Originally aired on February 28, 1997 - In part 131 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson relates the events of the January 19, 1862 Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky. It was a small contest by Civil War standards, but it had major implications for the Confederacy.
#131 – Winter-time at Mill Springs
In 19th century warfare, little fighting took place in wintertime. Armies customarily went into encampment at the first snow and remained inactive until the signs of spring. An exception to this rule occurred in the first winter of the Civil War. The location was the sparsely populated region of eastern Kentucky.
Some 4,000 Federals under Virginia-born General George H. Thomas advanced through Kentucky and made camp at the little town of Lebanon. This halt encouraged Confederates at Cumberland Gap to send a force of equal size north of the Cumberland River. Commanding the Southerners was Felix Zollicoffer, a prominent Nashville newspaperman and Tennessee politician. Zollicoffer had gained some military experience in the Seminole wars of the 1840s. Yet he was a quiet, frail, unassuming man impaired by severe nearsightedness.
To assist him on this advance, Confederate authorities dispatched General George Crittenden to the scene. Crittenden was a Kentuckian and West Point graduate. He was a good man with a good record in Mexico and on the frontier; but in eastern Kentucky, he would fall victim to bad luck. As an aside, Crittenden had a brother who was a general in the Union army.
In January, 1862, Federal General Thomas heard of the Confederate thrust. He immediately started southward to clear Kentucky of invaders. The weather was horrible, with rain or snow falling almost daily. The roads were in such wretched condition that it took the Federals eight days to cover the last forty miles of the march.
Contact with the Southerners came on January 19 at Mill Springs. Zollicoffer had given no thought to defense. Consequently, his men had a swollen river at their backs and the enemy in their front, with no room to maneuver and no good way to withdraw if things went badly. Nevertheless, Zollicoffer sent his units into action as best they could go. A surprised Thomas managed to get his troops into reasonable position, and the fighting began.
Untested men on both sides blazed away furiously. Hardly a one had ever been in a fight before this. When a line of Confederates sensibly took cover behind the lip of a ravine, an inexperienced Union colonel climbed atop a fence, denounced the Southerners for their cowardice, and dared them to stand on their feet and fight like men. Meanwhile, Southerners armed with old-fashioned flintlock muskets were seeking to figure out how to make the weapons fire amid a steady rainfall.
Just as the battle became general, the pathetically nearsighted Zollicoffer (wearing a milk-white raincoat) mistakenly galloped up to a Northern regiment and gave it orders. The Yankees responded with a volley that killed the Confederate leader. At that point, Thomas counterattacked. The already demoralized Confederates resisted momentarily, then turned and ran for it.
By midday the Southern force had dissolved. Fugitives managed to get back across the Cumberland River, but they had to abandon their wounded, their camp, all their supplies, eleven pieces of artillery, and most of their horses and mules. Elated Union soldiers took advantage of the captured stores. They gouged themselves by cooking flapjacks, made mostly of flour and sugar. Soon entire Union regiments were down with “camp disease”, as diarrhea was sometimes called.
The battle of Mill Spring, Kentucky, was a small affair by Civil War standards. Barely 7,000 men were on the field. Yet it had major results. In effect, the right flank of the Confederate line extending from Cumberland Gap to the Mississippi River had been permanently cut. Eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia lay open to Union invasion. Mill Springs was also a harbinger of other Confederate disasters to follow that year in the Western theatre.