Among the groups organized were the Black Brigade of Cincinnati, a forcibly conscripted group of free African Americans. The Black Brigade was given its own flag and each man was paid $13 for one month's service, the same pay given to privates at that time. Seven hundred and six members of the Black Brigade built fortifications in Kentucky to protect Cincinnati.[3] They had no weapons and only had a few cavalry scouts between them and Confederate troops.[4][5][6] The brigade worked until September 20, when there was no longer a threat to Cincinnati.[7] When they were done, hundreds of acres of forests had been cleared[6] and in some locations used as abatis obstructions.[8] Miles of rifle pits were dug. They built forts, magazines, and miles of military roads[6] and breastworks along the border with Northern Kentucky between Fort Thomas and Bromley. The fortifications were built far enough away from Cincinnati that the Confederates could not shell the city.[3]
The fortifications were defended by 25,000 Union Army soldiers and 45,000 local militia volunteers (including the Wallace Guards). Further support was provided by more than 15,000 so-called "Squirrel Hunters"—untrained volunteers from other parts of Ohio who carried outdated equipment.[9] Construction of the defenses was directed by ColonelCharles Whittlesey until relieved by MajorJames H. Simpson, chief of Topographical Engineers for the Department of the Ohio. On September 5, Ohio governorDavid Tod announced to the public that no additional volunteers would be needed for the defense of Cincinnati, but he advised that all military organizations be kept up for future needs.
Heth's arrival, skirmishing and departure
Heth and his men marched from Lexington, Kentucky, on the Lexington Turnpike (present-day U.S. Route 25), arriving south of Covington on September 6. After reconnoitering the defenses at various points, he determined that an attack was pointless. Heth's forces stayed only a few days, skirmishing with members of the 101st Ohio Infantry, 103rd Ohio Infantry and 104th Ohio Infantry near Fort Mitchel on September 10–11[10] and returning south to Lexington on September 12, 1862.[11]
On September 12, Wallace telegraphed Major General Horatio Wright (commander of the Department of the Ohio) in Cincinnati: "The skedaddle is complete; every sign of a rout. If you say so I will organize a column of 20,000 men to pursue to-night." The large pursuit was never ordered as most of the military forces were sent via steamboats to Louisville, Kentucky to prevent capture by GeneralBraxton Bragg. However, small scouting forces were sent southward to harass the rear-guard of Heth's forces. A skirmish occurred at Florence, Kentucky, on September 17.[12] Another skirmish occurred near Walton, Kentucky on September 25, when Colonel Basil W. Duke attacked a Union camp of approximately 500 men near Snow's Pond.
For his vigorous defense of the city, Wallace earned the nickname "Savior of Cincinnati". Within a month of the panic, the Squirrel Hunters returned to their homes.[13]
The defenses
In September 1862, one earthwork fort and five earthwork batteries were extant in Kenton County and only three earthwork batteries in Campbell County, all having been constructed in 1861. Two earthwork batteries protecting the city's flanks were located on hills at the west and east sides of Cincinnati. Altogether, the defenses were armed with just 15 heavy guns.[citation needed]
When Wallace moved his headquarters from Cincinnati to Kentucky, he selected the main building at the Thompson Winery that was designated Fort Henry, although no earthworks were ever constructed on the site. It was the approximate center of the line of fortifications and telegraph lines connected each of the earthwork positions with his headquarters.[citation needed]
Following the threat, many more batteries and forts were constructed through November 1864, mostly under the direction of MajorJames H. Simpson.
Kentucky batteries
Unless otherwise noted, all traces of these earthworks are gone.[14]
Kenton County
J. L. Kirby Smith Battery - Located in the southwest area of modern Ludlow. It was named for Colonel Joseph L. Kirby Smith, 43rd Ohio Infantry, who was mortally wounded at the Second Battle of Corinth, October 1862.
Coombs Battery - Believed to be named for Leslie Coombs, a member of Wallace's staff. Remains of this battery are found in Covington's Devou Park.
Bates Battery - Brigadier General Joshua Hall Bates, chairman of the Cincinnati Committee for Public Safety, was the namesake for this battery. Well-preserved, Bates Battery is located in Devou Park, but is difficult to reach.
Perry Battery - Named for Cincinnati attorney Aaron F. Perry.
Rich Battery - Named for Stephen Rich, landowner of the site. This position was built in 1861 and by the time of Heth's threat, it was considered out of position and unusable. It was referred to as "Old Battery" on military maps.
