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Updated: June 22, 2025
When the Confederates, about September 1, 1861, invaded Kentucky, they stationed General Pillow at the strongly fortified town of Columbus on the Mississippi River, with about six thousand men; General Buckner at Bowling Green, on the railroad north of Nashville, with five thousand; and General Zollicoffer, with six regiments, in eastern Kentucky, fronting Cumberland Gap.
The State Legislature was in session at Frankfort, and was ready to take definite action as soon as General Anderson was prepared, for the State was threatened with invasion from Tennessee, by two forces: one from the direction of Nashville, commanded by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and Buckner; and the other from the direction of Cumberland Gap, commanded by Generals Crittenden and Zollicoffer.
General Crittenden, the Southern commander-in-chief in this section, had intrenched himself at Beech Grove, in Pulaski County, on the north side of the river, east of Mill Springs. Zollicoffer commanded under him, and the battle was fought by him. His position was fifteen miles south-west of Somerset.
He was embarrassed for transportation, and I authorized him to hire teams, and to move his whole force nearer to his advance-guard, so as to support it, as he had information of the approach of Zollicoffer toward London.
Two or three days after the battle letters were received from different members of the Second, claiming that they had shot Bailie Payton and Zollicoffer. It afterward was learned that no one ever knew who shot Peyton, and that Col. Fry of the Fourth Kentucky shot Zollicoffer. Lieut. Tuttle captured Peyton's sword and still has it in his possession. This sword has a historic record.
On the nineteenth of January, one wing of General Buell's army, under General Thomas, had defeated the secessionists near Somerset, in the southeastern district of Kentucky, under General Zollicoffer, who was there killed. But in that action the attack was made by Zollicoffer and the secessionists.
Within a few days, several items of interesting information reached Halleck: that General Thomas, in eastern Kentucky, had won a victory over the rebel General Zollicoffer, capturing his fortified camp on Cumberland River, annihilating his army of over ten regiments, and fully exposing Cumberland Gap; that the Confederates were about to throw strong reinforcements into Columbus; that seven formidable Union ironclad river gunboats were ready for service; and that a rise of fourteen feet had taken place in the Tennessee River, greatly weakening the rebel batteries on that stream and the Cumberland.
I continued to strengthen the two corps forward and their routes of supply; all the time expecting that Sidney Johnston, who was a real general, and who had as correct information of our situation as I had, would unite his force with Zollicoffer, and fall on Thomas at Dick Robinson, or McCook at Nolin: Had he done so in October, 1861, he could have walked into Louisville, and the vital part of the population would have hailed him as a deliverer.
Such victories would clearly limit our capacity to acknowledge Southern independence, as it was limited from the defeat and death of Zollicoffer in the winter down to the events which have lately driven General McClellan to the river. We are to wait, therefore, for new misfortunes to the Government of Washington before we grant to this unhappy strife the possibility of closing." March 23, 1863.
General Thomas's line of operations is from Lexington, toward Cumberland Gap and Ford, which are occupied by a force of rebel Tennesseeans, under the command of Zollicoffer.
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