Camp Dick Robinson
Camp Dick Robinson was not located in Scott County, but is a place of historic importance to Scott County.
Camp Dick Robinson was a federal army training facility near Danville, Ky. that was used to train recruits during the Civil War, including many from Scott County. The base was originally opened for the purpose of training 10,000 men for a campaign into East Tennessee to free Scott County and the rest of the eastern part of the state from the Confederacy. That campaign was initially canceled at the behest of General William Tecumseh Sherman and other Union military leaders who feared the Confederate resistance at the border would be too strong. It wasn’t until the Fall of 1863 that Union troops moved on East Tennessee. However, Camp Dick Robinson continued to be used as one of the Union’s most advantageous bases. Many Scott Countians trained there, including Fielding Griffith, who was presumably killed by a woman selling poisoned pies.
Background
Kentucky was originally viewed as neutral in the secession crisis of 1860 and 1861. However, after the Civil War began in 1861, local leaders obtained 700 muskets from U.S. Navy Lt. William “Bull” Nelson and distributed them to Home Guard troops who were loyalty to the Union. The Home Guard countered the State Guard, which was a loosely organized group of Kentuckians that favored secession. Ultimately, the state abandoned its neutral stance and tilted towards the Union.
Garrard County Judge Allen A. Burton traveled to Washington, D.C. and urged President Abraham Lincoln to organize Union loyalists into regiments. There, he encountered Lt. Nelson and recommended him for the mission. Nelson met with U.S. Sen. Andrew Johnson from Tennessee, who was vehemently opposed to secession and adamantly supported Union intervention to end Confederate occupation of Union-loyal East Tennessee, and Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. Chase to formulate a plan of support for loyalists in East Tennessee.
On July 1, 1861, Lt. Nelson was detached from the Navy with instructions to organize a force of 10,000 troops. In order to do so, Nelson needed a training facility. He spoke with Union leaders from southeastern Kentucky at Lancaster and Crab Orchard. Ultimately, he chose an old inn at Bryant Springs as his headquarters, and an agreement was reached to raise 30 companies of infantry and five companies of cavalry.
Hoskins Crossroads
Lt. Nelson determined that a 425-acre farm owned by Richard M. “Dick” Robinson at Hoskins Crossroads — located seven miles north of Lancaster, Ky. — was a better site for a training base, and convinced Robinson to lease it to him. The main house was a tavern with a storehouse, blacksmith shop, barn, mule shed and several outbuildings. The land extended half a mile along Danville Pike and another half mile along Lancaster Pike.
The first company arrived at Camp Dick Robinson on July 20, 1861, followed closely by a second company on July 24, 1861. It became the first federal base south of the Ohio River.
On Aug. 5, 1861, Union loyalists in Kentucky won a majority of seats in the state’s House of Representatives (76 to 24) and in the Senate (27 to 11), cementing Kentucky’s stance as a Union state. That led to renewed calls for recruits to encamp at Camp Dick Robinson, and the base was officially dedicated on August. 10, 1861.
Lincoln declined a request from Kentucky Gov. Beriah Magoffin to remove federal troops from Camp Dick Robinson, saying the base had been “established at the request of many Kentuckians” and that the men encamped there were an “indigenous force.”
By the end of August 1861, Nelson had 3,200 troops, 7,000 arms and six pieces of artillery at the base. The 1st Tennessee Infantry and 2nd Tennessee Infantry, led by Col. Robert K. Byrd and Col. James P.T. Carter, respectively, each had approximately 1,000 men.
Many of the new recruits were Union loyalists from East Tennessee who slipped northward into Kentucky to join the Union army, either enlisting directly at Camp Dick Robinson or being mustered into service there. Scott Countians, like Hiram Marcum, helped pilot these Union men northward as they made their way towards Kentucky. It was that action that led Confederate forces to Marcum’s Buffalo Creek farm in late 1861, and the legend of Julia Marcum was born as she defended her family and their farm.
Of the men from Scott County who enlisted at Camp Dick Robinson, many were assigned to the 2nd Tennessee Infantry, which would later be involved in the fateful Battle of Rogersville in Hawkins County, Tenn.
