Federals Organize in 1861

It is hard to imagine at this late day the excitement that prevailed in Christian County when Fort Sumpter was fired upon and the actual war broke out. While the Southern forces were organizing in the southern part of the country, the Northern, or Union forces, took similar steps north of town. As has been said, Hopkinsville is perched upon a ridge of Christian County, It sharply divided the forests from the barrens in early settlement days. This time the line was to separate the people themselves into hostile camps, who up to the very time they donned their uniforms had met on the common ground in the county seat as friends and neighbors.

Joseph F. Anderson 1818-1869

Joseph F. Anderson, native of Christian County. Carpenter by trade, Superintendent of Christian County poor-farm. Member 3rd Ky. Reg., Union Army.  Union recruiting Camp Joe Anderson, located on old Madisonville Road, was named for him. Anderson took part in battles of Shiloh, Missionary Ridge, Lookout Mountain and Atlanta.

The principal camp of the Federals was on the farm of Joseph F. Anderson and it came to be known as "Camp Joe Anderson." Here several hundred recruits were assembled and the attempt was made to organize a regiment with the following officers:
 

  • James F. Buckner, Colonel

  • Thomas C. Fruit, Lieutenant-Colonel

  • William T. Buckner, Major

  • John P. Ritter, Adjutant

  • Joseph F. Anderson, Quartermaster

Among the Captains were:

  • B. T. Underwood

  • Hugh Cooper

  • William Starling

The regiment had piece of artillery. In September 1861, General S. B. Buckner, with a force of 4,000 or more confederates came from bowling Green and the recruits were dispersed. Colonel Buckner was captured in Hopkins County and taken a prisoner to Paducah. Lieutenant-Colonel Buckner with forty or fifty men was also surrounded in a church and captured after a brisk fight. This was the end of the first attempt. It should be added that the war was not this time taken very seriously. The soldiers enlisted for one year and few on either side realized that it was to be more than a clash of arms, that would soon be adjusted. No one dreamed that it was the beginning of a long, hard-fought struggle with two armies of an unconquered people, struggling until one was crushed. By fall the fighting in Virginia had disillusioned the boys out for a frolic and things got down to a war basis.

John W. Breathitt got together a company and proceeded to Calhoun, Kentucky, where they were mustered into service for a period of three years, and assigned to duty December 13, 1861, as Company A, Third Kentucky Cavalry, under Colonel James S. Jackson.

Col. James S. Jackson ~ James S. Jackson, Brig., Gen. Union Army, born in Fayette County, Kentucky, Transylvania law graduate, 1845, practiced law in Hopkinsville, 1850 - 1861, elected to the 37th U.S. Congress in 1861, commanded 3rd Ky., Cav., killed in Battle of Perryville, October 4, 1862, buried in Riverside Cemetery.

The officers were:

  • James W. Breathitt, Captain, afterwards Major

  • Charles L. White, First Lieutenant

  • N.C. Petrie, Second Lieutenant

It is impossible to get an accurate list of county men in this and other companies, because companies were made up from many counties. Following are some of the non commissioned officer and privates in major

Breathitt's company:

S.W. Abbott Thomas W. Ashford W. H. Barnett J. Blankenship J. B. Barnett
W. J. Barnett H. Baker J. J. Bowem  A. Brewer George Bobbitt
W. H. Cansler N. L. Cananaugh F. M. Cooper  I.D. Cooper S.D. Collins
M. F. Chesterfield J. J. Fuller James Fuller W. L. Gibson J. B. Goode
J.C. Hunter H. H. Jones J.D. Johnson A.G. Johnson W. H. Johnson
Edward Kelly D. H. Knight J. W. Kirben H. H. Lindsay J. J. Long
George L. Lovan H. Mc Intosh F. M. Mc Intosh J. B. Martin J.C. Martin
J. G. Moreland John Matheny Aaron Morgan F. P. Miller George H. Myers
A.H. Perkins J. H. Phaup J. R. Phillips B. M. Powers W. H. Power
William Ray J. J. Renshaw Rev. Sol. Smith J. G. Stephenson A. P. Smith
J. W. Underwood U. M. Underwood William Vine A. Vinson Charlie A. White
Moses W. Woosley J. W. White W. T. Williamson Wyatt M. Wright J. B. Wright
G.U. West W.W. West M. W. West    

Captain Breathitt was promoted to Major May 27, 1863, and Charles L. White became Captain, with Thomas W. Ashford and Edward Kelly, First and Second Lieutenants.

