“The Civil War in Kentucky” is a 10-part series recently published in my Journey Log entitled “Surrounding Fort Knox, including Southern Indiana.” It deals primarily with the Central Kentucky Theater. I present it here as a series of individual blogs for my readers. Links to the previously published chapters will be provided at the end of each blog. Look for them on each Saturday morning! (A link to the book and its Table of Contents is found here.)
In late 1861, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman commanded the Department of the Cumberland which included the entire width of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He was faced along his long defensive line by three Confederate Armies led by a greatly admired veteran whom the Confederates thought their most experienced General, Albert Sidney Johnston.
Sherman was terrified. And so he came to West Point, at the junction of that East-West series of barrier rivers that we collectively call the Salt River [Rolling Fork, Beech Fork, Chaplin, and Salt Rivers], and the mighty North-South River system piercing the sought-to-be Southern Confederate Nation, the Ohio River. Command West Point, and you can command traffic on all of those waterways and run supplies in or out.
There was, however, another important reason to command West Point. The critical road artery between Nashville and Louisville, the Louisville and Nashville Turnpike, came down Muldraugh Hill at West Point and ran right through the community. So Sherman came to West Point to secure it.
Sherman would arrive in Kentucky around September 17, 1861, assigned at that time as Second in Command to General Robert Anderson, a native of Kentucky and Union hero of the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter. Anderson wouldn’t last long as Kentucky’s Union Commander.
Earlier, on September 9, 1861, a Union Command had been sent out from Louisville south along the Ohio River. They camped on the north side of the Salt River at West Point. As they were crossing the river, a Confederate cavalry company rode down Muldraugh Hill on the Louisville and Nashville Turnpike. The Confederates immediately attacked the Union soldiers who had earlier crossed the river and had set up around Young’s Tavern in West Point. The skirmish was sharp, and a surprise to both sides. Shortly thereafter, each force retired, Union forces back across the Salt River, with the Confederate Cavalry retreating back up Muldraugh Hill.
It was obvious that this place needed to be protected. Now in complete command of the Department of the Cumberland, Sherman sent in five regiments to build a fort. He sent them up nearby Pearman Hill, a majestically high and isolated knob of Muldraugh Hill where cannons could control movement along all three routes of passage. The Salt River, the Ohio River, and, most importantly, that Louisville and Nashville Turnpike that the Confederates were already probing.
The Union forces built a glorious fort, so preeminent that the Confederates never tested it [although Confederate Cavalry Raider John Hunt Morgan approached it several times!]. You can drive and hike up within it today. Fort Duffield, it is called, after the Union Colonel who constructed it. And the knob is now called “Fort Hill.” The remaining Civil War earthworks are some of the finest in Kentucky. Go see it and you will feel the importance of West Point in the Union defense of the Commonwealth of Kentucky at this location.
General Sherman would soon suffer a “nervous breakdown,” facing Confederate forces imagined by him to be larger than in reality existed. You can still walk with him on the streets of West Point in a state of mind that his accusers described as “crazy.” Try to understand how such a capable warrior could be relieved of command, only to return to do battle alongside Ulysses Grant in Shiloh, go on to capture Atlanta and break the back of the Confederacy, cleaving it in two by his “March to the Sea.”
At West Point, Sherman set up his headquarters in a local home, the Mabel Lake House. Mabel Lake was the great-granddaughter of Enoch Boone [one of Squire’s sons and nephew of Daniel].
The City of West Point does an excellent job of identifying and highlighting its history. Go to the local museum and ask historian Monie Matthews about Sherman’s activities in the city [his predecessor, Richard Briggs, was exceptionally prolific in West Point research and publication]. You will learn something many Civil War scholars don’t report on.
West Point, however, would not see significant Civil War battle activity. Its location was important and logistical. West Point’s history reflects what it takes to move a giant Army through the region, preparing it to fight the enemy. As such, West Point and the hills that surround it were frequently the focus of Confederate guerilla activity.
On November 15, 1861, Mexican War Veteran Union General Don Carlos Buell replaced William Tecumseh Sherman as Commander of the Department of the Cumberland. Then, in February 1862, Union General Ulysses S. Grant captured Confederate Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River in Western Kentucky. With Nashville now exposed to attacks by Union gunboats, Commanding Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston was forced to abandon Kentucky and Nashville, retreating south into Mississippi.
Buell quickly followed, seeking to link up with Grant’s force on the Tennessee River north of Corinth, Mississippi on April 6 and 7, 1862. At Shiloh Church, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnson attacked Grant’s Army in the Battle of Pittsburgh Landing.
Sherman would reestablish his reputation in that battle, Albert Sidney Johnston would be killed, and another esteemed Mexican War veteran, Confederate General Braxton Bragg, would execute a massively daring logistic “miracle,” moving his entire Army by trains, boats, and overland to circle around the Armies of Grant and Buell and reach Chattanooga unimpeded. The invasion of Kentucky was on, and the North, embarrassed by Bragg’s maneuver, sent Buell out from Nashville, trying to catch him.
Previous Chapters
Chapter 1: The History of the Civil War in Kentucky
Chapter 2: Surrounding Sherman and Grant
Chapter 3: William Tecumseh Sherman in Kentucky
Chapter 4: Civil War Camp Nevin and Nolin Station
Life and Landscapes Blog Site is at www.vanstockum.blog/lookin
www.facebook.com/reggievanstockum
www.instagram.com/reggievanstockum
www.vimeo.com/reggievanstockum
www.youtube.com@reggievanstockum1097
#reggievanstockum #reggiesrealm #kentuckyauthor #lifeandlandscapes #kentuckycivilwar
Copyright 2024 by RVS all rights reserved
Discover more from Life and Landscapes®
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
No Comments