The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home (5 page)

Born on New Year’s Day in 1824 in Columbia, Kentucky, Trabue came of one of the oldest families in the Bluegrass. He went to Mexico in a regiment of Kentucky volunteers and returned in 1848 a captain. He was a lawyer by profession, and in the decade before the outbreak of the Civil War he settled in Mississippi. Yet, when sectional war became a certainty in the dark early days of 1861, he quickly obtained authorization to return to his native state and raise a regiment. Having formed that resolve, he would not be thwarted now by the conflicting loyalties and ambitions of a lot of excess officers. “Colonel Trabue was entirely too shrewd a man to allow these objections to disturb him,” recalled a man of the regiment-to-be. “Once get enough men into camp and he would very soon organize his regiment.” A master of tact, Trabue ignored the problem for a time. Then he moved quietly among the officers, speaking soothingly of the manner in which the cause might best be served, reminding them that there would certainly be opportunities for advancement as the war progressed. He found other places for those most disappointed. The policy worked. Trabue combined the demicompanies smoothly, with as few ruffled military plumes as possible. Indeed, some managed their consolidation even without “Old Trib,” so completely did his diplomatic spirit of compromise capture Camp Burnett. When William Blanchard led his minicompany into camp, Thomas Thompson, languishing in his own
understrength, learned of it, and the two “captains” got together. Between themselves they agreed that Thompson would take the captaincy of their combined companies, dividing the remainder of the new company positions equally between the officers of their two squads. On August 30, 1861, the men of these companies of Trabue’s, many of them still forming, mustered into the Confederate service. Two days later they organized officially the 4th Kentucky Infantry.
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While the foot soldiers slowly learned the routine of Army life, another branch of the service appeared. Edward P. Byrne, a native of Kentucky, lived in Mississippi when South Carolina seceded. At once he decided to raise and equip a battery of artillery for the Confederate service. Going to Memphis, Tennessee, he contracted with the foundry firm of Quinby & Robinson to produce for him four bronze six-pounder field pieces, which he paid for from his own pocket. He bought the finest horses and harness, and every other piece of equipment for the contemplated battery was of the best to be had. While awaiting the manufacture of the cannon, he went on to Louisville early in April and met with Withers and Bob Johnson, then recruiting the 2d Kentucky. Byrne hoped to take his battery to Charleston but now, learning of the surrender of Fort Sumter, he proposed that he attach his command-to-be with the Kentucky troops. The proposition accepted, Byrne began recruiting quietly. After the others left to plot Camp Boone, he stayed in Louisville for a time, assisting in sending recruits and supplies South. It was no simple task, for federal agents carefully watched the depot of the Louisville & Nashville for any sign of war material being sent to the Confederacy. The agents had armed men at their command, but were prevented from actually stopping recruits and their baggage by the crowds of relatives and southern sympathizers who thronged about the departing trains. Any attempt to interfere with their leaving would have resulted in violence.

This work done, Byrne himself returned to Mississippi early in July and recruited for his battery. By the beginning of August three of his six-pounders arrived and enough Mississippians to handle them so that he could move to Camp Boone to complete the formation of the battery. Here, near the state line, he filled his numbers with Kentuckians and began training.
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Turning these raw boys and men into soldiers was a task to match the best efforts of the men in command. Supply was the most immediate and long-continuing problem, despite the constant smuggling of
clothing and equipment across the line from friends in Kentucky. When Byrne reached Camp Boone he came well equipped with tents, wagons, blankets, and everything else required for his men. But he found many of those already in camp nearly destitute of things, among them blankets. He sent word of the situation to the ladies of his hometown in Greenville, Mississippi, and they promptly forwarded five hundred pairs of woolen blankets, many of them taken from their own beds, enough to provide for most of the men of the 2d Kentucky alone.
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Clothing and food presented less of a problem than medical supplies, but the Kentuckians brought good doctors with them. Dr. B. M. Wible came from Nelson County to be surgeon for the 2d Kentucky. He organized the hospital at Camp Boone on August 1. Within a week the infirmary tents filled with twenty-nine cases of measles and one of typhoid. The latter would occur from time to time thanks to foul water, but the measles remained an ever-present scourge in this Army. In training camp men were, often for the first time, exposed to large numbers of others. Relatively few Americans of the time contracted measles in childhood, thereby building immunity. Now as adults they made fair game for the far more virulent strains that could kill hundreds, if not thousands. On August 10 Dr. Wible recorded seventeen new cases of rubeola during the past week. The next day fourteen new cases came into the hospital from the 2d Kentucky alone. At any one time during the latter part of the month he had at least thirty-two cases. From the 2d Kentucky, during the final three weeks of August, Wible admitted 127 patients. Of that number, 113 were for measles. Among them was young Rice E. Graves of the 2d, regimental adjutant, a particular favorite with the regiment. Unlike many others, he would recover, to be heard from in the days ahead.

