General William T. Sherman had given implied approval for General William Nelson to organize a force to drive Confederates under Colonel John S. Williams from eastern Kentucky. Nelson’s force had marched south from the fairgrounds south of Maysville and met the State Road east of Mount Sterling. They had followed that route through Hazel Green, then split the force. One detachment under Colonel Leonard Harris went through West Liberty, where it skirmished with men of Captain Andrew Jackson May’s Company A of the Fifth Kentucky Infantry, C.S.A. The other detachment, under Nelson, passed through Licking Station [modern Salyersville]. The plan was to attack the Rebels in Prestonsburg on the grounds of the May House, where organization and drill had been under way since mid-October. Upon reaching the Floyd county seat, Nelson’s force of 2,000-plus met no resistance. For a complete, well-detailed account of the events leading up to the fight at Ivy Mountain, we recommend The Most Brilliant Little Victory, https://www.lulu.com/searchadult_audience_rating=00&page=1&pageSize=10&q=marlitta+perkins by Marlitta Perkins.
WHOLLY IGNORANT OF OUR PRESENCE
When they marched into Prestonsburg, Nelson’s men found no one to greet them. There were no bands playing and no tables set with fine cuisine such as Captain Konkle’s artillerymen enjoyed upon leaving Ohio. There was little to be seen except empty streets lined with abandoned homes and buildings. Prestonsburg was literally deserted. Word of Nelson’s advance from Licking Station had preceded his army. The citizenry, obviously either Southern in sympathy or fearful of being accused by Union officers or prejudiced civilians of supporting the Confederacy, had fled before the Federal column, taking what valuables they could carry and finding hiding places for others. A future Rebel soldier described the situation:
"It was rumored through the country that the Yankees was coming up the river and was killing every rebel they seen. There was a great excitement in the country, and every person was on the run in small companies for their safety. Even women, and men that never had anything to do with the army, was on the run."
In the words of another, a civilian who at the time was keeping regular company at Rebel headquarters, there was a “general stampede from Kentucky, there being a great number of skedaddling citizens of Kentucky,” at Gladeville, Virginia, during November. The Rebel soldiers who had recently been in the vicinity had since departed for Pikeville. Nevertheless, with nearly all civilians absent and John Stuart Williams camped twenty-five miles upstream, had there been a statewide census on the first Monday of November with residency requirements forgiven, Prestonsburg would have been the eighth largest city in Kentucky.
After setting up camp, Nelson and the men of the Expedition enjoyed a brief respite from fording streams and the constant on-the-edge alertness after Harris’s brush with the enemy at West Liberty. Two days later, Nelson issued a proclamation intended to restore local faith in the United States government in which he decreed, “The jurisdiction of the State of Kentucky is restored.” Furthermore, he ordered the courts to convene and stated that all civil officers were to attend to the duties of their respective offices. Two days later, with part of his force marching toward Johns Creek and the remainder preparing to depart, Nelson cited Kentucky law when he appointed a Union man as circuit judge, giving as his reason the fact that the former judge was an open and active secessionist who had gone off with the Rebel army. Nelson’s information regarding the ex-circuit judge, William Harvey Burns of West Liberty, was indeed correct. Judge Burns, “preferring the Southern cause,” had left Prestonsburg for Russell County, Virginia, following his service as a Fifth Kentucky Infantry delegate to Richmond. Nelson could not have anticipated how short-lived his proclamation would be.
The halt in Prestonsburg was the first time in more than a week that men of the Expedition had enjoyed the luxury of staying in one place long enough to become familiar with the landscape. During the lull, many took the opportunity to write letters to their families. On November 7, L.B. Wert, drummer of the Twenty-first Ohio, related to his wife some details of his stay on Big Sandy to that point. After opening pleasantries and wishes for good health, he related:
"...we marched one hundred and 55 miles in pursuit of the rebels and now we are encamped in a rebel town we have our quarters in a large two story block house the rebel retreated 24 miles from here and we are ordered to follow them today we are to cook two days rations and start as soon as we can they are about 2000 and we are about 5000 and we have 6 rifled cannon. We took several prisoners and some horses and some mules."
Wert’s letter continued, describing the fun the Union soldiers had during their first night in Prestonsburg. They stayed in an abandoned store which probably belonged to Green Witten. In addition to the disrespect shown to private property, Wert’s letter also offered a clue as to the amount of rain the mountains had received during the past few days:
"The first knight we stayed in this place we stayed in a book store and the boys used the books for pillows they would kick the books around like old shoes this is a place about as large as Hicksville. It is on the big sandy river the steamboats run up here from Cincinnati there was one up last knight for the first time for a good while they was afraid of the rebels but they are cleaned out from Cincinnati to this place our captain got sick and we had to leave him at hazel green and . . .the last day that we marched we went 22 miles and we got here about 11 o'clock at knight and the rebels had run and left the place we come to a creek we could knot ford and we had to build bridges over them you would have lafed to see the bridges that we built they looked like everything but a bridge."
Wert continued, first emphasizing his patriotic spirit by telling of souvenirs he was sending home and next spelling out General Nelson’s strategy:
"I sent you and sis each a ring and Eugene a Lincoln and Hamlin meatle the rings I made myself and the meatle I found and I will send in this letter a piece of secession silk that I got at a sesash house. I think the next time we route them that we will get them we will march on them from 2 or 3 ways and then they cant run from us you can look on the map and see where we are look for the big sand in Kentucky and you will follow it up until you come to Prestonsburg. We are going from here to a place called Piketon. tis town is the county seat of floyd county Kentucky and the place where we are going is the county seat of Pike county Kentucky it is the last county in the state and then Virginia but I do knot know where we will go from there but I think we will come back to this place the colonel said that when we went into winter quarters that the boys might go home if they would pay their one way and I am the boy that will do that."
During those October days at Olympian Springs when plans were being made, Nelson’s agenda was supposedly known to only a few of his subordinates, including Major Hurt of the Twenty-fourth Kentucky. In practice, however, the route of the Expedition had evidently become common knowledge to most everyone from the general himself down to the Ohio drummer, and probably some of Colonel John Stuart Williams’s spies. By the tenor of his letter, Wert was apparently in a hurry to finish and prepare himself for the upcoming march. He ended his fourth page with an apology for not writing more:
"...you must excuse for I write this with my knap sack on my lap and in a hurry we are in a hurry to cook our rations and pack up to start after the rebels."
