Events in Eastern Kentucky

On the day after Polk seized Columbus, a Confederate force under General Zollicoffer (formerly a member of Congress), invaded Kentucky from East Tennessee, where the loyalists were suffering peculiar hardships at the hands of the Secessionists. At the same time, Simon B. Buckner, who had been placed in command of the professed "neutral" Kentucky State Guard, formed a Confederate camp in Tennessee, just below the Kentucky border, and, acting in co-operation with Polk and Zollicoffer, attempted to seize Louisville. He was foiled by the vigilance of General Anderson (late of Fort Sumter), who was in command there, with General W. T. Sherman as his lieutenant. Buckner fell back to Bowling Green, on the Nashville and Louisville Railroad, and there established a camp as a nucleus of a powerful Confederate force that was gathered soon afterward.

Buckner's raid and the invasion of Zollicoffer aroused the Unionists of Eastern Kentucky, who flew to arms under various leaders. In an attack upon a camp of Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio troops, under Colonel Garrard, at the Rock Castle Hills, a picturesque region of the Cumberland Mountains, Zollicoffer was repulsed, on the 21st of October. Further eastward, near Piketon, the capital of Pike county, a Confederate force under John S. Williams was dispersed by some Union troops under General William Nelson, early in November. These successes inspirited the loyalists of East Tennessee with hopes of a speedy deliverance from their oppressors; but they were compelled to wait long for relief, for toward the close of 1861 the Confederates had established a firm military foothold in Tennessee, and occupied a considerable portion of Southern Kentucky from the Cumberland Mountains to the Mississippi River, along a line about four hundred miles in length. They also occupied a greater portion of Missouri, south of the Missouri River.

Fremont was censured for his failure to reinforce Mulligan. The public knew very little of his embarrassments at that time. Pressing demands came for reinforcements, from General Grant at Paducah. Cries for help were heard at various points in his department; and a peremptory order was received from General Scott to forward five thousand troops immediately to Washington city, notwithstanding McClellan (who was in chief command there) had seventy thousand men within easy call. Fremont's forces did not, at any time, number more than fifty-six thousand, and these were scattered over his department. Chafing under unjust complaints, he proceeded to put his plan for ridding the Mississippi Valley of Confederate troops into operation at once. On the 27th of September, he put more than twenty thousand soldiers (five thousand of them cavalry) in motion under the respective commands of Generals Hunter, Pope, Sigel, McKinstry and Asboth, accompanied by eighty-six heavy guns. These five columns were moving southward early in October; and on the 11th, when his army was thirty thousand strong, Fremont wrote to his Government: "My plan is New Orleans straight; I would precipitate the war forward, and end it soon and victoriously."

Fremont felt confident of success. His army were in high spirits, and small victories were won by his detachments in various places. He had strengthened the forces in Eastern Missouri, so that St. Louis was safe; and General Hardee at Greenville, and General Pillow near New Madrid, dared not advance. He knew the bitterness of his political enemies, and the jealousies of envious men; and he was in continual expectation of interference with his plans. That interference soon came. False accusers, public and private, had such influence in the military councils at Washington that, just after his superb body-guard of one hundred and fifty cavalry, led by Zagonyi, a Hungarian, had charged upon and routed about two thousand Confederates, foot and horse, at Springfield, Fremont received an order from General Scott, directing him to turn over his command to General Hunter, then some distance in the rear. Hunter arrived just as the troops were about to attack Price. He countermanded Fremont's orders for battle; and nine days afterward General H. W. Halleck was placed in command of the Department of Missouri. The disappointed and disheartened army were turned back, and made a retrograde march to St. Louis in sullen sadness. Fremont was afterward presented with an elegant sword, inscribed: "To the Path-finder, by the Men of the West."