5
Herbert Kilburn, 23rd Ohio Infantry
January to August 1862
While the Vinings were training for the cavalry and being moved to Kansas, Herbert Kilburn was spending the winter with the 23rd Ohio in southern West Virginia. The regiment was headquartered in Fayetteville Courthouse, and the men were camped around the town in what they called Camp Ewing. They may have been in tents or, as was sometimes done in permanent winter camps, in crude log huts. They spent the winter in training, since neither army was able to move on the muddy mountain roads. Many of the men died of fever and diarrhea during that first winter.
President Lincoln called for a general offensive by all Union forces to begin on February 22, George Washington’s birthday. Part or all of the 23rd Ohio moved south from Fayetteville in early February, working upstream along the New River as far as Hinton, but the roads were still impassable for any large force. They ran into some Confederates and there was a small fight at the mouth of the Blue Stone River near Hinton on February 8 – I don’t have any details on it at this time. The regiment then returned to Camp Ewing and remained there for another two months.
In the meanwhile, the Army had another reorganization, which seems to have been one of their favorite pastimes – they never kept any arrangements intact for more than a few months. The Department of West Virginia had just been created last October; now on March 11, 1862 it was merged into the new Department of Mountains, which included all of the Alleghenies down through eastern Tennessee. The 23rd Ohio (now commanded by Rutherford B. Hayes) was part of the 1st Brigade (Scammon), Kanawha Division (Cox), Department of Mountains (Rosecrans).
General Rosecrans remained in command of the Mountains Department for only a few weeks, then on March 29 he was transferred to Mississippi. We will run into him again later with Henry Kilburn, and the Vinings. General John C. Fremont took over the command of the Department of Mountains. Fremont had been in the Army long before the start of the Civil War; he was something of a national hero from Western explorations and the Indian wars, and he had been the Republican candidate for U.S. President in 1856.
As the 23rd Ohio prepared to leave its winter camp, the only noteworthy actions elsewhere in the war were in Tennessee. Union armies under Grant and Buell had occupied Nashville and most of western Tennessee. Grant moved down the Tennessee River to the Mississippi-Alabama border, and on April 6 and 7 defeated the Confederates at Shiloh. McClellan was still camped quietly around Washington, D.C., despite Lincoln’s efforts to make him do something.
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On April 17, 1862 the 23rd Ohio quit winter quarters and started moving south toward Princeton, about 25 miles south of Beckley. On this trip Herbert would have crossed over the main range of the Allegheny Mountains for the first time, and it was probably an enjoyable hike on days when it wasn’t raining. They most likely went up along the New River to the Blue, then up Blue River to Princeton.
We have conflicting accounts of what actually went on at Princeton, depending on the source. Reid’s history of the 23rd Ohio says the Kanawha Division advanced on Princeton with the 23rd "in the lead" the whole way, reaching the outskirts of the city on May 1.
[We see this phrase "in the lead" a great deal in all regimental histories. For a brigade or regiment to be chosen to lead an advance, implies that they are the best unit available – it was supposed to be a great honor to be the lead in an attack. So if we read the regimental histories of six different regiments involved in the same battle, we see that each one of them was in the lead, and each one of them single-handed took on the heaviest fighting. Regimental histories are not official records, but merely the recordings of some person in the regiment based on what he saw or was told later. Information that we get from them is usually suspect unless confirmed by another source. Throughout this report, when a phrase like "in the lead" appears in quotes, the information is from a regimental history and may or may not be true. If I say they were in the lead, without quotes, it means that I have that information from someone above the regimental level.]
Reid goes on to say that the regiment was involved in a fight at Clark’s Hollow as they neared the city. The Confederates set fire to Princeton and abandoned it as the Union army approached. From then until May 8, the 23rd Ohio was foraging for supplies and scouting around for Confederate units, and was involved in a few minor skirmishes.
Dyer’s list of Civil War engagements differs somewhat from Reid’s account. Dyer simply gives a date of May 5 for what he calls the "Advance on Princeton"; that is probably the date at which some point in the city was reached. Neither Dyer nor the Official Records mentions any fight at Clark’s Hollow – it may have been very small, or perhaps it is included in the "Advance on Princeton."
