The Confederate Retreat from Kentucky

October 17, 1862

Morgan never forgave Bragg for retreating after the Battle of Perryville feeling Bragg had behaved as a coward in abandoning the citizens of Kentucky to the ghoulish Northern troops. Morgan and his men remained in Bardstown as Bragg turned tail and ran for the safety of Tennessee.

J. Russell Butler’s 3rd Kentucky and D. Howard Smith’s 5th Kentucky were positioned at Mershon’s Cross Roads near Wild Cat Mountain and charged with covering the Confederate Army’s retreat. [i]

Northern troops marched southward from Louisville.

“As we passed through Louisville in our new uniforms and bright guns with old glory waving at our front the animosity of the secession women was seen by their slurring remarks, about our being Lincoln's hirelings. It so angered Lt. Stebbins that the answer he gave one of them sent her flying into the house."

~ Hiram H. Martin, 29th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, Co. G [ii]

October 18, 1862

Union General Charles Cruft’s Brigade encountered the 1st and 3rd Tennessee and 3rd and 5th Kentucky as they came down Winding Blade Road. A skirmish ensued and the Confederates were forced to retreat from Mershon’s Cross Roads toward Raccoon Creek.[iii]

October 20, 1862

Back in Cox's Creek, Morgan's Confederate Calvary captured a Union supply train consisting of 51 loaded and 31 empty wagons.[iv]

“All but three wagons were destroyed or so badly damaged as to be deemed worthless. Confederates also killed a sick teamster, shot three Federal prisoners, and stole soldiers’ money from plundered mail. Morgan’s depredations provoked the commander at Louisville to keep loaded trains in the city rather than risk having them fall into Rebel hands.”[v]

November 1, 1862- February 28, 1863

James Edward Evans was absent without leave from Capt. H. C. Myres’ Co., Butler’s Regiment, 3rd Kentucky Cavalry.[vi]

Did James, like many other Kentuckians, wished only to fight what he considered the Federal invasion of his native soil? Did he refuse to leave Kentucky? Did James become separated from his Company during the retreat form Mershon’s Crossroads? Did he choose to leave his unit for personal reasons? Did he despair and head for home when faced with freezing weather, lack of food and lack of shelter?

There simply isn’t enough evidence to determine what motivations were in play. Official records are woefully scant. The following is the first and only roll of Company I of the 1st/ 3rd Regiment Cavalry, Kentucky Volunteers.

“Roll of Company I, First Regiment Cavalry, Kentucky Volunteers, Confederate States Army, Reorganization – Consolidated First and Third Regiments

#27 Evans, J. Rank Private, When Enlisted Sep 10, 1863, Where Enlisted Lexington, KY

NOTE: The only roll of this company on file is dated November 1, 1862 to February 28, 1863.”[vii]

Further, it is possible that James Edward Evans may not have been absent at all! The roll may be in error. James may have been transferred to another Company and/or Regiment within the Department of Eastern Tennessee as the Confederate Cavalry began reorganization.

November 1862

The Confederate Cavalry was formally reorganized.

Col. Butler’s 3rd Kentucky Cavalry became an unattached unit under the Department of Eastern Tennessee. Included in this Department was Pegram’s Brigade. [viii]

“The Kentucky Cavalry had been increased, and on the first of November, 1862, Morgan’s cavalry brigade, then in east Tennessee, showed the following organization: Second Kentucky, Col. B. W. Duke; Seventh Kentucky, Col. R. M. Gano; Eight Kentucky, Col. R. S. Cluke; Eleventh Kentucky, Col. D. W. Chenault; Ninth Kentucky battalion, Maj. W. C. P. Breckinridge; Howitzer battery, Captain Arnett. The Ninth battalion, united with Stoner’s battalion, was later raised to a regiment, and its commander became a colonel. The Seventh, Eight, and Ninth regiments had been recruited during the late campaign in Kentucky, and another, the First Kentucky regiment, recruited and reorganized by Col. J. Russell Butler, was temporarily assigned to Colonel Scott’s brigade.”[ix]

History isn't neat and simple. Multifaceted and highly complex, our past is full of surprises, twists, and fascinating subplots. The subplots of the winter were varied: Pegram’s Cavalry leadership or lack there of, Colonel Scott’s open disregard for Pegram, John Hunt Morgan’s instable need for self-aggrandizement. These petty annoyances would simmer all winter, boiling over by spring with disastrous results for James Edward Evans.

