Louisville Under Martial Law: A Civilian Remembers the Opening of the Kentucky Campaign

“After a season of seeming peace, our beautiful city has put on its war mask again.”

          In the early days of September 1862 as the rumors of Kirby Smith’s invasion spread through the state, Marie Butler wrote back to her family in Ohio describing the panic that gripped the city of Louisville, Kentucky.

          “Louisville is under martial law and every male citizen between 18 and 45 is ordered to enroll himself in the militia and exempts are to form a reserve,” she said. “The Rebel forces are said to be advancing on Louisville and every preparation is being made to meet them. Meanwhile, bank specie and hospital stores are being sent across the river to Indiana for safe keeping. Arrest of disloyal citizens are being made every day by scores and traitors in our midst are beginning to feel that the government which they have insulted so long has not lost its power or dignity.”

          Marie Butler’s letters describing life in wartime Louisville first saw publication in the September 18, 1862, edition of the Summit County Beacon published in Akron, Ohio.

 

The entrance of General Lovell H. Rousseau's brigade into Louisville was the first of thousands of reinforcements that would arrive in the city in September 1862. In the meantime, the city was declared under martial law and all able-bodied men were called upon to help erect the city's defenses. Near the end of the month, Don Carlos Buell arrived with his army after a 300-mile march from northern Alabama. In the coming days, Buell would add dozens of newly raised regiments to his army and by early October was marching south to confront Braxton Bragg. 

          Doubtless your correspondence can have little of vital interest to write which has not already appeared in your columns, but in this time of public and private conflict between loyalty and rebellion, no Union voice can be raised without a listener and no Union tongue can be silent.

          With the exception of the guerilla excitement, Louisville has been quiet for several months but now all is commotion again. The city is threatened by an invading foe without and a treacherous one within. With the return of the beautiful autumn days, we are living over again the hopes and fears and the scenes of a year ago. Again, our beautiful state is invaded by a large force of the Rebel army under Smith and Morgan. Lexington is taken, Frankfort is evacuated, and ere this probably in the hands of the Rebels. The legislature now, for the first time in the history of our commonwealth, is convened in Louisville having brought with it all the valuable papers and archives of the state.

Louisville is under martial law and every male citizen between 18 and 45 is ordered to enroll himself in the militia and exempts are to form a reserve. The Rebel forces are said to be advancing on Louisville and every preparation is being made to meet them. Meanwhile, bank specie and hospital stores are being sent across the river to Indiana for safe keeping. Arrest of disloyal citizens are being made every day by scores and traitors in our midst are beginning to feel that the government which they have insulted so long has not lost its power or dignity.

Troops are coming in from the North and South. An hour ago, the Louisville Legion under General Rousseau came in on the Nashville train. This gallant general and his brigade are citizens of Louisville and were organized during the days of Kentucky neutrality when they were not even allowed to encamp on Kentucky soil. One year ago, this noble band were the first to meet the Rebel Buckner when at the head of an invading force he was marching on to Louisville. Afterwards, the names of Rousseau and the Louisville Legion were recorded on the bloody field of Shiloh and now these brave men have come home again to stand between danger and their beloved city.

General Lovell H. Rousseau

After a season of seeming peace, our beautiful city has put on its war mask again. All through the busy day and the unquiet night, long lines of glistening bayonets and the steady rumble of long government trains tell us that an army is near and war is upon us. Even as I write my pen is keeping time to the roll of a drum and three times, I have laid it down and rushed to the door with our dear old flag whose well-worn and faded stripes have, during the last year, waved a welcome to more than 150,000 men.

It would make many a Northern heart leap with an unwonted thrill of patriotic joy could he stand on Broadway, our military thoroughfare, and see the cry of soldering coming bring to the gates of every loyal dwelling, a motley crowd of black and white faces, while here and there a patriotic family are ventilating their patriotism and flags. Slowly they come, a broad line of weary men, toiling through the heat and dust with colors flying and bayonets gleaming. But at the first sight of the stars and stripes waved to welcome them, cheer after cheer rises, answered by the cheers of women and children and our brave men seem to look through the gloom of the present to a time emblemed by our stars and stripes which are indeed to them bright rainbows on the cloud of war.

We have just received the latest news; the star and bars, the flag of the rebellion, is floating from our capitol at Frankfort. Kentucky seems doomed to reap at last the bloody, bitter harvest sown in her early indecision. Many prophesied this to the writer, during a late visit to your patriotic county, and now dear old friends, now that these things have come upon us, we cannot refrain from reminding them that the same wicked hands that a year ago bound Kentucky hand and foot, are still laboring to cast her forth out of the Union. The same brave Union men who saved her from utter shipwreck then are laboring and suffering for her still as we Northern patriots are called upon to labor and suffer.

Louisville is full of refugees who have fled from devastated homes to our loyal city, stripped of all earthly possessions but a loyal country rather than live under the shade of the flag of rebellion. In view of this, we would say to our Northern friends, give us a deeper love, a more enduring sympathy in this, our hour of trial. It is easy for you to be loyal. Your houses are not marked for waving the dear old flag of the Union. You lie down in peace and arise in safety and pay not for your patriotism the price of a desolated home.

For several months our hospitals have been well supplied and not overfull, but now the sick and wounded are being brought in from the surrounding country. Lebanon and Bardstown have been evacuated and the sick brought to our city, and now with a near prospect of a battle within sight and sound of our homes, we have nerved ourselves to renewed exertions, feeling that our labor is not yet done. To our Northern friends, to whom we have never appealed in vain, we still look for sympathy and aid. Again, we appeal to them for something for our wounded men. Next to God, our country is in our soldiers’ hands, our soldiers are in ours.