Fort Mitchel - Constructed in 1861 and named for Major General Ormsby M. Mitchel, who originally directed the construction of Cincinnati's defenses in November 1861. (The city of Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, chartered in 1909, derives its name from both the fort and the general, although misspelling his name.) The fort was greatly expanded in 1863–1864. Today, only the road leading up to the fort remains.
Kyle Battery - Located immediately northeast of Fort Mitchel on a farm owned by Robert S. Kyle. The site was destroyed by construction of Interstate 75.
Fort Wright - Constructed in 1863, this fortification was left uncompleted in 1864. Designed for thirteen heavy guns, Fort Wright could cover all of the ground from the front of Kyle Battery eastward to the Licking River. It was named for Major General Horatio Wright, commander of the Department of the Ohio. The city of Fort Wright, Kentucky derives its name from this fortification.
Hooper Battery - Initially designated Kyle Battery, it was along the same ridge as McRae. The site of the battery was covered over with earth to make a level back yard for a private home that was the now-defunct James A. Ramage Civil War Museum.
Carlisle Battery - Named for local attorney and politician John G. Carlisle.
Burbank Battery - Named for Lieutenant ColonelSidney Burbank, who was military commander of Cincinnati. Burbank was promoted to colonel, September 16, 1862.
Hatch Battery - Alternately known as Brickyard Battery, it was named for Cincinnati's mayor George H. Hatch.
Buford Battery - Constructed in 1863 and named for Kentucky half-brothers and generals Napoleon Bonaparte Buford and John Buford. This position was selected to command the ground from Fort Wright to Holt Battery in Campbell County.
Burnet Battery - First known as Quarry Battery, it was renamed for Robert W. Burnet, commander of a local militia unit from the Cincinnati Literary Club, known as the Burnet Rifles.
Anderson Battery - First known as Tunnel Battery, due to being located directly above a railroad tunnel (still in use), it was renamed for Larz Anderson, a Cincinnati businessman, married to Catherine Longworth, daughter of Nicholas Longworth. Larz was the brother of Brevet Major General Robert Anderson of Fort Sumter.[15] Minor traces of this earthwork and a few rifle pits can still be seen.
Campbell County
Wiggins Battery - This position overlooked the Licking River valley and was named for Samuel Wiggins, a Cincinnati banker and realtor. It was also known as John's Hill Battery.
Holt Battery - Originally known as Three Mile Creek Battery and alternately as Licking Point Battery, it was named for Major General Joseph Holt, Judge Advocate General of the Army. This easily accessible earthwork is owned by Vista Pointe Apartments in Wilder, Kentucky; residential construction has destroyed much of the site north of the earthwork.
McLean Battery - Also known as Locust Hill Battery, it was named for Major Nathaniel H. McLean, Chief of Staff for the Department of the Ohio.
Harrison Battery - Believed to have been named for Montgomery Pike Harrison an Indiana officer killed in Texas by Indians in 1849.
Shaler Battery - Located on property owned by Dr. Nathaniel B. Shaler, chief surgeon of the Newport Barracks, and then in use as a vineyard but adjacent to Evergreen Cemetery. Today, the cemetery encompasses the entire Shaler property. The first earthwork built on the site was leveled by U.S. Army Engineers. A larger earthwork was constructed behind the original position and remains intact. This is the most easily accessible of the remaining defensive positions.
Groesbeck Batteries - Referred to as Batteries 1 & 2, Groesbeck, these two small positions were built in 1864 to guard the approaches to Fort Burnside. They were named for William S. Groesbeck, a Cincinnati lawyer and politician.
Phil Kearny Battery - Originally named Beech Woods Battery, it was renamed for Major General Philip Kearny, who was killed at the battle of Chantilly, September 1, 1862.
Fort Burnside - Constructed in 1863, this elaborate earthwork fort commanded the area from Shaler Battery to Fort Whittlesey. It was named for Major General Ambrose Burnside, commander of the Department of the Ohio, 1863–1864.
Fort Whittlesey - Named for Colonel Charles Whittlesey, who had retired a few months before the threat to Cincinnati and was called back into service by Wallace, his former division commander.
Battery Lee - Constructed in 1863 to overlook the Ohio River valley to the east and named for R. W. Lee, whose identity is still unknown. The earthwork was leveled for the construction of a parade ground for Fort Thomas in 1890.
Ohio batteries
Price's Hill Battery - Located on the western edge of Cincinnati overlooking the Ohio River.
Mount Adams Battery - Located on the eastern side of Cincinnati near Immaculata Church on Mount Adams. The present site is known as Fort View Place.
