HISTORY.Mill.Springs.Wayne.Pulaski

The following info is taken from "The Battle of Mill Springs Historical
Record"  A special publication of Boy Scout Troop #79 to commemmorate the
Battle of Mill Springs - August 1994

"Following Zollicoffer"
Scouts learn history of Confederate general during trek of reopened trail

"......... Zollicoffer, a native Tennessean and descendant of Swiss
nobility, had been a successful Confederate general, even through he was an
outspoken advocate of preserving the Union.  His career as a newspaper
editor and his involvement in the Whig Party had led to his election to the
US Congress, where he served three terms.

When Tennessee seceded from the Union in June 1861, Zollicoffer was
commissioned a brigadier general in the Army of Tennessee.  Despite the
limited resources of his 4,000 troops, he managed to score impressive
victories, including wins at Cumberland Gap and Knoxville.

In November 1861, Zollicoffer and his troops settled in for the winter at
Mill Springs and set up defensive positions on the other side of the
Cumberland River at Beech Grove.

By mid-January, knowing that Union troops were approaching from Lebanon and
Somerset, Zollicoffer planned to surprise them.  Some historians say he
almost pulled it off.

At around midnight on Jan. 18, the general led his men north from Beech
Grove in a gentle rain.  But the weather worsened.  Road conditions were
near impossible, and by dawn they had only traveled about 10 miles when they
encountered the Union troops of Gen. George Thomas.

A fierce storm raged throughout the three-hour battle.  Heavy rain and fog
made for poor visibility.  And, according to some accounts, the matter was
complicated by the fact that some of the Confederate soldiers were dressed
in blue, the color of the Union uniforms.

The most accepted account of the incident has Zollicoffer, whose uniform
indistinguishable under his long trench coat, mistakenly riding up to the
Union line and instructing what he thought were his troops to be careful not
to shoot their own men ("Friendly fire" was evidently a concern even then.)

The Union officer, Col. Speed Fry, at first did not recognize Zollicoffer
as his enemy and verbally responded to the general's warning.  But some of
Zollicoffer's men, recognizing that their leader was in danger, opened fire
on Fry, who in turn shot and killed Zollicoffer.

The story goes that Union soldiers attempted to rob the general as he lay
mortally wounded, but his Union counterparts stopped them.  Zollicoffer was
leaned up against a tree, and there he died.  The tree has since been
dubbbed "The Zollie Tree" and stands just a few feet from the mounument made
from Tennessee limestone. (The Zollie tree was destroyed in a storm a few
years ago.  We were lucky enough to be able to see it about a year before
the storm went through.)

(The monument was erected around 1911, and the park was established by
Pulaski County in 1931.  There have been efforts afoot to incorporate it
into the national cemetery.)  [This would be Mill Springs National Cemetery
at Nancy, KY.]

Confederate troops, tired and hungry, retreated back toward the river,
dropping artillery and supplies as they went.  Even today, there is evidence
of their trek.  One report says that two bronze cannons fell into the river
and have been sited by local fishermen in the old river bed under 200 feet
of water. .........."

"A Union look at the battle"

(Editor's Note--The following article, titled "The Battle of Mill Springs"
was published in the March 8,1862 edition of "Harper's Weekly."  Paragraphs
have been added to the story to make it easier to read.)

"We publish herewith a plan of the Battle of Mill Spring, Kentucky, fought
on 19th January, and won by Generals Thomas and Schoepff.  The following
interesting letter explains the plan:

HEAD-QUARTERS TENTH REGIMENT INDIANA FOOT VOLUNTEERS, MILL SPRING, 
FEB. 7,1862.
Dear Sir,--We left Lebanon on the 31st day of December, and marched to
Campbellsville;  from there we made a forced march to Greensburg, twelve
miles, in less than four hours, and returned the next day in about the same
time.  The expedition turned out to be a goose chase.

