In mid-May 1861, U. S. Navy lieutenant William "Bull" Nelson armed Kentuckians loyal to the Union and that soon became the foundation for his receiving authority to enlist 10,000 troops for a campaign into East Tennessee. On August 6, 1861, those recruits marched into Camp Dick Robinson, making it the first Federal base south of the Ohio River. For Col. George C. Kniffen, "the wisdom of President Lincoln commissioning . . . Nelson to organize a military force on the [neutral] soil of Kentucky" prevented making the state a "battle ground for many months" and it thereby changed the whole direction of the war.John R. McBride, History of the Thirty-Third Indiana Veteran Volunteer Infantry During the Four Years of Civil War (Wm. R. Burford: Indianapolis, 1900), 32-24 In 1864, Salmon P. Chase declared in a speech at Louisville "when Kentucky faltered, hesitated" in the early stages of the Civil War, that undecided "status was settled by WILLIAM NELSON, at Camp Dick Robinson."New York Times October 3, 1864. Six years later, Indiana Senator Daniel D. Pratt reported to the U. S. Senate that Camp Dick Robinson "was one of the most noted military encampments of the war. . . . From its admirable locality and advantages, it was almost indispensable for the successful operations of the" Civil War.Sen. Daniel D. Pratt, Committee of Claims, Relief of Margaret P. Robinson of Kentucky, U. S. Serial Set 1409, vol. 1 (S. Report No. 130, 41st Cong., 2nd sess. (1870): 1-6.
Background With the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, a majority of the citizens in the Mercer, Boyle, Garrard, and Casey counties of Kentucky concluded that secession was "destructive of all permanent government and tending only to political chaos and anarchy." During the third week in May, key leaders obtained 700 muskets from U. S. N. Lt. William Nelson, and distributed those arms to loyal Home Guard troops.Louisville Journal, May 17 (quotation) June 7, 1861; Thomas Speed, The Union Cause in Kentucky 1860–1865 (G. Putnam and Sons: New York, 1907), 109; Daniel Stevenson, "General Nelson, Kentucky, and Lincoln Guns," Magazine of American History 10 (August 1883), 127-28. This gave them the ability to stand up to the secessionist State Guard and emboldened Kentuckians to elect nine of ten Union candidates on the single issue of keeping the state in the Union. That vote, on June 20, convinced Nelson that the charade of neutrality by both sides had ended.Rev. Roger J. Bartman, "Joseph Holt and Kentucky in the Civil War," Filson Club History Quarterly 40 (April 1966), 117. Garrard County Judge Allen A. Burton went to Washington and urged President Lincoln to organize Union men into regiments. This idea called for audacious leadership and as Burton started to leave the Executive Mansion, he encountered Lieutenant Nelson and promptly recommended him for that mission.The National Tribune, March 15, 1883. Nelson met with Tennessee senator Andrew Johnson, Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. Chase and others to formulate a plan of support for loyalists in East Tennessee.Jacob W. Schuckers, The Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase (New York, 1874), 427-28. On July 1, 1861, Nelson was detached from the Navy with instructions to organize a force of 10,000 troops. Two weeks later, Nelson spoke with Union leaders from southeastern Kentucky at Lancaster and Crab Orchard. The later town was conveniently located at the south end of the turnpike in Garrard County and it was at the head of the Wilderness Road some sixty-five miles north of the Cumberland Gap. Nelson chose the old inn at Bryant Springs as his headquarters and it was agreed they would raise thirty companies of infantry and five of cavalry. Thomas E. Bramlette had one company in camp on July 20 and another on July 24, 1861. United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, 2, 3. 70 vols. 128 serials (Washington: 1880–1901), Series 1, 4: 251-53, hereafter cited as OR Series, volume (part), and page; National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 94, Letters Sent and Received 1861–71, Thomas E. Bramlette (720B)
Confederate guerilla Champ Ferguson often targeted loyal Unionists who had been to Camp Dick Robinson, even once dear friends.