ENDNOTES
[i] “War of Rebellion, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies” Washington: Government Printing Office 1890 Vol. 16 II, p. 971.
[ii] Martin, Hiram H. "Service Afield and Afloat: A Reminiscence of the Civil War," ed. Guy R. Everson, Indiana Magazine of History 89, no. 1, March 1993, p. 38.
[iii] Hafendorfer, Kenneth A. “They Died By Twos and Tens” 1995 p. 834-835 and 838-839.
[iv] Smith, Z. F. “Kentucky History” pages 193-194.
[v] Taylor, Lenette S. “ The Supply for Tomorrow Must Not Fail,” 2004, p. 87.
[vi] Compiled Military Service Record for James Edward Evans
[vii] McDowell, “The Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kentucky”, Civil War, Confederate, Vol. I p. 528 – 530.
[viii] Hafendorfer, Kenneth A. “They Died By Twos and Tens” 1995 p. 863.
[ix] Johnson, J. Stoddard. “Confederate Military History of Kentucky, Kentucky During the Civil War”, 2006, Chap 15, p. 121.

Perryville

The Battle of Perryville, sketched by Mr. H. Mosler[i]

“The South was holding on to an ideology that was more traditional. The North represented change. Corporations, commerce - not bad things - but different things and change was a threat.”[ii]

September 20 - October 3, 1862

General Braxton Bragg moved to occupy Bardstown, establishing his headquarters at Edgewood, the house our family knows as the home of Dr. Harry Spalding.[iii]

“Bragg was courageous, and at times imaginative, resourceful, and bold. But he was never patient, either with his men or with the enemy, and he lacked that imperturbability and resolution so necessary in field commanders. Handicapped by poor health, he had no real taste for combat. And he was not lucky. Nor did he have the ability to inspire confidence in his subordinates. Notoriously inept at getting along with people he disliked, he simply could not win the loyalty of his chief lieutenants. He lacked what has been called the common touch. By training and by preference a regular army man, contemptuous of volunteers and a democratic military establishment, he was unsuited to lead an army composed overwhelming of individualistic citizen-soldiers. A mediocre tactician, he seemed unaware of the technological changes that had outdated pre-war assault tactics and strengthened the advantages of defensive combat.”[iv]

The war was had become a part of the daily lives of Southerners. Even women, who were expected to refrain from political arguments and public speaking, publicly lent their pens and voices to the support of the war.

"I was never a Secessionist, for I quietly adopted father's views on political subjects without meddling with them. But even father went over with his State, and when so many outrages were committed by the fanatical leaders of the North, though he regretted the Union, said, ‘Fight to the death for our liberty.’ I say so, too. I want to fight until we win the cause so many have died for. I don't believe in Secession, but I do in Liberty. I want the South to conquer, dictate its own terms, and go back to the Union, for I believe that, apart, inevitable ruin awaits both. It is a rope of sand, this Confederacy, founded on the doctrine of Secession, and will not last many years - not five. The North cannot subdue us. We are too determined to be free. They have no right to confiscate our property to pay debts they themselves have incurred. Death as a nation, rather than Union on such terms. We will have our rights secured on so firm a basis that it can never be shaken. If by power of overwhelming numbers they conquer us, it will be a barren victory over a desolate land. "

~ Sarah Morgan Dawson[v]


October 1862

J. Russell Butler’s 3rd Kentucky and D. Howard Smith’s 5th Kentucky regiments occupied Lexington.[vi]

James Edward Evans had become a member of the 3rd when the 1st was reorganized.

