Burnside’s invasion of Scott County
The invasion of Scott County was the movement of a massive army of U.S. Army soldiers through the county in August 1863 as Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside marched on Knoxville to seize control of East Tennessee from the Confederate Army. More than 10,000 soldiers made the move through Scott County.
Background
Unlike Middle Tennessee and West Tennessee, the residents of East Tennessee were loyal to the Union during the Civil War. Representatives from most counties met in Greeneville, Tenn. after the secession referendum in June 1861 to request permission from Nashville to form their own state. That petition was denied. In response, members of the county court in Scott County voted to secede from Tennessee, forming the “Free and Independent State of Scott.”
U.S. Sen. Andrew Johnson and Congressman Horace Maynard, who delivered speeches in Huntsville four days before the secession vote in June 1861 to urge loyalty to the Union, had long attempted to persuade President Abraham Lincoln to send troops to East Tennessee and liberate the region from the Confederacy.
An invasion had been planned as early as the fall of 1861, and troops at Camp Dick Robinson in Kentucky were training for that purpose. However, the invasion was called off by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, who feared that Confederate resistance would be too strong.
Confederate Gen. Felix Zollicoffer had feared the Union Army would attempt to invade through the Cumberland Gap. He worked hard to build up his defenses in that region before he was killed in battle near Somerset, Ky. in January 1862.
Zollicoffer was also concerned about four roads that led from Tennessee to Kentucky in Fentress County, and two more that led into Kentucky from Scott County. As it turned out, that’s where the invasion would take place, while the bulk of the Confederate resistance was stationed at Cumberland Gap.
Precursor to invasion
President Lincoln had placed Gen. Ambrose Burnside in command of the Union Army in 1862 after becoming fed up with the inaction of Gen. George McClellan. But the Battle of Fredericksburg had ended disastrously, so badly that Burnside was labeled the Butcher of Fredericksburg, and he was replaced by Gen. Joseph Hooker.
Burnside was so distraught by the Fredericksburg disaster that he offered his resignation to Lincoln, but the president refused.
Later, in the Summer of 1863, Burnside was stationed in Lexington, Ky. when Lincoln decided it was time to march on Knoxville.
On June 14, 1863, Burnside sent a force of 1,500 men under the command of Col. William Price of the 5th Kentucky Cavalry and Gen. William P. Sanders — the man who Fort Sanders in Knoxville is named after — through Scott County. It was a precursor to the main army’s invasion. Price’s men disrupted communication networks, seized supplies, and captured 104 Confederate soldiers in Wartburg.
After receiving the go-ahead to invade East Tennessee, Burnside sent Col. Frank Wolford of the 1st Kentucky Cavalry and Maj. A.T. Keen with a group of 50 men to scout the roads of Scott County and determine whether they were suitable for the nearly 16,000 men who would be making the march to Knoxville. When the men returned and reported that the roads were sufficient, Burnside’s plans to bypass the Cumberland Gap by way of Scott County were cemented.
The campaign in Scott County
The Union army arrived in Scott County on Aug. 26, 1863. They marched four abreast, in endless rows. There were also cavalry riders on horseback, horses pulling cannons, and horses pulling supply wagons. Ahead of the main army were hundreds of soldiers tasked with widening the road so that the troops could pass.
The army used both of the roads into Scott County from Kentucky. Some of them, including Burnside, followed the old Indian trail that would eventually become U.S. Highway 27, entering Scott County at what is now Winfield. That portion of the army had split into two columns through Kentucky, with Gen. George Lucas Hartsuff commanding the right-hand column and Burnside commanding the left-hand column before they merged in McCreary County, with Burnside’s army following the present-day route of Ky. Hwy. 92 from Williamsburg to Pine Knot, while Hartsuff’s column traveled south from Somerset to Pine Knot.
Another portion of the army followed the Monticello Road and crossed the Big South Fork River at the No Business settlement before converging with the main army at what is now Oneida.
Still another part of the army, commanded by Brig. Gen. Julius White, traveled through Albany, Ky. to Pall Mall, Tenn. and then to Jamestown, Tenn., eventually rendezvousing with Burnside’s main army at Montgomery, Tenn., which was then the seat of government in Morgan County.
Burnside’s men encamped at Chitwood, which is present-day Winfield, near where Winfield City Park is now located on Pine Grove Road. There were also encampments at Huntsville, Brimstone, and elsewhere as the Union army journeyed through.
