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Updated: July 14, 2025
A great battle might be fought any day. In fact, it was reported that Bragg had already abandoned Bardstown and was marching in the direction of Danville or Harrodsburg. “I don’t like it at all,” said Morgan. “Our generals have already let the golden opportunity pass. But there is still hope. With the armies of Bragg and Smith united, they should be strong enough to give battle and crush Buell.”
The enemy retired from our front the night of the 8th, falling back on Harrodsburg to form a junction with Kirby Smith, and by taking this line of retreat opened to us the road to Danville and the chance for a direct march against his depot of supplies at Bryantsville.
They laid themselves to the siege, and so briskly they maintained it that there was no rest for the little garrison of only ten able-bodied men, nor was there any chance for succor from Harrodsburg or Boonesborough. Within less than a week the ammunition was almost spent, and the food alarmingly low.
Among the most celebrated pioneers of the West, was General George Rogers Clark, who, at the time we are now writing of, bore the rank of Major. Anxious for the protection of the Western settlements, he was already planning his celebrated conquest of the British posts in the northwest. He first came to Kentucky in 1775, and penetrated to Harrodsburg, which had been reoccupied by Colonel Harrod.
At this meeting of the legislature, the first open expression of discontent was voiced in the "Harrodsburg Remonstrance," questioning the validity of the proprietors' title, and protesting against any increase in the price of lands, as well as the taking up by the proprietors and a few other gentlemen of the best lands at the Falls of the Ohio.
"Yes," continued Abe, helping himself also the mellow date-plums, "his legs are so sound now that he is able to go to every frolic in the country for miles around, and dance all night. He's going to the Quartermaster's now, to get a horse to ride to a dance and candy-pulling at that double log-house four miles down the Harrodsburg Pike.
There was, no doubt, plenty of surveying to be done there, since the whole country was an uncharted wilderness, but the beginning of the Revolution was accompanied by an immediate outbreak of Indian hostilities, so serious that the very existence of the Kentucky settlements was threatened. Soon all but two of them, Boonesborough and Harrodsburg, had to be abandoned.
At Harrodsburg they found the land court open, and thronged with an eager, jostling crowd of settlers and speculators, who were waiting to enter lands in the surveyor's office. Even the dread of the Indians could not overcome in these men's hearts the keen and selfish greed for gain. Clark instantly grasped the situation.
Not being satisfied with the location of the settlement, they followed the Ohio to the mouth of the Kentucky River and ascended the Kentucky to a spot now known as Oregon Landing. Being fatigued from their long and difficult voyage, they left their boats and took a course from the river and found a big spring at which they built a stockade on the present site of Harrodsburg.
Without delay we passed through Springfield and Bardstown, crossing the Louisville and Nashville Railroad at Lebanon Junction, thirty miles from Louisville, on the evening of the 6th. At Springfield two companies of about ninety men were sent toward Harrodsburg and Danville to occupy the attention of the Federal cavalry in that quarter.
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