What I Unexpectedly Learned About the 23rd Kentucky Infantry

Like what I presume virtually all Civil War students or enthusiasts do, I read about the Civil War to learn more about it and hopefully, enjoy some good writing. Sometimes, however, books take readers in unexpected directions. Such an instance for me occurred while reading volume 2 of David Powell's series on the Atlanta Campaign (see my thoughts on it here), a work that pleasantly surprised me by including details that apply to my own research, information unlike anything I had seen previously.

A few years ago, when I began my project exploring Campbell County, Kentucky in the Civil War, I started my research by identifying soldiers from the area, focusing on their individual lives and service. One of my first finds was that more than 150 of these men had enlisted in the 23rd Kentucky Infantry. I was caught off-guard to see so many names in one unit, but it was a good early discovery, a sign that I would find more information than I expected at the time.

Since then, any mention of the 23rd grabs my attention, but while I try to maintain a basic understanding of the unit’s record, I honestly spend much more effort looking into the individual soldiers than on the details of battles and military maneuvering.

The 23rd marched and fought in most of the largest fights and campaigns in the Western Theater of the war, from their reserve role in Thomas Crittenden's II Corps at Perryville, to active fighting at Stones River, Chickamauga, and the Atlanta Campaign, plus involvement with the Tullahoma Campaign, a difficult task despite the lack of bloodshed during it. As I continued to read about these fights and campaigns, I never really saw any especially memorable descriptions of their work. They fought and suffered casualties in various battles but usually came off as supporting players in most battles (though maybe I’m still missing something about another fight.)

Eventually I learned about the fight at Brown’s Ferry, Tennessee in October of 1863, where the Federals began to work to get more supplies to their troops in Chattanooga. The 23rd took a leading part in this battle, with some of its soldiers being the first men to land on the Confederate-held western bank of the Tennessee River. This lesser-known contest was a Union success, allowing the opening of what was quickly dubbed the "Cracker Line." Until now, I took that contest as being their most notable action, but some fighting on Georgia soil may change that view.

In chapter 8 of this book, Powell explores the Battle of Pickett’s Mill on May 27, 1864. I was not familiar with the details of this contest, but perhaps that lack of knowledge left me more excited when I learned that the 23rd (in William Hazen’s brigade of Thomas Woods’ division of the IV Army Corps commanded by Oliver Howard) was among the Federal units at the front of this fight. This work gives a terrific recap of this fight, painting a picture of what a tough contest it was and the many challenges the men, including in the 23rd, faced.

From battlefields.org

I started dog-earing the pages in this chapter, so now that section of my book is full of bent corners, but I don’t care. I certainly will re-read that chapter, maybe soon.

Additionally, I had never before realized that Ambrose Bierce’s The Crime at Pickett’s Mill was about the action Hazen’s men, including the 23rd, saw. I guess I had not read it since I started paying attention to the 23rd. His essay must be the most literary account of any of the 23rd’s fighting from the entire war. I have not seen any regimental history of the 23rd, or even any writings by local soldiers describing their work. Heck, even Spared & Shared appears to have nothing from the regiment, so Bierce’s essay is a nice perspective to have.

More good fortune soon fell into my lap in the shape of a pair of National Tribune stories written by members of the 23rd. (I also have an article from that newspaper about the regiment at Chickamauga, written by the same lieutenant who authored one of these reports. It is quite long, so I’ll have to re-read it.

I planned to discuss these accounts in this post, but that will take quite a bit of space, so I’ll make a separate post. Combined with Powell's work and Bierce’s account, I stumbled upon intriguing new information for my research. (And I do know that here is a book concerning this battle, a new title now on my list of future acquisitions.)

I would not have seen any of these details had I not read this book. I certainly did not expect to find information relevant to my project in a book on the Atlanta Campaign. Discoveries like this are one of the joys of reading. You never know what you might find.

From Newport to the Confederacy to the Supreme Court: Horace H. Lurton

Horace Harmon Lurton did not spend many years in Campbell County, but he was a county native and a Civil War soldier who rose to national prominence in the decades after the war ended.

He was born in Newport on February 26, 1844, the son of Dr. Lycurgus L. and Sarah Ann Lurton.

In the 1850s, the family moved to Tennessee, where the young boy attended school in Clarksville, before going to the Old University of Chicago at the tender age of 16.

When the Civil War started, he joined the Confederate 35th Tennessee Infantry Regiment in April of 1861. Stories say he was captured when the Confederates surrendered Fort Donelson.

