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Herbert Kilburn, 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry
June - November 1861
Herbert Kilburn is the first person that we know of from our families to volunteer for the Civil War. The Kilburn family was originally from Massachusetts. They moved to western New York in the 1830s, where Herbert was born, then settled in New London, Ohio in 1840. Herbert’s grandparents, Stephen and Sally Kilbourne, owned a furniture factory. Herbert was 22 years old and unmarried at the start of the war, the oldest child of Abner Davis Kilburn and Mary Ann Packard. He was working as a painter in the furniture factory; he also painted houses with his father. His enlistment records say he was 5'10" tall, with blue eyes, light hair and a light complexion. Though most of the family was changing the spelling of their name to Kilburn at this time, Herbert still signed his name with the old "Kilbourne" spelling.
Some 90-day regiments had already been formed at this time, and the first real battle of the war (Philippi in western Virginia) had taken place on June 3. Herbert enlisted during the first big drive to raise a 150,000-man 3-year army.
Herbert Kilburn enlisted at New London, Ohio on June 7, 1861, for three years service. He most likely remained in New London for some time after that, probably living at home and taking part in drill practices as more men signed up – most companies were formed within a small local area, and they would sign up as many men as they could before shipping everyone out as a group. Based on his muster-in date, it appears likely that Herbert was sent from New London to Columbus around June 20.
The 23rd Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry was organized at Columbus, Ohio on June 11, 1861. The 23rd was one of 198 infantry regiments raised by Ohio during the Civil War, and was Ohio’s first 3-year regiment. Of about 900 men who signed up, the regiment lost 159 killed in battle, and 131 died from disease during the war.
There had not been much restriction on how the first regiments were formed. Usually some local politician would get a commission from the state Governor to raise a regiment, and would recruit it from his local area. The other officers would be elected by the members of the regiment after it had formed, and they would design whatever uniform they wanted for themselves.
After President Lincoln called for a large 3-year army, the War Department issued General Orders No. 15 on May 4, 1861. These orders defined the size and structure of the volunteer regiments to be organized by the states. Each company was to be between 83 and 101 men, and there were 10 companies in a regiment, making each regiment about 900 strong at the start. Officers were to be appointed by the Governor, and the sergeants and corporals were to be picked from the ranks by the regiment commander. The orders also defined the blue uniform to be worn, and specified certain numbers of people to be picked from the ranks to become wagon drivers, musicians, supply and hospital workers.
Besides being the first 3-year regiment, the 23rd Ohio was also the first from that state to be formed under the new regulations. The first commander of the regiment, selected by the Governor, was Col William S. Rosecrans, who was also in command of the Brigade (a brigade consisted of several regiments). Rosecrans was a former West Point officer in the Regular Army from 1842 to 1854. He would become one of the better-known leaders in the war, being moderately successful and rising steadily until his defeat at Chickamauga. Most of the other officers in the 23rd Ohio were lawyers with some involvement in politics. One of these was Rutherford B. Hayes, who would one day become President – he started as a major in the regiment. Another future President, William McKinley, was also an enlisted member of the 23rd Ohio.
The regiment was "mustered in" – that is, companies were added to it and activated as they arrived in training camp – from June 11 until the end of the month, at Camp Chase near Columbus, Ohio. We are fortunate in having Rutherford Hayes as a member, because his diaries and letters have been preserved and published after he became President. Hayes arrived in the camp from Cincinnati on June 10, and wrote that several companies were already present. "The Governor preferred to select officers from one part of the State and men from another. Our companies will probably be from the north. The men indicated are said to be a superior body." Hayes commented on the fact that this regiment was organized under General Order 15, and was the first regiment from Ohio that did not elect its own officers. He seemed quite concerned that "this policy naturally creates some embarrassment," and felt that the men would be resentful, but later reported that it was working well.
On June 17, Rosecrans was promoted to Brigadier General, and moved up to command the Brigade only; called the "Ohio and Indiana Provisional Brigade," it consisted of four infantry regiments and one company of cavalry. The 23rd regiment was taken over by Col Scammon on June 27.
