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On the 10th of September, 1861,
General Albert Sidney Johnston, one of the five officers who then held the rank of “General” in the Confederate army, was assigned to the command of Department No. 2, embracing the States of
Tennessee and
Arkansas, and that part of the
State of Mississippi west of the New Orleans,
Jackson and Great Northern and Central Railroad; also, the military operations in
Kentucky,
Missouri,
Kansas, and the
Indian country immediately west of
Missouri and
Arkansas.
Tennessee had entered into a league with the
Confederacy on the 7th of May, 1861, and although the efforts of the
Confederates to take
Kentucky out of the
Union had been defeated, the
State contained a large element friendly to secession, from
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Confederate private.
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which was recruited at an early day a number of regiments.
In order to afford securer opportunities for such enlistments, it was necessary to make an effort to occupy
eastern Kentucky.
This was desirable, also, in order to protect vital interests of the
Confederacy in south-
western Virginia, where were situated the great salt-works and lead-mines of the
South, and where ran the chief line of railway, connecting
Virginia with the
Gulf States.
With these objects in view, on the 1st of November, 1861,
Brigadier-General Humphrey Marshall was sent by the Confederate Government to take command of certain troops at
Prestonburg, Ky., then under command of
Colonel (afterward General)
John S. Williams.
These consisted of a regiment and a battalion in a camp on the Big Sandy, which had been organized in the fall of 1861, by
Colonel Williams.
The regiment was the 5th Kentucky, the famous “Ragamuffin regiment,” composed almost exclusively of mountain men, and one of the finest corps of soldiers ever enlisted in the army.
They were hardy, raw-boned, brave mountaineers, trained to hardships, and armed with long rifles.
Colonel Williams had also organized a battalion of mounted riflemen from the famous “Blue grass” country in
central Kentucky, composed of young men of education and fortune,--the class of men who afterward made
John Morgan famous as a raider.
This force was further increased by the 54th Virginia, under
Colonel John H. Trigg, the 29th Virginia, under
Colonel A. C. Moore, and a battery of field artillery, under
Captain W. C. Jeffress.
In
General Marshall's official reports, he states that during the campaign of 1861-62 his force never exceeded 1,800 effective men of all arms.
1 The force assigned to him was very small, considering the interests involved and the objects to be attained.
The
