Capture of Roanoke Island

Early in the year, General Buell had organized a large force at Louisville and its vicinity, by which he was enabled to strengthen various advanced posts, and throw forward, along the line of the Nashville and Louisville Railway, a large force destined to break the Confederate line across the State. The whole number of troops under his command was one hundred and fourteen thousand, arranged in four columns, commanded respectively by Brigadier-Generals Alexander McDowell McCook, Ormsby M. Mitchel, George H. Thomas and Thomas L. Crittenden acting as major-generals, and aided by twenty brigade commanders. These troops, who were citizens of States northward of the Ohio River, with loyalists of Kentucky and Tennessee, occupied an irregular line across the first-named State, almost parallel with that of the Confederates.

General McCook was sent, with fifty thousand troops, down the railway toward Bowling Green, and pushed back the Confederate outposts to the south side of the Green River, at Mumfordsville, where a sharp contest occurred, when the insurgents were compelled to move on to Bowling Green. In the meantime stirring events were occurring in eastern Kentucky. On the 7th of January (1862) a body of Confederates under Humphrey Marshall were struck by Union troops, infantry and cavalry, led by Colonel James A. Garfield, near Prestonburg, on the Big Sandy River. The Confederates were dispersed and disheartened, and there Marshall's military career ended. The gallant services rendered by Garfield on that occasion won for him the commission of a brigadier-general. A few days later (January 19) a more important event occurred on the borders of the Cumberland River, further westward, at Beech Grove, near Mill Spring. Near there General Zollicoffer had established a strongly intrenched camp; but early in January he was superseded in command by General George B. Crittenden, his senior in rank. To General Thomas was assigned the duty of attacking this force, and if successful there to push on over the Cumberland Mountains into East Tennessee, where the Secessionists were persecuting the Union people without stint. When he was within ten miles of the Confederate camp, Thomas made preparations for battle. The Confederates had marched to meet the Nationals. They were led by Zollicoffer, and at early dawn on the 18th of January, the hostile troops met. A severe battle was fought, with great persistency on both sides, for the winner would gain an immense advantage for his cause. Thomas won the battle after a fierce contest, in which Zollicoffer was slain; and the discomfited Confederates fled into northeastern Tennessee, suffering intensely for lack of food and shelter in their flight across an almost barren country.

This blow effectually severed the Confederate line in Kentucky, and opened the way for a series of successful movements by which the insurgents were soon driven out of that State, and also Tennessee. The loss of the Nationals was two hundred and forty-seven men; and of the Confederates, three hundred and forty-nine. The spoils of victory were twelve pieces of artillery, a large amount of munitions of war, and more than a thousand horses, with wagons, intrenching tools, camp equipage, etc. For their bravery in the battle of Mill Spring or Somerset, the President publicly thanked General Thomas and his men. They had paralyzed the power of the Confederate line eastward of Bowling Green, and shortened it full One-half. The bulk of the insurgents and their chief fortifications were then between Nashville and Bowling Green, and the Mississippi River. The defeat was severely felt by the Confederates. They perceived the urgent necessity for a bold, able, and dashing commander in the west, and supposing Beauregard to be such an one, he was ordered to Johnston's Department late in January (1862), and General G. W. Smith, who had been an active Democratic politician in New York city, was appointed to succeed him at Manassas.

The Confederates attributed their disaster at Mill Spring to the misconduct of the leader of the troops, General Crittenden. Some loudly accused him of treachery to the Confederate cause; while others, more charitable and better informed, charged his intemperate habits with the calamity. It was acknowledged by all to be an almost irretriewable misfortune.

When Beauregard left the army at Manassas, he issued a characteristic address to the troops, expressing a hope that he would be among them again, soon. "I am anxious that my brave countrymen here in arms," he said, "fronting the haughty array and muster of Northern mercenaries, should thoroughly appreciate the exigency." In allusion to the disquietude that was manifested by them because of their long enforced inaction, he said that it was no time for that army "to stack their arms, and furl, even for a brief period, the standards they had made glorious by their manhood." But they were much dispirited by the defeat of their armies at Mill Spring, and this was deepened by the capture of Roanoke Island soon afterward. This feeling amounted almost to despair when a more important reverse to their arms occurred on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers at the middle of February.