederate army in the running battle of Richmond, August 30, 1862.
The battle fought in and around Richmond, Kentucky had its genesis earlier in the year 1862 beginning with the twin campaigns and battles fought on opposite sides of the Bluegrass State at Mill Springs or Logan's Crossroads and Forts Henry and Donelson just across the state line in northwestern Tennessee:
These Union successes were followed by the hasty evacuation of the state by Confederate forces which were reunited at Corinth, Mississippi, and soon engaged in the climactic Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee, April 6-7, 1862:
This bloodbath was followed by a period of relative quiet for over a month as the Federal host, now under the direct command of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, slowly inched their way towards the vital rail crossroads and Confederate stronghold at Corinth. Forced to evacuate the town in early May, the Confederates withdrew south to Tupelo to consider their options. Meanwhile, Halleck was called to Washington, D.C. to assume direction of the entire Union war effort and his large army dispersed over a wide area under his subordinates Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell.
Buell, seen above at center in a period CDV, is flanked by his opponents, at left Maj. Gen. Edmond Kirby Smith, and at right Gen. Braxton Bragg. Buell's was tasked with leading his Army of the Ohio eastward along the track of the Memphis and Charleston RR to its junction at Chattanooga, repairing it as he went; this requirement slowed his advance to a crawl and provided an opening the Confederates were eager to exploit. Smith commanded a small detachment in Eastern Tennessee centered around Knoxville; exaggerated and overoptimistic reports from Kentucky reached him that the state was largely undefended and its citizens eager to embrace the Confederate cause. He therefore encouraged Bragg to join him in a joint invasion to "liberate" the neighboring slave state.
Map by Hal Jespersen, www.cwmaps.com
The map above indicates the position of Buell's scattered forces, as well as that of Kirby Smith at Knoxville and Bragg's Army of Mississippi arriving by train at Chattanooga. Unfortunately for the confederate cause, there was no overall commander to coordinate their independent moves, though at first this proved not to be a problem. Smith led his force north, bolstered by the loan of the division of Brig. Gen. Patrick Cleburne from Bragg's army, through the mountainous terrain of East Tennessee, skirting Cumberland Gap, sending the division of Carter Stevenson to seal off the Federal garrison there as the rest of his force of possibly 10,000 proceeded into Kentucky. Meanwhile Buell, blissfully unaware of Confederate moves, continued his own leisurely advance on Chattanooga, from which he was finally startled. He began to reorient the progression of his own divisions northward to cover the immense Union supply base at Nashville, sending who he believed to be his most reliable subordinate, Maj. Gen. William "Bull" Nelson, to Kentucky to take charge and hopefully bring order out of the impending chaos there.
Above, former officer in the antebellum U. S. Navy and veteran of the Battle of Shiloh where he marched to the relief of Grant's struggling army on the first day of the battle, Bull Nelson, is seen in a retouched copy of his best-known likeness which adds the buttons and shoulder straps of a Major General to his Navy uniform. He is flanked by his principal subordinates at Richmond, Brig. Gen. Charles Cruft at left and Brig. Gen. Mahlon Manson at right. Nelson found little in the way of organized resistance at Lexington, target for Smith's advance, and hastily extemporized a force consisting mainly of green Indiana volunteer regiments under Manson; advancing south towards Richmond he found another force under militia general and local politician Cassius M. Clay, who Nelson replaced with veteran Cruft for the coming fight. Clay encouraged Nelson to use the line of bluffs along the Kentucky River as a defensive position, but Nelson instead marched on to Richmond.
Nelson positioned his infantry around the Rogers Farm, grandiosly known as "Rogersville"; the main house is now the visitor's center for the spread out Richmond Battlefields Park. Here Manson and Cruft encamped with their brigades of what was known as the Army of Kentucky while Nelson tried to locate the advancing Confederate force, about which he knew virtually nothing, thanks largely to the tiny cavalry force of only around a thousand men led by Rebel Col. John S. Scott.
Louisiana Col. Scott's veterans from Tennessee, Georgia, and Kentucky had been skirmishing for several days with an equally small force of mostly green local Kentucky Federal cavalry. From the small size of his force he was able to mask the true nature of his activities, convincing the Federals that he was merely another raider in the mold of Forrest and Morgan and therefore nothing serious for them to worry about. He was also armed with a section of tiny mountain howitzers like those pictured below in another location in Kentucky, and when the Unionists captured one of them in a skirmish they thought Scott was finished.
Capt. James P. Douglas' 1st Texas Battery attached to the division of Brig. Gen. Pat Cleburne, pictured above earlier in 1862 by Texan artist Andrew Jackson Houston, fired the first rounds of the Confederate army in the running battle of Richmond, August 30, 1862.
