Battle on a Sabbath Morn

Battle on a Sabbath Morn. Mill Springs Battlefield. You are near the center of the battlefield east of the road. Union and Confederate forces clashed violently here Sunday morning, January 19, 1862.

The Union line stood to your left, behind a split-rail fence at the edge of the woods (now part of the field). The Confederate line was to your right, in the wooded ravine. The rain was falling in torrents. The Confederates struggled out of the mud-slicked ravine to launch repeated assaults against the Federals.

The fight at the split-rail fence was desperate and often hand- to-hand. Lieutenant James Binford, 15th Mississippi Infantry, remembered, "Our entire line, putting their guns through the cracks of the fence, fired into them with ball and buckshot, and the scene that followed defied description."

The 15th Mississippi fell back, and the 20th Tennessee, armed only with old flintlock muskets, surged forward. One Tennesseean wrote, " Mine went off once in the action, and although I wiped the pan and primed a dozen times it would do so no more."

The Confederate assaults failed. Each time, the Federals drove them back. The cost in lives was tremendous.

Drawing Inset , There were delicate forms whose beardleśs faces showed tender years. Some had the horrible frowns of war still upon' their features, others lay in calm repose as if they were dreaming of loved ones at home. , Eastham Tarrant, 1st Kentucky Cavalry, (U.S.)