Jan. 19, 1862

Jan. 19, 1862: The Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky. Crittenden, with 5,900 Confederate troops, sends Zollicoffer with the troops forward to Logan’s Crossroads, where they strike Thomas’s line at 5:30 AM and force back the first line they hit–Yankee cavalry acting as skirmishers. The Rebels push on, encouraged, and strike the main line, and are repulsed, even though they outnumber the Union troops. So far, only 2 Union regiments make a stand against Zollicoffer, who forms his entire brigade of 4 regiments into line of battle, and attacks. For an hour, both lines engage in a close-range firefight, and as Gen. Thomas sends a third regiment to strengthen his line, Col. Speed Fry, commanding the Union’s 4th Kentucky Infantry, therefore deploys into line of battle. Gen. Zollicoffer notices the new regiment deploying and thinks it to be a Rebel unit. He rides forward to confer with Col. Fry, and apparently neither one notices that the other is an enemy. A Rebel officer notices, and fires at Fry; in return, the Union troops return with a volley, and Zollicoffer is shot out of his saddle, dead—and the Rebel line there begins to falter and fall back. Meanwhile, Gen. Crittenden sends up his second brigade, under Gen. Carroll. As this force approaches the lines, Thomas orders in several more regiments, and attacks on both flanks of the Confederate line. The 2^nd Minnesota makes a heroic stand at a pasture fence, engages in hand-to-hand combat with the Rebels on the other side of the fence, while the 9^th Ohio leads the attack on the Rebel left flank, and the 12^th Kentucky swings around the Rebel right. Crittenden’s line breaks, and this force retreats all the way back through Cumberland Gap and does not stop until it reaches Murfreesboro, Tennessee some weeks later. Gen. Thomas and his jubilant Union troops capture 12 cannon, 150 wagons, and over 1,000 horses and mules. Union victory.

Forces: U.S. 4,400 C.S. 5,900.

Losses: U.S.: 39 killed, 207 wounded C.S.: 125 killed, 404 wounded

This loss means that the long Confederate line from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian mountains has lost its right flank at the same time Grant's river incursions threathen its left.


–Sgt. Alexander G. Downing, of the Union Army, writes in his journal: "Lieutenant Durbin and some of the boys went out scouting. They brought in a lot of corn to feed the horses; also some walnuts, hickory nuts, corn meal and molasses. The lieutenant took a 'secesh' flag from a schoolma’am."

–Alfred L. Castleman, a surgeon in the Union’s Army of the Potomac in Virginia, writes in his journal:

From this last scene I passed on to look up a party of our Regiment, who had been detailed to guard the General’s Headquarters. I found them; and, my God! what a sight!— Around the house occupied by the General was a large ditch, some five feet deep, and some ten or twelve feet wide, dug as the commencement of a fort. In this ditch, over which a few evergreen boughs had been thrown as a covering, stood a well dressed Lieutenant, (from my own county) with a squad of soldiers guarding the General’s house—the Lieutenant trying to infuse into the men a little warmth of patriotic feeling, whilst the winter torrents poured through the evergreen branches, and their whole frames shook with cold in this sentry house, charitably built for them by orders of the General, who at that moment was being joyful over his wine, and with his friends!! And is this the REPUBLIC, the government of equality for which I am fighting?