Lurton, of course, did not like being in prison and requested a way out, writing on February 25, 1862 to Colonel R.H. McClain, A.A.G. of the Union’s Department of the West: “application is hereby made…for the parole of the undersigned officer of the 5th Tennessee Regiment held as prisoner of war on board the steamer Nebraska. He is the only one of that regiment held as prisoner of war. He would humbly request that he be placed on his honor in any city or town the Commanding General may see proper to designate.”

He eventually found his way out of confinement. Official records do not show exactly how, though legend says he escaped.1 He soon joined John H. Morgan’s Confederate forces.

On August 25, 1862, he joined Company G of the 2nd Kentucky (Gano’s) regiment, a group which eventually became company G of the 7th Kentucky Cavalry. He then was captured near Buffington Island, Ohio on July 19, 1863, at the end of Morgan’s “Great Raid” through Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, and a form in his file lists him then as a private in company G of the 3rd Kentucky Cavalry, though how or when he changed regiments is unclear.

He spent time at the Seminary General Hospital in Covington, Kentucky and at Kemper Barracks in Cincinnati, before moving to Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio and then to Johnson’s Island.

He again did not enjoy his time as a prisoner, and his family and friends worked to secure his release. A petition from citizens in his home area, over the signatures of local judges, stated: “His family is one of high responsibility” and that Lurton was then “a prisoner of war at Johnson’s Island” and had been “a private in Company G 3rd Kentucky (Rebel) Cavalry.”

The document explained:

            He has been a prisoner about nineteen months. When he joined the army, he was only about eighteen years of age, of quick and sanguine temperament, and like thousands of young and thoughtless boys was swept into the ranks of the Rebellion by the passion and fury of the times. He is now willing and anxious as we are credibly informed to avail himself of the amnesty oath offered by the President and return a peaceful and orderly citizen of the United States.

This plea proclaimed:

            no question but that if permitted to take the oath and be discharged he will faithfully abide by & discharge all his duties as a good and loyal citizen. We therefore trust & pray that it will be deemed compatible with the interests and mercy of the government to administer to him the oath & permit him to return to his home.

His father also mailed a letter, dated January 23, 1865, probably around the same time as the other petition. He wrote:

            My son, Horace H. Lurton, a prisoner of war, confined 14 months at Camp Chase, and five months at Johnson’s Island, petitioned the war department for his discharge in the month of September 1863 from Camp Chase, which petition was endorsed by His Excellency Governor Todd of Ohio and other important figures.

            Since which time another petition was forwarded by citizens, endorsed by His Excellency Governor Andrew Johnson (editor’s note: in 1864, between the time of the son’s petition and the father’s letter, Johnson had been elected Vice-President of the United States) to all of which, no successful issues have followed.

He pressed on: “It may be proper for me to say that my son went into the army without my advice or council, led away by the excitement of the times and from undue influence exerted by ‘stay at home patriots.’ “

The elder Lurton swore:

            No one loved the union more than I, and in this sphere exerted more influence for its preservation, and no one would more gladly hail the return of union, peace, and concord. You will perceived that an early date I made efforts for his discharge and but for the helplessness of efforts would have continued…I am now induced to make another effort, because that I hear from my son that many are being discharged and, amongst them, some of our own citizens.

            My son writes me that he is healthy, tired, both of war and prison, as was shown by his petition forwarded to Col. Hoffman, commissary of Prisons, which petition I presume is still on file in his office.

            I pray you therefore to extend that clemency which will cost you no sorrow, but gladden the hearts of parents, and bring to you this warm gratitude, and the consciousness of an act of mercy, which shall sooth many a sorrow. I know these pleas are numerous, and sometimes wearisome, yet remember that God the Father is thus judicious by the vast multitudes of His erring, rebellious children, for pardon and for peace and grow not weary or turns a deaf ear to their cry, but daily and hourly says go in peace, and sin no more. May He give you a like spirit to say to my boy…sin no more.

A note in Lurton's file states: “desired release from Camp Chase of Horace H. Lurton, prisoner of war. Release ordered by the President. Referred by the War Dept for execution of President’s order.”

That Presidential order commands: “Let this prisoner take the oath of Dec. 8, 1863, and be discharged. A. Lincoln.”

