CUMBERLAND GAP.

BY B. F. STEVENSON.

Late Surgeon (Major) Twenty-second Ky. V. I.

On the 18th day of June, 1861, the rebel military authorities seized and occupied Cumberland Gap, the most available door for military access by the nation to East Tennessee, and thus held in check the most loyal portion of the people of that state. From this stronghold they made frequent incursions into the contiguous mountain counties of Kentucky, which may also justly be said to have been the stronghold of loyalty to the nation in that state. These raids were generally undertaken by marauding bands of midnight plunderers, whose chief objects were private gain and the gratification of personal malice engendered in the heated political contests of former years. In the execution of their fell purposes, neither property rights nor the sanctity of human life was regarded.

On the 20th day of October, 1861, the rebels received at Camp Wild Cat," in Laurel county, Ky., the first repulse to an organized command encountered by them in the mountain region of Kentucky. The national troops engaged in this action were nominally under the command of General Schoepff, but they were really commanded by Colonel Theophilus T. Garrard, of Clay county, Ky., who had with patriotic ardor during the preceding summer recruited and organized the Seventh Regiment of Kentucky Volunteer Infantry. His

regiment was made up of mountain boys, thoroughly imbued with sentiments of devotion to the integrity and unity of the

nation.

The Seventeenth Ohio and the Thirty-third Indiana Regiments of Volunteer Infantry were also engaged in the battle.

The Kentucky troops were undrilled and without a knowledge of the first rudiments of military discipline or tactics, but they were patriotic; they were woodsmen, and accustomed to the use of fire-arms; they were standing on their own soil, and were familiar with all the mountain passes through which the enemy could approach them; and, above all, they were burning with anxiety to punish the rebel troops for marauding outrages and wrongs perpetrated on their families and their friends throughout the entire section, and General Schoepff wisely deferred to the opinions and advice of the senior officers commanding the Kentucky troops.

The battle, viewed alone, may be regarded as only a skirmish of outposts, but it was important in the results which speedily followed. It was the fixed purpose of the rebel leaders to drag Kentucky into rebellion against the national authorities in despite of the well-settled convictions of the people expressed at the polls, and with triumphant majorities, on three different occasions during the preceding summer. was the misfortune of the state to have as its chief executive officer, for the time being, one who was but too willing to second all the ulterior designs of the insurgents, by claiming sovereign power within the state for all local laws over those enacted by the National Congress.

It

Acting on this theory of state and of national obligation, he had already appointed S. B. Buckner to the command of

the state guard-a man well known to be a party to the great conspiracy against the national government, and he had also armed that body in hostility to the government with arms drawn from the national workshops. Felix K. Zollicoffer, of Tennessee, was chosen by the rebel authorities as the proper agent for the accomplishment of this purpose. He was a man of great natural endowments and mental energy, who had forced his way from the humble walks of life to a commanding position in his state. He had twice represented the Nashville district in the National Congress, where, by force of talent and deliberative ability, he had won a commanding position. On the stump and before the people he had always vehemently denounced the heresy of secession as preposterous. His popularity with the people in the mountain section of Tennessee and Kentucky before the outbreak of the rebellion was very great. But unfortunately for his fame, when his state, or, rather, when the official authorities of his state, in violation of constitution and law, and the deliberately expressed will of the people, determined to link her fortunes with the fate of the Confederacy, and join issues with the Nation in the impending conflict, General Zollicoffer consented to abandon all the well-settled convictions of his life and join with his enemies, and the enemies of the government, in the effort to accomplish its overthrow.

The result of his first essay on the mountain section of Kentucky proved to him that the passes into the state were better guarded than he was before aware of, and that the wrongs which had been perpetrated by prowling bands of midnight plunderers had roused in the people a spirit of stern and determined resistance to rebel misrule.

Following his repulse at Wild Cat, General Zollicoffer fell back on his reserves in Tennessee, and after reorganizing his defeated force, he attempted at a lower point on the Cumberland River to enforce and carry out the programme of the Confederate authorities in Kentucky by an occupation in force and a subjugation of the people to rebel military law. In pursuance of this policy, he met at Mill Springs, in Pulaski county, Ky., on the 19th day of January, 1862, the national forces, under command of General George H. Thomas. Here the first signal defeat of a rebel army was encountered, in the overthrow and route of an army corps, together with the death of its commander, slain in battleslain in the prosecution of a cause which had the approval of neither his judgment nor his conscience. And here, too, was first revealed to the earnest gaze of the nation the great qualities for command in the presence of embattled hosts, and the still rarer attribute of stern and unyielding tenacity of purpose in the progress of battle, which are all possessed by General Thomas in so eminent a degree, and which time has since developed into grand and majestic proportions. "Recorded honors shall gather round his monument and thicken over him. It is a solid fabric, and will support the laurels that adorn it."

The rebels still held possession of Cumberland Gap, notwithstanding their defeat in the field. As a strategic point, it was deemed an indispensable necessity by both of the parties to the great conflict in which the Nation had unfortunately become involved.

On the organization of the Army of the Cumberland, under General D. C. Buell, General Thomas was assigned to one

of its divisions. A portion of the troops previously under his command was still held in the mountain region to restrain and punish predatory incursions and raids into the state, and to support the loyal sentiment predominant in that section.

The purpose of the government to take and to hold the position was never relaxed, but was held in abeyance only for the time being, for what were deemed at that moment more urgent and vital considerations.

The intuitions of men often bear to the future the stamp and impress of genius. President Lincoln was a civilian, not an educated military man, but his far-seeing military capacity enabled him to see at a glance the manifest importance of holding with a firm and unyielding grasp this door of entrance to the heart of the Confederacy. It is central in position, and from it blows could have been safely dealt out to the right or left, as occasion might have demanded. It is on the direct and shortest line "from Ohio down to the sea," and rebellion could more speedily from this than any other point east of the Mississippi River have been bi-sected and rent in twain. His proposition to Congress to construct a military railroad from Lexington, Ky., to Cumberland Gap was made a butt of by the enemies of the government and the witlings of the day as an impracticable suggestion. No wiser investment of the national resources could have been made at that day. But with all his influence with that body, he failed to induce Congress to adopt his policy. Could that position have been held by the national forces from the day it was occupied by General Morgan, June 18, 1862, few military critics will venture the assertion that it would not