Other dangers besides measles threatened. In at least one case a Kentuckian apparently fell susceptible to his own weakness. For all the blue blood in the 2d Kentucky, there was a little red-blooded male in them all as well. It must have been too much for poor Private Henry Self of Company K. Perhaps he brought it from Kentucky, or maybe he found it with one of the ladies who must inevitably have done business near Camp Boone. On August 12 Dr. Wible entered poor Self into the hospital and diagnosed his case as syphilis. Here for the next month Henry suffered treatment, the regiment’s first casualty to the battle of the sexes.
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Wible did not last long here, leaving in September after a disagreement with the colonel of the 2d Kentucky, but he left behind an efficient, well-organized, and well-fed hospital. Not so, alas, the Camp Boone armory. From the very day the camp began, arms supply ran short. Of course, many of the Kentuckians brought their own rifles with them, particularly former members of the State Guard—excepting the honorable Captain Nuckols. But still there existed a great shortage of long arms. When Mr. Scott of Hopkinsville visited the camp in July, there were about 700 men, only one fourth of them armed. By the first week of August it was far worse. With 2,500 men in camp, Colonel Bob Johnson believed there were not more than 120 muskets available. The lack of guns was not for want of trying.

Kentucky’s position of neutrality caused the major problem. Just as Nuckols regarded Guard arms as state property that he was not free to take into the Confederacy, so did Governor Magoffin share that opinion. Consequently, the governor repeatedly tried to recover state arms taken to Camp Boone. As early as July 19, learning that three boxes of rifles had been misdirected to Camp Boone, Magoffin’s Secretary of State, Thomas B. Monroe, told Withers to send them back. Aware of the tense situation with the state still neutral, Monroe cautioned to “have them returned quietly, so as to avoid any unnecessary excitement about the matter.” Withers inaugurated a practice of returning state-owned arms brought South by his recruits, and continued to do so. On July 20 a number of Kentuckians brought out of the state to Union City, Tennessee, a lot of muskets and a full field battery of artillery. Withers declined to receive the arms, a policy seconded by the Confederate Secretary of War. Hoping eventually to lure Kentucky into joining the Confederacy, they could ill afford to antagonize the state while neutral. A wise course diplomatically, perhaps, but one not calculated to aid in arming the Kentuckians at Camp Boone.

Even while authorizing Withers to raise another regiment of infantry, the Confederate War Department told him to return any arms belonging to the state of Kentucky. To Withers this seemed incongruous, to say the least. Writing a few days after the Confederate victory at Bull Run, he affirmed his hope that “it will be in your power to arm them.” He could provide everything needed except guns. Several companies now formed would not be received into the Confederate Army if not armed, and they would “be greatly disappointed.” Governor Isham Harris of Tennessee took Withers’ case, declaring it was “a
matter of importance, if not of absolute necessity, that the Kentucky regiments, under command of General Withers, at Camp Boone, on the Kentucky line, should be armed at the earliest moment practicable.” He needed the regiments to guard the border of the two states, particularly because of the strong Union sentiment in much of Tennessee, “but without arms of course they are useless.” “If you can arm the brigade at Camp Boone,” wrote Harris in mid-August, “I can take care of Middle Tennessee.”
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By this time only Byrne’s battery was fully armed, with three of his bronze cannon in hand, and a requisition in for two twelve-pounder howitzers. Yet even Byrne found trouble, for Quinby & Robinson delayed in delivering the fourth six-pounder. They finished the gun, but refused to send it, complaining that they needed it instead to complete an order from the Confederate Government. Bob Johnson had to write to Major General Leonidas Polk, commanding in Memphis, to try to get Byrne’s cannon sent, and eventually it was.