Nelson, with the remainder of the cavalry, infantry, and artillery, set out from Prestonsburg on the State Road well before daybreak on November 8. He planned to cover the twenty-five miles to Pikeville during the day, then connect with Colonel Joshua Sill so as to pincer Williams between the two Federal units, thereby putting an early end to the Confederate threat in the Big Sandy country. The tactic of dividing a command against a mountain enemy would later be used by other Ohio and Kentucky troops, albeit on a smaller scale, when pursuing a one-legged Confederate guerrilla in Pike County as well during a fight at Pound Gap a few months later. But on this day, after enjoying a short night’s sleep, Yankees and Confederates alike learned some hard lessons about mountain geography and warfare therein.
A member of Konkle’s Battery, in a November 8 letter to the Cleveland Leaderwhich was published on November 30 under the headline THE BATTLE OF DRY MOUNTAIN, described the events of the trip from Prestonsburg to Pikeville. He set out the order of Nelson’s early morning march and unknowingly explained why the next Union force to occupy the valley in the coming several weeks would not be given artillery with its slender, iron-clad wheels which cut deeply into the sandy roadbeds and river bottoms:
"Our bugler blew the assembly call at 3 o'clock this morning, all hands arose, the forces were fed and watered, and we moved from camp fully an hour before daylight. The column moved as follows: Col. Marshall's Kentucky regiment in advance, followed by the 2d Ohio, under the gallant Col. Harris; 21st Ohio, under the brave little Col. Norton; four pieces cannon, commanded by the 'pink whiskered' Capt. Konkle, followed by the 59th Ohio, Col. Fyffe. The roads were miserable, being hardly four feet wide in some places; in fact, we were often compelled to unlimber our pieces and carry them along. One of our caissons went over the bank and lodged against a sycamore tree, which prevented it from going into the river."
The stage was almost set. The actors had their orders and were sent out to participate in the drama. But this war was not a stage presentation and, as Nelson soon realized, the enemy had a part to play and unanticipated conditions could ruin the best efforts of the most careful directors. The unexpected difficulties the old road caused his artillerymen, however, as well as the Fifty-ninth Ohio which marched in their wake, were still the most immediate concern and a decided distraction for the man in command. Nelson’s force had come from Hazel Green to Salyersville to Prestonsburg on roads poor enough to arouse complaints from his men, but to that point the Expedition had not experienced travel over the road which followed the eastern margin of the Big Sandy. The march from Prestonsburg to Pikeville during daylight hours would have been an amazing accomplishment under good conditions, but conditions were anything but good. The column made its way a few miles upstream before Nelson, riding near the head, learned of the difficulty the men in the rear were encountering while marching in the footsteps of the hundreds who preceded them. Two thousand marching soldiers, along with a few dozen horses pulling two sections of artillery, turned the road into a sandy, soupy mud.
The State Road was certainly more distinguished in name than condition. It was created, on paper at least, in 1824 when $2,700 was appropriated from the Kentucky treasury. Those funds were intended for use in building a road from Mount Sterling to the Virginia line. The money was evidently insufficient because, in 1829, another act provided for completion of the road from Prestonsburg to the Virginia line. The year after the road was completed saw the first steamboat traffic on the upper Big Sandy and, from that point forward, the road beside the river was never considered for use as a primary freight route. Its finest condition for wheeled traffic had been on the day it was finished. From that point forward, it suffered from general neglect and infrequent repair. The state reported it as being complete in 1838. Between that time and the beginning of the war, the highest and best use to which the State Road had been put was the driving of livestock to Virginia and Mount Sterling markets.
The section of road over which the Expedition marched was extremely narrow with barely enough room at times to travel shoulder to shoulder in ranks of four. It had been cut with hand tools to an average seven-foot width on the points, following a natural bench which was routinely about fifteen feet above water level. Fall rains over the past weeks had raised the level of the river. Besides making the sandy roadbed soft and damp, the recent wet weather meant even more trouble than normal for the foot soldiers and artillery when crossing the numerous smaller mountain streams which flowed out of the hollows and branches into Big Sandy. Others had matters even worse.
According to Chaplain John Bayless of Marshall’s command, his comrades, since they were at the head of the column, had the task of climbing the mountains as scouts. He recalled:
"All our movements were rapid - sometimes advancing at the double-quick step. Our boys who scaled the mountains, often making extended detours to head the gullies, had to bound like the deer, to keep ahead of those travelling in a straight road and on a plain surface. I felt for them, as the came in from the mountains, wet with perspiration, faint, exhausted, yet determined."
The morning’s emotional rush, which at daybreak had been so full of suspense, excitement, and anticipation, was being dissipated by the vicissitudes of topography.
The head of the column was eight miles out of Prestonsburg when they met a small detachment of John Stuart Williams’s mounted scouts. According to a member of the Twenty-first Ohio, they had stopped around eight that morning to give some of the men time for breakfast. After resuming the march and passing along some open woods, they saw thirty to forty mounted men who opened fire upon them. The Ohioans returned the fire just as the artillery was coming up. The cannon opened on the Confederate horsemen and after three or four rounds, just as the novice gunners were finding their range, the Rebels rode away. The Union men inspected their damage, or lack thereof, and continued pushing upriver with renewed alertness.
The spot where this skirmish occurred was more than likely at the mouth of Cow Creek. It is approximately eight miles upstream from Prestonsburg and at that time, when travel by mountaintop trails was as common as on the river bottoms, would have been accessible on horseback from the Confederate position farther up the river. Years earlier the Floyd County Court had commissioned a road to run from the mouth of Ivy Creek upstream and across the mountain to access the Johns Creek watershed. Riders would have followed the ridgelines from the left fork of Ivy Creek and descended Cow Creek to its mouth. These scouts would have had a shorter route back to Ivy Creek than Nelson’s men, who followed every bend in the river. The same Confederate troopers who were targets of Nelson’s guns at Cow Creek would, within a few hours, be fired upon again by the same weapons.
From the perspective of Williams, headquartered in Pikeville, it was obvious that his entire force of over 1,000 ill-armed, underfed, and otherwise poorly equipped men could not withstand an onslaught from some 4,000 troops with considerably better guns and full stomachs, despite the fears expressed by Sherman and Thomas. Fruitful scouting and firsthand reporting by Williams’s men — they had skirmished with the Federals at West Liberty — told him what he was facing in terms of numbers, but it was not his intention to pack up and slink away without delaying the enemy and doing some damage in the process. Williams planned to hit the Union force one hard blow and buy enough time for his men and supplies to reach Virginia.
Bold plans in time of war require careful planning, skillful delegation, reliable intelligence, and a bit of luck. So it was with the scheme Williams envisioned. Mexican War experience taught him the planning aspect. He delegated the strategic operation to his officer who best knew the region. In addition to the fruitful scouting by his cavalry at mid-morning, Southern sympathizers in the valley were willing and able to provide reliable information on the enemy’s movements. Finally, whether it was Southern luck or Yankee inattention, Williams was also blessed with a good measure of one or the other.
