Sept. 17, 1862. |
Oct. 4. |
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when a large portion of Bragg's main body, under General (Bishop) Polk, appeared upon the hills on the north side of the river, overlooking the National camp, not less than twenty-five thousand strong.
Wilder had been.
re-enforced by two regiments (Sixtieth and Eighty-fourth Indiana), but opposed the invaders with only four thousand effective men. He sustained a severe fight nearly all day, hoping Buell, then at Bowling Green, would send him promised relief.
But relief did not come; and when, at sunset, the demand for a surrender was repeated, and Wilder counted forty-five cannon in position to attack his little force, he called a council of officers.
It was. agreed that further resistance would produce a useless sacrifice of life.
At two o'clock in the morning
Wilder surrendered, and his troops marched out at six o'clock with all the honors of war.1
Bragg was greatly elated by this event, and, counting largely on the usual tardiness of Buell, as Lee had done on that of McClellan, he felt assured of soon making his Headquarters in Louisville, or, at least, of plundering rich Kentucky as much as he desired.
On the 18th he issued a proclamation from Glasgow, in which he repeated the declarations of his subordinates, that the Confederate Army had come as the liberators of Kentuckians “from the tyranny of a despotic ruler,” and “not as conquerors or despoilers.
Your gallant Buckner,” he said, “leads the van; Marshall [Humphrey] is on the right; while Breckenridge, dear to us as to you, is advancing with Kentucky's valiant sons to receive the honor and applause due to their heroism.”
He told them that he must have supplies for his army, but that they should be fairly paid for;2 and he appealed to the women of Kentucky for encouragement, assuring them that he had come as a chival rous knight-errant to succor them from “fear of loathsome prisons or insulting visitations” thereafter.
“Let your enthusiasm have free rein,” he said.
“Buckle on the armor of your kindred — your husbands, sons, and brothers — and scoff with shame him who would prove recreant in his duty to you, his country, and his God.”
From Mumfordsville Bragg's troops moved northward without opposition, and, on the 1st of October, formed a junction with those of Kirby Smith, at Frankfort, where they performed the farce of making Richard Hawes, formerly a Congressman, “Provisional Governor of Kentucky.”
At the same time Bragg's plundering bands were scouring the State under the “provisional” administration of bayonets, dashing up sometimes almost to Louisville, and driving away southward thousands of hogs and cattle, and numerous trains, bearing in the same direction bacon and breadstuffs of every kind.
In every town the goods of merchants were taken, and worthless Confederate scrip given in exchange.3
1 Report of Colonel J. T. Wilder, September 18th, 1862. Wilder reported his entire loss during the siege at thirty-seven killed and wounded. “The enemy,” he said, “admit a loss of 714 killed and wounded on Sunday alone.”
2 It is notorious that Bragg,who was a supple instrument of Jefferson Davis, and was his special favorite on that account, had not the means, nor manifested the least intention to pay for any thing. When, a little later, he retreated from Kentucky, he plundered the region through which he passed of cattle, horses, and supplies of every kind that came in his way, without inquiring whether he took from friends or foes, or offering even promises of remuneration. The invasions of Kirby Smith and Braxton Bragg were plundering raids, like John Morgan's, on a greater scale. It was the wealth of Kentucky, and Southern Ohio and Indiana, which they marched from the Tennessee River to secure, and not the hope of subjugation or permanent occupation.
3 The Lexington Observer, in an article on the amount of plunder carried away by the marauders, says the Richmond Examiner was not far wrong when it said that “the wagon-train of supplies brought out of Kentucky by General Kirby Smith was 40 miles long, and brought a million of yards of jeans, with a large amount of clothing, boots and shoes, and two hundred wagon-loads of bacon, 6,000 barrels of pork, 1,500 mules and horses, and a large lot of swine.” This was a very small portion of the property swept out of the State during this raid. Seventy-four thousand yards of jeans were stolen from one establishment in Frankfort, and one person in Lexington was plundered of jeans and linseys valued at $106,000. “For four weeks,” said the Observer, “while the Confederates were in the vicinity of Lexington, a train of cars was running daily southward, carrying away property taken from the inhabitants, and at the same time huge wagon-trains were continually moving for the same purpose.”
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