On the morning of May 8, the 23rd Ohio was attacked by four regiments of Confederate infantry with six cannon, led by Confederate General Heth. The 23rd Ohio was several miles east of Princeton on a scouting mission, and was separated from the main Union forces – only nine companies of the 23rd and three companies of cavalry were present. Two of the cavalry companies ran off as soon as the shooting started – this is a common complaint throughout the war. The 23rd was overwhelmed and forced to retreat. Reid says they did so "in good order, fighting as they retreated" – another common phrase. They were forced back to East River, to the Narrows on New River (Bluestone River), and all the way back to Adair’s Farm. They were closely pursued by the Confederates the whole way, and were forced to abandon all their tents and camp equipment. The fighting lasted several days, during which they had no time to sleep, and nothing at all to eat. This action probably corresponds to what Dyer calls the Engagement at Giles Courthouse, May 7 to 10 (i.e., Giles County Virginia, at Pearisburg).
The main battle at Princeton took place on May 16. The 23rd Ohio was not involved in this, as they were badly mangled and still recuperating in the Bluestone River/Pearisburg area. The regiment moved to Flat Top Mountain (halfway between Princeton and Beckley) on May 18.
The effect of the action at Princeton was that the Confederates were pushed out of the first ridge and valley of the Allegheny chain. It defined the border between Virginia and West Virginia, and brought another important town into Union control.
The 23rd Ohio was stationed at Flat Top Mountain in the Alleghenies from May through mid-July. They continued their scouting activities, but nothing is mentioned in the records except for a minor skirmish at Flat Top on July 4.
* * *
Up until this point, the 23rd Ohio had been involved in their primary assignment of clearing and holding West Virginia as part of that army. They had specific objectives, and probably knew where they were going, what they were doing, and why they were doing it. Now for the next several months they would be an outside player in larger events, part of an army they would never see. They were probably quite confused, as was most of the rest of the army they were a part of.
In mid-March, Lincoln finally succeeded in getting McClellan to move from Washington, D.C. McClellan took his Army of the Potomac down to Hampton, Virginia and started advancing – slowly – between the James and York Rivers toward Richmond. Called the Peninsula Campaign, it lasted until mid-July. The Federal Government feared that while McClellan was attacking Richmond, the Confederates might attack Washington, so they had made him leave behind two Corps from his Army, under Banks and McDowell, to guard the city. But although McClellan greatly outnumbered the Confederates, he was always afraid he didn’t have enough men, and kept begging Washington to let him bring McDowell’s Corps down to Richmond. Lee realized that if that happened he would be destroyed, so he sent a small force under Stonewall Jackson to create some trouble and keep Banks and McDowell busy. This was the Shenandoah Valley Campaign: from March 23 to June 9, Jackson marched up and down the Shenandoah with less than 20,000 men, and completely tied up more than 60,000 Union troops.
Jackson’s campaign eventually drew in Fremont’s army in West Virginia. On May 25, Fremont was ordered to take his main force from Frankfort across the mountains to Harrisonburg, Virginia. But because of muddy roads, heavy rains, short supplies, and the roads being blocked by Jackson’s engineers, Fremont was forced further north and ended up crossing over at Strasburg, at the top of the Shenandoah Valley. This was near the end of Jackson’s campaign, and he was merely trying to get out of the valley to rejoin Lee. The Union forces could have trapped him at this point, but Fremont arrived at Strasburg too late, just after Jackson had passed through. Fremont pursued him and made "a rather spiritless attack" which was repulsed at Cross Keys on June 8, and Jackson escaped.
As a side note, Fremont’s move to Strasburg was not the first penetration into Virginia by the West Virginia army – the 12th Ohio Battery had already been there for several weeks and was involved in some of the earlier battles with Jackson, shortly before Herbert’s brother Henry Kilburn enlisted in that unit.
When Fremont moved into Virginia with most of his army, he left the Kanawha Division, including the 23rd Ohio, in place around Flat Top Mountain. They were guarding the only easy entrance from Virginia into West Virginia. Being left there, they seem to drop out of the organizational structure for a while.
In June the War Department created the Army of Virginia under General John Pope. Pope had been having some recent successes along the Mississippi River, and he was brought out East to consolidate the scattered forces around Washington, D.C. On June 26, 1862, the Mountains Department under Fremont, the Department of Shenandoah under Banks, and the Department of the Rappahannock under McDowell, were merged to form the Army of Virginia. This was partly a Federal reaction to McClellan’s problems on his Virginia Peninsula Campaign, and McClellan was greatly insulted – he thought all armies should belong to him – and he actively worked to undermine Pope. Pope didn’t like the idea either. He saw the whole idea as hopeless and embarrassing: the three parts of his army were widely scattered, had no contact with one another, and had never worked together. Worse for Pope, all three of his commanders outranked him, and would not like taking orders from him. In the end, he turned out to be right (which of course would not keep him from getting the blame); he was never able to pull the scattered pieces of his Army together, never even knew where many of the pieces were, and the Army of Virginia would end its short life at the Second Battle of Bull Run.