Herbert Kilburn’s group arrived at Camp Chase sometime after June 20. He was mustered in on June 25, 1861, and was assigned to Company G. They began training, but still had no uniforms or rifles at this point.
The following day, Herbert was selected from his company to be a musician and was transferred to the Regimental Band. This was part of the structure specified in General Orders 15: two men were to be selected from each company, to form a regimental band of 24 men. The regiment was allowed to choose the six best as "Musician First Class", and they were paid equivalent to engineer sergeants. The next six best musicians were made "Musician Second Class" and were paid the same as engineer corporals. Herbert was listed as a Musician Second Class; he had been a member of the New London town band. The other twelve men were made "Musician Third Class". All members of the band received an extra fifty cents a month, because they had to supply their own instruments. We don’t know whether Herbert had intended to join the band from the time he signed up, or decided to join later when they asked for volunteers in the camp. Some later events will suggest that he enlisted specifically to be in the band.
Training continued at Camp Chase through the rest of June and on through July 24. All the companies had arrived by June 30, and there was a mustering-in and inspection of all men at the end of the month. The daily training started at 5:00 a.m. with the firing of a cannon and sounding of reveille, calling all the men out for roll-call. Rutherford Hayes wrote home about minor problems with some people deserting the camp at night, and his having to post guards to keep them in. Besides their daily drill practice, the men had to construct much of the training camp itself, since they were among the first to use it. They built sleeping quarters, ditches and roads, and dug wells. They caught fish and squirrels to add to their diet, as the supply system was not running smoothly yet. By July 18 everyone had received their uniforms, and the rifles and other equipment were starting to arrive daily.
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The 23rd Regiment completed its training and was preparing to move out just as the first great crisis of the war occurred: the Union defeat at Manassas, or Bull Run. On July 21, 1861, General McDowell and 35,000 90-day troops were defeated by the Confederates at Manassas, Virginia. Up until this time everyone had treated the rebellion as a minor conflict that would be over in a few weeks; now they realized it would be a serious struggle which might last a year or more. McDowell was fired, and McClellan took command of what would soon become the Army of the Potomac.
General George B. McClellan had come from Ohio and was already something of a national hero at this time. He had been successful in western Virginia commanding the Department of the Ohio, and he was credited with the first Union victory in the minor Battle of Philippi in early June (although he was not even there – he was still in Cincinnati when the men under him fought this battle). The telegram to McClellan includes the first mention of the 23rd Ohio in the Official Records. On 22 July 1861 a telegram from U.S. Amy Headquarters ordered McClellan to Washington. He was told to "bring no troops with you. The successor in the Ohio Department may need them all in Western Virginia, including the five new regiments from Ohio [i.e. 23rd through 27th], and others probably from Indiana." McClellan’s promotion to the Army of the Potomac also moved up some other Ohio people – William Rosecrans took over command of both the Department of the Ohio and the Army of Occupation of Western Virginia; and General Jacob D. Cox, an Ohio lawyer and state senator, took Rosecrans’ place in command of the Brigade. General Orders No. 1 of the Army of Occupation of West Virginia, 25 July 1861, officially transfers command to Rosencrans and forms four brigades. General Cox was named to command the 4th Brigade, which is the only one of the four brigades to receive an official nickname: the Kanawha Brigade, named after the Kanawha River.
The 23rd Ohio Infantry left Camp Chase on July 25, 1861. We know from Rutherford Hayes’ letters that they left Columbus by train at 5:00 a.m. and traveled east to Zanesville, Ohio. Their original plan was to board steamboats at Zanesville and float down the Muskingum River to Marietta, then down the Ohio River to Point Pleasant, (West) Virginia. However, when they got to Zanesville their orders were changed, and they continued east on the train through Bellaire, Ohio to Benwood, (West) Virginia, then southeast to Clarksburg and Grafton. On July 28 they moved on foot from Grafton to Weston, a 30-mile march.
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(This is as far as I got in Hayes’ letters at this time, so we lose most of the details.)