Upon reaching Oneida, Burnside made his headquarters at the home of Esquire Blevins, near where the Boss Glove factory would later be located on Stanley Street, near the present-day Scott County Fairgrounds.
Reaction
The arrival of the Union army was met with celebration. An unidentified soldier under Burnside’s command wrote for Harper’s Weekly on Oct. 24, 1863: “As we approached the settled part of the country we were greeted everywhere with shouts for the Union, cheers for the old flag, and the most unmistakable evidences of loyalty. At every house the entire family would appear, often with buckets of fresh water and fruit for the welcome Yankees, and some of the people would scarcely ask for pay for the forage which we had seized to feed our animals, although the corn we had taken was all they had to look to for their winter’s food. Sometimes the Stars and Stripes would be carried out to the gate of the door-yard by one of the girls, and the General and Staff would take off their hats, while the escort following gave three cheers. Old gray-haired men would come out and seize the General’s hand, bidding him God-speed, and men would flock in at every halt to be armed and join us. The sufferings of these people have been terrible.”
The soldier added: “‘Glory be to God, the Yankees have come!’ ‘The Flag’s coming back to Tennessee!’. I never knew what the Love of Liberty was before. After two years of servitude under the most tyrannical despotism, they now hold up their heads and thank God they are free. The old flag has been hidden in mattresses and under carpets. It now floats to the breeze at every staff in East Tennessee. Ladies wear it — carry it — wave it! Little children clap their hands and kiss it.
“Can you imagine the effect of this on me? Suppose you walked down (the) street, after riding 250 miles on horseback, with a saber on one side and a pistol on the other, and every man, woman, and child would bow to you with a glad smile of welcome, or shake hands with you and say God bless you? I could go on much longer, but I can’t do justice to the subject. My heart is so full, and I am so thankful to Almighty God for this bloodless and yet glorious victory, that I will not attempt to say any more on the subject.”
As the Union army passed through Scott County, many Scott Countians enlisted to join the fight. Many of them were signed up at Chitwood as Burnside encamped there. Others were sworn into the service at Blevins’ home in Oneida.
On to Knoxville
South of Oneida, Burnside’s army split again. Some crossed New River at the New River settlement, then traveled up Brimstone Creek. Others crossed at Low Gap. The two groups met up at the Walker farm on Brimstone, where Indian Fork Creek empties into Brimstone Creek. From there, they continued their journey deeper into the mountains, eventually crossing over to Montgomery, near present-day Wartburg, and rendezvousing with the troops that had passed through Fentress County. After leaving Montgomery, the infantry regiments moved through the Emory Gap, inside present-day Frozen Head State Forest, and Winter’s Gap, near present-day Oliver Springs. The cavalry regiments moved through Big Creek Gap, which is now Highway 25W in LaFollette, Tenn.
The army arrived in Knoxville on Sept. 2, 1863, and occupied the city the following day.
Strategic advantages
Thanks to Gen. Burnside’s decision to bypass the Cumberland Gap by moving his forces through Scott County, he redeemed himself from the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg and is remembered as one of the greatest generals in the history of the U.S. Army. The Union forces were able to reach Knoxville and seize the city without bloodshed.
From there, Burnside took an infantry brigade and marched north to the Cumberland Gap and prompted the surrender of the Confederate forces there, which gave the Union control of the strategic mountain passageway.
President Lincoln intended to have Burnside’s army continue south to Chattanooga, where the two sides were mired in a standoff. Fearing this, Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered Gen. James Longstreet to move his forces to Knoxville and mount a counter-attack. Longstreet protested, knowing that the 15,000 men under his command were out-numbered by the 20,000 men under Burnside’s command, while also realizing that U.S. generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman were advancing on Chattanooga, where the 40,000-strong Confederate army would find itself outnumbered if it divided.
Longstreet followed Davis’s command, and what resulted were battles at Campbell’s Station, Kingston and Fort Sanders in November 1863.
As part of those battles, Gen. William P. Sanders — who had led the force of 1,500 men through Scott County as a precursor to the main invasion — was killed. He was shot by a sharpshooter commanded by Confederate Col. Edward Porter Alexander, who had been his classmate and roommate at West Point. Fort Loudon, which had been built by the Confederate army, was renamed Fort Sanders by the Union army in his honor.