“3rd Cavalry Regiment was organized during the summer of 1862. In October the 1st Kentucky Cavalry Regiment merged into this command and at times was called the 1st (3rd) Kentucky Cavalry. It was assigned to Buford's, T. Harrison's, J. W. Grigsby's, J. S. Williams', and J. H. Lewis' Brigade, and skirmished in numerous actions in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia. Later the unit was active in the Atlanta Campaign, the defense of Savannah, and the campaign of the Carolinas. It surrendered with the Army of Tennessee in April, 1865. The field commanders were Colonel J. R. Butler, Lieutenant Colonels Jack Allen and Jacob W. Griffith, and Major J. Q. Chenoweth.”[vii]

“The 1st Kentucky Cavalry was mustered into service in October 1861, under the command of Col. Benjamin H. Helm. By the summer of 1862 its numbers were so depleted that it was reorganized and parceled out to other Kentucky regiments. At this time, Gibson Taylor--a 3rd lieutenant in the 1st Kentucky--was transferred into the command of John Hunt Morgan, under whom he was ‘noted for gallant and meritorious conduct.’”[viii]

October 3, 1862

Confederate General Braxton Bragg vexed with the scant numbers volunteering, sought a means by which he could conscript the unwilling male population of Kentucky into his army. Bragg hastily orchestrated the inauguration of Richard Hawes as the Provisional Governor of Kentucky in the occupied state capitol of Frankfort. The plan was foiled when a celebratory dinner after the ceremonies was interrupted by the approach of Union cavalry and artillery. The Provisional Government was again forced into exile in Tennessee.

October 4, 1862

Buford’s Brigade, along with the 3rd and 5th Kentucky Calvary regiments, was ordered to Versailles.[ix]

Meanwhile, General Whereton's Confederate Calvary, including Captain John Hunt Morgan's "Lexington Rifles" engaged the advance guard of Union General Don Carlos Buell's army at Bardstown. Buell's forces were driven back towards Louisville. Three days later, an Indiana regiment was surrounded and forced to surrender.

“They were about four miles from us when we heard of them Col Wharton ordered us forward immediately in a gallop We very soon made the distance and found them sure enough Their cavalry, four regiments —about two thousand— drawn up in line of battle in an old field and immediately across the road. Their infantry and artillery was on the left. My company was in the advance we charged them immediately without forming they let us get within ten steps of them and then turned loose a volley right in our faces this did not stop us a second we gave a yell you could hear for miles and run over and scattered them in every direction. This was the most complete victory I ever saw we killed forty or fifty of the enemy without the loss of a man. This was very strange considering we were fighting hand to hand. I captured a good horse and enough blankets for Ans and myself all the winter.”

~ M. A. Harvey, Company B, 8th Texas Cavalry[x]

Much needed rain was falling at last, slowing the Union troops marching along Bardstown Road and the path of Cox’s Creek.

“On October 4, Gilbert’s corps turned eastward. Sheridan’s division marched onto a muddy and slippery Bardstown Pike, skirmishing and marching through the rain to support Crittenden in case the Confederates decided to fight for the town, while others moved up Cox’s Creek parallel to the Pike.”[xi]

October 5, 1862

Buford’s Brigade now contained 2,000 cavalrymen and was composed of Butler’s 3rd Kentucky Regiment, H. Smith’s 5th Kentucky Regiment, and Grigsby’s 6th Kentucky Regiment.

When the 3rd and 5th arrived in Versailles, James Edward Evans and his comrades were ordered to patrol roads leading north-west toward Frankfort, and westward toward the Kentucky River.[xii]

“Union troops were in possession of our house and had ordered my mother to prepare a meal for them. She appeared to obey, and took me and a negro woman to the outdoor kitchen and from there escaped through a window, and the three of us spent the night in hiding, in a turnip field.”