Johnson also lent a hand to arm the men of his regiment, the 2d Kentucky. Probably without Withers’ knowledge—for surely he would have disapproved the action—Johnson ordered Phil Lee to select one hundred men and cross the line into Kentucky, going as far as possible. There Lee was to disarm any of the Union Home Guard that could be found and take their rifles back to Camp Boone. Lee left on August 20 with his command, among them Rice Graves, now out of the hospital.

The raid began auspiciously. Lee captured a train and boarded his men. They steamed toward Bowling Green, sixty miles northeast of Camp Boone. There several companies of Home Guard camped along the railroad, and these Lee hoped to capture. Unfortunately, word of his coming preceded him, and the Union men abandoned their posts. By the time he approached Bowling Green, Lee had not seen one Home Guardsman. He could not afford to leave his captured train and pursue them. Consequently, rather dejected, Lee retraced his course to Camp Boone, empty-handed. He found small consolation in having had the honor of leading the first Confederate raid into Kentucky.
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Another such raid proved more successful, though at some cost spiritually. When Trabue organized his regiment, he argued that it must have a chaplain, and shortly produced a parson. “As he was up to Col. Trabue’s idea of tastefulness in manner and dress,” wrote one of the Kentuckians, “he was quickly installed as the spiritual advisor of the
jolly Fourth.” The new chaplain performed his duties in a brick church at Camp Burnett, then filled with measles cases.

It was a trying place, the 4th at the time being a “gasted measely old regiment,” and the parson did double duty as a nurse. “I suppose he got along creditably enough,” wrote John Weller, “consoling the poor homesick boys with their flushed and speckled faces, with now and then a case of typhoid pneumonia thrown in to keep the congregation down to a proper regard for the trying situation.” If the parson encountered Henry Self and his syphilis, poor Henry probably got more sermon than sympathy.

Thus engaged, some time passed before the chaplain arranged for his first sermon. With the Sunday’s approach, he made great preparations for an impressive ceremony. The church being occupied, he selected a spot under a stately oak near the officers’ tents. There, at 2
P.M.
on the appointed day, the 4th Kentucky gathered around the tree, minus a detachment from Company C. The chaplain took his place under the oak and commenced preaching. The audience stayed respectively attentive until a great shout arose some distance away on the road leading toward Kentucky. “The congregation rose as one man, and fled toward the joyful sound,” recalled one of the boys.

The shout came from the detachment of Company C. A few days earlier they stole into Kentucky to capture a field piece known to be nearby. Sure enough they got it, and now in triumph they brought the gun into Camp Burnett. “The capturing party were nearly idolized,” said Weller, “and were heroes grand in our estimation.” After a time, in ones and twos the men started back toward the oak, the Sabbath exercises forgotten with the excitement of the cannon. “Nothing but the oak stood to greet us.” The parson was gone, silently taking his leave from an uncouth lot that preferred cannon to canon. “Though he may have packed his clothes and tendered and had accepted his formal resignation,” said Weller, “I am satisfied none of the Fourth ever heard of him again.” It was a long time before the regiment got another parson.
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Right now guns were more important than preachers. By mid-September, after months of pleading and cajoling and thieving, a respectable number of the Kentuckians held arms, though a motley variety of calibers, rifles, muskets, and shotguns. It was not before time, either. Events in Kentucky progressed quickly while her sons trained and organized at Camps Boone and Burnett. While Magoffin continued to try
to maintain neutrality, Confederate sympathizers violated it covertly, and the Union men did so in the open. When Magoffin asked Lincoln to have a federal recruiting camp removed to Ohio, the President declined. Thanks to the heavy Union majority in the legislature, Confederate men in the state held ever more tenaciously to neutrality, seeing in it the only alternative to Kentucky joining hand-in-hand with the Federals. Any possibility of secession was out of the question.