Felix Zollicoffer and His Death at Mill Springs

Felix Kirk Zollicoffer as a U.S. representative, 1859. Library of Congress.

Editor and politician

Felix Kirk Zollicoffer was born in Maury County, Tennessee, on May 19, 1812. After a year at Jackson College he went into newspaper work at sixteen in Henry County, and when that paper failed he became a journeyman printer in Knoxville. In 1834 he became editor and part owner of the Columbia Observer, and in 1841 editor of the Nashville Republican Banner, a powerful Whig paper.

He served briefly in the Seminole War of 1836 and held a string of offices: state printer, adjutant general, state comptroller, state legislator and U.S. representative from Tennessee. In January 1861 he was a delegate to the peace convention in Washington, D.C.

Confederate general

Zollicoffer strongly opposed secession but stayed loyal to Tennessee when it left the Union. Commissioned a brigadier general in the Provisional Army of Tennessee, he helped set up factories for small arms and cannon and trained recruits, and kept his rank when the state army passed to the Confederacy in July 1861.

Sent to East Tennessee to keep the peace, protect the railroad and repel Union invasion, he learned of Union troops organizing at Camp Dick Robinson in Kentucky and built a chain of infantry posts from Cumberland Gap to Livingston, Tennessee. He stayed out of Kentucky while it was officially neutral, but after Confederate Gen. Leonidas Polk invaded in September 1861 and that neutrality collapsed, Zollicoffer sent three regiments in.

After a small win at Barboursville over a poorly equipped home guard, his advance along the Wilderness Road was stopped on October 21, 1861, at the Battle of Camp Wildcat near London, Kentucky, and he pulled back into Tennessee.

Beech Grove

In late November he headed north again from Jamestown, Tennessee. His scout, Capt. Victor Sheliha, recommended Mill Springs in Wayne County, Kentucky: a high bluff over the Cumberland River with a large saw and gristmill, a small store, the Thompson Brown house and a ferry. From December 4 Zollicoffer moved much of his command to the river's north bank and began a fortified winter camp called Beech Grove.

Maj. Gen. George Bibb Crittenden, promoted on November 9, 1861, and given command of the Eastern District of Kentucky, was now Zollicoffer's superior. He ordered Zollicoffer back to the south bank, and was surprised on arriving nearly two weeks later to find him still on the north side; Zollicoffer blamed flooding and his small, unfit boats. On January 17, Union Gen. George H. Thomas reached Logan's Crossroads with two brigades and was joined by a third sent by Gen. Albin Schoepf.

The battle

On the night of January 18, 1862, Crittenden, Zollicoffer and their council of war decided to attack, believing Thomas had only a few regiments and that the flooded Fishing Creek would keep Schoepf's reinforcements away. They did not know Thomas had brought two brigades and had already received a third from Schoepf. Around midnight Zollicoffer and William H. Carroll marched their brigades toward Logan's Crossroads, about ten miles north, with cavalry and artillery. Fighting began at about 6:10 a.m. when the cavalry hit Union pickets at Timmy's Branch.

Rain and thick fog covered the field; some soldiers wrote they could not see past the ends of their guns. Convinced that two of his regiments were firing on each other, Zollicoffer rode north along the Mill Springs Road with three aides, passed unknowingly through Union lines, and turned back south.

Col. Speed S. Fry of the 4th Kentucky Infantry (U.S.) saw an officer coming from the direction of the Union camp. Zollicoffer's white or green rubber overcoat hid nearly all his uniform, and Fry took him for a Union officer. Probably realizing where he was, Zollicoffer tried to bluff, telling Fry he was firing on his own men; Fry answered that he would not do so on purpose. Then Zollicoffer's aide Henry Fogg rode out from behind a tree shouting, "General, they are the enemy!" and fired at Fry, probably hitting his horse. Fry and nearby men of the 4th Kentucky Infantry, 10th Indiana Infantry and 1st Kentucky Cavalry fired back. Zollicoffer fell dead, most accounts say hit by one pistol ball and two rifle bullets; Fogg was mortally wounded.

Crittenden, who had let Zollicoffer direct much of the fight, ordered a general advance. Many Confederates carried old flintlock muskets that misfired in the rain. As Union reinforcements arrived, the Confederate right was flanked by acting Brig. Gen. Samuel Carter's brigade and the left was driven off by a bayonet charge of the 9th Ohio Infantry. The retreat to Beech Grove became a rout, with men throwing away guns and blankets to run faster.

Union troops shelled Beech Grove until dark. Crittenden took his army back across the river that night, running their small steamboat until everyone was over and then burning it so Thomas could not follow.

Remembered

Zollicoffer's body was embalmed and buried in the Old City Cemetery in Nashville. A large oak held by local tradition to be the tree his body was laid against became known as the Zollie Tree and was decorated every Memorial Day. The place he was killed became Zollicoffer Park, now part of Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument.

Sources

• National Park Service, Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument, "Felix Kirk Zollicoffer at the Battle of Mill Springs": https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/felix-kirk-zollicoffer-at-the-battle-of-mill-springs.htm
• The article cites Ray Adkins, Battle of Barboursville, Kentucky: September 19, 1861 (2005), and Kenneth A. Hafendorfer, Mill Springs: Campaign and Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky (KH Press, 2001).
• The NPS article lists one of his offices as "Adjunct General"; this page uses "adjutant general."