This company fought under General T. L. Crittenden, and participated in the battles at Sacremento, Kentucky, Shiloh, Corinth, Iuka, Pea Ridge, New Market, Kinderhook, Chaplin Hill, Stone River, Chickamauga and other points in the Southern campaign following the battle of Shiloh. In 1864, Major Breathitt saw service in this part of Kentucky.

About the time Major Breathitt organized his company, Captain B. T. Underwood, who had been with the troops at Camp Joe Anderson, got together a company made up largely of the same men with him there and his company was mustered in at Henderson, Kentucky, as Company A of the Twenty-fifth Kentucky Infantry, under Colonel James M. Shackelford. The officers were:

  • B. T. Underwood, Captain
  • R. W. Williams, First Lieutenant
  • Thomas B. Boyd, Second Lieutenant

This company was first with General Crittenden and was afterwards consolidated with the Seventeenth Regiment under Colonel John H. Mc Henry, Jr. Following is the roster of Captain Underwood's company:

J. G. Anderson J. J. Armstrong James Anderson, Jr. H. C. Brasher M. B. Brown
A. E. Brown F. Blanchard S.E. Boyd  G. E. Boyd W. H. Boyd
James M. Bennett J.D. Brown L. H. Bourland F. Cordier I. A. Cook
J. W. Courtney William Doss Thomas Ewing W. Fortner W. Fletcher
T. Fletcher Samuel T. Fruit Edom Grace James Gilliland P. F. Gibson
P. R. Gibson William Gabert J. W. Hammond V. A. Hamby G. H. Hamby
D. M. Hamby L. H. Johnson Daniel Kennedy H. J. L. Love Henry Ladd
W.R. Long J. W. Morris J. O. Menser S.D. Menser Joseph Morgan
J. O'Roark J. F. Pyle Charlie Pryor A. Russell J. Rose
W. Sizemore J.C. Teague William Teague Charles F. Trotter W. J. Witty
W. S. Witty E. T. Walker E. Wilkins J. M. West John W. Wyatt

Captain Underwood resigned April 5, 1862, and J.V. Boyd became Captain, and Samuel T. Fruit and Albert E. Brown were First and Second Lieutenants.

In December 1862, the regiment of which this was a part was commanded by Colonel A.M. Stout, as Company G, after consolidation. It participated in the following battles: Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Chickamauga, Kennesaw Mountain, Corinth, Atlanta, Marietta, Kingston, Dallas, Cassville, New Hope Church and Altoona Mountain.

The company was mustered out January 22, 1865 at Louisville.

The Seventeenth Kentucky Cavalry was organized in 1864 and one or more companies were composed of Christian County men. It was commanded by Colonel Sam F. Johnson, doing scout duty. The thirty-fifth was also largely composed of local men. It was organized at Owensboro, September 25, 1863. It operated in the Green River section until the summer of 1864 when it was assigned to General E. H. Hopson, who was in conflict with the Confederates under General Adam Johnson. It also went as far as Saltville, Virginia, under General Stephen Burbridge and returning to Louisville in December, 1864, was mustered out at Louisville.

Colonel Starling was shot and killed by Jesse Ratcliffe (my maternal 2nd great uncle) in the excitement of a campaign while he was a Republican candidate for Sheriff, June 12, 1880.

After the war Col. Starling was killed in a political canvass for the sheriffalty of The county, and after his death the following obituary notice of him appeared in one of the Hopkinsville papers:

Edmund Alexander Starling.—An account of the death of Col. Starling from assassination was published last week. He was descended from families of mark and distinction in Virginia and Kentucky. His relationship extended through many of the large families in both of these States, the McDowells, McClungs, Irvines, Bufords, Marshall’s, Prestons, Birneys, McGavichs, Shelbys, Sullivants, etc., all of whom have produced men of character and position. He was no unworthy representative of his family.

