A Border City at War: Louisville and the 1862 Confederate Invasion of Kentucky

A Border City at War: Louisville and tbe 1862 Confederate Invasion of Kentucky STEPHEN I. ROCKENBA(»:[ i iiring the American Civil War,the city of 1.ouisville,Kintlicky,fc, und itself caught iii the middle, pc, litically ind geographically,between opposing northern and southern forces. 1.ouisville' s Ic, cation on the Ohio River as well as its link with the newly completed Louisville and Nashville (LWN) Railroad caused Union leaders,especially,to recog,1ize Louisville as . 1 niajor hub for tlie tiiovenietit of federi] troops and supplies into tile South. The city might also have served as a staging point in tlie transpoita tion of wounded federal sc, ldiers and Confederate prisonersof war northward . And although no pitched battle occurred iii or around the city of 1.(„ iisville itself,the 1862 invasion ot Kentuckythe highwater mark of Confederate success in the Bluegrass regiondemonstrated both the exigeticies and dangers this ,. 1 + A # I border city faced. To those living in Kentucky,the mere threat of battle and the movement of armies through the state upset a fragile balance of local Union and Confederate forces and 26 / ' lik, i.' i-, : 2 -,$ sympathies. 1.c, uisville' s experience in 1862 therefc, re demonstrates the coinplexities cif life in a border region, as well as * 741 * 41the repercussions of military operations on nearby communix ties, and it proved to be emblematic of the situation many 1 1, 7 ' communities in Kentucky faced. 1. ouisville, the nation' s twelfth largest city by 1860, had FA prospered econotically d, iring the atitebellum er, 1, ind that #' 3'. 1 fact contributed considerably to its value to the federal gov- : 2 ernment as a center for supply and prc, duction once the war began.'By 1860, the city housed over seven thousand workers who labored in four hundred manufacturing establishments Ge, teral Don Carlos Buell that produced, among other goods, clothing, shoes, and wage, ns.2 In the ( 18/8-1898)Comnwrider decade befc, re the war,I.ouisville' s factc, ries had produced jean cloth and readyof tbe Ai· jity of tlic Obio fro, 11 Noveiliber 1 86 1 1( 1 tc,wear clothing,making it a perfect center for the making of uniforms once Octo[) ei· 1 862. the conflict began. Louisville's pork industry, second only tc) Cincinnati's, Cinci, inati Musetim had thrived throughout the antebelluin years, and during the war it proved Centel·, (: i, icijitiati useful in producing salt pork,a staple of the Civil War armies. Not surpris- Historical Society Library ingly,the city experienced a boom in business during the war,yielding mateWINTER 2003 35 A BORDER CITY AT WAR rial benefits to nierchants, businessmen, and smugglers alike.4 As a result Louisville gained considerable strategic significance even tliough it was far from the major battlefields of the Civil War. For exalliple, when Union Cieneral Don Carlos Buell occupied Nashville, Tennessee, in February 1862, he used I.ouisville as a supply base, with the LRN Railrc, ad serving as the lifeline of his army. And when Cc, n federate General Braxtcm Bragg entered Kentucky in early September 1862 and captured Munfordville, he severed Buell's line of supply to 1.ouisville and therebr jeopardized both the sustenance of Buell's arniy iii Tetinessee and the safety of Louisville. Histori: 1115 and writers have given some attention to Loilisville's role as a potential target of the Confederate invasi() n of Kentucky, but analysis has been lackitig and many accounts include surprisingl> little detail. Robert Emmet McDowell's City of c)} iflict contaliis a lengthy, albeit ronianticized, rendering of Louisville' s part in the Kentucky campaign. included the " Black Brigade"c(, tiiposed of African Americans from Cincintiati whc)had been conscripted tc) dig entrenchients, and the liotorious " Squirrel Hunters, vc, lunteers frcitti rur, 11 Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky.16 During the " siege"of Ciliciniiati coliipetilig pc, litical and ecotioi, iic tactioils acted to prc, tect their jiiterests, while at the scitiic tiiiic bolstering the Unic, n efic, rt to protect the city.'A portioti of Sinith's arin>· did niove tori,. irds (. inciiinati, 1ut this proved tc) be little inc,re than a feiiit. On September 11, 1862,Confederate troops pulled...