In the Footsteps of the 21st Massachusetts Infantry

 

Monument for the 21st Massachusetts Infantry at Antietam National Battlefield.

NPS

Veterans in a New Department

The grand strategic value of its work was the East Tennessee campaign…By the whole sale transfer of so large a body of veteran fighters into the heart of the Confederacy, our government was also able to open up a large section of the South notable for its Union sentiment.
- Private George A. Hitchcock, 21^st Massachusetts Infantry, 1890

In March 1863, two divisions of the Ninth Corps were transferred from Virginia to the reorganized Department of the Ohio to participate in an offensive to liberate East Tennessee. One of the regiments heading west was the 21^st Massachusetts Infantry. The unit had been mustered into Federal service in August 1861 and experienced hard service over the course of 1862. It was involved in coastal operations in North Carolina before fighting in some of the largest and bloodiest battles of the Civil War – Second Bull Run, Chantilly, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. In late March 1863, the veteran regiment joined the other units of the Ninth Corps in traveling hundreds of miles by railroad to Ohio.

On the last day of the month, Captain Charles F. Walcott reported:

We reached Cincinnati at two o’clock A.M., and remained in the cars until daylight, when we marched to the market-house and had a good breakfast and warm-hearted welcome from the people; and, best of all, gave to, and received a hearty welcome from, General Burnside, who now commanded the Department of the Ohio, with headquarters at Cincinnati. At noon we crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky; and taking cars on the Kentucky Central Railroad at seven o’clock P.M., reached the attractive town of Paris (seventy miles south of Cincinnati) before daylight of the 1^st of April. Early in the morning we marched through the town to the Fair Grounds, and went into camp. Rather to our surprise, there seemed to be not only no feeling of hostility towards us on the part of the people, but the majority of the inhabitants were evidently very glad to see us.

Captain Theron E. Hall, a former officer of the 21^st Massachusetts, would also soon be sent to serve in Kentucky. Hall had fought with the regiment in North Carolina before being transferred to the US Volunteer Quartermaster Department. In the spring of 1863, he was assigned to the Department of the Ohio and appointed the assistant quartermaster of Camp Nelson, the fortified supply depot established in late April that would act as the forward operating base for the Army of the Ohio’s upcoming campaign into East Tennessee. Hall oversaw the construction of warehouses, barracks, stables, and many other buildings at the US Army base and began preparations to supply the army in the field once the operation commenced.

Hall and his old comrades in the 21^st Massachusetts would eventually reunite in Kentucky.

 

Captain Charles F. Walcott, 21st Massachusetts Infantry, with his wife Anna Morrill Wyman Walcott during the Civil War.

Library of Congress

A Quiet Spring

It has been well said that the 21st gained one of its greatest victories during those three pleasant inactive months at Mount Sterling; for they taught a people, many of whom had been born into a bitter prejudice against "Yankees," to regard Massachusetts troops with confidence, respect, and love.
– Captain Charles F. Walcott, 21^st Massachusetts Infantry, 1882

Upon their arrival in Kentucky, the regiments of the Ninth Corps were scattered throughout the state to guard various areas while preparations were being made to launch the long-anticipated East Tennessee Campaign. On April 4, 1863, the 21^st Massachusetts Infantry arrived at Mount Sterling, Kentucky, where they would remain near for the next three months. This was a relatively light and quiet tour of duty for the veteran troops compared to the hard fighting they had experienced in Virginia in 1862. The duties of the Massachusetts soldiers included routine regimental inspections, dress parades, and performing guard and picket duty in and around Mount Sterling. They would also be sent to nearby towns in attempts to find and defeat Confederate guerillas operating in Kentucky, but these operations entailed little actual fighting.