Confederate General Felix Zollicoffer, who was in command of Rebel forces in East Tennessee, was informed that Nelson was adding 400 to 500 men per day to his ranks. As concerns grew that Zollicoffer would help lead a two-pronged advance on Kentucky from Knoxville and Nashville, in an attempt to seize Frankford and force the state into the Confederacy, U.S. Sen. Garrett Davis of Kentucky said that Camp Dick Robinson “must not be removed, even if it be the cause of civil war.” Indiana Governor Oliver P. Morton added “if we lose Kentucky now, God help us.”
On Sept. 3, 1861, Confederates moved into western Kentucky and occupied the town of Columbus, which ended any pretense of the state remaining neutral. The Kentucky General Assembly requested Gov. Magoffin to “call out the military force of the State to expel and drive out the invaders.”
Thomas’ command
Brig. Gen. George H. Thomas assumed command of Camp Dick Robinson on Sept. 15, 1861, replacing Lt. Nelson, who was ordered to raise a brigade to stop a Confederate advance toward Lexington. Nelson was later wounded at the Battle of Richmond in late August 1862, and was killed on Sept. 29, 1862 by General Jefferson C. Davis during a dispute between the two men.
On Sept. 19, 1861, Zollicoffer’s troops seized Barbourville, Ky., making the town a base of operations for his intended advance on Richmond and Lexington. There were as many as 8,000 Confederate soldiers at Barbourville, leading Lincoln to issue a memorandum stating that Union forces seize the railroad that connected Virginia and Tennessee near the Cumberland Gap. On Oct. 21, Union forces defeated Confederates at the Battle of of Camp Wildcat. From there, Thomas pursued Zollicoffer near Somerset in November 1861. His initial army was joined by new recruits who had trained at Camp Dick Robinson for the Battle of Mill Springs on Jan. 19, 1862, during which Zollicoffer was killed. The Union victory at Mill Springs completely changed the outlook of the war in Tennessee. It enabled the Army of the Ohio to march into Middle Tennessee and occupy Nashville in February 1862, forcing Tennessee Governor Isham Harris to flee the state capital. In Scott County, the occupying Confederate force was in disarray, and that gave rise to a period of lawlessness that persisted through 1863.
Read More: Zollicoffer’s fatal mistake
The next phase
Confederate Major General Edmund Kirby Smith entered Kentucky with 12,000 troops in August 1862, advancing toward Richmond and Lexington. He ordered the dispersal of the Garrard County Home Guard on Sept. 27. Confederate Major General Braxton Bragg ordered a Confederate depot at Danville be transferred to Bryantsville and Camp Dick Robinson, and that a new Confederate camp be established at Camp Dick Robinson, known as Camp Breckinridge.
However, the Army of the Ohio defeated Bragg’s army at the Battle of Perryville, forcing Bragg to withdraw from Kentucky on Oct. 13. Union forces took charge of stores that were abandoned at Camp Dick Robinson by Confederate troops.
In Spring 1863, the Army of the Ohio was reformed, with Major General Ambrose E. Burnside in command. His 12,000-man-strong army departed from Camp Nelson on Aug. 12, 1863 to finally carry out the campaign into East Tennessee, which had originally been planned for 1861 as the first troops trained at Camp Dick Robinson.
On Aug. 21, 1863, as they prepared to march further south to Tennessee, they paused to observe the reinterment of Lt. William “Bull” Nelson behind the original headquarters home at Camp Dick Robinson.
The end of operations
The federal government’s lease of the Richard M. Robinson farm ended on June 1, 1865. On July 4, 1865, friends of William “Bull” Nelson raised a huge silk grave on a 130-ft. pole beside his grave. That flagpole was cut down by citizens angry about federal policies in Kentucky two years later.
Dick Robinson filed suit for the money owed him for use of his home and land. He died bankrupt in June 1869 at age 51, having never been paid the money owed him. The money was eventually paid to his widow, Margaret P. Robinson, following action by Congress.
In 1872, William “Bull” Nelson’s sister, Matilda Nelson Stockton, had his remains moved from the Camp Dick Robinson farm to a family plot at Maysville Cemetery.
Margaret Robinson sold part of the farm in 1884, and Lynn Hudson sold the home and 335 acres in 1895. In 1905, the last parcel of land associated with Camp Dick Robinson was sold.
In 1990, the National Register of Historic Places added the Robinson house to the listings for Garrard County. However, its owners at the time added a brick facade that caused the building to be removed from the register. The original appearance of the farm was also altered when U.S. Highway 27 was built in the 1920s.