Zollicoffer's Defeat

Vivid Description of the Battle Field.

(Correspondence Cincinnati Commercial.)

A Ride to the Battle – The Battle Ground – Scenes on the Battle Field – Pursuit of the Enemy – The Rebel Camp – The Property Taken – One Hundred and Ninety Rebels Buried.

Having seen many accounts of the battle of Webb’s Cross Roads, (variously called the battle of Fishing Creek, Old Fields, Somerset, and Mill Springs,) it would seem hardly necessary to chronicle any further relative to it.  But as this is the first battle field I visited before the dead and wounded were removed, I feel disposed to make a note of some of my experiences connected with it.

During two weeks prior to the engagement, I was at Somerset, attending to some business matters for the Twelfth Kentucky Regiment. – All this time, much anxiety was felt by the forces under General Thomas, so that an advance could be made upon the fortified position of Zollicoffer, at Mill Springs.  The welcome tidings finally reached us Friday morning, Jan. 17th, that Gen. Thomas was at Webb’s Cross Roads, seven and a half miles west, or south west of Somerset, with 6,000 men and, before 11 o’clock a. m., Schoepff’s brigade was under way to join them.  The difficulties of that march through rain and mud, have been better described by those who were in it than I can do it.  That Zollicoffer would come out of his entrenchments and attack our forces was entirely unexpected – consequently no battle was looked for this side of his position at Mill Springs.

Early on Sunday morning, January 19th, we heard the roar of cannon beyond fishing creek, which betokened a battle.  Like many younger men I felt “eager for the fray.”  Lieut. Colonel Howard, of the Kentucky 12th, being confined to his bed by sickness, I mounted his well known charger, “Nelly Gray,” and went to fill his place, or rather to try.  The distance from Somerset to the Salt works on Fishing Creek, where we crossed, is five miles.  The mud, a kind of reddish clay and very soft, was from six inches to half as many feet in depth.  I fell in with a squadron of Wolford’s Cavalry, escorting six caissons of ammunition, each caisson being drawn by eight horses, driven by for riders.  There were also in the company thirty six relief horses in harness, for Standart’s Battery, which was already on the ground.  To see this train in motion while the horses were pressed to the top of their speed, could be compared to nothing better than a wild tornado, accompanied by a halt a dozen whirlwinds playing with the mud as though it were the chaff of a threshing floor, obscuring at times the caissons, horses and riders.  The cavalcade reached the high bank overlooking Fishing Creek, in about twenty minutes from Somerset, and came to a halt.  The Creek was so high that it was said it could not be forded or at least the ammunition would be spoiled in passing through.  In addition to this a frightened wagon-master reported that Zollicoffer’s forces had got between our army and the Creek and thus cut off supplies and reinforcements from Somerset.  During these few moments of suspense, and while the fire of artillery seemed to be increasing I rode down the long steep hill to the water’s edge, determined to cross at all hazards.

While calculating my chances in one of the strongest currents I ever saw forded, a gentle man upon a powerful strong-limbed horse rode up and gave it as his opinion that the creek could be forded.  Being more excited that I was he plunged into the stream.  Without waiting to see how he “came out,” and knowing that mortal horse could not do more than “Nelly Gray,” I followed.  We made the opposite shore in safety.  By this time the whole cavalcade (excepting caissons) had reached the creek, and in a few minutes passed safely over.  We halted with the cavalry in front of widow Campbell’s house (secesh), and sent forward a reconnoitering party.  Soon one of the party returned and reported the road clear.  The distance from Fishing Creek to Webb’s Cross Roads, where our forces had bivouacked the night before the battle, is two and a half miles.  We had made about two miles of this distance, when the artillery ceased firing and soon after we met a man riding furiously down the hill. – When we succeeded in bringing him to a halt, he told us Zollicoffer was dead and his army in full retreat.  This man was hardly recognized by his old acquaintances, for his naked, sparkling eye balls seemed to be the only two spots about him not covered with mud.  It was Dr. Hale.  When he had told us his story, on he flew to tell it to other persecuted Union men.  Zollicoffer is slain, his forces are overthrown, scattered and destroyed!  We are again free!  Men, women and children shouted and even wept for joy.  At that moment I did not wait to moralize for while Dr. Hale was spreading the glad tidings in one direction, Nelly Gray had anticipated the cavalcade in the other, and was first on the battle field.  My first inquiry was for the Kentucky 12th, but no one could tell me where they were, or what party they had taken in the action.  Only one dead man had been brought in.  The body laid upon the ground in front of one of the Minnesota tents surrounded by some twenty soldiers.  It had been stripped of all clothing except the pants and two soldiers were busy in washing off the mud with which it had been covered.  It was almost as white and transparent as the most delicate wax work.  The fatal wound was in the breast, and was evidently made with a pistol ball as it could be easily covered with the end of my finger.  There was another wound upon the inside of his right arm, above the elbow, and still another glancing wound a little above his hip.  This was Zollicoffer!  He whose name had so long been a terror to men who loved their country on the banks of the Cumberland.  With some doubts at the time in my mind as to whether this was really the body of the rebel chief, I turned away to visit the field of battle.