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The regiment was assigned to counter-guerilla operations in the area west of the Rich Mountains, as part of the Army of Occupation of West Virginia. Before the Civil War, what is now West Virginia was still part of Virginia. It was still largely an inaccessible wilderness, and most of the Scots-Irish population felt little connection with the rest of the state. When Virginia seceded, most of West Virginia remained strongly loyal to the Union, and the area was quickly occupied by Federal forces. They had hoped to expand into the rest of Virginia and into eastern Tennessee (which was also a loyalist Scots-Irish population), but the Allegheny Mountains formed a natural barrier which was impassable for any large force. At the same time, the mountains also kept the Confederates from bringing any large army into West Virginia, which helped keep the area secure. Most of the fighting that took place here was between small forces of company to brigade size; but it was important in keeping West Virginia in the Union, and eventually led to breaking it away to form a separate state.
In July and August the Confederates started a counteroffensive to try to regain this area. This was Robert E. Lee’s first campaign of the war, and it was a failure. The Confederate forces began moving up the Kanawha River, creating some trouble in the countryside and shooting at steamboats, which were the main source of supplies for the Union troops. The 23rd Regiment took part in the efforts of General Rosecrans to clear the rebels out of the Kanawha Valley. The Union troops in this area consisted of Cox’s Brigade, about 3000 men in four regiments.
From Cox’s accounts, we know that Rosecrans took the 23rd, 7th and 13th Ohio Infantry Regiments down to Summersville. There were no trains in that area, so all their movements were made by marching or by steamboat. They traveled through the towns of Weston, Glenville, Sutton and Summersville, between the Little Kanawha and Great Kanawha Rivers. They then spent some time operating in the area of the Great Kanawha, and became known from that time as the Kanawha Brigade.
Herbert Kilburn and the band probably would have played occasionally during the marches. However, their main function was in the evenings. After the camp had been set up, the only entertainment the men had was the band. When the armies were in close contact, the Confederates would come in nearer at night so they could listen, and the bands would play requests from both sides.
It started raining in mid-August and rained steadily every day for several weeks, turning the roads into deep mud. Most of the accounts I have seen keep mentioning how the men had to march for hours in the rain. Several epidemics of measles and typhoid swept through the camps, causing many deaths.
On August 13, the 7th Ohio marched from Summersville down the Kanawha to Cross Lanes, a small town west of Charleston. The 13th and 23rd Regiments followed on August 15. There was a small fight at Cross Lanes on August 26, 1861. Rosecrans wrote two reports on August 28, saying "General Cox reports ... the 7th Ohio, under Tyler, advanced regiment at Cross Lanes below Summersville, was surprised by Floyd while eating breakfast and dispersed. Baggage trains saved and half the regiment in. Other half continues to straggle in. Floyd with 5 regiments and 3 guns at Cross Lanes, 5 miles below Summersville..." Rosecrans then lists his companies coming in – 22 at Sutton, 10 at Bulltown, etc. There is no mention of the 23rd Ohio, although their own regimental history as well as Dyer’s Compendium gives them a credit for the fight.
We have no way of knowing exactly how Herbert Kilburn and the other band members would have been involved during the battles. The musicians were unarmed, and therefore would not take a direct part in the fighting. From the accounts I have seen, regiments used the musicians in different ways: in some groups they were used as stretcher-bearers and ambulancemen, gathering up the wounded from the battlefield; in others they were used to guard the camps and supply wagons; or to bring up more ammunition and supplies from the rear to the battle. Some of them were actually in the middle of the fighting, though unarmed – during the early part of the war, when it was treated as something of a game, troops marched into battle in neat rows, with drums, fifes, bugles and flags – this didn’t last very long. The only hint we have as to how things were done in the 23rd Ohio is in a letter from Rutherford B. Hayes to his wife following a battle in September: the entire regiment marched up to the point where the shooting started, and when they got to the front line Hayes says he handed his horse to an unarmed musician. This implies that the 23rd brought the musicians forward and used them in some way in the battle.