~ Ella Johnson[xiii]

October 7-8, 1862

The Battle of Perryville began as a skirmish over a few precious pools of much needed water.

“For months, a severe drought affected the area. As Union and Confederate forces maneuvered around Perryville, both man and horse suffered intensely for want of water. Only stagnant pools were available for the thousands of thirsty soldiers. After the Union army left Louisville, some of the first casualties were caused by this dry, hot weather. One Union colonel wrote, ‘Today we passed two men laying on the roadside having died from sunstroke . . .’ The heat was unbearable, and Perryville’s Chaplin River was nearly dry.

On the night of October 7, the Southerners moved an advance unit of Arkansas troops between the dried waters of Bull Run and Doctor’s Creek, located west of town. When Union forces reached the area, a reconnaissance mission proved that small pools of water were available in Doctor’s Creek. The Union command ordered the water, and the heights overlooking it (called Peter’s Hill), secured. At 3:00 a.m. on October 8, Federal troops under Brigadier General Philip Sheridan moved on Peter’s Hill, driving back the Arkansas soldiers. The Battle of Perryville had begun.

On October 8, 1862, Watkins and 18,000 Confederates clashed with 20,000 Union troops on the hills outside of Perryville. Nearly 7,500 soldiers were killed and wounded in Kentucky’s largest Civil War battle. The Confederate failure to attain a decisive victory kept Kentucky in Union hands for the remainder of the war, stands as the High Water Mark of the Confederacy in the Western Theater, and marked the last major incursion of Confederate forces into the Commonwealth of Kentucky.” [xiv]

“Such obstinate fighting I never had seen before or since. The guns were discharged so rapidly that it seemed the earth itself was in a volcanic uproar. The iron storm passed through our ranks, mangling and tearing men to pieces… Our men were dead and dying right in the very midst of this grand havoc of battle."

~ Private Sam Watkins, CSA

The aftermath of the battle brought forth only greater chaos. Both Southern and Northern leadership crumbled.

While the Confederates had driven the Union off and were now in control of the coveted water supply, Braxton Bragg was deeply rattled by the loss of so many lives. In his report Bragg reflected:

“For the time engaged the severest and most desperately contested fighting within my knowledge.” [xv]

In dismay over their failing invasion of Kentucky, Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby Smith began a retreat into Tennessee.

U. S. General Don Carlos Buell was replaced by Gen. William Rosecrans.

“[It] makes one feel sad to think of such men being sacrificed amid the horrors of the battle field; and if such a noble army as is now in the field had only all learned that all wars and fighting are wrong and freedom the inalienable right of all, these scenes would never have been and doubtless this country remained a united people.”

~ Letter written by Sophia Jones, a young Quaker [xvi]

ENDNOTES
[i] Harper’s Weekly, November 1, 1862
[ii] "For God and Country: The Role of Religion in the Civil War" An Online Chat With Author Michael Aubrecht http://www.civilwarhome.com/religionincivilwar.htm
[iii] Hibbs ,Dixie “ Bardstown: Hospitality, History and Bourbon,” Chap. 3, pages 75 -76.
[iv] McWhiney, Grady. “Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat,” Volume I 1969.
[v] Dawson, Sarah Morgan. “Confederate Girl's Diary,” page 32.
[vi] Hafendorfer, Kenneth A. “They Died By Twos and Tens” 1995 p. 553.
[vii] NPS records http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/
[viii] Thompson, Orphan Brigade, p. 996.
[ix] Hafendorfer, Kenneth A. “They Died By Twos and Tens” 1995 p. 665.
[x] Letter from M. A. Harvey to his niece Eva, University of Notre Dame Rare Books and Special Collections http://www.rarebooks.nd.edu/digital/civil_war/letters/harvey-ma/
[xi] Noe, Kenneth W. “Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle,” 2001, p. 121.
[xii] Hafendorfer, Kenneth A. “They Died By Twos and Tens” 1995 p. 667.
[xiii] Johnson, Ella“ Grandma Remembers” 1928
[xiv] Historic Perryville Official Web Site http://www.perryville.net/
[xv] OR , Volume XVI/1, S22 Series I
[xvi] Letter written to Mary Bettle by Sophia Jones, University of Notre Dame Rare Books and Special Collections, http://www.rarebooks.nd.edu/digital/civil_war/letters/bettle/