The 21^st Massachusetts relished camp life in the pleasant spring weather and capitalized on the amenities offered at Mount Sterling, such as attending church, purchasing food from local farmers, and drinking available alcohol. This may have been a period of respite for the regiment, but the men remained in top form. “You ought to be here to see how devotedly the boys spend the time working over their guns and equipment,” Corporal Thomas Reed wrote to his wife in late May, “each person endeavoring to excel the other in having the best looking one.” The soldiers also enjoyed interacting with the White citizens of Mount Sterling, with both sides developing mutual feelings of respect and affection for the other. On a couple occasions when the 21^st Massachusetts was ordered to depart the town in the spring, petitions from the inhabitants to keep the regiment in place due to the threat of guerillas resulted in the orders being countermanded.

One event in early June 1863, however, highlighted some of the key differences between the White New Englanders and White Kentuckians. An enslaved Black man in Mount Sterling was put on trial for trying to kill his enslaver and was sentenced to be publicly executed. The local authorities asked the 21^st Massachusetts to furnish a guard for the enslaved man, but they were refused. “As there was an ominous muttering among the Yankee soldiers,” Private George Hitchcock penned in his diary, “the authorities after a long delay succeeded in getting a squad of the 14^th Kentucky Cavalry to escort the poor man out of town where he was hung.” The Massachusetts soldiers were angry and indignant about this affair, clearly demonstrating how supporting the Union war effort was not the same for New Englanders and Kentuckians. Hitchcock observed, “As our government’s policy is to refrain from interfering in all loyal state governments, Colonel Hawkes [the regimental commander] wisely remained neutral…but a little effective outlawry by our boys might have been winked at if the opportunity could have been found.”

 

Mount Sterling, Kentucky, circa 1863. U.S. troops, likely the 21st Massachusetts Infantry, are camped around the town courthouse.

The Peaceful Interlude Continues

Gen. Burnside is in town [Lexington, KY] today. Troops are continually passing to the front over the Lexington and Danville R.R.
– Private George Hitchcock, August 10, 1863

In early June, most of the Ninth Corps units were sent from Kentucky to assist General Ulysses S. Grant and the US forces besieging Vicksburg in Mississippi. The 21^st Massachusetts Infantry was not among them and continued to be stationed at Mount Sterling. The New Englanders may have been far from the battlefronts, but they valued their service in Kentucky. Hitchcock asserted, “While our comrades engaged in deadly struggles at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, we were taking life easy in the beautiful groves of Mount Sterling; yet I believe our service was beneficial, directly, in protecting friends of the Union and developing a powerful Union sentiment when it had well nigh been crushed out.” When the Confederate General John Hunt Morgan led a cavalry raid through Kentucky in early July 1863, the 21^st Massachusetts was ordered to swiftly march to Lexington to intercept the enemy. The New Englanders did not encounter Morgan’s force, but the men remained in the vicinity of Lexington for the next several weeks, performing the same duties that it had at Mount Sterling.

On August 12, 1863, the Massachusetts infantrymen were “Off for Camp Nelson!” After 3-years of false-starts and preparation, the East Tennessee campaign was about to begin. The Ninth Corps had returned to Kentucky after the victorious completion of the Vicksburg Campaign, and the scattered regiments of the Twenty-third Corps were assembling at Camp Nelson. The military base had significantly grown since its establishment in late April and would serve as the primary base of supplies for the US forces heading to war in Tennessee.

In a few days’ time, the Army of the Ohio would set off from Camp Nelson, and the 21^st Massachusetts Infantry would be there for the departure.

 

Captain Theron E. Hall, the assistant quartermaster of Camp Nelson.

Library of Congress

Bivouac in the Bluegrass

August 13^th. The regiment marched into Camp Nelson…The regiment remained in this beautiful and healthy place, doing fatigue, picket, and general guard duty, until September 12^th, when they took up the line of march for East Tennessee.
– Captain Charles Walcott, 1882

After riding railroad cars from Lexington to Nicholasville and spending the night several miles south of the town, the 21^st Massachusetts Infantry completed the march to Camp Nelson on the morning of August 13, 1863. Hitchcock described the regiment’s arrival in his diary:

Enter Camp Nelson after a three mile tramp, with colors flying and drums beating. I was surprised to find the place of such activity. It has been for a long time a convenient base for supplies for our army operating in the south and eastern part of the state on the direct stage route to Knoxville via Cumberland Gap, lying near the Kentucky River and a place easily defended on account of its natural fortifications. The country about here as we near the river becomes very rugged and rough, and the pines and spruces and other evergreens begin to appear. As we enter the place, we pass by the numerous tents of Capt. Hall's headquarters and then pass large corrals of mules and team. Then we pass various camps of troops rendezvousing here and hospital camps. We go into camp in the edge of a piece of woods, mostly pine, on a slope facing another on which lies a large convalescent camp, and between the two runs the main road.

The 21^st Massachusetts passed the day pitching their tents and making themselves comfortable before being treated to a special visit from the commander of the Army of the Ohio, Major General Ambrose Burnside. Although Burnside only spent three days at Camp Nelson before the commencement of the offensive into East Tennessee, he took the time to see his fellow New Englanders. Hitchcock observed, “Gen. Burnside was accompanied by Capt. Hall [a former member of the regiment and now a quartermaster at Camp Nelson] and other officers, but these two men being the favorites of the regiment, we were anxious to do our best and after congratulatory remarks from them and the Dress Parade finished officers and men crowded around them to shake hands.”

As the 21^st Massachusetts Infantry was to remain at Camp Nelson for some time and not join the initial advance into East Tennessee, the men took advantage of downtime in the days that followed their arrival. For example, Hitchcock and some of his comrades explored the chambers and passages of a nearby cave that was supposedly used by the renowned frontiersman Daniel Boone. On August 16, the Knoxville Campaign finally began when Burnside and the bulk of the Army of the Ohio marched from Camp Nelson and headed south. “Saw Gen. Burnside leave Camp Nelson with his escort and a large body guard for East Tennessee,” Hitchcock wrote, “He strikes right out into the American Wilderness and will have to cross several large bridgeless rivers and over two or three high ranges of mountains. A very long wagon train loaded with supplies goes out with him.”

 

The Convalescent Camp at Camp Nelson during the Civil War.

National Archives and Records Administration

Over the next few weeks, the 21^st Massachusetts performed sentry duty at different points in and around Camp Nelson, guarding springs, stables, quartermaster tents, hospitals, and enemy prisoners. The regiment also witnessed the body of Major General William Nelson, Camp Nelson’s namesake, escorted through the military base on its way to interment at Camp Dick Robinson, a US Army recruitment and training center established several miles further south by the fallen commander in 1861. While on duty on the night of August 29, Hitchcock provided another detailed picture of Camp Nelson in the late summer of 1863:

From the elevated slope on which I stand, I look across the intervening quarter of a mile, up the opposite slope on which lies the white tented camps of the 21st Mass. and the 49th Ky. in the outskirts of the tall pine grove, the whole lighted by numerous camp-fires while further away in the background up in the pines on the crest of the hill are the headquarter tents of Gen. Fry, forming a camp of considerable size itself. Further still to the left, a mile away the extensive corrals and camps of cavalry. Turning half way round to the right, away down through the gorges and narrow rocky defiles, the deep sullen roar of the rolling Kentucky river resounds. Then as my eyes turn backward from all this beautiful night scene to the thickly packed camp of hospital tents my immediate neighbor-hood.

Hitchcock wondered what the future held for him, and by extension his entire regiment. In less than two weeks, Hitchcock had his answer – the 21^st Massachusetts Infantry was ordered to prepare to make the long march to Knoxville, which had been liberated by Burnside’s forces at the beginning of September. Captain Hall and the unit’s officers tried to get the marching orders rescinded and have the Bay Staters remain stationed at Camp Nelson through the winter, but their efforts were in vain. Their quiet months of service in Kentucky were over – the men of the 21^st Massachusetts were headed to the battlefront in East Tennessee.

The regiment departed from Camp Nelson alongside fellow units from the Ninth Corps on September 12, 1863.