At least one report states that a local citizen met with Nelson on the morning of November 8 and told the general that the Rebels occupied the side of Ivy Mountain about four miles upstream. The historian of the Twenty-first Ohio stated that he personally was approached by that citizen and told of the Rebels’ intent to put up a fight at Ivy Narrows. The citizen was referred to General Nelson, who had a conversation with the man. Questions were raised as to why no skirmishers were sent out and why no precautions were taken when this news was received.
The citizen’s intelligence proved correct. The Confederates in Pikeville had learned of Nelson’s advance and prepared accordingly. In response, Colonel Williams split Captain John Shawhan’s mounted command, since it was the only fully mounted unit he had, and sent part of it down the Johns Creek Road under the captain’s command to scout the progress of Colonel Sill and offer a little harassment should the opportunity arise. Williams put Lieutenant Van Hook and the remainder of Shawhan’s men, along with Company A of the Fifth, under the command of A.J. May. This hand-picked force moved a mile downstream and crossed the Big Sandy at the extreme upper end of Judge William Cecil’s farm during the night of November 7. By early morning of the following day, they reached Floyd County. During the late morning they halted at a spot directly opposite a farm owned by a Davidson family. Once they took their positions and made sure their concealment was complete, the Southern soldiers settled in and waited for a chance to deliver the blow which they hoped would stall Nelson long enough to allow their comrades to cross the recently-declared international border to Virginia and safety.
John Aker Lafferty and his brother, James, were in the detachment commanded by Lieutenant Van Hook. They were positioned overlooking the river and the road. John, recollecting events of the battle, gave the following blunt, unadorned description of the Confederate preparations as well as their ultimate purpose:
"After we had been in Pikeville a week or so, we received information through our scouts that a strong force of Federal soldiers was coming up the Big Sandy River in the direction of our camp. This created much excitement and for the first time we began to realize what war meant. We promptly began making preparations to meet the enemy face to face and try our skill at killing. As the country around us was mountainous, we were in a position to go out and select a place of vantage on the mountainside where we could take them by surprise and do serious damage to them before they came to our camp. A detail of one hundred and sixteen men was selected from among those assembled at our camp to go out and engage the enemy from the mountainside. Brother James D. and I were of the number selected. Nearly all of our men in the detail were armed with double barreled shotguns, and we had prepared car-tridges, each containing 11 buckshot, so that such a charge would be very effective at short range."
Preparing cartridges was a task of the common soldier, but selecting the location for the surprise attack lay with a native Floyd Countian. Andrew Jackson May, or Jack as he was known, was the son of Samuel May, one of the early cornerstone citizens of Floyd County. The younger May was relatively well educated and had traveled widely during his life. At one time he accompanied his father to California during the heyday of the gold rush, but returned to eastern Kentucky following his father’s death in El Dorado. He was practicing law in West Liberty when the war interrupted his career. A contemporary saw May as, “…about the sparest specimen of a man I ever saw— the largest feature about him is his foot— to which he seems hung— as the rest of his body is all the same size, his legs like broomsticks & his body not much larger— rather sharp faced— red haired— good forehead— tolerably expressive countenance. I don’t think him very smart— but as brave as Julius Caesar.” May was chosen by Williams as the man most capable of hitting Nelson’s force with that one delaying blow before the inevitable Confederate retreat into Virginia. Considering his passionate personality and his refusal to back down from a fight— a trait which would become notorious later in his life— May probably volunteered to lead the Rebels who would try to even the score with Harris and the Second Ohio from two weeks previous.
May selected the most obvious place between Prestonsburg and Pikeville for this second chance at the enemy, a section of the river called Ivy Narrows. This swiftly flowing section got its name both from Ivy Mountain, which bordered it on the left ascending the river, and from Ivy Creek which flowed into the Big Sandy from the same side. The second part of its name came from the narrowing of the river in that area. The nature of the Big Sandy River is such that there are slow-moving sections where the water gathers in deep pools, followed by swifter currents caused by sudden drops in the underlying rock strata. Ivy Narrows was one of those areas where the river picked up speed due to a drop in elevation. The current’s velocity was further increased due to a narrowing of the river to only forty-five yards, compared to a width of over sixty yards a short distance upstream, as it rounded a gradual bend. The heavier-than-usual volume of fall rain being forced through the narrow passage formed a natural sluiceway. This was the area from which May planned to spring his surprise.
Coming upriver in the direction of the Union approach, the land on the left was “the highest elevation in that vicinity, hog-back in shape, about a half a mile in length.” It was typical of the landforms found in the Appalachian foothills. Ivy Creek, which emptied into the Big Sandy at the upstream toe of the mountain, was spanned by one of the many small bridges that existed to make travel on the State Road not only convenient but feasible. Overlooking both the river and the road were several sandstone outcroppings whose summits were easily accessible from the mountain’s summit but were hidden from the Union soldiers’ line of sight. Uncounted centuries of erosion had robbed them of their blankets of soil and vegetation, leaving their layered foundations naked, thus earning them the common name of Chimney Rocks.” The summits of these ancient stone formations, twenty to thirty yards above the State Road, were manned by Rebel riflemen.
The opposite bank of the river, elevated some 15 feet above State Road level, was a stark contrast to the steep mountainside and sheer stone columns. This fertile bottom land encompassed several acres, most of which had been farmed during the past summer. A fence separated the cropland from the nearly vertical drop to the water’s edge. Both the road and the river in the upstream distance curved slightly to the right, just enough to draw attention away from the mouth of Ivy Creek to the left as well as to expose a sizable portion of the Union lead element to enemy fire. November had drawn the green from both the foliage to the left of the river as well as the cornfield to the right, but the pine and laurel close to Ivy Creek remained verdant. The corn blades in the field across the river had been stripped for winter fodder and the stalks themselves bundled into upright shocks three to four feet in diameter at ground level, tied in the middle much as a lady of the times would cinch her corset. This seemingly peaceful country setting, a perfect location for an ambush, had been developing for uncounted centuries. The only factor lacking was the human element.
Captain May chose from experience. He had grown up near the river and was no stranger to this part of the valley. He probably knew the cornstalk statuary in the bottom south of the river would serve his men as well, if not better, as a tactical advantage than the trees and rock formations along the mountainside. May was also familiar enough with the area to realize this was one of the few spots where the stream narrowed to a width that would allow the obsolete firearms of his men on the opposite bank to be used to their full deadly effectiveness, a maximum range of around 175 feet.