On or about the 7th we started for Columbia, where we arrived in two days.
After resting three or four days we struck tents and started for
Zollicoffer's intrenchments.  After some six or eight days' hard traveling
we arrived at Logan's Cross Roads, where the fun commenced.

Friday afternoon we sent out as pickets Company A, Captain Hamilton;  at
night Company E, Captain Carroll, and Company G, Captain Hogiland.  About
twelve o'clock that night the enemy's pickets and Company E met and
exchanged shots;  the regiment was in less than five minutes in line of
battle, but as the enemy retreated we retired to bed again.  The next
morning Company C, Captain Boyl, and Company D, Captain Joseph F. Taylor,
were sent out to relieve Companies E and G.  During Saturday nothing
important occurred.

At night Company H, Captain Perkins, and Company K, Captain Shortle,
relieved Company C and D.  During the night, which was very stormy, every
thing was quiet.  At six o'clock Sunday morning Captain Perkins came in and
reported every thing quiet.  Hardly had he got away from the tent when one
of Wolford's calvary rode up and said our pickets were firing.   The long
roll was instantly beat, and the boys started at double-quick;  the
regiments took the position marked (2). which they held until the enemy had
completely outflandked us. (There is a small map with the article.  This
position would be a short distance south of where the Somerset and Jamestown
Roads forked.)

We fought over 300 for over half an hour.  We then retreated to (3) [This
would be back North toward Somerset on the Somerset Road]  In the mean time
the Fourth Kentucky came up.  We then pushed forward to (4) [Due south
through the woods parallel with the road], with the Fourth Kentucky at our
right (8) [This is about where the Somerset and Jamestown Roads forked.].
We fought here for nearly an hour, when finding the enemy's calvary trying a
flanking movement on us, we moved, by General Thomas's order, to (5) [This
would be to the west of the Fourth Kentucky and just a little ways northwest
of their first position.], where we fought desperately at least an hour.

At this time Colonel Manson saw that the enemy were again trying a flank
movement ot our right;  ordered that McCook should bring his men to our
relief.  The Second Minnesota (9) [They were located down the Jamestown
Road.] moved forward and took position at (10) [This was on the east flank
of the Fourth Kentucky and was to the east of position 4 once held by the
Tenth Indiana.]  , trom thence  fo4rward to (11) [This would be in a south,
southeast direction into what appears to be a farm field.], driving the left
flank of the enemy in.  The Ninth Ohio (12) [They were located to the west
of where the Second Minnesota had been waiting.] came up and drove the right
flank in.

Our regiment then went forward to (6), when Colonel Kise ordered "Charge
bayonets!" which was done with a will, and every thing went before us.  Our
next position was at (7) [This was across the Road and at the edge of the
trees in a southeasterly direction.];  it was here that the old Tenth did
the best execution with the guns they received while in your town.  At the
little house you see marked at the left of (7) Company E, Captain Carroll,
killed twenty-one men.  We fairly mowed them down in that open field.

The Ninth Ohio (13) [They were to the west of Tenth Indiana's last
position] was carrying on the same kind of business on the other side of the
road.  The order was again given to charge bayonets, which was done by the
Tenth Indiana and Ninth Ohio in splendid style.  Secesh was now completely
played out, and they all struck for their den.   The double-quick we
practiced so much at Bardstown was no comparison to theirs;  in that respect
they are much better drilled than we.  We followed them, occasionally giving
them a shell to hurry them up a little.

At about 4 o'clock we arrived within shelling distance of their
intrenchments, and commenced giving them a few;  but night coming on we
decided to rest.  We had started off in the morning before breakfast, and
had eaten nothing all day.  We received a few crackers, and the boys laid
themselves down on the damp ground (it had rained all day).  In the morning
Whitmore's battery was ordered up to shell a steamboat which we saw crossing
the river.  We shot with two Parrot guns a distance of about two miles.  We
however had shot but a few times when we noticed the steamer on fire.