1 2 "Glory Sought for the Black Brigade". The Journal News. August 1, 2005. p.5. Retrieved January 23, 2020. Quote re: Fort Thomas: "Wallace drew up a defense plan that included construction of a ring of fortifications in the Northern Kentucky hills in a line stretching from Bromley to Fort Thomas…"
↑ A force of 53 Union cavalry engaged 101 Confederates. 1 Union man and 5 Confederates were killed and 1 Union soldier and 7 Confederates were wounded. Additionally, one civilian (Larkin Vaughn) was killed by a stray shot.
↑ Walden, Geoffrey R. "Panic on the Ohio!: Confederates March on Cincinnati, September 1862 - IV. The Defenses of Cincinnati" Blue & Gray Magazine Vol. 3, No. 5 (April–May 1986), pp. 24–29.
↑ The Descendants of Richard Clough Anderson, compiled and produced by Don Perry, Feb 1, 2017
Sources
Adams, Roger C. "Panic on the Ohio: The Defense of Cincinnati, Covington, and Newport, September 1862" The Journal of Kentucky Studies 9 (September 1992), pp.80–98.
Heth, Henry. The Memoirs of Henry Heth (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press), 1974.
Pinney, Nelson A. History of the 104th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry from 1862 to 1865 (Akron, OH: Werner and Lohmann), 1886.
Ramage, James A. "Panic on the Ohio!: Confederates March on Cincinnati, September 1862 - II. Panic in Cincinnati" Blue & Gray Magazine Vol. 3, No. 5 (April–May 1986), pp.11–15.
Roth, David E. "Panic on the Ohio!: Confederates March on Cincinnati, September 1862 - III. 'Squirrel Hunters' to the Rescue" Blue & Gray Magazine Vol. 3, No. 5 (April–May 1986), pp.16–18.
U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 16, Part II (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office), 1886. [See pages 470–511.]
U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 52, Part I (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office), 1886.
Lewis Wallace was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, artist, and author from Indiana. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a bestselling novel that has been called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century."
The siege of Port Hudson was the final engagement in the Union campaign to recapture the Mississippi River in the American Civil War. While Union General Ulysses Grant was besieging Vicksburg upriver, General Nathaniel Banks was ordered to capture the lower Mississippi Confederate stronghold of Port Hudson, Louisiana, to go to Grant's aid. When his assault failed, Banks settled into a 48-day siege, the longest in US military history up to that point. A second attack also failed, and it was only after the fall of Vicksburg that the Confederate commander, General Franklin Gardner, surrendered the port. The Union gained control of the river and navigation from the Gulf of Mexico through the Deep South and to the river's upper reaches.
Ormsby MacKnightMitchel was an American astronomer, polymath, and major general in the American Civil War.
Horatio Gouverneur Wright was an engineer and general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He took command of the VI Corps in May 1864 following the death of General John Sedgwick. In this capacity, he was responsible for building the fortifications around Washington DC, and in the Overland Campaign he commanded the first troops to break through the Confederate defenses at Petersburg. After the war, he was involved in a number of engineering projects, including the Brooklyn Bridge and the completion of the Washington Monument, and served as Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Henry Heth was a career United States Army officer who became a Confederate general in the American Civil War.
The siege of Knoxville saw Lieutenant General James Longstreet's Confederate forces besiege the Union garrison of Knoxville, Tennessee, led by Major General Ambrose Burnside. When Major General William T. Sherman approached Knoxville with an overwhelming Union force, Longstreet ended the siege on December 4 and withdrew northeast. The siege was part of the Knoxville campaign of the American Civil War.
The Black Brigade of Cincinnati was a military unit of African-American soldiers, that was organized in 1862 during the American Civil War, when the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, was in danger of being attacked, by the Confederate Army. The members of the Cincinnati "Black Brigade" were among the first African Americans to be employed in the military defense of the Union. The fortifications—including forts, miles of military roads, miles of rifle pits, magazines, and hundreds of acres of cleared forests—at the border of Northern Kentucky thwarted the major threat to Cincinnati during the Civil War.
Hooper Battery was a hilltop earthworks fortification, built for the Defense of Cincinnati during the American Civil War in Northern Kentucky by the Union Army to turn back invading Confederate troops. It was constructed to protect Cincinnati and the Ohio River valley. The battery overlooks the Licking River valley in an advantageous position.
Shaler Battery was a hilltop earthwork fortification built during the American Civil War in Northern Kentucky by the Union Army to turn back invading Confederate troops. It was constructed to protect Cincinnati and the Ohio River valley. The location of this battery's powder magazine is marked by a bandstand in Evergreen Cemetery in Southgate, Kentucky.