The 23rd had a mustering-in at the end of August, as required by Army regulations. This was a formal assembly and roll-call of all the men in the regiment. Announcements were read, the uniforms and rifles were inspected by the commander, and they were probably paid at this time. It is also one of our main sources of information on individual people, as a written entry on each person was made every second month in the regiment muster-book. These records are available in the National Archives, and are my source for tracing the presence of our family members. We have Herbert Kilburn listed in the August 31 roll as a Musician Second Class. He was listed from this time as a member of the Regimental Headquarters in the Field and Staff group.
Following the skirmish at Cross Lanes, the 23rd Ohio continued its scouting operations along the Kanawha and its tributaries, gradually working upstream toward the southeast. Civil War historian Bruce Catton thinks they were intending to continue southeast along the Lewisburg Pike, but they ran into more Confederates.
In early September the Kanawha Brigade was endangered by the approach of two Confederate forces under Generals Wise and Floyd. Robert E. Lee had sent them to take over this part of the state and eliminate Cox’s forces. However, Wise and Floyd despised each other, and most of the damage they did was to themselves – Catton’s histories go into more detail on this and are interesting to read. General Rosecrans brought more Federal troops down from the Cheat Mountain area to help out Cox, resulting in the Battle of Carnifex Ferry.
At about the same time that this was happening, the Army was reorganizing. Cox’s Kanawha Brigade was expanded to the division level (the Kanawha Division). Col Scammon moved up to command the Brigade (first called Scammons’s Brigade, later renamed the 3rd Brigade). The 23rd Regiment was taken over by Lt.Col. Rutherford B. Hayes.
The Confederates under Floyd had crossed the Gauley River and built some earthworks across a bend in the river five miles west of Summersville. Wise was supposed to join up with Floyd but ignored Lee’s orders and never showed up. Rosecrans joined Cox with several Ohio regiments, and on September 9 they were in the area of Gauley Bridge, camping 8 miles above Summersville. According to Rosecrans’ report of the battle, the Federal army marched 17 miles upriver on September 10, starting out at 4:00 a.m. They reached Summersville at 8:00, being delayed by a burned bridge. The Confederates had evacuated Summersville before Rosecrans arrived. They reached Carnifex Ferry about 2:00 p.m. and found the Confederates in entrenched positions in a dense forest. Rosecrans had the 9th, 10th, 12th, 13th, 23rd, 28th and 30th Ohio Infantry Regiments, against a Confederate force of six regiments and 16 cannons. The First Brigade was in the lead; the 23rd Ohio was in the Third Brigade, in the rear. The First Brigade ran into heavy firing as they reached the woods. Advance parties up in the woods thought they could probably reach the end of the Confederate line, so Rosecrans ordered the 13th and 28th Ohio, along with four companies of the 12th Ohio and four companies of the 23rd Ohio, to reconnoiter the Confederate right. (Rutherford B. Hayes led the four companies of the 23rd into the battle, and this is where he mentions handing his horse to one of the musicians – there is a 1/24 chance that this was Herbert.) By the time they got through the thick forest, all the regimental commanders reported their men too exhausted to go on. Rosecrans says they drove in the advanced outposts and pickets, but neither side made any real gains. Scammon’s Third Brigade, including the rest of the 23rd Ohio, was then ordered to advance into the woods on the Confederates’ center, but were withdrawn because of darkness. The Federal troops lost 17 men killed, none from the 23rd; 141 others were wounded, including two from the 23rd. By next morning Floyd’s Confederates had disappeared across the river. They had destroyed all the boats, including the ferry. Floyd headed south, and Rosecrans had to find another place to cross the river – Gauley River in that area is in a deep gorge about a hundred yards wide, and the river was a continuous series of rapids.
Both Union and Confederate reports of the battle show that they overestimated the enemy forces they were facing, and both sides felt they did "considerable damage" to the other side. The actual Confederate losses in the fight were 20 men killed.