Source:

Letter from Marie R. Butler, Summit County Beacon (Ohio), September 18, 1862, pg. 1

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on their way to
Read more

Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

Image
     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of how Confederate jacke
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true warrior, for then comes the harvest of gain.
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on securing all the Enfi
Read more

In front of Atlanta with the 68th Ohio

Image
  The arrow corps badge of the 17th Army Corps was worn by many members of the 68th Ohio in the latter days of the war.       Private Edward A. Bigelow of Co. F of the 68th Ohio Volunteer Infantry wrote this brief account of the Battle of Atlanta just two days afterwards to his father back home in Henry County, Ohio. The regiment formed a part of Colonel Robert K. Scott's three regiment all-Ohio brigade consisting of the 20th, 68th, and 78th regiments, being designated the Second Brigade of the Third Division of Frank Blair's 17th Army Corps. Bigelow's letter originally appeared in the Napoleon Press newspaper and was copied in the Toledo Daily Commercial which was providential as no known copies exist today of the wartime Napoleon Press.  
Read more

Straw Already Threshed: Sherman on Shiloh

Image
  W illiam Tecumseh Sherman was enjoying retired life in New York City when just before Christmas in 1889 he was presented with an article written by John Cockerill, a former drummer boy in the 24 th Ohio who was visiting his father Colonel Joseph Cockerill of the 70 th Ohio of Sherman’s division when the Battle of Shiloh began. Cockerill’s article, originally published in the New York Journalist and later featured in the January 1893 issue of Blue & Gray Magazine, Sherman later pronounced as “the best war story ever written” and the truest account of Shiloh.           On New Year’s Day 1890, General Sherman composed the following letter to his friend Marshall P. Wilder thanking him for sending along Cockerill’s article and giving his own explanation of Shiloh. “This to me is straw already threshed for we have fought this battle on paper several times, a much more agreeable task than to fight with bullets,” he concluded. “When in England some years ago I was gratified to liste
Read more

Globules of Adipose Pomposity: Top 11 Worst Buckeye Colonels of the Civil War

Image
Ohio Colonels in the Civil War "They weren't all heroes."      It stands to reason that somewhere in the over 200 regimental-sized organizations that Ohio fielded during the war, a bad apple or two would end up in command. Today's article tackles this admittedly sensitive subject with a top 11 list of Buckeye colonels  who exited the service under less than honorable circumstances during the Civil War. It's a list of cowards, drunks, incompetents, and outright scoundrels whose record adds color (or rather off color) to Ohio's history in the Civil War and is "history that deserves to be remembered."       They are presented in the rough chronological order of their exit from the service. 
Read more

Charging Battery Robinett: An Alabama Soldier Recalls the Vicious Fighting at Corinth

Image
W riting 30 years after the Battle of Corinth, James A. McKinstry of the 42 nd Alabama recalled his experiences storming Battery Robinett with Colonel William P. Rogers of the 2 nd Texas and expressed guilt that it was perhaps his action that brought about the colonel’s demise. “On seeing a line of Federals approaching, and before giving the situation a thought, I immediately raised my gun and fired full into the breast of a Federal sergeant, who was in front of the column, and only a short distance from us.  'Twas then that Captain George Foster shouted, "Cease firing, men! cease firing!" and waved his handkerchief, then I realized the true situation. 'Twas too late! That fatal volley had been turned on our little band from the muzzles of 1,500 muskets. I was still standing just as I was when I fired my last shot, and within a few feet of Colonel Rogers, when a Minie ball went crashing through my left hip and turned me half round; another went tearing through my
Read more

Federal Arms in the Stones River Campaign

Image
  T he following list, constructed after many years of research, lists unit by unit which type of weapons were carried by the Army of the Cumberland during the Stones River campaign. A number of sources were consulted including state ordnance reports, Federal quarterly ordnance reports (thank you Research Arsenal ), Ken Baumann’s Arming the Suckers, regimental histories and memoirs, captured ordnance reports, and consultation with knowledgeable experts in the field of firearms. Some of this information has been shared on the blog before in “ Rosy’s Heavy Metal: Artillery of the Army of the Cumberland ” or “ Shoulder Arms: How Sheridan’s and Davis’s Divisions Were Armed at Stones River ” but this is the first time the army as a whole has been presented. The overall conclusion I drew from looking at this data is that the Army of the Cumberland in December 1862 was an organization in the midst of transformation as far as arms. Many of the regiments still retained their original issue
Read more

I Don't Thirst for More Fight: An Iron Brigade Sergeant Remembers Gainesville and Second Bull Run

Image
The men of General John Gibbon's brigade became known as the Black Hat Brigade since they wore the regulation black Hardee hats like the one shown above that belonged to a soldier in Co. C of the 2nd Wisconsin. Comprised entirely of western regiments (19th Indiana, 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin, later to be joined by the 24th Michigan), the brigade became well known as "one of the most colorful and distinguished brigades that fought for the Union," stated historian Alan Nolan. After proving their mettle at Gainesville, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, and Antietam, they became known as the Iron Brigade of the Army of the Potomac. The red circle on the hat dates from 1863 and represents the corps badge for the First Brigade of the First Division of the I Army Corps.  The fight at Gainesville, Virginia on August 28, 1862, marked the first time Sergeant Willie Hutchins of Co. B of the 6 th Wisconsin of the Iron Brigade had seen action. The former native of Vermont struggled w
Read more