Fremont’s Army of West Virginia now became the I Corps of the Army of Virginia. Fremont outranked Pope and refused to work under him. He was relieved of command at his own request and was replaced with Franz Sigel. Sigel was greatly looked up to by most of his own men, but he has been called one of the failures of Lincoln’s policy of naming foreign-born community leaders to high military positions. Like many other officers in the Civil War, Sigel had been a leading figure in the failed German revolt against Prussia in 1848 and had fled to the U.S. He began the Civil War as a brigade commander in Missouri and had fought at the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas before being placed in charge of a division in the Department of Shenandoah. Most of his troops were Germans from Missouri, New York and Ohio, and the rest of the Army called them "the Dutchmen." His new I Corps included the 12th Ohio Battery, and should also have included the 23rd Ohio Infantry, but they are still forgotten at this time and remain in West Virginia. Whether it was intentional (they were still watching the main pass into West Virginia) or simply an oversight, the Kanawha Division was never integrated into the Army of Virginia. It should belong to Sigel’s I Corps, but the Division remained in the District of Kanawha.
* * *
On July 4, a small Confederate force attempted to pass through the mountains at New River. The 23rd Ohio was involved in a skirmish at Flat Top Mountain to keep them out. The regiment stayed at Flat Top until July 13, when they moved to Pack’s Ferry on the New River. They camped at Green Meadows farm, seven miles from the ferry. Four companies of the 23rd were involved in another skirmish at Pack’s Ferry on August 6. We don’t have any details at this time on either this skirmish or the one on July 4.
The regiment stayed at Green Meadows for another month, when they were finally picked up by the Army of Virginia and ordered to join it at Washington. On August 15, the 23rd Ohio and the rest of the Kanawha Division were told to march as quickly as possible to Camp Piatt on the Great Kanawha River. They arrived on August 18, having marched over a hundred miles in three days, and boarded steamships to Parkersburg. From there they took trains through Grafton, West Virginia and Cumberland, Maryland to Washington, D.C., arriving there on August 24. But they still didn’t join with the rest of the Army, stopping around the Arlington area to await further orders.
While this was going on, Herbert’s brother Henry was enlisting in Ohio. And other events were occurring which would lead to Herbert’s release from the 23rd Ohio.
Act of Congress No. 165 was passed on July 17, 1862. This act repealed the one of July 22, 1861, which had established the regimental bands. Now Congress wanted the bands abolished, and the men in the bands mustered out of service. The act still allowed for the formation of smaller, 16-member brigade bands. War Department General Orders 91, July 29, 1862, reproduced extracts from the act and ordered its execution, but added the following change: that all those enlisted men who had been detached from their companies to serve in the bands, but had not originally enlisted specifically for the band, would be returned to regular infantry duty in their companies. On August 9 a followup letter was sent from the Adjutant General to the commanders of all armies, restating the above orders, asking if they had completed the required discharges, and emphasizing again that members pulled from the ranks to form the bands must be returned to the ranks.
We therefore find on the August 31 muster card that Herbert had been transferred from the band, back into Company G. From the middle of August it is likely that Herbert was a regular infantryman and fought in the battles – but we can’t be certain. The returns show that he was still being detailed to the band on occasion, and Rutherford Hayes recorded in his diary on September 10 that the 23rd was one of the very few remaining regiments which had a band.
This makes it difficult to determine what Herbert’s status really was; it becomes even more confusing when we see him discharged in October based upon the Act of Congress. If he had enlisted to be a musician, then why wasn’t he discharged in August? His transfer back to Company G implies that he had simply enlisted, and was then pulled into the band. But if that is true, then why is he eventually discharged in October under the same rules? And how did the regiment get away with keeping a band when they were ordered to be dissolved? I would guess that it just took a couple of months to sort through the rules and complete all the paperwork, or perhaps the band members were given a choice, and it took Herbert a while to decide to leave. Whatever the reason, the difference of two months would mean that Herbert was about to go through the worst battle of the Civil War.
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