Our regiment, together with the Tenth Kentucky, Fourteenth Ohio, and fourth
Kentucky (Manson's Brigade), were then ordered by General Thomas to take
possession of the intrenchments.  The Tenth Kentucky, Colonel Harlan, was
the first to enter, the Fourteenth Ohio next, and then came ours.  We found
every thing left.  Horses stood saddled and bridled;  teams were hitched up;
the horses wee standing attached to the cannons; officer's trunks were found
strewn on the bank of the river.

We took about 2000 head of horses and mules, 250 wagons, 14 cannon, two of
which were captured by them at Bull Run, some 4000 or 5000 stand of arms,
and any number of flags.  Company E, Captain Carroll, captured three silk
flags;  Company H, Captain March B. Taylor, one silk flag.

You have seen it reported in the papers that Colonel Fry and Zollicoffer
had some conversation, and that Fry shot Z.  This is a great hoax.
Zollicoffer was shot three times;  the ball that killed him was from an
Enfield rifle, and entered his heart.  The shot was fired by Corporal James
Swan, of Company H, who is a dead shot, and the same person who shot the man
one night in the shoulder while in your town.

I am, Judge, very proud to be in the Tenth Regiment, and also very proud of
the officers.  They are all very brave.  Colonel Kise and Major Miller can't
be beat any where.  Colonel Manson was the hero of the day, and managed
every thing in splendid style.  We lost but one officer, Lieutenant M'Adams,
who was shot in the forehead and killed instantly.  Lieutenant Johnson was
wounded in the left arm slightly.  Some of the men were wounded, and after
having their wounds bound up went into the field again.  At one time we were
so close to the enemy that we bayoneted them through the fence.  The
Mississippians were armed with immense knives, which they intended using on
us, but our bayonets outreached their knives."


PVT. THOMAS C. POTTER ALSO WRITES OF THE DEATH OF GEN. ZOLLICOFFER
LETTER DESCRIBES BLOODY MILL SPRINGS BATTLE

Pvt. Thomas C. Potter, Bettery B, 1st Ohio Light artillery, wrote his
sister a letter detailing action in the Battle of Mill Springs.  Included in
the leter was a description of the death of Gen. Zollicoffer.

Boy Scout Troop 79 used the artillery soldier's letter as the theme for
their October 23,1993 hike.  At the trek, a Civil War cannon was displayed
as were shells recovered from the battle.  The patch for the hike honored
Pvt. Potter.

The letter is in a private collection in North Carolina and is presented
here without correction:

Somerset, Ky. January 24,1862
Dear sister i have a few monments to spare and i must be brief.  we are
ordered to march tomorrow for tennessee.  i am in good health and hope that
this will find you the same.  you must not be concerned about me.  if you do
not hear from me very often for we have not got our pay yet and i am out of
postage money.  i suppose you have heard of our late battle in which the
noted rebel General Zollicoffer was shot through the heart and was left on
the field.  they made the attack on us last sunday morning about 7 o'clock
am about 6 mile from his camp.

the engagement lasted about 2 hours and 40 minutes when the enemy retreated
in great confusion leaving everything behind, the ground was literally
covered all the way to the camp with muskets, sabres, blankets, knapsacks,
haversacks, canteens, cartridges, horses and everything that they could
throw away to facilitate their escape.  We followed them to their camp and
played upon it with shot and shell from 16 pieces of artillery from three pm
until dark when we lay by our pieces until daylight when we went into their
camp and found that they had all crossed the river leaving 14 pieces of
artillery, a large lot of ammunition, several hundred baggage wagons and
about 3.000 horses and mules, all of their camp equipage, a large lot of
commisary stores, provisions and clothing.

Their camps were on both sides of the river and covered a space of ten
square miles and there was tents and barracks enough for 25,000 men.  this
they have strongly fortified but they left it without doing any damage.  Our
loss is about 80 killed and up to the present our troops have buried 350 of
the rebels.  i was within rods of Zollicoffer when he fell and cut three
butttons off from his coat.  one of these I sent to Wm. and another to
father.  i have several things that i would send to you but i have not got
the means.  i must close.  our battery was the first on the field and took
the advance and our piece (no 1) fired the shot that was thrown from a
cannon at the long to be remembered battle of logans field.  Our piece took
the extreme advance and i loaded it 117 times but i must close.  write to me
often.  direct as before this from your brother, Thomas Corwin Potter.