Altogether there were about 250 in the entire Confederate force, roughly half of whom were placed on the stony heights overlooking the State Road and the river. Hiram Hawkins’s militia training, and probably an inborn sense of strategy, served him well as he placed his men in single file to cover the greatest possible length of the Union column. The remainder of the force was further divided with several dismounted cavalrymen taking positions among a stand of cedars about eighty feet off the road, another taking cover with Jack May and Van Hook, while a fourth group forded the river to the cornfield and disappeared behind the fodder shocks.
Lafferty, the Harrison County diarist who was part of May’s command, continued with what would prove to be the most detailed and believable account of the action from a Confederate soldier who actually took part in the battle. He described how May deployed the 116 men he had personally chosen behind the crest of the ridge as it descended toward the State Road:
"We went several miles from camp to a point on the Big Sandy River called the Narrows, or better known as Ivy Mountain or Ivy Creek. We left our horses at the top of the mountain in the care of a squad of horse holders and went down the mountain to a place where we established ourselves behind the rock, about one hundred feet above the narrow mountain road which had been dug or blasted out of the side of the mountain. We were com-pletely hidden from the view of those who might pass along the road."
May took command of the men on the slope which formed the upriver boundary of Ivy Creek. Since the small creek entered Big Sandy at a right angle, these were the first of the waiting Rebels to catch sight of the advancing Union file as it marched up the valley. May and his fellow officers had developed a sound plan which took advantage of the terrain. They planned to hit the enemy in front as well as on both flanks simultaneously. General Nelson himself described the layout of the terrain in terms which would race the blood of any ambusher:
"The mountain is high along the river and very precipitous and thickly covered with timber and undergrowth. The road which is but seven feet wide is cut along the side of it about 25 feet above the river which is close under the road. The ridge descends in a rapid curve and very sharp to the creek, or rather gorge, where it makes a complete elbow."
The column Nelson assembled had the men of the Sixteenth Kentucky in the lead. This command probably requested the honor of leading the Expedition out of Prestonsburg. After all, it was their state’s home soil which was being threatened by the Confederates. They felt they were protecting their families and loved ones. This unit, not yet mustered into national service, was commanded by Colonel Charles Alexander Marshall, first cousin once removed and nephew by marriage of soon-to-be-Confederate-general Humphrey Marshall and nephew of former United States Chief Justice John Marshall. The Sixteenth Kentucky was escorted by a small advance of cavalry. As was the custom with soldiers of the day when marching in military fashion, they stood four abreast, shoulders touching. They kept a thirteen-inch distance between themselves and the rank ahead with the ones behind maintaining the same interval. A soldier started the morning with his rifle on the right shoulder, but as the day wore on and the condition of the road added to his frustration and discomfort, he probably was ordered to the route step, which meant he could carry his firearm in either hand at his side. Even with the narrow spacing of just over a foot, Nelson’s outfit stretched some two miles down the river beginning with the first cavalryman in the advance, past the four field guns, to the tips of the final shoe heels.
Few of the Confederates, secreted by the mountain and catching glimpses of the blue-clad figures winding their way up the State Road, had ever seen such a sight. Those who had were certainly veterans of the Mexican War. The Federal line stretched out of sight before the Southern soldiers could see its end. In fact, the Expedition was larger than the combined free and slave population of six Kentucky counties: Jackson, 3,087; Letcher, 3,904; Magoffin, 3,485; Perry, 3,950; Powell, 2,257; and Rowan, 2,282. Lafferty, always the astute observer, undoubtedly shared a sense of awe with his comrades as he witnessed a procession whose size had not been seen in the valley since the last great buffalo herd passed:
"After a short time, the enemy under the command of General Nelson and numbering about 4,000 came along that road and filled it full, so far as I could see, with men, wagons and horses. The men wearing their new blue uniforms made a grand appearance, marching gayly along, wholly ignorant of our presence."
By the time the front of Nelson’s column was within 50 yards of the mouth of Ivy Creek, it was no longer oblivious to the presence of Lafferty and his companions. There are four recorded accounts of how and why the first shots were fired at Ivy Mountain. According to the traditional Confederate story which has been told along the Big Sandy since the days of the war, Captain May gave his men orders to hold their fire until they heard the crack of his pistol. When he felt the time was right, May supposedly took the honor of squeezing off the first round. Upon hearing the sound of his revolver, the other Rebels who had blended so well into their hillside surroundings suddenly made their presence known. Another Confederate account, which in reality was probably written by Hiram Hawkins, is found in Thompson’s History of the First Kentucky Brigade. It states that the plan was for May’s rifles to signal the beginning of the fight, but the mounted Federal vidette at the head of the column discovered the concealed Southerners and fired the first volley, which was quickly returned by the Rebels. The Union version of the battle’s first shots was written after the war by Thomas Atwood, a bugler with the Sixteenth Kentucky Infantry, who recalled:
"Marshall's command reached the hill at about two o'clock and were proceeding around the hill at a common pace and had got about half way when suddenly our guide halted declaring he saw a man skulking around on the hill with a gun. This was suspicious looking enough to cause some of us to go ahead and find out who he was. Our guide Captain Gault of Company A and a man by the name of Reed went on ahead on horseback at a gallop. They had got to the point of the hill when a man on a grey horse rode out before them. They were about to shoot at him or one of them were when Reed exclaimed, "Look up the hill." They looked up and beheld about fifty or one hundred of the enemy crouching and hiding behind every tree stump as such that would afford any concealment. The three men immediately discharged their pieces and retreated. There commenced a tremendous discharge of musketry from behind every tree and rock on the hill right above us and in front our men were immediately thrown into disorder and sheltered themselves the best they could under the bank."
The tremendous discharge of musketry heard by Atwood was actually the Rebels’ antiquated long arms, some requiring over half a minute to reload and others so worn that it was uncertain whether they would fire when loaded. The old guns began launching lead and belching smoke in an audio-visual display unlike anything most of the blue-coated men had ever experienced. The strength of the first volley was such that one Ohio soldier later stated the Rebels were 1,000 strong and armed with Minie rifles. A correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette was so impressed with the ferocity of the first several mountainside volleys that he estimated the Confederate strength at 615 infantry and 125 cavalry. There was a reason, of course, for the overestimation.
John Lafferty continued his description of the first few minutes of the battle. He described the Ragamuffin barrage and offered yet another account of the first volley of the fight which was at variance with both Atwood’s memory and the story which revolved around Jack May:
"After the head of the column had passed us, Lieutenant Wm. H. Van Hook who was commanding us, gave the order to fire, and instantly all of our men fired their double barreled shotguns from behind the rocks into the enemy and continued to fire as fast as we could reload. At no time did we shoot at them from more than 100 to 150 feet away. We were so securely protected behind the rocks above them that when we stepped back to reload we were out of danger, and as we stepped forward to fire, we were only partly exposed for a moment."
