This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[243] invited him to Washington. On the 27th of April he handed Helm a sealed envelope, saying, ‘Ben, here is something for you. Think it over by yourself and let me know what you will do.’ The envelope contained Helm's nomination as paymaster in the United States army. Helm said: ‘I will try to do what is right. You shall have my answer in a few days.’ Returning to Kentucky he found his State much divided, and each side full of patriotic fervor for what it deemed the right. According to his convictions of duty he made his decision, and that was for the South. He wrote to Mr. Lincoln declining the position of paymaster. He organized the First Kentucky cavalry for the Confederate army, reporting for duty to Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston October 19, 1 861, and received his commission as colonel and in March, 1862, he was commissioned brigadier-general. In June, 1862, when Breckinridge's division was sent to Vicksburg, Helm was in command of the Second brigade, which included the Fourth and Fifth Kentucky, one Mississippi and two Alabama regiments. He was on duty about Vicksburg during the naval operations in the summer of 1862, and in the latter part of July marched to Louisiana with the division. Just before the opening of the battle of Baton Rouge, during a stampede by some partisan rangers, General Helm was dangerously injured by the fall of his horse. He remained on duty in the district of the Gulf until the latter part of January, 1863, when he was ordered to take command of the brigade of the late General Hanson, in Breckinridge's division. He commanded this brigade, which included the Kentucky regiments of Breckinridge's division, during the Tullahoma campaign, and part of the time was in command of the division. On the morning of September 20, 1863, in the first assault upon the Federal breastworks, battle of Chickamauga, ‘the battle was opened by Helm's brigade with great fury.’ ‘This was one of the bloodiest encounters of the day,’
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.