Other stories claim that Lurton's mother had visited the President to beg him to release her son, but the actual story was much less dramatic, as he was “released on oath(f sllegiance Feb. 11, 1865” from Camp Chase 

After the war, Lurton earned a Bachelor of Laws Degree from the Cumberland School of Law and returned to Tennessee to begin his law practice. He was appointed a judge in Tennessee’s 6th Chancery Division in 1875 and in 1886 earned appointment to Tennessee’s Supreme Court.  He also was a law professor at Vanderbilt University for more than a decade, then, in 1893, President Grover Cleveland added him to the 6th U.S. Circuit of Appeals, based in Cincinnati, where Lurton forged a relationship with William Howard Taft.2

When Taft became President, he appointed Lurton to the Supreme Court in 1910. The new member of the court was 66, the oldest person to be appointed as Associate Justice. He was a “constitutional conservative and opposed the concept that social changes be brought about through judicial interpretation.”3

His Supreme Court experience was neither long, nor especially active. Oyez.org asserts that he “wrote infrequently during his brief tenure on the Court. He confined his talent, such as it was, to procedural issues or employer liability cases.”4

Late in 1913, Judge Lurton fell ill and passed away on July 12, 1914, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. His body lies at rest in Greenwood Cemetery in Clarksville, Tennessee.

 

1https://library.cqpress.com/scc/document.php?id=bioenc-427-18168-979356&v=2db3e18e820a4607

2www.britannica.com/biography/Horace-H-Lurton

3Ibid

4www.oyez.org/justices/horace_h_lurton

 

Boy Soldier Isaac Thacker, 40th Kentucky Infantry

The concept of boys fighting in the Civil War is just one of the  numerous topics on the war. One local instance of this was the story of Isaac George Thacker.

Isaac was born on May 2, 1849, in Olive Hill, Carter County, Kentucky, the son of Daniel and America Thacker. 

On September 17, 1863, as the Civil War was in its third year, Isaac enrolled as a private in company E of the 40th Kentucky Infantry, though he was soon listed as a musician.

The 40th Kentucky Infantry had been organized at both Grayson and Falmouth, Kentucky in mid-1863. It then remained in Kentucky, including involvement in operations against the forces of Confederate General John H. Morgan in 1864. This included a fight at Mount Sterling and in the Second Battle of Cynthiana. 

These men then spent the rest of their time in the service in action at Saltville, Virginia and on duty in eastern Kentucky before mustering out on December 30, 1864. 

Isaac was only 14 years old when he enlisted, well under the military’s minimum age of 18 for soldiers. Many youngsters were able to avoid this standard and join the army anyway, especially as musicians or drummer boys, but some ran into trouble when their families found out what they were doing. Isaac did not have any such problems, as his mother (under the name America McClannahan from a new marriage) permitted his enlistment by making her mark on the “consent in case of minor” section of the Declaration of Recruit document that Isaac had signed in a similar fashion. This consent allowed him to leave home at such a young age, soon to face unknown situations and scenarios that scared or scarred many an older man. He apparently found out that military life suited him, despite some hardships, beginning a long life in various military units.

When Isaac joined the Union Army, he appeared as the boy he was, standing 5 feet, 3 inches tall, and featuring dark eyes, dark hair, and a dark complexion. His occupation was listed as farmer, no doubt from his work on the family farm. 

He enlisted for a one-year term, signing up in Olive Hill. 

In February of 1864, he served on “extra duty” on the provost guard in Paris, Kentucky. The provost guard was a unit similar to modern military police. Perhaps officials tried to find less dangerous tasks for him than active duty in the field, but, if so, it did not work. Records list him as absent without leave in June of that same year, as he had been captured by Confederate General John H. Morgan’s men in May or June, at either Mt. Sterling or Cynthiana as Morgan’s latest group of rebels invaded Kentucky during his “Last Raid.”

After Morgan paroled his captives, Isaac spent time in a Lexington hospital in July and August.

A few months later, he mustered out of the army on December 30, 1864, in Catlettsburg, Kentucky.

After the war, the 21-year-old Isaac lived in Cold Spring, in 1870, working as a farmer and sharing his home with members of the Gard family., according to the census recorded on August 1. About six weeks later, on September 14, he married one of his housemates, Alice Gard, in Newport. They later had one son, Albia, born in nearby Dayton (KY) in 1881, the same town where Isaac had been working as a carpenter. 

After his time in the Civil War, he still wished to pursue a military career and did so by enlisting in the army three more times.

On June 12, 1866, he enlisted in company H of the 1st Infantry in Cincinnati. At this time, he had grown to 5 feet 7 inches tall, and was a farmer with gray eyes, dark hair, and a ruddy complexion. He was discharged from this service on June 1, 1869, in Michigan, due to the end of his term of service. He was a sergeant at that time.

In 1883, he enlisted in company E of the 10th Infantry.  He joined in Fort Wayne, Michigan, still a farmer with similar physical traits. He was discharged from this service on August 15, 1888, at Fort Lyons, Colorado, due to expiration of his service. He was a Protestant, and his character was “excellent.”