Lafferty continued, describing the effect of the surprise attack upon the Union troops:
"Completely surprised by our attack, the whole body became panic stricken and thoroughly demoralized . . . I could see, from where I was located, that a great many of their men and horses fell over the precipice into the river below . . . No doubt most of them fell from the effects of sounds and exhaustion, but many were crowded over during the wild excitement."
Following those first several notes of the symphony of battle, both Nelson’s and May’s men were being sprayed with lead projectiles and enveloped in clouds of smoke. The intensity of their concentration during the fighting had different effects on the participants’ remembrance of those ninety minutes when their lives could have been snuffed out as easily as a late evening candle. Days later, one of the Union soldiers, William Shanks of the Twenty-first Ohio, seemed to be both unimpressed with the battle and geographically ignorant of where he had fought when he simply recorded in his diary that on Friday, November 8, “We start to Piketon and have the fight with the rebels at Gauly Bridge.” Shanks’s diary would survive the war, but nearly two years after Ivy Mountain both William and his brother were killed within 10 minutes of each other during the Battle of Chicamauga. Another Ohio soldier, reflecting the respect felt for General Nelson’s bravery in battle, years later recalled the burly officer’s reaction upon realizing Rebels were trying to kill him:
"When the battle of Ivy Mountain began, he was at the head of the column, and taking out his glass he deliberately surveyed the side of the mountain, and said, 'The d--n cusses are firing at me;' and speaking to a sapper and miner. . .said, 'Bub, give me your gun,' and he fired up the mountain. He said to the men, 'If they don't hit me you needn't be a bit afraid; for if they can't hit me, they can't hit the side of a barn."
Within a few moments following the opening shots, one Union soldier in the lead element, likely an officer of the Sixteenth Kentucky Infantry or a member of the cavalry escort, went from a casual horseman to but one among hundreds fighting for their lives. In contrast to William Shanks’s stark outline and lack of detail, this unknown writer seemed to have not only a keen remembrance of what happened around him but also the ability to put his experience into words which conveyed the intensity and immediacy of the struggle:
"I was riding along, somewhat carelessly, when crack! crack! crack! went their rifles, and down fell our men. Crack! crack! crack! they came. Off I jumped from my horse, when along came the Major, and gave me his horse to hold; but I soon hitched them both to a tree down by the river, and sprung again up the bank, when whiz! went a bullet past my face, about three inches from it, and made me draw back in a hurry, I can assure you. I looked up the hill, but could see no one for the smoke, which was plenty; so I levelled in the direction of the enemy and fired — loaded again and fired. I got my rifle in readiness again. Ah! that ball was pretty close. Here comes another — buzz, buzz — (you can hear their whiz for fully a hundred yards as they come) — get out of the way. But where is it to go? Whew! That was close. But, great God! it has gone through a man's shoulder within a few yards of me! He falls! Some of his comrades pick him up. Now a horseman comes past in a hurry. He is right opposite me — when whiz, crack! a ball strikes his horse in the fore-shoulder. Off tumbles the man; down falls the horse, stiffened out and dead. If the bullet had gone through the animal, it would doubtless have struck me. Here come a dozen more. How they whiz as they go past! 'Load and fire!' 'Load and fire!' is the order — and load and fire it is. My notice was especially drawn to a very fine looking man, who stood close to me, and he truly acted like a hero — loading and firing just as if he was on parade, when whiz! whiz! comes a bullet. My God, how close! It almost stunned me. When I looked towards my soldier, I saw his comrades lifting him up. He was shot through the breast, and died in less than half an hour. "
The anonymous writer continued his narrative with a comment on the abhorrent spectacle he had witnessed:
"O the horrors of war! Vengeance on the heads of those who initiate it. I directed my attention up the hill; a little puff of smoke was dying away. 'Boys,' says I to the squad of his fellows, 'you see that smoke; aim for it; a rebel's in its rear.' I raised my Enfield, and glanced through its sights, when I for a moment caught sight of the man through the bushes and smoke there. Crack went our guns, and all was over. We crossed to the place afterwards, and found musket balls, and one Enfield ball, mine, as mine was the only rifle ball fired. They all went through him, either of which would have killed him — mine through his breast. Thank God, I have done my duty for the poor fellow who fell beside me. "
Strange, upon reflection, that this man would thank God, the same God who had commanded him that, “Thou shall not kill,” for allowing him to take the life of a fellow human being. Wonder what made him so much more deserving to live than the Rebel on the hillside? After all, a few short months before, both he and the dead Confederate had probably voted in the same elections, grieved over comparable family situations, lived under the same federal laws, and worshiped the same God under the freedoms afforded by a common constitution. Wonder if the Southerner gave thanks to the same God for letting him kill the Union solder who had acted like a hero? What egocentric thoughts go through people’s minds during such times.
May and his men atop the rocks and behind the trees had things their way against the Federal cavalry for several minutes until the infantrymen found their range. Green Gevedon, along with his father-in-law, William Barker, and brother-in-law, Henry Barker, were three Morgan County men of May’s Company A of the Fifth Kentucky. They were among the group who were taking potshots at the mounted men in the road. Years after the war, Gevedon recalled the battle:
"We had taken our positions on the flat above the narrows, each of us with his old squirrel rifle. The Yanks were coming down the Burning Fork, with the cavalry in front, passing along the bluff under us, and from where we stood we could only see their heads. The cavalry could do us no harm, but their infantry on behind could see us and were pouring bullets in on us, but were out of range of our small-bore guns. So we were taking it out on the cavalry. Billy Barker and John Pieratt, off to our right, could not see over the bluff and they were immediately shot down. Henry saw them fall. He placed his gun against a bush and ran down to his father and held his head until he died. Then he came back to me, picked up his gun, took the bullets from his pouch, and counted them. "
To this point, Gevedon’s account is perfectly believable. With the death of his father-in-law, however, the story seems to have taken on a slightly larger, more fanciful proportion with each retelling through the years:
"Then he said to me: "Green, I have eleven bullets. That means eleven of their scalps for the death of my father." I watched as he loaded his gun. I saw him load and fire eleven shots, and at every shot I saw a Yank fall from his horse. Others were firing at the same time, but I don't believe Henry missed one shot."
While Nelson’s men in the lead dealt with the enemy to their immediate left and directly ahead, they suddenly became aware that there was a another group which had joined to make it a three-pronged attack. The Confederates who were concealed in the cornfield across the river got off several uncontested rounds at the confused men in blue. Taking fire from three directions, nobody had to tell the men of the Sixteenth Kentucky they had a fight on their hands. Further down the column, however, it was a different story.
