Disaster for the 71st Indiana at “the Richmond Races”

In the middle of August 1862, the 71st Indiana Volunteer Infantry mustered into service and was immediately dispatched to Kentucky to guard that state against a rumored Confederate invasion. Two weeks later, the regiment took part in a disastrous battle outside the town of Richmond, Kentucky and suffered heavily. The initial reports from Kentucky were frightening: “According to the statements of the letters which we have, the regiment is almost entirely destroyed and captured,” reported the Daily Wabash Express of Terre Haute, Indiana. “It is painful to contemplate the misfortune of the gallant men composing that regiment. It has cast a general gloom over this whole community. The regiment is almost a total loss, but we hope, however, that the loss in killed may not prove so great as the circumstances lead us to suppose at present.”[1]

 

Richmond Battlefield


          As news slowly trickled in, Terre Haute residents mourned to learn that their fellow townsman, Colonel Melville D. Topping, numbered among the slain of Richmond. “Much against his wishes and with sad forebodings, Colonel Topping obeyed the order to lead his undisciplined and scarcely armed men to find and fight three times their number of Rebels under General Kirby Smith. By a forced march they were hurried with blistered feet and weary into the battlefield at Richmond. Manfully they contested that field for two days. He was pierced through a body by a musket ball. Knowing his wound to be mortal, he refused to have any other soldier quit his post to care for him- his only anxiety was for the cause he loved. His orderly, however, procured a wagon and brought him off from the field and received his parting messages. He asked his officers if he had done his duty. The reply was “You have done nobly.” Said he, “Then I am satisfied to die. Tell my wife my last thoughts are of her and my children.” On the way to town, he expired.”[2]

 


          On September 8th, more than 200 men from the 71st Indiana arrived home in Terre Haute on parole and finally the whole story could be told. It was an exceedingly unpleasant tale of dauntless courage, inept leadership, and even brutality. “It is quite certain that General [Mahlon] Manson disobeyed orders in taking his forces into an engagement at that time,” wrote the Express. “The regiments under his command were composed entirely of undisciplined troops who were perfectly ignorant of military duty. The officers of the regiments with few exceptions were as green as the private soldiers and in many instances more so. The troops had been drilled but a short time and had learned little of the movements of an army when in battle. They were totally unfit for an engagement with veteran troops unless it was absolutely necessary, which was not the case in this instance.”[3]  Captain Edward B. Allen of Co. B later reported that it was not until the “morning of the 29th the regiment for the first time since its organization was exercised in battalion drill which consisted of loading and firing by company and by file, the advancing in battle line.”[4]

 

Relics belonging to General Mahlon Manson at Richmond Battlefield

Both General Manson and General William “Bull” Nelson were criticized for their brutality with their own troops. One local reverend went to the battlefield to find his wounded son and learned that General Nelson had struck his son down with his sword. “It is reported and corroborated by everyone with whom we have spoken that after he was wounded and retiring to the hospital he was met by General Nelson and ordered back. In his endeavor to explain, Nelson struck him a blow with his sword, knocking him down and cutting a severe gash in his head.”[5] General Manson was charged with being a brute and a fool. “His conduct from the first to the last was most detestable and his name will go down in posterity loaded with the execrations of the people of this state,” opined the Express. “Our troops did not go into Kentucky to be slaughtered, murdered, and devoured through the crimes of the commanding General.”[6]

 

It is clear that the Battle of Richmond should not have been fought; it was positively against General Nelson’s orders and the battle proved a bloody disaster for the Union Army. Orderly Sergeant Isaac M. Brown of Co. H of the 71st Indiana wrote the following account of the battle in an article published in 1885. On August 25, 1862, the regiment had been in service for a week and was camped at Nicholasville, Kentucky. “During and up to this time the regiment knew but little if anything about drill-not ten men in a company could even go through the manual of arms. In this condition, we received orders to pack our knapsacks and be ready to enter upon a forced march at 4 p.m. to Richmond, a point we were ordered to reach by sun-up the next morning, the distance being 25 miles. The point was reached on time but a more fatigued looking set of men, none of us had ever seen before,” he wrote.