His final enlistment in the regular army occurred at Vancouver Barracks, Washington on April 16, 1889. He joined the 14th Infantry and was discharged on October 21, 1890, by a special order at the same location. Records again showed him with a similar physical description and described him as a Protestant with excellent character.

Isaac Thacker, undated, from ancestry.com.

In 1890, he still called Dayton home, but at some point in the 1880s or 1890s, Isaac and Alice divorced, according to her marital status on the 1900 census.

Isaac married again, this time to Millie Sheffield on July 14, 1893, in West Virginia and in 1900, he was literate and worked as a baker in Franklin County, Ohio. Ten years later he worked as a farmer in Cabel County, West Virginia, where he and Millie remained as the 1920s began.

Former boy  soldier Isaac Thacker died on April 27, 1929, at age 79, in Holmes County, Ohio, and was buried there in Killbuck Cemetery. 

Injured in the Line of Duty: Joseph Robinson, 117th USCI

Joseph Robinson was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, in the first half of the nineteenth century, but exactly when is not clear. In an era long before birth certificates, military paperwork shows he was age 40 in 1864, but an 1892 death record lists him as age 60 at that time, close enough to show a birth from about 1824 to 1832. 

 

On September 21, 1864, he enlisted and mustered into company K of the 117th United Stated Colored Infantry (USCI) regiment in Covington, Ky. for a standard three-year term. He  measured 5 feet, 6 inches tall and had black hair, black eyes, and a black complexion. His occupation was farming.

 

The 117th formed at Covington, Ky., in the summer of 1864. It moved south to Camp Nelson in Jessamine County, Kentucky before heading east to Baltimore in October. From there, it moved to City Point, Virginia, and in 1865 may have taken part  part in the Appomattox Campaign, which ended with the fall of Petersburg and the surrender of Robert E. Lee and his forces on April 9. 

Whethet this unit was present at Lee’s surrender is unclear, even to the National Park Service. One of their sites reports the 117th was there, but one more specifically focused on the events at Appomattox does not include the 117th or Joseph.

The 117th did remain  in the Petersburg, Va.  area until moving to Brazos Santiago, Texas in June. They were likely in Texas on June 19th when General Gordon Granger issued an order to begin the enforcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas.

These men remained in Texas on garrison duty until mustering out on August 10, 1867, in Brazos Santiago.1  

During his service, Joseph was charged two cents in mid-1865 for his loss of a tampion, a small wooden tool used to keep dirt and water out of a musket’s barrel.

A Tampion, from http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/2016/02/what-is-tompion.html

After the fighting had ended, some unexpected danger remained. Joseph suffered a painful wound when he:

 

            was disabled by the loss of the third finger of the right hand and deep wounds on the other fingers of the same hand incurred while in the line of duty, assisting in cutting up beef in the subsistence department on the 21st of June 1866. He is also accidentally overage. Probable case for pension.

 

On the same form, the examining surgeon noted: “old age and injury of right hand to an extent which disables him from performing the duties of a soldier. He is unfit for the Invalid Corps.”

 

The Invalid Corps, by then officially known as the Veterans Reserve Corps, was a unit in which men physically unable for full military duty were able to perform less-demanding tasks, such as cooking or guard duties. Virtually all of this unit, however, had already mustered out of the army before the surgeon examined Joseph anyway.

 

Joseph’s wounds had come in the processing of meat, not in combat, certainly not a tale of glory, honor, and fame, but feeding troops is a vital, often under-appreciated, duty in every army. He contributed to that important task and even sacrificed his health doing so.

 

Because of this injury, Joseph passed time in a hospital in Brownsville, Texas, then in September and October of 1866 performed daily duty in a hospital. Perhaps that assignment was due to his injury, possibly a way to give him more time to heal.

 

The army officially discharged him on November 3, 1866, in Brazos Santiago. The surgeon recommended him for a pension, which Joseph applied for on March 1, 1876.

When discharged, Joseph was allowed to keep his knapsack, haversack, and canteen. With the war over, and so many men heading back to civilian life, the army had surplus equipment it did no longer needed and Joseph benefitted from that.

At the time he left the army, his home was in Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky. 

 In the following decades, he disappears from most public records, but eventually found his way to Campbell County, Ky., on the southern shore of the Ohio River. Here, he passed away on December 10, 1892, in Dayton, Ky., due to pneumonia. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, though no headstone marks his grave.

 

He left behind his widow Hannah.

1https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UUS0117RI00C, Accessed November 29, 2022

An Uncounted Casualty of the War: Henry Blanch, US Navy

Most Civil War veterans who had Campbell County ties served with the Federal army, but several chose a different path and joined the navy instead.

