The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home (7 page)

BOOK: The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home
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Morgan’s Lexington Rifles took active service first, though they would not be mustered officially into the service until November 7. The dashing young captain had quite an adventure just reaching Bowling Green. Indeed, he nearly precipitated an armed confrontation as far back as August 20, when he and his men determined to capture a shipment of “Lincoln guns” coming to Lexington for federal recruits. Only the intervention of John C. Breckinridge, still trying to preserve the neutral peace, prevented Morgan from fighting for the guns.

One month later to the day Morgan confided to his most trusted and reliable men that he would take them and their state-owned arms to the Confederates. They loaded their weapons in two wagons and, with seventeen men behind him, Morgan rode South. Behind him he had several of his men making a great noise in the Lexington Rifles’
armory to fool Union men into thinking the entire command was there. The next morning, the weapons safely out of town, Morgan returned to Lexington and gathered the rest of his men. That day the Union men decided to disarm the Lexington Rifles’ armory and were not a little surprised to find it empty. The ensuing debate eventually resulted in shooting, and by nightfall Morgan and his followers were on their way to the rendezvous near Bloomfield. From there, with Jackman and several hundred others in tow, he made his way to the camps at Green River. Immediately upon arrival, Morgan was attached to the regiment then forming under his uncle, Thomas Hunt, and began at once to operate mounted patrols. For months he and his small band of mounted scouts forayed deep into the state’s interior, sometimes even in the guise of federal soldiers. Four and five times a week he went on his missions, sometimes riding over sixty miles in twenty hours or less. It was exciting duty, and hazardous in its way, suiting exactly the temperament of this romantic on horseback. A fellow Kentuckian at this time described Morgan as being of “a mild and unassuming demeanor, gentle and affable in his manners, handsome in person, and possessed of all that polish of address which is supposed to best qualify men for the drawing-room and parlor.” Yet “no enterprise, however dangerous, no reconnoissance, however tiresome and wearying, could daunt his spirits or deter him from his purpose.” Here was the
beau sabreur
ideal.
4

As for his men, they were of the same stripe as all Kentucky soldiers—hard-fighting, independent, and a bit wild. His men were known to “requisition” blankets and other odd items from the local citizens regardless of political persuasion, sometimes even taking things of no real consequence. One local complained to Morgan that his men stole his thermometer. Embarrassed, Morgan began consigning offenders to the guardhouse, which quelled the problem until the case of the “coffee boiler.” One “mess,” or group of about a dozen men who cooked and ate together, had plenty of coffee but nothing but an open kettle in which to boil it. This allowed most of the flavor to escape in the steam. Tinware was so scarce that a good pot or “boiler” could not be purchased. Worse, perverse Fate had set a fine brightly polished coffee boiler on a farmer’s workbench next to his smokehouse, and within sight of camp. “No doubt the demon of temptation was urged on by the ease with which the covetted article might be captured,” lamented one of the mess. It was easy enough to purloin the treasure, but how to
keep the farmer from thinking the soldiers had done the deed? “The fear of being caught deterred us for several days,” he recalled, but Kentuckians were nothing if not innovative. They had dug several holes in the clay near their tents to act as water retainers. Unused now, they were filled with leaves. The boiler, someone suggested, could be hidden in one of these until the inevitable camp search was completed.

On the appointed night, one of them, made a “coffee-boiler scout,” successfully captured the prize in the dark, and immediately buried it in a hole. Then for over a week the men kept quiet, awaiting the search. It never came. Eventually the mess brought forth their treasure from the hole and examined it for the first time in the light. The bottom was burned out. It was absolutely useless. Now the men had another problem. Not only did they have to keep the theft a secret from their superiors, but also from their fellow soldiers, who would jeer them mercilessly. It was not to be. Even while they tried hastily to reinter the utensil, the word spread through camp. Soon and thereafter they were known as the “Coffee-boiler Rangers.”
5

Morgan was not the only cavalry forming in and about Bowling Green. While he patrolled to the north, a genuine mounted regiment, to be designated the 1st Kentucky Cavalry, was aborning. Theirs was a rigid discipline. Company drill in the morning, regimental drill in the afternoon, brigade drill on Friday, inspection on Saturday, and leisure hours occupied with saber drill and fatigue and guard duty. To any onlooker it was obvious that this regiment was in the hands of a professional. Those hands happened to belong to the brother-in-law of the President of the
United
States, Colonel Benjamin Hardin Helm.

