By Todd Hatton / Berry Craig
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-990742.mp3
Murray, KY – Today on the Kentucky Civil War Dispatch, we look back at what may have been the Commonwealth's first Civil War engagement, the Battle of Camp Wildcat.
On this date in 1861, Union forces defeated attacking Confederates at Camp Wildcat near London, the Laurel County seat. Some sources claim this battle was the first in Kentucky between regular troops. In any event, 7,000 soldiers under federal General Albin Schoepf turned back 5,400 Rebels led by General Felix Zollicoffer.
On September 9th, Zollicoffer advanced into the Commonwealth from Tennessee. The Confederates seized the strategic Cumberland Gap and captured a ford over the Cumberland River near Pineville.
Mountainous southeastern Kentucky was strongly pro-Union. Local men were donning blue uniforms at Camp Andrew Johnson near Barbourville. The recruiting post was named for Tennessee's Unionist Senator Andrew Johnson, a future president.
Zollicoffer moved against Camp Johnson, unaware the troops had gone on to Camp Dick Robinson in Garrard County.
Zollicoffer detached 800 men to capture the camp, and on September 19th, they clashed with Captain Isaac Black and his 300 Knott County Home Guards. One guardsman and 7 Rebels perished. They were among the 1st, if not the 1st, soldiers killed in battle in Kentucky during the Civil War.
Black retreated. Zollicoffer pushed deeper into Kentucky, his Tennessee and Mississippi troops trekking along the old Wilderness Road, Daniel Boone's famous pioneer pathway.
On September 23rd, Camp Dick Robinson commander General George H. Thomas heard Zollicoffer was menacing the Bluegrass State. He dispatched the 7th Kentucky Infantry Regiment under Colonel Theophilus Garrard to stop the Rebels. Garrard was a grandson of James Garrard, Kentucky's 2nd governor.
The 7th Kentucky numbered nearly 1,000 men. Many, if not most, of them knew the territory where they were headed. The colonel was from Clay County; his troops were from Clay, Knox, Laurel and Whitley.
Garrard dug in on rocky, thickly-timbered Wildcat Mountain. The colonel realized he was way outnumbered; he warned Thomas he would retreat unless reinforced immediately. He wrote, "I have no idea of having my men butchered up here where [the Confederates]...have a force of six to one."
The colonel got a little boost from the Laurel County Home Guard. On September 29th, he reported they were straggling into Camp Wildcat after Zollicoffer beat them.
Significant help for Garrard was on the way. Thomas dispatched 6,000 troops under Schoepf, an Imperial Austrian army veteran. Luckily for Garrard, Schoepf's force, including the 1st Kentucky Cavalry, began arriving on October 20th.
The general took command and prepared to sustain Zollicoffer's blow.
Battle began October 21st. The Union troops, Kentuckians, Tennesseans, Ohioans and Hoosiers, hung on and repelled Zollicoffer's attacks up the mountainside. Convinced he couldn't dislodge the Yankees, Zollicoffer and his Rebels withdrew that night.
Four of Schoepf's men were killed, and 18 were wounded. Zollicoffer put his losses at 11 killed and 42 missing or wounded.
The Battle of Camp Wildcat was a baptism of fire for most soldiers on both sides. In his memoirs The Wild Riders of the First Kentucky Cavalry, Sgt. Eastham Tarrant wrote, "There was a shade of dread on all countenances, while some showed cool determination, others were excited and tremulous."
The Camp Wildcat battle site, encompassing the remains of some trenches, is preserved in the Daniel Boone National Forest about nine miles northwest of London.
WKMS produces Kentucky Civil War Dispatches from West Kentucky Community and Technical College history professor Berry Craig. The Murray State alumnus is the author of Hidden History of Kentucky in the Civil War, Hidden History of Kentucky Soldiers and True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon, and Burgoo. For WKMS News, I'm Todd Hatton.