How Zollicoffer Died at Mill Springs: Colonel Speed S. Fry's Account, 1862

On February 23, 1862, a correspondent signing himself "F. C. B." wrote from Danville, Kentucky, to the editors of the Louisville Journal; the letter ran in the paper's March 1, 1862 edition. The day before, he had spent two hours with Colonel Speed Smith Fry of the 4th Kentucky Infantry — "the hero of Mill Springs," the man who had shot Confederate general Felix K. Zollicoffer at the Battle of Mill Springs on January 19. Fry's account, he wrote, "differs somewhat from the accounts given by the press."

Colonel Speed Smith Fry of the 4th Kentucky Infantry. Public domain

Knee to knee

As Fry told it:

• Zollicoffer wore a light drab overcoat buttoned to the chin, hiding his rank — meaning, the writer thought, to deceive Fry, and he did. Fry, in undress uniform, was plainly a Federal officer.
• The two rode side by side for several paces, so close their knees touched, Fry all the while taking Zollicoffer for one of his own — hence his reply, "I do not intend to fire upon our men."
• The mistake came out when Zollicoffer's aide, Lieutenant Fogg, fired at Fry and killed his horse. It was Fogg, the letter insists, not Bailie Peyton, as the papers had said. Fry drew his revolver and shot Zollicoffer through the breast; he threw up his arms, fell from his horse and died.
• Captain Vaughn of Fry's regiment mortally wounded Fogg, who had since died, and shot dead a Confederate who had thrown down his gun and crept up to carry the general's body from the field.

The Confederates recovered Zollicoffer's horse. Fry kept his sword — and a note from his pocket, by which Fry had recognized him.

"Mighty hard to shoot"

With only 390 men, the letter says, Fry held off two Confederate regiments for more than an hour. One ball passed so close to his left temple that it touched his hair; another went through his clothes and grazed his skin. A prisoner told him afterwards: "So many of us pointed our guns directly at you, I congratulate you that you are alive, but you must be mighty hard to shoot." And a Tennessean who escaped to the Union lines took a fallen man's gun, fired forty rounds, and killed the very man who had forced him into Confederate service.

The man

The writer painted Fry as a model citizen:

• He neither drank nor swore — though he did bellow at Confederates fighting "guerilla fashion," "you sneaking cowardly, infernal scoundrels, why do you not come up and fight us like men?", which was all his secessionist neighbours could find to accuse him of.
• Harper's made him a giant; he was five feet nine.
• A Southerner by birth, he was one of the first in Kentucky to speak up for the national government, spending his time, influence and money to keep the state in the Union. "We may thank him for Camp Dick Robinson," the writer said, and he ought to be made a brigadier general; his part at Buena Vista was remembered.
• At home in Danville he was an elder of the First Presbyterian Church, superintendent of its Sabbath school, and treasurer of the Caldwell Institute, a school for young women the writer praised at length as the pride of Danville.

The writer had also met General Schoepf, "the hero of Wildcat," who spoke warmly of Holt and was still bitterly disappointed to have arrived too late for Mill Springs.

The note from Zollicoffer's pocket

The letter closed with a copy of the note:

Gen. F.K. Zollicoffer: Dear sir – We desire to pass over the river to-day. We have business with Dr. Woolsey, of Bledsoe's cavalry, and the quartermaster of Col. Stanton's regiment, and others. We are from Kentucky, and are Southern men.
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Yours, Pleasant Miller. Alvin C. Huff. Ely F. Johns.

Sources

Based on "To the Editors of the Louisville Journal — Speed S. Fry Discusses the Death of Zollicoffer," National Park Service, Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument, transcribing the Louisville Daily Journal of March 1, 1862; a work of the United States government in the public domain, quoting an 1862 letter. The account is Fry's as the correspondent reported it.