The Confederate army ultimately lost the siege of Knoxville. William Tecumseh Sherman defeated Confederate forces in Chattanooga and then marched his army to Knoxville to reinforce Burnside’s army. Longstreet was forced to withdraw his army to Rogersville, Tenn., more than 60 miles away.
For the first time in the war, the Union had control of Knoxville and Chattanooga. That opened the door for an invasion of the Deep South, setting up Sherman’s attack on Atlanta and his March to the Sea the following year.
Consequences
The Union army’s invasion of Scott County was widely celebrated, but was not without consequences for residents of the area.
Soldiers were ordered to confiscate crops and livestock to feed themselves and their horses, and split rail fences were dismantled and used for firewood by encamped soldiers. The strategy was for the troops to travel light, and forage for food and supplies as they traveled.
Welshman Samuel Roberts, a well-off farmer on Pine Creek who had established the Welsh colony of Brynyffynon, wrote on April 16, 1864: “A good milk cow died because Union troops had taken our hay and fodder.” Two days later, he wrote: “Another valuable cow died on the same account.” And still later: “Two promising yearlings died on the same account,” and “30 merino sheep died on the same account.”
During his six-day stay in Scott County, Burnside sent out multiple scouting parties to hunt for food and supplies. Winter food stores were taken to feed the soldiers, fodder was taken to feed their horses, and wood fences were torn down and used for campfires.
Paul Wrote wrote in his book, Scott County in the Civil War, the civilians who were being raided were people who “not only had to contend with the typical hardships of war, but had to surrender their property — crops, livestocks and other necessities of life — to the very forces they were loyal to, and to do so without payment.”
David Acres, who lived on an 850-acre farm on Buffalo Creek, estimated that he lost 145 bushels of corn, 800 binds of fodder, 1,000 fence rails, and 75 cords of wood on a single day on Aug. 29, 1863.
“I sympathized with the Union cause. I believed the Union cause to be right,” Acres wrote. “I believed that if the Union cause was lost that our liberties would be gone, that the only protection we had was in our Union, and when I expressed myself, it was in that way. I exerted my influence and cast my vote on the side of the Union. I tried to get every one of my acquaintances to vote as I did.”
Harrison Keeton owned an 800-acre farm northwest of Huntsville. He lost 200 bushels of corn, 1,000 pounds of hay, 15 bushels of Irish potatoes, 10 bushels of rye, two horses and had 1,000 fence rails burned.
“I sympathized with the Union cause,” Keeton wrote. “My feelings were intense — I exerted my influence and cast my vote accordingly. I voted against every secession movement, and voted for the Union to remain firm.”
Edward Ellis owned a farm at New River. He lost 300 bushels of corn, 3,000 pounds of hay and 450 pounds of pork. He had to take his family north, to Kentucky, for five months in order to survive. “I was obliged to go there or let them starve,” he wrote.
Robert Sexton lost 50 bushels of corn, 500 binds of fodder, 20 bushels of rye, 40 dozen binds of oats, 1,000 pounds of rye straw, 40 bushels of sweet potatoes, 10 bushels of Irish potatoes and 1,000 fence rails.
There were many other similar claims, which can be found in Roy’s book, published in 2001 by the Scott County Historical Society.
Aftermath
The invasion of the Union army made such an impression that it was remembered for decades afterward.
“My dad said there was a whole regiment come through there once, when he was just a little boy. They passed through day and night, pulling the cannons with horses,” Will Miller (the son of No Business store owner France Miller) told interviewers with the National Park Service in the 1980s.
Bill Miller, the grandson of Will Miller and great-grandson of France Miller, recalled his grandfather telling him that it took two days and nights for the troops to move through the Big South Fork area.
“…constant, never stopped, troops after troops after troops,” Miller said. “Can you imagine on that little road?”
In 1914, some 51 years later, the first automobile trip was attempted from Helenwood to Oneida, along the route that would become U.S. Highway 27. Dan Chambers, whose Oldsmobile was one of the first vehicles owned in Scott County, had been hired to drive a family from Huntsville to Helenwood. once he got to the end of the paved road in Helenwood, Chambers’ driver decided to keep going, since his passengers were headed to Oneida anyway. When he reached High Point just south of Oneida, he became helplessly mired in a muddle, and the car was abandoned. In his book, Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past, historian H. Clay Smith speculated that the muddle had been created when Ambrose’s army marched through the area in 1863.
Note: The above details are presented in a chapter in Enclave: Scott County’s Unique Role in the Civil War, published by the Independent Herald.