Nancy's Hollowed Ground
Mill Springs Battlefield a solemn reminder of past sacrifices

Though Antietam was by far the bloodiest conflict in the Civil War, the first true Union victory came on a battlefield in south central Kentucky on a cold, wet, foggy January day in 1862.

Early on the morning of the 19th, 4,000 Confederate forces left their camp at Beech Grove on the Cumberland River to take on an equal number of Union soldiers. But with superior firepower and higher ground position, the Yankees routed the Rebels, who slipped back across the river to safety that night, leaving behind much of their equipment and 150 dead comrades, including Brigade Commander General Felix A. Zollicoffer.

“The defeat at Mill Springs created a breach in the Confederate, or Western, defense, a line that ran from Cumberland Gap through Kentucky to the Mississippi River,” explains Norrie Wake, administrator of the nonprofit Mill Springs Battlefield Association (MSBA) based in Nancy, Kentucky, nine miles west of Somerset.

“Up until this time, the Federal troops had been whipped badly by the Confederate army in Northern Virginia . The victory at Mill Springs allowed an opening for Federal forces to move through Kentucky into Tennessee. Later in the spring of ’62 there was an enormous battle at Shiloh. We sometimes think of ourselves as the first step on the road to Shiloh. Though it wasn’t the biggest battle of the war, Mill Springs was probably the episode that forced Kentucky from neutrality into the Union camp.”

All reason enough for a group of staunch local supporters to form the citizen-based MSBA more than 10 years ago in order to “protect, preserve and interpret” the history and lands of this cultural heritage resource.

Today, Mill Springs Battlefield Park is a National Historic Landmark that covers some 1,500 acres, from Nancy, south across the “river,” or Lake Cumberland, to Mill Springs. On the National Register of Battlefields, the park is one of 25 Civil War battlefields placed on a special endangered battlefields list.

On a well interpreted, free nine-stop driving tour (eight on the north and one on the south side of the Cumberland River, or Lake Cumberland) visitors can get a real sense of the scope of the battle, says Wake, and “it’s very impressive.”

A number of MSBA board members are Civil War reenactors, and groups can call ahead to arrange a guided tour with one as an interpreter. Though there is no annual event, over the past 10 years the park has hosted several reenactments, the last of which in the late ‘90s drew 35,000, including 6,000 battle participants.

MSBA raises funds through memberships, an annual grant from the Pulaski County Fiscal Court, government grants, and the American Civil War Preservation Trust, a national organization that helps raise matching funds for endangered Battlefields. The association identifies and then tries to acquire tracts of land with significant points of interpretation, such as existing landmarks and old buildings or fortification sites. The challenge, Wake says, is finding a balance between healthy development and preservation of historic grounds.

“The park is what people in preservation call hallowed ground,” he explains, “where people fought and died. There’s not that much of it left. We’re not trying to preclude development but to show visitors how important we think this history is to the whole nation and the economic impact it has for tourism in Kentucky.”

Originally the battlefield consisted of only an acre, marked by a stone obelisk in memory of the men who died here and by an unmarked grave for 150 soldiers. Now that acre is known as Zollicoffer Park, one stop on the tour. Seedlings grown from its acorns have replaced the original Zollie Tree, under which the Confederate officer’s body rested.

On that rainy January 1862 morning, Southern soldiers were handicapped by trying to fire wet powder in their outmoded flintlocks, and many were killed by Federal forces as they emerged from a ravine. A trail circling this ravine now gives visitors a good idea of exactly how that bloody action occurred.

Later after a day of heavy fighting, the front moved a half mile away to Last Stand Hill, where Confederate troops stood and fought to cover their comrades who were trying to retreat back to Beech Grove, which was eight miles south of the battlefield.

Union forces pursued the Confederate army and placed artillery on Molden’s Hill near the fortifications at Beech Grove and began shelling the Rebels as they tried desperately to escape across the river on a small steamboat, the Noble Ellis.

Other driving tour stops include a field hospital site; the West-Metcalf House, circa 1830, one of the earliest brick homes in Southeast Kentucky (where there are interpretive signs only and no admittance); and a restored, working gristmill at the site of an early Confederate camp.

Around 1817 three brothers erected the mill to custom grind flour and cornmeal at a place described by early long hunters as one with “excellent springs near a waterfall.” In 1877, the present 34 x 40-foot, three-story mill was built near the town of Mill Springs, and in 1908 its cedar wheel was replaced by a sturdy three-feet-wide steel one with a diameter of 40 feet, 10 inches, still one of the largest overshot water wheels in the world.

Powered by 13 natural springs, Mill Springs Mill is operated and interpreted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The National Historic Site offers weekday group tours and special programs by request, seasonal weekend and holiday demonstrations of corn grinding, a gift shop, and picnic tables and shelters.

Come on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend for mill demos, arts and crafts, and a taste test of pinto beans and cornbread at the annual Cornbread Festival.

Those brave Civil War soldiers should’ve had it so good.

“I believe that Mill Springs was the first time all participants in the Civil War finally understood that it was something horrible that would last a long time,” says Wake, “and would become one of the bloodiest episodes in our nation’s history.”

For battlefield and/or group tour information call (606)679-1859 or administrator@millsprings.net. For mill information, call (606) 679-6337.

Katherine Tandy Brown is a staff writer for The Lane Report.
editorial@lanereport.com

Back to Tourism Index

Back to May Issue

Copyright 1996-2003, by Kentucky Business Online.  All rights reserved.

Editorial content is copyright 2003, Lane Communications Group
All editorial material is fully protected and must not be reproduced in any manner without prior permission.

The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.