Battle of Mill Springs Study

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman, and I would like to thank the gentleman from my home State, Mr. Rogers, for his advocacy of this important issue, and I appreciate Mr. Young yielding me some time to talk about this legislation that I am proud to cosponsor, which would study the feasibility of including the historic Mill Springs Battlefield within the National Park System.

Perhaps nowhere more than the Commonwealth of Kentucky does the maxim that the Civil War ``pit brother against brother'' ring truer. While it never seceded, a slaveholding Kentucky had rival Union and Confederate governments and was represented by the central star of the Stars and Bars. It is no exaggeration to say that Kentucky families and communities were often split along blue and gray lines.

A border State at the nexus of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, Kentucky was of vital strategic importance to both the Union and Confederate causes. As Chairman Rogers pointed out, President Abraham Lincoln noted, ``I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky.'' The loss of the Commonwealth would have been a significant blow to the cause of keeping the Union intact.

Both sides recognized this, and so in the first 2 years of the war, some of the bloodiest fighting occurred in the Commonwealth. Major hostilities in the Bluegrass State were bookended by the Union victories at Mill Springs in January 1862, which largely ended the Confederacy's eastern Kentucky offensive, and the Battle of Perryville in October of that year, which ended the Confederacy's hope of victory in the Kentucky Campaign.

The Battle of Mill Springs is notable not only as the first major battle and Union victory in Kentucky, but also the first battle of the Western Theater in which a Confederate general--Brigadier General Felix Kirk Zollicoffer--would be killed in action.

Inclement weather the night before the battle had slowed the Confederate infiltration of the area costing them the benefit of a surprise attack. Despite early success by Confederate troops, a Union rally in the fog and gun smoke that clouded the dense woods sowed confusion and disarray among the rebels.

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