In the meanwhile, Lee had noticed that Rosecrans had taken most of the troops from the Cheat Mountain area, and he attacked the remainder which had been left there under J.J. Reynolds. (The 25th Ohio Infantry Regiment, which will later give rise to the 12th Ohio Battery, was part of Reynolds’ group.) Lee made several efforts between September 10 and 15, known as the Cheat Mountain Campaign, but it was a complete failure – Lee’s early plans were much too complicated and required close cooperation between many separated forces. Lee retreated and ended up at Little Sewell Mountain, where he combined his forces with those of Wise and Floyd.
Rosecrans, still pursuing Floyd, came up against this large force in the pouring rain on September 15. He concluded that Lee’s position was too strong for his force, so the Federal troops went back to the Gauley Bridge area. Lee in turn felt that Rosecrans was too strong for him to attack, so the two armies just sat in their camps for a few weeks. Lee was soon after recalled to Richmond, and the campaign ended – this was the last time the Confederacy made a serious attempt to reclaim West Virginia.
On October 11, 1861 the Government created the Department of Western Virginia out of a part of the Department of the Ohio. General Rosecrans remained in command of the new department. Part of his army was still at Cheat Mountain under J.J. Reynolds, but Rosecrans apparently remained with Cox and the Kanawha Division around the New River area. From October 19 until November 16 they sent companies out from their base camp on scouting patrols around the Kanawha Valley and New River region. They occupied the northeast side of the river, while the Confederates were camped along the southwest side, north of Fayetteville. The 23rd Ohio was camped near what is today Hawk’s Nest State Park.
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It had now been about six months since the Government called for the formation of the new army and published the regulations guiding the size and formation of the regiments. Since that time, the events of the war had caused the Army to reconsider some of those regulations – including the use of the regimental bands. What had seemed like a good idea at the beginning of the war was becoming an unnecessary expense. They would now gradually do away with the bands. The first step toward that was in War Department General Orders No. 91, October 26, 1861: "No bands for volunteer regiments will in the future be mustered into service, and vacancies that may hereafter occur in the bands now in service will not be filled. All members of bands now in service that are not musicians will be discharged upon receipt of this order by their respective regimental commanders."
Part of the reason for doing away with the bands was that the war was dragging out longer, and proving to be a more difficult struggle than at first expected – the bands simply "got in the way." But it seems that the main reason was the expense. On December 5 the paymaster-general of the Army, B.F. Larned, replied to a request from the U.S. Senate to look into ways to reduce the expense of the war. The first item on his list was the musicians: "First. The bands (regimental) are, in my opinion, far more ornamental than useful, and should be abolished. This would be a saving of about $5,000,000."
As a result of these changes, no new bands were formed after October 1861. Existing bands, like those of the 23rd Ohio, could remain in place, but members who were not real musicians had to be discharged. The fact that Herbert remained in the band at this time suggests that he had actually enlisted specifically to be in the band.
The last Confederate attack in this area came at Gauley Bridge on November 1. The 23rd Ohio apparently was not involved; I haven’t found anything about it in the records. The Confederates were driven off, ending any hopes they had of gaining control of West Virginia. On November 11 and 12 there is a battle called Cotton Mountain; the 23rd Ohio is listed as participating, but I have no information at this time on where it is or what happened.
The Confederates pulled out of their camps around Fayetteville and moved south to Princeton for the winter. The Federal army was then able to cross the New River and occupy the whole area around the Kanawha and New River valleys. The 23rd Ohio moved to Fayetteville, and went into winter camp there. The regiment was based at Fayette Court House from late November 1861 until the middle of April 1862. In December, four companies of the regiment were sent out farther down the road and occupied Raliegh County Court House at Beckley. Companies A, B, F and G were based at Beckley for the winter, from December 28 to mid-April 1862. Because of this, we cannot be sure where Herbert was. He was from Company G, so it is possible that he went to Beckley with them. But he was still being listed with the Regimental Staff on the muster reports, so it is more likely that he was with the main part of the regiment in Fayetteville. The troops stayed mostly in houses which had been abandoned by rebel sympathizers when Union troops came in. Small scouting groups were sent out continuously throughout the winter. A large scouting expedition planned by Scammon in January was cancelled due to heavy snowfall and continuous rain.
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