One such man was German native Henry Blanch.1

Like numerous other Campbell County Union supporters, Henry was born in Germany and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to a new home in the United States. 

He had been born in the Old World in 1837, and, once in his new homeland, he married Rebecca Enteminger on November 20, 1854, at a friend’s home in Ashland, Kentucky.

After the Civil War started, Henry bided his time before enlisting as an acting third-assistant engineer in the navy on July 22, 1864. He served on the USS Milwaukee.

USS Milwaukee From https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/m/milwaukee-i.html

The Milwaukee was the debut ship and chosen name of a new type of vessel called the Milwaukee-class river monitor. It had been constructed in Carondelet, Missouri (now part of St. Louis) to patrol the nation’s western rivers and was officially commissioned in August of 1864.

It was soon reassigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron around New Orleans and later moved to Mobile Bay for action against that Confederate city, where it worked “bombarding Confederate positions, clearing mines and supporting operations to isolate and capture the city of Mobile.”2

It struck a mine (then called a torpedo) and sank on March 28, 1865, but, remarkably, Henry Blanch and the entire crew lived through this scary episode.

About three weeks after this, on April 21, Henry wrote to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. He wasted no time in  stating his purpose as the first line declared: "I very respectfully ask for leave of absence to go north and visit my family."

His reasoning was clumsily stated: "My wife is at present dangerously sick, and my having a large family of helpless children who require my immediate protection."

"I have just lost my all by the sinking of the U.S.S. Milwaukee, hoping this may be granted."

With the major fighting in the war finished, authorities granted him a 30-day leave to go home, which . was likely in or near Cincinnati as his pension file noted that he had lived in that area since his discharge.

As for his former ship, the remains of the Milwaukee were recovered in 1868 and eventually became scrap that was used in the building of St. Louis’ Eads Bridge.3

Unlike his ship, Henry had survived the war, receiving an honorable discharge on July 7, 1865, but his time in the navy continued to affect him.

A physical examination  on August  20, 1884, for his pension application reported him as 5 feet 11.5 inches tall. He had a light complexion, brown hair, and hazel eyes.    

Another physical a month later noted that he weighed 118 pounds.

This second exam found that he was physically unable to earn a living because of his time in the navy. In the spring of 1865, he had contracted a bad cold, an illness that affected his throat and stomach, including indigestion and constipation. “While in (the) battle of Spanish Fort, his vessel was blown up and he with the rest of the crew took to the boats.” This exposure to the elements brought on those ailments as well as a case of piles (now called hemorrhoids).

One document even mentioned phetusia (or phthisis)  pulmonalis, a period term for tuberculosis. 

Henry had received “no treatment on the vessel but the steward on his vessel afterwards gave him medicine.” He then was onboard the Kickapoo for two days and the Nyanza (41) in July, then moved to the Nashville for a week.

He staked his claim for a pension based on “all effects of the above.”

The government considered the evidence and soon awarded him a monthly pension of $10, which ended up lasting from August 22, 1884, until his death just more than eight months later.

Henry passed away on May 2, 1885, in Newport at just 48 years of age, due to “disease of stomach and liver.” He had worked as an engineer and lived in Newport for six years, finding a home on Columbia Street. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

Author’s photo

In the months after her husband’s passing, Rebecca Blanch sought a widow’s pension. As part of the application process, Henry’s brother William testified that Henry had been “a sound and healthy man previous to his enlistment in the U.S. Navy,” but upon his returning home to civilian life, he suffered from disease of the throat and stomach, with his illness “gradually growing worse each year” until his death.

She did receive that pension and lived a long life without Henry, not passing away for almost another half-century, passing away on June 20, 1933. A death record with her pension paperwork shows Evergreen Cemetery as her final resting place, but no headstone exists for her and an online cemetery record does not list her name among the burials.

Henry Blanch had physically survived the war, but in a larger sense, health problems caused directly by his participation in the conflict led to his demise. His death - and an impossible number of similar ones - may not count in discussions of the war’s total deaths, but, in the end, it was an unseen consequence of war that left Henry with a life years or decades shorter than he may have hoped or expected. He was, in actuality, one more of the hundreds of thousands of casualties of the Civil War.

Notes: Information about Henry and Rebecca’s pension applications came from the same file at fold3.com: US, Navy Widows' Certificates, 1861-1910: at https://www.fold3.com/file/27648779/blanch-henry-us-navy-widows-certificates-1861-1910?terms=blanch+henry, originally accessed June 25, 2022

1Some records spell his name Blanche, but he signed it “Blanch” on a letter he wrote.

2https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-m/milwauke.htm, Accessed June 22, 2022
3https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/m/milwaukee-i.html