Potter also enclosed a captured Confederate envelope featuring Jefferson
Davis' picture and the Grenada rifles of Mississippi and noted "this
envelope found at enemy's camp at Mill Springs on 20th January 1862."

Potter died Sept. 21, 1863, of wounds received due to premature discharge
of his cannon at the Battle of Chickamauga, when both of his arms were shot
off.


MILL SPRINGS AND THE WAR

Gen. Felix Zollicoffer arrived at Mill Springs with his Confederate troops
on November 29, 1861.

The general wrote after his arrival, "The surrounding county was fertile
and well stocked with pork, corn, beef, hay and horses, abundant and cheap."

Headquarters were set up at the West-Metcalf house, a mile from the mill.
Boats were rapidly constructed and a large number of troops were crossed
over by December 9, 1861.  Huts were constructed in the Beech Grove area to
protect the troops against inclement weather.


(NOTE:  All informaton on this page was taken from the Oct. 28,1910 edition
of "THe Somerset Times" but has been edited and redesigned for space
purposes.  Speeches are presented in their entirety.)

THE SOMERSET TIMES
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28,1910

MONUMENT TO GEN. ZOLLICOFFER WAS UNVIELED BEFORE THOUSANDS

Last Saturday at Zollicoffer Park--Thousands of People Present at
Dedication Exercises--Many Brilliant Addresses Made by Distinguished Man

On last Saturday, at Zollicoffer Park, nine miles west of Somerset, Pulaski
County, KY., there was dedication of a monument to the memory of Gen. Felix
K. Zollicoffer, who was killed at the head of his men at Mill Springs
battle, Jan. 19,1862, one of the earliest conflicts of the Civil War.

At the same time was dedicated a slab to the brave men of Tennessee,
Mississippi and Alabama, who fell in the same conflict.

Gathered on this former bloody battlefield were hundreds of people, some
actual participants in the fight, and most of the others their descendants.
They looked with interest at the historic places and all stood at sometime
during the day under the tree by which the Confederate leader fell.

In the presence of two score or more silvery-haired men of the gray and the
blue, an acre of the younger generations of Kentuckians, and two daughters
of the dead hero of the Confederacy, little Eliza Bennett Young at noon drew
the string which unveiled the stately monument to the memory of Gen. Felix
K. Zollicoffer on the spot in the wilderness where he fell while in command
of the Southern forces at the battle of Fishing Creek.

The occasion was most marked by the honor done by the bent and worn members
of the Grand Army in commemoration of the soldiers of the South who once had
opposed them in conflict.  Beautiful and touching were the addresses made to
the 2.000 assembled persons by those who cast lots with the Southland and
those who bore arms in defense fo the Stars and Stripes nearly fifty years
ago.

SOMERSET IN GALA ATTIRE
Somerset experienced a gala occasion Saturday that surpassed even
Decoration day celebration which is the annual event looked forward to by
the people of Pulaski county.

Vehicles of all descriptions, from rubber-tired runabouts drawn by blooded
troter to the heavy springless farm wagon by a team of four mules, were
drawn in the middle of the square and at 8 o'clock the parade  started.  It
was acutally a two-mile parade, a long line of conveyances filled by chilled
men, women and children, for the sky was partly clouded and a frosty wind
blew down from the hills.

Upon arrival of the participants and visitors it was found nearly two
thousand people from all sections had gathered and were eagerly awaiting
the beginning of the program.

The monument had been viewed the day before by Mrs. V. K. Logan, of Nancy,
and flags were floating from the speakers stand and near by trees.  The
exercises were opened by the playing of "Dixie."  When the first few bars of
the song of the Old South were cast upon the air, the tune was drowned for
the moment by the wild, spontaneous cry of a hundred old defenders of the
Southern cause, who were scattered about here and there in the packed 
audience.

