My wife and I are both Midwest transplants, who spent most of our lives in Missouri. We were there last month, visiting family, and on the way back swung south to visit Civil War sites in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Columbus, Kentucky, situated on a bluff high above the Mississippi River, isn’t much of a town, but in 1861 was called the Gibraltar of the West. Fighting Bishop Leonidas Polk had 140 guns positioned up here to blast Union vessels trying to pass; 56 of these were ginormous Model 1829 cannon, each monster weighing just under four tons, throwing a 32-pound iron ball with a range of 1 ½ miles. As further deterrent, a mile long chain was stretched the width of the channel, each link weighing twenty pounds five ounces. On November 7, 1861, heretofore unheralded Ulysses S. Grant floated 3,000 Federals downstream from Cairo, Illinois. Taking Columbus was out of the question; Grant’s more modest goal was a Confederate garrison at Belmont, Missouri, on the opposite bank. The assault looked to be a big success until the Nationals started looting the enemy camp, giving Polk time to send reinforcements across the river. Grant himself narrowly escaped being made a prisoner of war. The Columbus-Belmont State Park, on Polk’s Kentucky bluff, is well worth visiting. The great anchor and a section of the chain are on display, as is a “32-pounder,” the tube towering above my head.

We were with Leonidas Polk again in Perryville, Kentucky, 70 miles southeast of Louisville. The Bishop of Louisiana had been at the right hand of Commanding General Braxton Bragg when the Confederates set out from Chattanooga, Tennessee, for an invasion of the North. The Secessionists moved in two wings. On October 8, 1862, Bragg was up at Frankfort, Kentucky, with half the army, leaving Polk and the other half to face the entire Army of the Cumberland. Fighting at a 3-1 numerical disadvantage, Leonidas made a stand worthy of his Thermopylae namesake. Truth be told, the Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site was kind of a disappointment--though I did pick up a great t-shirt in the gift shop. Of more interest was St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Harrodsburg, ten miles north of the battlefield. Darkness having ended the five-hour battle at Perryville, Bishop General Polk took the survivors to Harrodsburg. According to a sign in front of St. Philip’s, he entered the church, had the bell tolled and prayed “Peace to the land and blessings on friend and foe alike.” (If you’re wondering about all this religious stuff, I’m retired clergy, having particular interest in the intersection of church and war.) With both wings of Bragg’s army concentrated at Harrodsburg, Polk and others in high command, assumed the army would resume the offensive. Braxton Bragg, however, seems to have lost his nerve. The invasion was called off, the army ordered back into Tennessee.

In late December 1862, Bragg’s army was at Murfreesboro, southeast of Nashville. The Federal Army of the Cumberland came marching down the Nashville Pike; Bragg brought the Army of Tennessee across Stones River to meet them. The Stones River National Battlefield will be of great interest to any student of the Civil War. Stop #2 on the auto tour is particularly evocative: The Slaughter Pen. (Yes, I know, Gettysburg has a Slaughter Pen, but slaughter was hardly exclusive to our three days.) On the morning of December 31, both Bragg and Union commander William Rosecrans planned to attack the other’s right. Bragg beat Rosecrans to the punch and might have overwhelmed the Unionists if not for Philip Sheridan’s stand in this cedar forest, floored with flat limestone ledges, some waist high, blood running between the crevices. Stop #5 is also of great interest. General William Hazen’s repulse of Bishop Polk’s Corps is marked by “the oldest American Civil War monument still standing in its original battlefield location.” The first permanent regimental monument at Gettysburg (the 2nd Massachusetts, just south of Spangler’s Springs) was dedicated in 1879. The men of Hazen’s brigade had their monument up in the summer of ’63! Unable to dislodge the Federals, Bragg again put his army into reverse gear. Why a modern-era army base would be named for Braxton Bragg, arguably the worst commander in either Blue or Gray, is beyond me.

Maybe the biggest buzz of the trip was following Pat Cleburne to Franklin, Tennessee. Born in Ireland, Cleburne had been a pre-war lawyer in Helena, Arkansas, his combat record so outstanding that Jefferson Davis dubbed him the “Stonewall of the West.” But the Confederate Irishman had come to bad odor for suggesting slaves be issued gray uniforms and muskets, with the promise of emancipation for those who volunteered. If Black men were permitted to fight, the entire theory of the Confederacy would go kaput. In November 1864, Cleburne was taking orders from John Bell Hood, who’d lost the use of an arm in Gettysburg and had a leg shot off at Chickamauga, currently commanding what had been Bragg’s army. Having recently lost Atlanta, Hood was taking what was left of the army north. Six miles south of Columbia, Tennessee, the march went past St. John’s Episcopal Church. Built twenty years earlier by Leonidas Polk on family land in Maury County, St. John’s was modeled after parish churches in rural England, set in a grove of trees, with a pretty cemetery out back. (I was surprised to find a door unlocked, so I could go inside, my visit cut short when alarms started going off.) St. John’s so impressed Cleburne that he was heard to say, “It is almost worth dying to rest in so sweet a spot.” 35 miles further north, Pat Cleburne would be one of six Confederate generals to fall in a Pickett’s Charge-like attack at Franklin, the place he fell marked beneath a magnolia tree. Patrick Ronayne Cleburne would in fact be buried in the St. John’s churchyard, later dug up to be reinterred in his adopted hometown of Helena. Hood would get as far as Nashville, but with his army wrecked at Franklin, was overwhelmed by the Federals, including United States Colored troops.

Other stops in this Civil Wargasim included Monument Circle in Indianapolis, the Harriett Beecher Stow House in Cincinnati, and Stonewall Jackson’s birthplace and childhood home in the West Virginia mountains. The adventure took us through some of the most covid-infested parts of the nation, and I’m pleased to report that both of our double-vaccinated selves returned without any ill-effects. After an absence of 19 months, I’ve been really looking forward to returning to the G.A.R. Hall in September, but I’d be lying if I said this covid spike isn’t kind of concerning. The Board will be meeting in early September to talk about it. Be looking for a mailing soon thereafter.

My heart goes out to school administrators, church leaders and other trying to plan for this fall. To stay current with Round Table programming, check out our website, cwrtgettysburg.org.

 
Bruce Davis
President
brdgettysburg@gmail.com