The battle fought in and around Richmond, Kentucky had its genesis earlier in the year 1862 beginning with the twin campaigns and battles fought on opposite sides of the Bluegrass State at Mill Springs or Logan's Crossroads and Forts Henry and Donelson just across the state line in northwestern Tennessee:
Fort Donelson, Tennessee, February 14-16, 1862 | South & Western Theaters
Part I - The Campaign Opens With a Union Victory at Fort Henry Large-caliber guns on barbette carriages like the 42-pounders above were the main armament of Confederate-held Fort Donelson, target for the first great Union campaign in the Western theater of the war in early 1862. Map by Hal...
civilwartalk.com
These Union successes were followed by the hasty evacuation of the state by Confederate forces which were reunited at Corinth, Mississippi, and soon engaged in the climactic Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee, April 6-7, 1862:
The Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee, April 6 & 7, 1862 | Shiloh / Pittsburg Landing
Don Troiani's Men of Arkansas! portrays Confederate commander general Albert Sidney Johnston mounted at right exhorting his men for another assault on the Federal lines during the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862. Johnston is brandishing a new tin cup taken from one of the overrun Union camps...
civilwartalk.com
This bloodbath was followed by a period of relative quiet for over a month as the Federal host, now under the direct command of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, slowly inched their way towards the vital rail crossroads and Confederate stronghold at Corinth. Forced to evacuate the town in early May, the Confederates withdrew south to Tupelo to consider their options. Meanwhile, Halleck was called to Washington, D.C. to assume direction of the entire Union war effort and his large army dispersed over a wide area under his subordinates Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell.
Buell, seen above at center in a period CDV, is flanked by his opponents, at left Maj. Gen. Edmond Kirby Smith, and at right Gen. Braxton Bragg. Buell's was tasked with leading his Army of the Ohio eastward along the track of the Memphis and Charleston RR to its junction at Chattanooga, repairing it as he went; this requirement slowed his advance to a crawl and provided an opening the Confederates were eager to exploit. Smith commanded a small detachment in Eastern Tennessee centered around Knoxville; exaggerated and overoptimistic reports from Kentucky reached him that the state was largely undefended and its citizens eager to embrace the Confederate cause. He therefore encouraged Bragg to join him in a joint invasion to "liberate" the neighboring slave state.
Map by Hal Jespersen, www.cwmaps.com
The map above indicates the position of Buell's scattered forces, as well as that of Kirby Smith at Knoxville and Bragg's Army of Mississippi arriving by train at Chattanooga. Unfortunately for the confederate cause, there was no overall commander to coordinate their independent moves, though at first this proved not to be a problem. Smith led his force north, bolstered by the loan of the division of Brig. Gen. Patrick Cleburne from Bragg's army, through the mountainous terrain of East Tennessee, skirting Cumberland Gap, sending the division of Carter Stevenson to seal off the Federal garrison there as the rest of his force of possibly 10,000 proceeded into Kentucky. Meanwhile Buell, blissfully unaware of Confederate moves, continued his own leisurely advance on Chattanooga, from which he was finally startled. He began to reorient the progression of his own divisions northward to cover the immense Union supply base at Nashville, sending who he believed to be his most reliable subordinate, Maj. Gen. William "Bull" Nelson, to Kentucky to take charge and hopefully bring order out of the impending chaos there.
Above, former officer in the antebellum U. S. Navy and veteran of the Battle of Shiloh where he marched to the relief of Grant's struggling army on the first day of the battle, Bull Nelson, is seen in a retouched copy of his best-known likeness which adds the buttons and shoulder straps of a Major General to his Navy uniform. He is flanked by his principal subordinates at Richmond, Brig. Gen. Charles Cruft at left and Brig. Gen. Mahlon Manson at right. Nelson found little in the way of organized resistance at Lexington, target for Smith's advance, and hastily extemporized a force consisting mainly of green Indiana volunteer regiments under Manson; advancing south towards Richmond he found another force under militia general and local politician Cassius M. Clay, who Nelson replaced with veteran Cruft for the coming fight. Clay encouraged Nelson to use the line of bluffs along the Kentucky River as a defensive position, but Nelson instead marched on to Richmond.
Nelson positioned his infantry around the Rogers Farm, grandiosly known as "Rogersville"; the main house is now the visitor's center for the spread out Richmond Battlefields Park. Here Manson and Cruft encamped with their brigades of what was known as the Army of Kentucky while Nelson tried to locate the advancing Confederate force, about which he knew virtually nothing, thanks largely to the tiny cavalry force of only around a thousand men led by Rebel Col. John S. Scott.
Louisiana Col. Scott's veterans from Tennessee, Georgia, and Kentucky had been skirmishing for several days with an equally small force of mostly green local Kentucky Federal cavalry. From the small size of his force he was able to mask the true nature of his activities, convincing the Federals that he was merely another raider in the mold of Forrest and Morgan and therefore nothing serious for them to worry about. He was also armed with a section of tiny mountain howitzers like those pictured below in another location in Kentucky, and when the Unionists captured one of them in a skirmish they thought Scott was finished.
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