 

“In the afternoon of the 26th, we marched out on a hill south of Richmond and went into camp. Here we had a good view of the road leading to Rogersville, a small place at the foot of Big Hill, at which point General Kirby Smith with his Rebel forces was camped. On the 28th, we had a little skirmish with a squadron of his cavalry, but no damage was done on either side, only we captured a small piece of artillery thrown out as bait. In the afternoon of the 29th, we advanced on the road leading to Big Hill to within three-quarters of a mile of the enemy’s camp. Company H held the post of honor on picket, being nearest to the enemy. I was on duty the entire night putting on reliefs and being anxious to see that the enemy should not advance without due warning. Six mounted men from General Munday’s Kentucky cavalry were placed in advance of our post with orders to fire and fall back slowly if attacked. About 4 a.m. on the morning of the 30th, the enemy fired upon those videttes and they came back on our post as fast as their horses could bring them, and one of the men lost his gun in his hurry to get back. I halted them and ordered them to return to their post, threatening to report them if they did not. They had not more than reached their former position when about 40 shots were fired into them by the enemy and the cavalry again came back on the run.”

Field hospital at Mount Zion Church

 

“Company H was in line to do its duty on the approach of the enemy. I ordered two of the cavalrymen to report to General Manson’s headquarters and inform him that the enemy was advancing in force. During this suspense, my captain John J. Starnes took four men and advanced about 100 yards down the road and the enemy fired a pretty heavy volley into this squad and Corporal William Irvin of Co. H fell dead. This was the first blood spilled in the battle of Richmond. It was barely day light when this took place. Finally, all the forces under General Manson and General Charles Cruft were taking the positions assigned to them on the double quick. The ball opened and there were nearly two hours of continual firing of artillery and musketry before the line began to fall back. The distance from Rogersville to Richmond is called seven miles and I do not think there is a half-mile in that distance where our men did not take a stand. Colonel Topping was killed near the brick church about one mile from Richmond. I passed him during a heavy fire from the enemy. He was lying on his back with his hands folded across his breast a little below where the fatal ball entered. Major William Conklin was killed a short distance south of the church and our quartermaster lost an arm. There was no general stampede until we had to give way at the graveyard in the suburbs of Richmond and this took place at sundown.”[7]

 

Command of the 71st Indiana devolved to the senior surviving captain Edward Allen of Co. B who described the closing moments of the battle. “The confusion appeared to be so great that, but little attention prevailed among the men as to which company or regiment they fought in as they had already become greatly fatigued and exhausted for want of water and food- weak and tired, they fell into line wherever it was most convenient. The battle here was a severe artillery duel and briskly contrasted by musketry by the Second Brigade. The battle here lasted about one hour when it was found the enemy was flanking us on both wings and the column gave way and retreated on the road to Richmond. When the head of the retreating column had arrived within one mile of Richmond and in great confusion, it was met by General Nelson who was just then reaching the army from Lexington. He ordered us to again form a line of battle to meet the approaching enemy. But a small portion of the army was rallied by him at that point and the stand made was of very brief duration. I took no part in this last engagement as my command had become very much scattered. Indeed, the organization of nearly all the regiments seemed to have become broken and the army was drifting along with its parts entirely at the mercy of chance,” Captain Allen noted.[8]


 

Sergeant Brown continued his narrative: “I was captured on the Nicholasville pike nearly eight miles from Richmond about 9 o’clock by men under Captain John Starnes of the 1st Tennessee Cavalry, and he was one of my own cousins. We were taken back to Richmond the next morning and put in the courthouse yard. About noon a Rebel officer gave orders for all first sergeants to make a roll call of the men belonging to their company and report to General Kirby Smith for endorsement so that rations might be issued. I found General Smith sitting at a desk in a large wholesale grocery house he had taken possession of and from that stock two days’ rations were given us,” Brown wrote.[9]  Captain Allen managed to escape and the following day he gathered six commissioned officers and 217 enlisted men, all that remained of the nearly 1,000 men who took the field at Richmond and listed 26 men killed, another 131 wounded. The balance of the regiment was captured then paroled a few days later. The 71st Indiana returned to the state then would reorganize and serve the remainder of the war as the 6th Indiana Cavalry.


[1] “From the 71st Regiment,” Daily Wabash Express (Indiana), September 3, 1862, pg. 2

[2] “Col. Topping,” Daily Wabash Express (Indiana), September 17, 1862, pg. 2

[3] “The 71st Regiment,” Daily Wabash Express (Indiana), September 5, 1862, pg. 2

[4] “Report of the engagement of the 71st Regiment at Richmond, Ky.,” Daily Wabash Express (Indiana), September 23, 1862, pg. 2

[5] “The 71st Regiment,” Daily Wabash Express (Indiana), September 8, 1862, pg. 3

[6] “The 71st Regiment,” September 5, 1862, op. cit.

[7] “Battle of Richmond, Ky.,” The Columbus Republic (Indiana), December 10, 1885, pg. 2

[8] Allen’s report, op. cit.

[9] “Battle of Richmond, Ky.,” op. cit.

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