spring campaign in triumph at St. Louis.


The fighting began in January at the northeastern end of the
line, where the Union Government, chiefly for political reasons,
was particularly anxious to strengthen the Unionists that lived
all down the western Alleghanies and so were a thorn in the side
of the solid South beyond. On the tenth Colonel James A.
Garfield, a future President, attacked and defeated Marshall near
Prestonburg and occupied the line of Middle Creek. The
Confederates, half starved, half clad, ill armed, slightly
outnumbered, and with no advantage except their position, fought
well, but unavailingly. Only some three thousand men were engaged
on both sides put together. Yet the result was important because
it meant that the Confederates had lost their hold on the eastern
end of Kentucky, which was now in unrestricted touch with West
Virginia.

Within eight days a greater Union commander, General G.H. Thomas,
emerged as the victor of a much bigger battle at Mill Springs and
Logan's Cross Roads on the upper Cumberland, ninety miles due
east of Bowling Green. The victory was complete, and Thomas's
name was made. Thomas, indeed, was known already as a man whose
stentorian orders had to be obeyed; and a clever young
Confederate prisoner used this reputation as his excuse for
getting beaten: "We were doing pretty good fighting till old man
Thomas rose up in his stirrups, and we heard him holler out:
'Attention, Creation! By kingdoms, right wheel!' Then we knew you
had us."