He was just barely thirty years old, the son of Governor John Helm of Kentucky, and connected with one of the oldest and most prominent families of the Bluegrass. A cadet at Kentucky Military Institute, he obtained an appointment to the U. S. Military Academy at West Point and graduated ninth in his class in 1851. He served only a year in the cavalry before resigning due to ill health, and thereafter practiced law in partnership with Martin H. Cofer, served a term in the legislature, and then took his place with Buckner in organizing the State Guard. In April 1861 President Lincoln offered Helm a position as paymaster in the United States Army with the rank of major. It was a hard decision for Helm. Five years before he had married Emily Todd, sister of Mary Todd Lincoln. Helm and Lincoln were close, dear friends. Through the maze of conflicting loyalties, however, he
saw the way he must take. To his brother-in-law he said no. Then, with an endorsement from Magoffin that claimed “some of the best blood of Ky. flows in his veins,” Helm offered his services to the Confederacy. On October 19, 1861, he received his commission as colonel and orders to organize the 1st Kentucky Cavalry.
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While these horsemen trained at Bowling Green, the infantry regiments continued forming. With the 2d, 3d, and 4th regiments organized, the next in line was the 5th Kentucky, or so it would seem. In fact, without planning to, the Confederacy shortly found itself blessed with two 5th Kentucky infantries.

On October 1 Thomas Hunt surveyed the unorganized companies in and around Bowling Green, and six days later, with a colonel’s commission in his pocket, he started forming his regiment. There were four companies in camp, among them the newly arrived Bloomfield contingent and the still-weary John Jackman. With them, Hunt established Camp Warren, created a camp guard, acquired a kettle drum and a Professor François Gevers to play it, and began the drill. The men stayed in wall tents with good wooden floors, seven men to the tent and one blanket among them. “The boards at first seemed pretty hard sleeping,” wrote Johnny Green, “but it was not long before we looked back upon these comforts as princely luxuries.” One luxury none of them recalled fondly, however, was Hunt’s order to pull up all the ragweed within the camp limits. “Actual soldiering is so vastly different from ideal soldiering,” lamented Jackman.

Hunt shortly relocated his camp to Russellville, where another three companies joined, as well as several more drums. At reveille each morning the field band marched through the streets of town. “The noise was sufficient to wake the Seven Sleepers,” thought Jackman, but the men drilled the better for it. Better drilled, perhaps, but not entirely happy. For now they slept on the ground, and it was wet. The “Citizen Guards” of Louisville, Johnny Green’s company, had enjoyed quite some distinction at Bowling Green for the luxury of their habitations. A jealous Johnny Jackman recalled, “They had wall tents scalloped and fringed and … they even had up lace curtains.” There had been rugs on the wooden floors, and even a dresser or two. But when the move to Russellville came, Hunt emphatically denied transportation to carry all the boards for the tent floors. “Then the ‘cussing’ began,” wrote Jackman. It “volleyed and thundered” all through the company. One of the “ringleaders” in the profanity was young Johnny
Green. He, too, was beginning to find soldiering a bit less fun than he expected.
7

By late November Hunt returned his men to Bowling Green. It was said that he knew every man in his command by name, and as well an estimate of each man’s pluck and stamina. It is not surprising, for this colonel took unusual care to look after his men. The last day’s march into Bowling Green was in mud and pouring rain. Drenched, the men foraged for straw to spread beneath their tents. When Johnny Green returned to his tent he sank down on the ground and could not rise the next morning. He had measles. Hunt sent him to the hospital in town, and personally accompanied him to assure the very best accommodation and treatment.