Enlistment

“When Jeff Davis, President of the Confederacy, was on his deathbed, he was asked by his wife what he would have done differently. He replied, “I would like to have been a cavalryman.’ ”
~Steven Woodward [i]

September 3, 1862

Leading a triumphant parade before a large and welcoming crowd, John Hunt Morgan returned to Lexington, Kentucky. Morgan was in his glory.[ii] He enjoyed nothing as much as basking in public acclaim. At 6’0”, 180 pounds, Morgan was considered quite handsome. His charismatic personality had a charming affect upon those in his company.[iii] Women fawned over him. Little boys longed to be Morgan, “the Thunderbolt of the Confederacy.” Childhood friends gathered to toast his return. Morgan had come home a hero.

Lexington, the town in which Morgan had been a businessman and militia leader prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, was also the home of his beloved mother. Thus, the homecoming was an emotional reward for the recently widowed Morgan.

Yet, not every Kentuckian was thrilled to learn of Morgan’s return. Abraham Lincoln fretted over the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. The war continued to weigh heavily upon his mind. Thus Lincoln, along with his secretaries Nicolay and Hay, felt compelled to write "Meditation on the Divine Will" in which Lincoln mused:

“The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God can not be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party—and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say this is probably true—that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere quiet power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds."

September 10, 1862

The ungodly heat of the long drought was wrecking havoc on Nelson County. Food and water were in short supply as crops withered and streams ran dried.[iv] These vexations combined with the oppression wrought by the Union occupation of Bardstown brought tensions to a boil. Local boys, mostly Southern sympathizers, were ripe for Confederate recruitment, most of them longing to ride with their idol, John Hunt Morgan.

“I want to be a cavalryman, and with John Hunt Morgan ride,
A Colt revolver in my belt, a saber by my side.
I want a pair of epaulets to match my suit of gray,
The uniform my mother made and lettered CSA.”[v]

Upon learning of Morgan’s return, my 2nd great grandfather, James Edward Evans quickly rode 60 hot and dusty miles to Lexington, Kentucky to proudly enlist with Company E, First Kentucky Cavalry, CSA for a period of three years. At 21 years of age, he would soon discover the agonizing reality underlying the glamorous myth of the Southern Cavalryman.

Brigadier General Abraham Buford enrolled James just as the enlistment period of the original members of the First ran out. This caused a reorganization and James became a member of J. Russell Butler’s 3rd Kentucky Cavalry.[vi]

General Buford was also a native of Kentucky. A member of a prominent family, Buford had attended West Point, and then made a name for himself as an officer during the Mexican War. Nevertheless, he did not fit the image of a dashing cavalryman. An older, very large gentleman, Buford weighed 320 pounds. He was hardly the figure one could envision astride a galloping horse! By the time Civil War erupted, Buford was long retired from military service and living quite contentedly as a breeder of horses and cattle near Versailles, Kentucky. Publicly, Buford had maintained a position of neutrality until Bragg and Kirby Smith invaded. Slipping quickly back into uniform, Buford was commissioned Brigadier General on September 2, 1862.[vii]