For the majority of the Expedition, this was their first fight and it was almost as if the fact that they were actually being attacked took some time to sink in. Following the volley, news of the ambush rippled toward the rear. The Ohio cannoneers, who but for the provident location of a sycamore tree would have lost one of their artillery caissons to the Big Sandy, were still wrestling with the wreckage when they were told of even more serious matters:
"While Lieutenant Lloyd was endeavoring to get it (the caisson) up the embankment, one of the General's aides rode back and ordered the guns immediately forward, as the advance guard were then skirmishing with the enemy's pickets two miles in advance."
The gunfire was constant by the time the artillerymen were ordered to bring up their pieces. A lieutenant went forward with one gun, followed quickly by another lieutenant commanding the other three. Colonel Fyffe of the Fifty-ninth Ohio, who realized the urgency of the situation, showed his instinct for fighting fire with fire. He rode up and immediately ordered his regiment forward into the smoke and confusion. Fyffe’s men found welcome company when some artillerymen rolled two cannon into their ranks. When the Fifty-ninth finally reached the front, they joined a battle which had been raging in deadly earnest for several minutes. A letter to the Cleveland Leader by a member of the artillery unit described the Confederate attack as well as the bravery of the Union boys:
"The enemy had attacked us as we moved around the point of the mountain, upon a narrow road, on the right of which lay the river, on the left a steep mountain, studded with rocks, which the boys could not ascend without going back some distance. Several hundreds of the rebels were stationed on the opposite side of the river in a cornfield. Therefore our brave boys were subject to a murderous fire from the rear as well as the front. Nevertheless, they stood their ground and fought nobly. Colonels Harris, Norton and Fyffe remained at the head of the respective regiments calmly giving their orders. Ohio may well be proud of such men."
The value of artillery in rough terrain like that of the eastern Kentucky mountains, and the Big Sandy region in particular, had been overestimated by both Nelson and Sherman. Military leaders traditionally felt a sense of confidence when seeing the heavy, cumbersome, but enormously powerful and destructive pieces of rolling intimidation bringing up the rear of their commands. Once the big Ohio guns began their upstream journey, the fact that the State Road was never intended to accommodate such loads became evident. General Nelson had the foresight to leave the artillery forge wagon, with its bellows, anvil, vice, hammers, and other tools for servicing and repairing the cannon, behind in Prestonsburg. It was fortunate that he did. It would have been just another encumbrance.
The four field pieces accompanying Nelson’s Big Sandy detachment were six-pounders, so called due to the weight of their projectiles. A solid shot left the muzzle of a six-pounder with a velocity of 1,439 feet per second or 981 miles per hour, and at five degrees of elevation it could kill, maim, or destroy at a verified range of 1,525 yards, or a just few hundred feet under a mile. Exploding shells with time-delay fuses had less range, but possessed greatly increased killing potential over the solid variety. A third style of projectile, used for fighting at close range, was the canister shot. It was akin to a tin can filled with .69 caliber lead balls. Accompanying the cannon was a limber which carried 50 rounds of ammunition in a compartmented chest. It was one of these 3,185-pound behemoths which had the unfortunate encounter with the sycamore tree just downstream from the battlefield.
After unhitching the harnesses and separating the gun and limber carriages, then turning the cannon 180 degrees in the narrow roadway, Konkle’s guns were finally ready for action. Several rounds were fired at the enemy stationed on the upstream slope of Ivy Creek. Excavations of both projectiles and sabots by relic hunters on the slope facing downriver prove that solid shot were among those used against the Confederates. Reading the accounts of large-scale Confederate mutilation in the same area suggests that exploding shells were also used. Solid shot and canister would have been the logical choices for use against the ambush on the other side of the river only fifty to seventy-five yards away, but only solid shot has been found. One Ohio artilleryman would have had people believe the artillery pieces saved the day and won the battle by themselves when he wrote:
"Our battery fired sixty shells, nearly all of them taking effect. General Nelson sighted the first gun, but missed his mark. Then turning to Lieut. Porter, he ordered him to throw a shell among a clump of spruce pines, where there were from thirty to forty of the enemy in ambush. 'Aye! Aye!' says Porter. Pop, went the gun, and the shell exploded exactly in the desired spot, killing eleven instantly, and causing the rest to run for their lives. One of the number had his head and shoulders completely severed from the body. Capt. Konkle considers it one of the best shots he ever saw made."
The position of the big guns at the end of the column was such that, due to the curves in the Big Sandy, shells had to cross the river twice before reaching their hillside target. The noise of the cannon, along with the accompanying dense smoke and odor of gunpowder, was something new for most of the men on both sides. Despite the show put on by the artillery, Nelson’s men themselves could not agree on the results of those first several shots. Their effect on the Rebels in both positions north of the river was inconclusive at best. Part of the problem with the accuracy of Nelson’s cannon, aside from the lack of experience of those who manned them, could well have been with the guns themselves. A clue was given in the letter which L.B. Wert wrote to his wife the day before when he stated that their cannon were rifled.
The benefits of rifling the barrels of firearms from revolvers to artillery were well known at the beginning of the Civil War. The process involved making spiral grooves inside the barrel. When a projectile, be it a bullet, cannonball, or shell, was fired, the rifling caused it to spin. The spinning motion enabled the shot to act somewhat like a gyroscope, constantly maintaining balance while cutting its way through the air. In effect, the rifling motion gave a projectile accuracy, distance, and penetrating power. During the decade prior to the war, the U.S. War Department had modified many of its old 1841 Model six-pounders by rifling their barrels, expecting that the accuracy of the bronze cannon would be substantially improved. And so it was, for the first several rounds. What they had not realized was that bronze, despite its weight and apparent indestructibility during prolonged exposure to the elements, is susceptible to corrosion caused by the gaseous byproducts and extreme pressure of detonating gunpowder. The barrels took the rifling very well, but by the time a few dozen rounds had been fired the spirals were eroded away and the bore of the tube was increased. As a result, by the time Konkle’s men put their guns through their paces during training, and after firing them at Hazel Green, West Liberty, and Cow Creek, the accuracy of the pieces was probably worse than before they were modernized. Reading between the lines of Wert’s letter from Prestonsburg, Konkle’s had received this same treatment and were more than likely victims of the same well-intentioned experiment which had gone awry. In spite of their shortcomings, however, there was one area of the battle where the Ohio cannon made a significant impact.
The Confederates who were concealed in the cornfield across the river were proving to be a real problem for Nelson’s men. Once the Fifty-ninth Ohio organized itself and began to march toward the center of the action, it soon came close enough to realize the confusion the Rebels across the river were causing among the troops further upstream. By this time, twenty minutes or more into the foray, all the men toward the rear of the Union column, following the lead of the Fifty-ninth, were working themselves into both order and position to help their embattled comrades. In the confusion, haste, and excitement, Colonel Fyffe saw and later described what would become a common situation, especially for Union soldiers, during the first battles of the war.