Hunt’s regiment did not muster regulation strength yet, but he still entered them formally into service. From the War Department in Richmond, Virginia, came orders designating his command the 5th Kentucky Infantry temporarily, pending enlistment of the remainder needed to fill the regiment. But then arose a problem. Some days before, on November 14, another regiment of Kentuckians reached regulation size and formally organized. Since the War Department’s designation for Hunt’s command was only an interim measure, awaiting completion of his regiment, it was now deemed proper that this new regiment should have the permanent appellation of 5th Kentucky. By the time Hunt was up to strength the next available number was 9th Kentucky but, for unknown reasons, Hunt did not receive that order for a full year. Thus, until October 1862, there were two Confederate regiments of infantry called the 5th Kentucky.
8

This new 5th Kentucky was cut of the same cloth as the other regiments at Bowling Green. Its colonel was John S. Williams, called “Cerro Gordo” thanks to his Mexican War service, a balding, mutton-chopped, overweight fellow marvelously adept at lauding his own achievements. His regiment was formed largely of companies from the eastern part of the state, the men furnishing their own guns. Some were hardly men. Jimmie South of Company D stood tall for his age, lied, and enlisted at fourteen. So did Johnny Foster of Company B. He was thirteen.

Like many other companies in these regiments, the men of the 5th Kentucky often had quite a time leaving home, and quite a time afterward. Hiram Hawkins provided a good example. “I was among the first to raise the standard of rebellion in eastern Ky,” he boasted
proudly. Gathering several men along the way, he led his own former State Guardsmen to Prestonburg and there established the first recruiting camp in the area. He took command, and soon filled and armed several companies, many of them with fine Enfield rifles. But then Williams appeared on the scene with authority from Richmond to muster Hawkins’ men into service as a regiment, and Hawkins began to perceive that there was no place in the regiment for him, after all he had done. He resigned as camp commander and tried to raise a mounted company to act as cavalry, but Williams would hear none of it. Frustrated again, Hawkins finally entered himself and his men as private soldiers. He did not stay down for long. Three days later his men elected him captain of their company, and on November 14, when the 5th Kentucky formally organized, the regiment voted almost unanimously to elect him major. Thus was patience, and ambition, rewarded.
9

Still Kentucky could offer enough of her sons for one more regiment. When Buckner entered Kentucky he ordered Joseph H. Lewis to establish a camp at Cave City in Barren County, thirty miles northeast of Bowling Green. At the same time Buckner authorized Martin Cofer to recruit, hoping that both men would raise enough men to form two additional regiments. They proved energetic. On September 20 Lewis established his camp and three days later issued the obligatory broadside addressed “To the Public,” in which he set forth the wrongs done to southern men in Kentucky. Lincoln was as corrupt and despotic as the Austrian or Russian monarchs, he declared. “Where is the honor of Kentucky” that her people should stand idle in their subjugation? Their only hope was to unite and show that they would defend themselves. “Then let every man come to the camp,” he concluded. “Come at once. Delay is sure destruction.”

This Lewis was a handsome fellow, blue-eyed, fair-complected, nearly six feet tall. He was a native of Barren County, and would turn thirty-seven while enlisting his men in October. He practiced law professionally until 1857, when he made an unsuccessful bid for Congress, then ran again in 1861, not expecting to win, but hoping to raise southern sympathies by publicizing his view of the issues. It worked. Defeated for office, he still won enough support to start the enlistment of several hundred men for his regiment. It was a support that his temperament alone might not have earned for him, for Lewis was not the friendliest of men. Ed Thompson said he was “as far removed from
obsequiousness as any man living.” Outwardly he displayed a scornful nature, irascible, begrudging, sometimes offensive. Once having made an enemy, he rarely did anything to heal the breach. Yet within lurked a compassionate, caring man, ever solicitous of the welfare of his men, one of those natures that, in spite of themselves, win the undying loyalty of those who follow.

Through late September and into October the recruits appeared. In some cases Lewis even sent agents to lead them out of Louisville. Cofer worked at his enlistments as well, but neither, by mid-November, produced enough men to organize regiments. Another compromise seemed in order. Lewis and Cofer agreed to consolidate their commands, just as Trabue did with some companies of his 4th Infantry, and on November 19 they formally organized the 6th Kentucky. Eight days earlier Lewis was commissioned its colonel, and Cofer lieutenant colonel. On November 27 Cofer consolidated the last two companies, defeating “the expectations of one or two men who had expected office.” Still, as in almost every case in the formation of these Kentucky regiments, the idea of compromise for the good of the command took precedence over personal ambitions. Certainly the spirit of Henry Clay did not entirely go to dust with him.
10

BOOK: The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home
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