The hospital tents had been hastily pitched in a small open field at the cross roads and along the edge of the woods skirting the south side of this field were the first marks of the storm of destruction which had waged so fearfully an hour before.  Nearly through the middle of the field is the road leading to Mill Springs, in a south or southwesterly direction.  I entered the woods on the east side of this road.  All along the edge of the open field lay the bodies of four or five of our men.  As I advanced into the woods the marks of cannon shot could be seen on every side, but I saw none of these marks nearer than twenty feet from the ground nor did I see a dead or wounded man who had been struck with a cannon shot, Dr. Cliffe, Zollicoffer’s brigade surgeon, afterwards told me that among all their wounded, so far as they had come in, only one had been injured by artillery and he had lost his arm.  Passing through the woods from the first open field, a distance of nearly half a mile, we reached another open, half cleared field on the left of the road.  In this field there stands some deadened timber, many large stumps and trees, some of the latter having been cut down, and some fallen from decay.  In this field the ground is quite steep, with a southern descent to near the center of the field, and then rises as rapidly till you reach the woods on the south.  In the eastern part of this field is a log house and a barn and an apple orchard.  Eighty five dead rebels lay in this field, which by way of distinction, I will call the “old field.”  Further on and to the right of the road is the cornfield where the brave Indiana 10th suffered so severely.  In the woods and along the road the scene was dreadful. – One body was placed in a sitting posture with the back leaning against a tree, the hands crossed in his lap, his eyes partially open and lips slightly parted.  The ball had entered his left breast just above the region of the heart.  Another laid upon his side with the head and arms thrown back, the ball had cut away a part of his skull over his left eye.

Among a score or more of our own noble dead, I saw not one badly mangled body, like those which I saw at Vienna.  And I loved, also, to fancy at least, that I saw clearly stamped upon each cold face a clam and holy satisfaction in pouring out their blood in a noble cause – to save from ruin the land of our fathers.  There are mothers, wives and sisters, who would gladly have braved the leaden hailstorm of the battle field, to minister to the dying soldier.  Let such console themselves – that death is a common lot, and far more preferable in any form, to life in a land of despotism and anarchy.  The cause in which your husband, brothers and sons have fallen is not a cause of wickedness and oppression, but of truth, freedom and right.  The fields of Kentucky have been freshly watered with hallowed blood, and the pirates are being hunted from her borders.  My own brave boy was either among the slain or pursuing the flying foe.  In which of these positions I might find him, I know not.  I could possibly enjoy no higher honor than in the sacrifice of all I held dear, for the salvation of my country.  With all the anxieties common to parents, I searched for his well known countenance among the slain.  So close was the resemblance in many cases that my pulse quickened and my brain began to reel.  I remembered that he wore a pair of boots of peculiar make, and before I dared to let my eyes rest upon the face, there was a mark –  not on his.  I passed on in haste, but suddenly felt compelled to stop once more, against a tree, leaned back in the more classic composure was the fairest and most beautiful countenance I ever saw in death.  No female complexion could be more spotless.  The silky locks of wavy auburn hair fell in rich profusion, upon fair temples and a faultless forehead.  Some friendly hand had parted his garments, bearing his breast, from which the read current of life flowed out, and had bathed his temples, which were still warm but had ceased to throb forever.  O, ye winds, bear these tidings softly to the loved ones at home.