Born in Kentucky on the 22d day of November, 1826, when a youth be moved to Columbus, Ohio, where in the office of his brother, Col. Lyne Starling, he acquired those exact and comprehensive business habits which characterized him through life. From there he went to New York, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits with eminent success until the defalcation of a partner in the house caused him a loss of the greater part of his acquired capital. He was then appointed Indian agent, and was sent to the tribes on Puget Sound, and the reports of the department of the Government having supervision of such matters show, what the modest reticence of Col. Starling never revealed, that he discharged his duties with scrupulous fidelity and with exceeding ability. After his arduous and responsible services incident to such a position, he removed to Hopkinsville, where he had spent his earliest days and had received the rudiments of his education, and where his mother and many of his immediate family resided. For many years he was the business partner of his brother, William Starling (now deceased), and during the war commanded the Thirty-fifth Regiment of Kentucky Mounted Infantry Volunteers in the Federal service. Since the war he married Miss Annie L., youngest daughter of the late Dr. John McCarroll, of Hopkinsville, and led, with his devoted wife and in the bosom of his family, that quiet and retired life which his temperament best fitted him to enjoy. Col. Starling was an undemonstrative man, though strong and faithful in his friendships. He was pre-eminently kind-hearted and charitable, and no worthy, distressed person ever left him empty-handed. There are many in this community among the lowly who rise up and call him blessed, and many others still who will miss his kind and cheering words of advice and sympathy. He was a man of the most refined tastes, and exhibited the greatest fondness for books, music, paintings and flowers. And no one who ever met him in social life, or sat with him at his hospitable board, could fail to be impressed with the ease and dignity of his manners, and with the generosity and kindness of his nature. But, best of all, Col. Starling was a Christian in the true sense of the word. He was the son of Christian parents who, faithful to their trust, instructed him early in life in Bible truth, as formulated in the doctrines and standards of the Presbyterian Church, of which they were members. While quite young his father died, and he was left with his widowed mother, to whom he was devotedly attached. It was not until after her death, which occurred in the year 1869, that he united with the First Presbyterian Church of this city. Several years after uniting with the church he was elected and installed a Ruling Elder. He filled up the measure of his days with active Christian work, and made the Christian life his chief concern. It seemed to be his great effort to make up in the activity of his last years for the long years of his earlier life which he had failed to devote to the service of the Master. He said to the writer of this sketch, in speaking of this, that he had never, in all his wanderings, been able to shake off the impressions of the Christian instruction given him by his mother in the days of his youth. The regular services of the church, the prayer meeting, the Sunday-school, and all church work commanded his most earnest interest and loving service. From the beginning of his Christian life, he resolutely laid aside all animosities, and the question, What is my duty? had its answer in its fulfillment.

General James S. Jackson was the highest ranking officer from Christian County on the Union side. He had been a lieutenant in the Mexican War, from Greenup County, Kentucky, and afterwards came to Hopkinsville to practice law. He ran for Congress on the Know Nothing ticket in 1859, but was defeated. He ran again in 1861 as a Republican and was elected. While in Congress he was given a Colonel's commission in December, 1861, and assigned to the Third Kentucky Cavalry. Was under General Crittenden in the Southern campaign and was promoted to Brigadier General August 13, 1862. He was killed at the head of his brigade in the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, October 4, 1862. His body was brought to Hopkinsville March 24, 1863, after having been placed in a vault in Louisville for several months, and was buried in Riverside Cemetery. General Jackson was only forty years of age when he was cut down in the midst of a brilliant career in law, politics and military leadership. He was an exceptionally handsome man, highly educated, a brilliant conversationalist, graceful, easy and knightly in his bearing and was as brave as he was ambitious. He had taken a prominent position at the b ar and in business affairs when the war came on.

Surviving Federal Soldiers in August, 1929
John O. Menser Crofton, Kentucky
Butler Martin Crofton, Kentucky
I. H. Wicks Crofton, Kentucky
Michael Wolfe Hopkinsville, Kentucky
McJ Davis Hopkinsville, Kentucky
Gus Breathitt Hopkinsville, Kentucky
James W. Morris Hopkinsville, Kentucky
Francis Morris Hopkinsville, Kentucky
Francis Morris Hopkinsville, Kentucky
S.W. Hadden Hopkinsville, Kentucky

 

 

  
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