“In September 1862, Confederate General Braxton Bragg begins his Kentucky Campaign. The First Kentucky arrives with Forrest in Munfordville, Kentucky rounding up prisoners, from the battle of Munfordville. When Bragg arrives at Bardstown, Kentucky, Forrest is sent back to Tennessee to form another command. The First Kentucky Cavalry was assigned to Confederate General Joe Wheeler at the battle of Perryville (Oct. 7-8, 1862) and the First Kentucky is now commanded by Major Caldwell. In either October or November, the First Kentucky’s one year enlistment is up and the First Kentucky reorganizes. Col. J. Russell Butler is now made commander of the First Kentucky Cavalry, and in January 1863, The First Kentucky is assigned to General Buford.”[viii]

James was not the only son of the Evans’ Family to enlist. John B. Evans, the James’ eldest brother, had graduated from the Medical University of Louisville in 1860[ix]. During the year of 1861, John served as an assistant in the State Dispensary at Louisville. With the war now at the families’ doorstep, John was also compelled to join the Confederate States Army, enlisting on September 12, 1862 at Perryville, Kentucky.

John Evans began his military career as a private soldier in Capt. Logan's company of Col. Grigsby's command, which was attached to the First Confederate Cavalry under General Joseph "Fightin' Joe" Wheeler. Quickly finding success, John became a commissioned surgeon and earned the rank of Major. [x]

“Gypsie Lee Cosby Jones, the author of ‘Reflections in the Wind/Reliving a Memorable Era in Northern Madison County,’ vividly remembers the story of her grandfather, Oliver Welch Cosby, and his three brothers riding off in September 1862 to enlist in the Confederate Army and all of them being assigned to the 11th Kentucky Cavalry under Morgan’s command. “The recruitment at Foxtown was extremely exciting with the regiment drilling to the rapid beat of a fife and drum beating out the tune of Dixie in the warm October sun,” Oliver Cosby told family members. One day, making popcorn in an old iron skillet, he remarked to 5-year-old Gypsie, “The sound of the popcorn popping was like the sound of the bullets.”[xi]

Bragg was disappointed with the scant number of Kentuckians volunteering for Confederate service.While many Kentuckians harbored Southern Sympathies, they feared reprocussion should they openly express those sentiments. Enlistments fell far short of the numbers Morgan had predicted. Entire wagon loads of guns, sent to arm the Kentucky volunteers, returned South for lack of a taker.[xii]

“Their hearts are evidently with us, but their blue grass and fat grass [grass fed cattle] are against us.”
~ Edmond Kirby Smith reflecting on the failure of Confederate recuritment effort in Kentucky

ENDNOTES

[i] Woodward, Steven, Texas Christian University, in a speech given at BGES Morgan Raid Symposium June 13, 1998
[ii] James A. Ramage, James A “Rebel Raider” chap. 11, p. 121.
[iii] Tennessee History Classroom, “The Murder of john Hunt Morgan,” http://www.vic.com/tnchron/class/JHMorgan.htm
[iv] Gregory, Matt and Xedos, Rick “Geology and the Civil War” http://www.uky.edu/AS/Geology/webdogs/civilwar/index.html
[v] Frank G. Rankin “Saga of Morgan”
[vi] Compiled Military Service Record of James Edward Evans
[vii] Sifakis, Stewart “Who Was Who In the Confederacy,” Volume II of Who Was Who In the Civil War p. 41.
[viii] Bush, Bryan S. “The Civil War Battles of the Western Theatre,” 2000, p. 175.
[ix] U of L Medical School Alumni Data Base
[x] Perrin, Battle, and Knifflin: “Kentucky: A History of the State” 4th ed., 1887, Marion County; McDowell “Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kentucky, Civil War” Vol. II Confederate Alphabetical list of Commissioned Officers pages 254 -255; Watkins, Drs. Elizabeth and Dwight G. “Morgan’s Light Brigade” Alphabetical Roll of Morgan’s Old Division Through 1863 pages 234 -235.
[xi] Deimling, Paula. “John Hunt Morgan Rides Again,” Kentucky Living Magazine, August 2004.
[xii] Harrison, Lowell H. “The Civil War in Kentucky,” 1975, p.75/