Among the wounded of our men, it was really comforting to see with what patient heroism they bore their pains.  I said to one poor fellow, with a shattered leg, “you must be in great pain, can I do anything for you?”  He said, “There are others worse off than me, when they are carried in, you can tell them where I am if you please.”  Another man had a ball through his right hand, breaking two of the bones.  He had done it up himself with a wet bandage and with his other hand was carrying one corner of a stretcher, with a wounded man, carrying another corner of the same stretcher, was a man with his head and face covered with blood.  He said he was not hurt at all, he had only lost a large piece of his hat and a small piece of his scalp.

In the “old fields” among the rebels some of the scenes were horrid and revolting in the extreme.  A large number of the dead were shot in the head.  One was shot directly in the eye and the brain was oozing from the wound.  Five dead and one wounded lay behind one log, all but the wounded one were shot in the head.  One rebel had a ball through his neck which destroyed the power of speech – though I don’t think his wound was mortal.  Several of the dead were old and gray headed men.  A dark complexioned man with a heavy black beard, who said he was from Mississippi was lying on the ground with a broken thigh.  He was stern and sullen – he had only one favor to ask – that was that some one of us would kill him.  I said to him we will soon take you to the surgeon and do all we can to relieve you for we are satisfied you have been deceived by wicked men, and do not know what you have been doing.  To which he meekly replied – that is possible.  A younger man, quite a boy, begged me not to let the Lincolnites kill him.  An elderly man sat with his back against a stump with a ball directly through the center of the head at the base of the brain.  There was a ghastly grin upon his countenance, his eyes were stretched widely open and staring wildly into vacancy while his breath was rapid, deep and heavy.  His was a living death for he was senseless.  A lad of fourteen with a mashed ankle, protested his innocence and begged to be taken care of.  He said he had never fired a gun at a Union man and never would.  Numbers of rebels made in effect the same declaration.

I left these fields of human suffering with feelings such as I never before experienced. – The freshness of death seemed to fill the whole atmosphere.  It was a scene which a man needs only to look upon once in his life time in order to occupy all his power of reflection.  Following the wake of our victorious and pursuing army the road, adjoining the fields and woods, were strewn with blankets, knapsacks, haversacks, hats, boots, shoes, guns, cartridge boxes, broken wagons, &c., as perfect a scene of destruction as can well be imagined.

When I left on Thursday evening Col. Hoskins told me the captured horses and mules would probably reach 2,000.  Prisoners were being brought in in little squads, and Capt. Alexander, of Wolford’s cavalry reported that he had 200 penned up in the rocks two miles below their camp.  Crittenden’s entire force (except himself) consisting of about 2,000 men, are supposed to be on this side of the river.

I returned from the rebel camp in company with Dr. Straw and his prisoner, Dr. D. B. Cliffe, of Franklin, Tenn., Zollicoffer’s brigade Surgeon.  Dr. Cliffe seems much of a gentleman and claims to be a Union man.  He says he had to enlist or quit the country, but he had never taken the oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy.  He confirmed the news of the death of Zollicoffer, and cut several sticks and limbs, as mementoes from near the place where he fell.  Besides Dr. Cliffe, I saw several other prisoners who seem to be gentlemen, but the mass of them were rough hard unpolished subjects – just such a set as one would be likely to judge “fit for treason, stratagem and spoils.”

I have only noted such items as came under my own observation and comparatively only a few of them.  The order of battle and acts of personal bravery will be better told by those who witnessed them.  Lieut. E. G. Jacobs told me he saw a Minnesotian coolly advance from the ranks some distance, and placing his rifle by the side of a tree take a long and deliberate aim toward the old log house, when a rebel head which had been peering from behind the corner of the house was suddenly discovered to have a body attached to it by its pitching at full length from the end of the house.  I found seven dead bodies in this old building who must have been killed by close shooting between the logs.  When I left 190 rebels had been buried in the old field, and many more still in the woods.  Thirty eight of our own men had been buried in the first field near the tents.

C. T.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 4