Following the prayer, Judge O. H. Waddle, who was chairman of the exercise,
made the first address, in which he took occasion to introduce to the crowd
General Bennett H. Young, the speaker of the day.  Judge Waddle spoke as
follows:

"Ladies and Gentlemen:  Standing here today so peacefully, invoking the
divine blessing, we can hardly realize that within the memory of a great
many of us this place was the battlefield of war fiercely waged among the
people of the same country, whose form of government had secured to them the
freest, the happiest and most liberty loving country on earth;  a war in
which neighbor was arranged against neighbor, friend against friend and
brother against brother.

"But as it was once the scene of the carnage of war and hatred all are here
now to dedicate it to peace and love and beside the bones of the heroes who
fell in battle on both sides, to bury the last vestige of hatred engendered
by that fearful struggle, so far as this part of the country is concerned.

"In the war that make these exercises possible both side fought for what
they believed to be right;  for pinciple as they saw it, and while the
arbitrament of arms have long settled the questions involved, it is meet and
proper that we should be here today to respect the memory of those who fell
in defeat, because by so doing, we not only honor the dead and cheer the
living by our example teach the observance of patriotic duty and devotion to
princlple.

HERE YEILDS HIS LIFE
"Under that majestic oak, whose spreading branches overhang the spot made
sacred as the receptacle of human blood, gloriously and honestly shed, Gen.
Zollicoffer yielded his life, a sacrifice to principle, and amid the roar of
canon and musketry his blood mingled with the blood of Bailey Payton and
other unknown sons of the South whose memories are no less sacred because of
their unmarked graves.

"I am gratified to see in this presence many of the  survivors of those who
wore the blue and the gray.  Standing together in common brotherhood  to
alike honor the friend and foe in that fearful struggle, because it attests
that their experience taught them that both sides, as honest men, bared
their breasts to the grape and cannister in discharge of what they believed
to be patriotic duty.

"Then let us all, without respect to what we may have believed was the
right that brought on the struggle, join in the sentiments of peace and law
and while honoring the memory of the dead, bring ourselves into closer
relations, cement ourselves in a common brotherhod for the peace, prosperity
and happiness of our common country.  And while we mingle our tears over the
mistakes of the past, let there be no discordant note in our songs of the
future.

MUST NOT FORGET LIVING
"While we honor the departed in the dedication of this monument to their
memory, let us not forget that it is better to decorate the lives of the
living than the graves of the dead and so live and conduct ourselves toward
each other than universal brotherhood and peace shall never depart from us
and this beautiful land of ours, dotted with peaceful and happy homes,
become again scarred by the results of war, so that when we shall have to
depart from the great battlefield of life, defeated in the grim struggle
with death, we can go hand in hand into the peaceful realms of that eternal
home prepared by the loving Father of all."



TEXT ON THE MONUMENT AND MASS GRAVE MARKER

ZOLLICOFFER MONUMENT
"On this spot fell Gen'l Felix K. Zollicoffer of Tennessee, Jan. 19, 1862.
Lieuts. Bailie Peyton, Fr., H. M. R. Fogg and  more than 150 of their
Confederate associates in the Battle of Fishing Creek here died with Gen'l
Zollicoffer for right as they saw it. They are part of the great host who
crowned Southern manhood with glorious immortality.  They gave their lives,
the noblest of offerings, at duty's call, and fame will ever point with
pride to their sacred place where these heroes now so peacefully sleep."

MASS GRAVE MARKER
"Beneath this mound rest in sleep that knows no waking, more than one
hundred Confederate soldiers from Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama who
were killed in the Battle of Fishing Creek, Jan. 19, 1862.  We know not who
they were, but the whole world knows what they were, but they fill heroes'
graves, and glory keeps ceaseless watch about their tomb."


Contributed by: Diana Flynn <ivie@tima.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997