The 104th Ohio Infantry Regiment, sometimes 104th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was an infantry regiment in the Union army during the American Civil War. It played a conspicuous role at the Battle of Franklin during the 1864 Franklin–Nashville campaign, where six members later received the Medal of Honor, most for capturing enemy flags.
Quincy Adams Gillmore was an American civil engineer, author, and a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was noted for his actions in the Union victory at Fort Pulaski, where his modern rifled artillery readily pounded the fort's exterior stone walls, an action that essentially rendered stone fortifications obsolete. He earned an international reputation as an organizer of siege operations and helped revolutionize the use of naval gunnery.
The city of Winchester, Virginia, and the surrounding area, were the site of numerous battles during the American Civil War, as contending armies strove to control the lower Shenandoah Valley. Winchester changed hands more often than any other Confederate city.
During the American Civil War, the Ohio River port city of Cincinnati, Ohio, played a key role as a major source of supplies and troops for the Union Army. It also served as the headquarters for much of the war for the Department of the Ohio, which was charged with the defense of the region, as well as directing the army's offensives into Kentucky and Tennessee.
The 103rd Ohio Infantry Regiment, sometimes 103rd Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry was a three-years' infantry regiment from northeastern Ohio that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It participated in many of the campaigns and battles of the Army of the Ohio in the Western Theater.
Louisville's fortifications for the American Civil War were designed to protect Louisville, Kentucky, as it was an important supply station for the Union's fight in the western theater of the war. They were typically named for fallen Union officers; usually those that served in the Army of the Ohio. The inspiration for building the forts came in October 1862, when Confederate forces engaged in their largest attack in Kentucky, only to be halted at the Battle of Perryville. Construction began in 1863, going at a slow pace until Confederate forces marched on Nashville, Tennessee, in the autumn of 1864. This caused General Hugh Ewing to demand from the city to force both military convicts and local "loafers" to help build the fortifications. Due to military engineers being needed on the front lines, the fortifications in Louisville were designed by civilian assistant engineers, as were the ones in Cincinnati, Ohio. Louisville was never endangered, so the guns never fired, save for salutes.
The James A. Ramage Civil War Museum sought to tell the untold story of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Northern Kentucky's involvement in the American Civil War. Although no battles occurred there, the people of the area resisted a push by the Confederate army in 1862. The museum was located in Fort Wright, Kentucky on the site of Hooper Battery. The museum grounds covered 17 acres (69,000 m2) and it displayed historical passages, stories, and memorabilia. It also paid homage to the Black Brigade of Cincinnati, Fern Storer's kitchen, and the history of the City of Fort Wright.
Charles Whittlesey was a soldier, geologist, historian, and an investigator of mounds relics of the United States. He is described by Ephraim George Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis in their book Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley as a "zealous investigator" in the field of "American antiquarian research."
James St. Clair Morton was an American military officer who served as chief engineer of the Army of the Ohio, the Army of the Cumberland and the XI Corps in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He led construction of key embattlements protecting Nashville, Tennessee including Fort Negley and Fortress Rosencrans. He served as major in the regular army and was promoted to brigadier general of the Pioneer Brigade in the volunteer army. Morton requested a reduction in rank from brigadier general of volunteers after being reprimanded by General William Rosecrans in front of colleagues due to drunkenness in the ranks and errors in troop placement. He was killed in action during the Second Battle of Petersburg and brevetted brigadier general posthumously.
Fort Granger was a Union fort built in 1862 in Franklin, Tennessee, south of Nashville, after their forces occupied the state during the American Civil War. One of several fortifications constructed in the Franklin Battlefield, the fort was used by Union troops to defend their positions in Middle Tennessee against Confederate attackers. The Second Battle of Franklin in 1864, part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign in the Western Theater, was the most notable engagement of this area during the Civil War.
The 11th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment from Illinois that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. In April 1861, it was formed as a three-month volunteer unit, and in July 1861 it was reorganized as a three-year unit, in which role it served until the end of the war. Two of its commanding officers were promoted to brigadier general and led major units during the war. In its first major action at Fort Donelson the regiment suffered terrible losses. The 11th Illinois also fought at Shiloh, Riggins Hill, Vicksburg, First Yazoo City, Second Yazoo City, and Fort Blakely. In April 1863, the 109th Illinois Infantry Regiment was disbanded and its enlisted men transferred into the 11th Illinois. The regiment was mustered out of service in July 1865.
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