The United States government had provided as well as possible for its soldiers in terms of comfort and convenience during the preceding seven months. They may not have had the most up-to-date firearms, but government contractors since June had been turning out blankets, overcoats, and knapsacks by the thousands. These luxuries were welcome in the late autumn Kentucky weather. The utilitarian knapsacks held everything from diaries to toothbrushes, but by midafternoon of November 8 these seeming necessities had become a burden. Colonel Fyffe moved as quickly as possible under the circumstances, hurrying along his men who were struggling with their precious backpacks, bedding, and outerwear. Much better suited for such situations were soldiers like Robert Caldwell of the Twenty-first Ohio who wrote of such extraneous articles: “I sent one of my old shirts home as I have no need of it as I have three others which will be sufficient under any circumstances. I find that the less weight a person has to carry, the better he is off. If I were to choose my own clothing I could not be better suited. I have my oiled cloth blanket besides a blanket that I have drawn and no matter how cold the night I can sleep as warm as I could choose to sleep.”
These overloaded soldiers in blue reached the periphery of the battlefield just in time to witness what was probably the most effective use of Captain Konkle’s cannon. After huffing and puffing for nearly two miles, they came to a spot opposite the cornfield. They found the cannon positioned in the road so as to fire across the stream at the concealed Confederates. General Nelson was standing in the road beside a cliff. Once the cannon began firing toward the opposite river bank, it spelled the beginning of the end of the Confederate crossfire. The cornfield was slightly elevated above the position of the artillery in the road, which made it unlikely that the cannon fire would hit any but those oblivious enough to stand near the river’s edge. However, the simple fact that cannon were firing toward them was enough to put the Rebels on the run. The same Ohio officer who had met Nelson standing in the road later described the mopping-up operation that ended the threat from across the Big Sandy. Nelson ordered Fyffe’s men forward under Lieutenant Colonel Armstead of the Fifty-ninth Ohio. When they came broadside of the cornfield, they delivered a few final shots which were met with silence. The Fifty-ninth Ohio infantry finished the job, started by the Sixteenth Kentucky and Konkle’s artillery, of silencing the Confederate small arms across the river.
With the cornfield threat out of mind, Nelson again turned his attention to Captain May’s well-concealed men to his left. He realized that it would be a pointless sacrifice to order a frontal assault of the steep mountainside. Using his tactical expertise, Nelson turned what had seemed an insurmountable Rebel geographical advantage against his concealed enemy.
May had indeed planned and executed a nearly perfect ambush. The landscape along the Big Sandy River provided a choice location for the surprise attack, but in eastern Kentucky no ridgeline extends indefinitely. The very land forms which at first offered advantages ultimately proved to be the weakness which led to chaos. The mountain occupied by the Rebels crested parallel with the river downstream for approximately a mile. It gradually descended toward the river’s edge at the mouth of a small stream called Davidson Branch. Nelson looked downriver toward the end of his formation and realized that the summit behind the Confederate position would be the only path by which they could dislodge the concealed ambushers.
Colonel Norton’s Twenty-first Ohio immediately received orders to carry out this somewhat-less-than-classical maneuver. At first glance it seemed to be an overly ambitious plan to backtrack nearly a mile and then climb a steep ridge, but Norton’s men were full of determination, if not mountain climbing experience. Reversing their recent march, they double-quicked downstream to the toe of the ridge. There they started to climb, finally reaching a height of 350 to 400 feet above the river. The Ohioans doggedly worked their way along the narrow, treacherous mountaintop until they started to descend behind the Confederate riflemen. It was then that May and his men realized their position was untenable.
The narrow bridge which crossed Ivy Creek, originally built for pedestrian, horseback, and light wheeled traffic, so typical of many others which spanned the mouths of Levisa Fork tributaries along the river, soon became choked with retreating men. Reminiscent of stories told of the military and civilian retreat during the climax of the Battle of Bull Run earlier in July, many were pushed off while others fell. Still others jumped to the creek bed in order to avoid the human traffic jam. May’s withdrawing men were not the only ones to feel the effects of the daring maneuver of the Twenty-first Ohio.
Official reports and records did not account for all the Union wounded. According to stories told by survivors of the Battle of Ivy Narrows, as the fight came to be known locally, some of Nelson’s men who occupied the riverside positions directly below the mountaintop route of the Twenty-first were unintentionally wounded by their comrades. While Norton’s men had made their way along the high ridge toward May’s position, they inadvertently loosened several large rocks. Rolling down the mountainside, these pieces of sandstone picked up both momentum and company before reaching the State Road hundreds of feet below.
The ridgetop flanking movement, combined with the fact that the Kentucky men in the lead element stood their ground under withering fire, brought the fighting to a rather abrupt end. The engagement lasted for about an hour and a half. Except for sporadic exchanges with the Rebel rear guard, what Thomas Atwood described as “about as sharp a battle as ever was fought on Kentucky soil” was finished. Six Confederates were taken prisoner and another, who had been part of the cornfield crossfire, had a narrow escape. This Ragamuffin, as the men of the Fifth Kentucky were called, had brought their weapons from home and had never been issued a uniform. When the Union soldiers forded the river and started to look for dead, wounded, or hidden enemies, this Confederate, looking like a noncombatant, eased himself over to a far corner of the field and began bundling fodder. Nelson’s men took him for a dimwitted farm boy with no sense of danger. Hiding in plain sight, this was one Rebel who literally walked away from impending capture to fight another day. Some wearing the blue, who at first were feared lost forever, also reappeared.
Nelson’s men were treated to a pleasant surprise once the shooting ceased. Gault, the guide at the head of the horsemen who had taken the first Confederate volleys, had made a narrow escape. Thomas Atwood recalled that, after getting off one shot, Gault “…sprang from his horse. He precipitated himself upon the ground and rolled over the bank into the river and swam across, the bullets all the time showering around him as thick as hail. He remained there until the battle was over.” Once the smoke cleared, Gault came swimming across the Big Sandy to join his comrades. Others were not as fortunate.
The Union took six prisoners. Two of those were Prestonsburg boys, William Osborne and James H. Hereford. The pair were together after the firing stopped, cut off from their comrades and staring at the enemy. Osborne raised his rifle with every intention of killing a Union officer, but Hereford, caring more for saving himself and his friend than taking the life of the stranger in blue, knocked Osborne’s gun aside. Rather than filling a shallow battlefield grave, the two occupied a cell in Pikeville two days later. Hereford had relatives in Pikeville, the Ratliffs, who had him out of jail before Nelson’s men left the valley. Other Confederates also escaped, but with greater effort and more lasting effects.
Anthony Hatcher lived at the mouth of Mud Creek at the beginning of the war. He joined the Fifth Kentucky and had been one of May’s men overlooking the river. When the Twenty-first Ohio came down the mountain behind them, Hatcher and the Confederates gave ground and began their retreat. Hatcher hid behind a log to evade a mounted Yankee and, when the horseman came close, he shouted, “Halt, Gol darn ye.”
Firing from the hip, the rider fractured Hatcher’s thigh. The wounded Rebel dragged himself through the woods and joined some of his companions, one of whom they tied to a horse since he was even more seriously wounded than Hatcher. Altogether the band of fleeing Rebels numbered no more than a dozen. Besides Hatcher, two of the others were Hezekiah Scalf of Floyd County and an unnamed officer who took command.
The fleeing Confederates continued up Ivy Creek past a huge boulder which, according to local legend, had decades ago buried a pioneer woman and her child when it rolled off the mountain. Local residents said the woman could sometimes be seen, dressed in black, searching for her baby, while others said screams could be heard coming down the hollow on each anniversary of the tragedy. On this November afternoon, however, Hatcher and his fellow soldiers would have been no more frightened had the ghostly form of the dead woman appeared before them. Running for their lives and taking the right fork of the stream, they ultimately made it into Sugar Camp Gap. From there they dropped down into Stratton Fork of Mare Creek and passed the James Stratton cabin, then went up the main fork of Mare Creek to the home of Tandy R. Stratton. Having heard the artillery from his porch, Stratton knew there had been a battle, but, being a Union man, was reluctant to take in a wounded Confederate. The choice was made for him when the Rebel officer learned where they were and gave the order: “Get the hell out of here. We are only four miles from the battlefield and the Blue Brutes could be here any minute.” Hatcher’s comrades rode away, leaving him behind.
Over the course of months, Hatcher slowly regained his health. At one point he was denied medical care by a friend of Stratton, Dr. Stephen M. Ferguson, future surgeon of the Thirty-ninth Kentucky, who lived within a mile of the wounded man. When asked to look in on Hatcher, Ferguson replied, “No, let the Rebel die.” The doctor’s hatred of Confederates was stronger than his duty to the sick. Hatcher surpassed the expectations of Stratton, as well as the hopes of Ferguson, by recovering and living to see the end of the war.
The group which had accompanied Hatcher moved on, riding out the head of Mare Creek by the head of Caney and to a spring near the top of the mountain. Their camp was the last worldly stop for the seriously wounded Confederate. He died sometime during the night. Before they broke camp the following morning, his companions placed his corpse in a hollow chestnut log.
The desperation of the small band of Rebels fleeing onto Mare Creek was magnified many times over near the battlefield. Once the retreating Confederates had cleared the bridge across Ivy Creek, May’s rear guard torched the wooden structure, sending $140 of Floyd County taxpayers’ money up in smoke as the Rebels began a double-quick march toward Pikeville. Those covering the retreat hung back far enough to occasionally fell trees across the narrow spots in the State Road and to burn, cut, or pull the supports from under such bridges as the one which had given them so much frustration when vacating the battlefield.
Nelson gave his men no time to rest or reflect. He left his wounded on the field in the care of his surgeons and began an earnest pursuit of May’s retreating force. Faced with the obstructions the Southerners placed in his path, the general soon realized there was no chance of catching the enemy. Four miles upstream from the battlefield, he ordered his men into camp on the farm of James S. Layne, the same man who had recently received pay from Colonel John S. Williams for feeding 22 Rebel soldiers and their horses while repairing the State Road in preparation for the Rebel move from Prestonsburg to Pikeville. Once both sides settled their nerves and organized their thoughts, they began a search for the missing and wounded.
The number of Confederates killed was not what made news, however, but who was killed. One victim of the Union marksmen was Henry M. Rust of Greenup County, Kentucky. Rust was a native Virginian who had, during more peaceful and prosperous times before the war, been a lawyer and Kentucky state senator. More recently, he had been a member of the Kentucky Electoral College delegation which during the preceding January had cast all of its dozen votes for Breckinridge. Rust had volunteered to serve the rebellion as a common soldier and recruiting officer of the Fifth Kentucky. Gravely injured during the fighting, one report stating that he received seven wounds, Rust was carried off the field by his comrades. Too seriously injured to go farther, he was left at a farmhouse. A report of Confederate origin stated that the Lincolnites placed a guard around the house where Rust was lying and he was, in effect, taken prisoner. After hoping for his recovery, the writer opined,” . . .we know he would infinitely prefer death, than to be a prisoner in the hands of the Hessians.”
When Rust’s personal effects were taken from his pockets by his captors, a letter from Colonel Williams was found. The letter led some of the Union men to believe that Rust, not A.J. May, had been in command of the disunionist force at Ivy Narrows:
"Prestonsburg, Ky., Oct. 21, 1861 HENRY M. RUST - Dear Sir: I am in receipt of yours of yesterday. The army we are raising is needed to defend the mountains. We shall sweep the mountains of every foe before we move forward. The right way for the mountain people to defend their homes is to come in at once, and bring their guns with them. I received instructions from Richmond yesterday to muster in for 12 months. Get up a force at once, strong enough to defend Pike County. I want a force at Piketon immediately, and will muster them in for 12 months. Attend to this at once — no time is to be lost. Don't rest a moment until it is done. Yours truly, John S. Williams "
Rust had indeed tried to raise a force strong enough to defend Pike County, but in his final struggle the effort came up short.
The battlefield at Ivy Mountain was silent and the element of the Eastern Kentucky Expedition under Nelson’s immediate command camped for the night. Looking back on what might have been, one of the Second Ohio later gave Captain May credit for choosing the most advantageous position possible:
"Our loss was not from their bravery, but from the wonderfully strong natural position; and the surprise is that our loss was not greater, especially when we examine the plan of the ground... If they had had effective weapons, the loss would have been terrible on the part of the Kentucky regiment, and also pretty considerable in ours. If our positions would have been changed, we would have wiped them out of exitence."
A few miles north of Levisa Fork, Colonel Sill’s detachment was encountering its share of obstacles, most being more natural than military, and was attempting to sleep beneath soaked bedding by the time Nelson’s men called a halt to their futile chase. On the evening of November 9, Sill and his men entered Pikeville and enjoyed both dry quarters and some novel nourishment. The first of Nelson’s command reached town the following morning.
My Great-great grandfather, John C Branham was captured in the Battle of Piketon. I’m not sure if he was involved with the Ivy Mountain skirmish. I’m just starting to research him. Thanks for putting this very interesting article together. Thoroughly enjoyed the read.