Hoskins Crossroads Some seven miles north of Lancaster and twelve miles from the rail depot at Nicholasville, Jessamine County, Richard M. Robinson owned 425 acres of first-class rolling pastureland at Hoskins Crossroads. Nelson considered this as a much better site for a camp of instruction and Robinson agreed to lease it to him.Sergeant E. Tarrant, The Wild Riders of the First Kentucky Cavalry (Louisville: R. H. Carothers, 1894), 9. The main house was a profitable tavern with a storehouse, blacksmith shop, barn, mule-shed, and numerous outbuildings. The land extended one-half mile in either direction along the Danville and Lancaster Pikes and most importantly, it could sustain one thousand mules for four months out of the year.Pratt, S. Report No. 130, 1-6. This corrects the mistaken impression that Robinson owned 3,200 acres. Water was supplied by numerous springs and the Dix River two miles west on the Danville Pike (U.S. 34). The high rugged banks of that river offered natural protection and there were "only three crossings." The upper road ran from Harrodsburg through Dicksville and to Bryantsville, the middle crossing (U. S. 34) connected Danville with Hoskins Cross Roads, the lower was the Lancaster and Danville Road.OR Series 1, 16 (1), 433 Ten miles north on the Lancaster Pike (U.S. 27) was Hickman[s] Bridge (Wernwag Bridge), the largest single-span covered bridge in the world. This double-drive 256-foot bridge also provided the only passageway above Frankfort. On the Jessamine County side was a majestic 400-foot limestone palisade, and at the top, a pleasant four-mile journey led to Nicholasville, the terminus for the Covington & Lexington (Kentucky Central) Railroad."Two Noted Civil War Recruiting Camps: A Look at Camp Dick Robinson and Camp Nelson," Kentucky Explorer (March 2000), 60-63; Susan Lyons Hughes, Camp Dick Robinson Holding Kentucky for the Union in 1861. (Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society, 1990), 2-3; Lancaster Woman's Club, Patches of Garrard County (Lancaster, Private Printing, 1974), 275; John E. Kleber, ed. The Encyclopedia of Louisville (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000), 941. In 1927, a steel bridge replaced the original structure.
On August 5, 1861, Union men in Kentucky elected seventy-six men to the House of Representatives versus the twenty-four men in the States' Rights movement. In the Senate, the Unionists elected twenty-seven men versus eleven states' rights men. That meant that out of 138 seats, there were now 103 (75 percent of the state legislature) who supported the Union.William C. Goodoe, Kentucky Unionists of 1861: Address of William Cassius Goodloe ... read before the Society of ex-army and navy officers in Cincinnati, Ohio. April 1 (Cincinnati: P. G. Thompson, 1884), 15. The following day, U. S. Congressman Charles A. Wickliffe informed his colleagues in the House that he had learned Kentucky "is wholly for the Union." Plans called for the recruits to encamp after the election, and Col. Speed S. Fry started a detachment of the Second Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Infantry (later the Fourth) toward Camp Dick Robinson. At dusk, the First Regiment Kentucky Cavalry welcomed them with a salute from a mountain howitzer.A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875 Congressional Globe, Senate, 37th Congress, 1st Session < http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=057/llcg057.db&recNum=475> Congressional Globe, August 6, 1861, page 458; OR Series 1, 4: 381 (remaining quotations); Tarrant, Wild Riders, 13-18.
The official dedication took place on August 10, and the following day the editor of the Louisville Journal, George D. Prentice, declared that intentions to supply these Union volunteers with arms was as "equipped for mischief as if it had been contrived . . . by the Devil himself.""Louisville Journal", August 11, 1861 (quotation); Covington Journal, August 17, 1861 (quotation). The "Covington Journal" gleefully reported that other Old Whigs "are making efforts to arrest the movement, and break up the camps." The perplexed Nelson wrote to Sen. John J. Crittenden that he did not understand why "a camp of loyal . . . Kentuckians" assembled under the flag of the Union . . . upon their native soil should be cause of apprehension."William Nelson to John J. Crittenden, August 16, 1861, John J. Crittenden Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington D. C. On August 13, Nelson received additional instructions to those of July 1, 1861, that called for him to also "accept and muster in wherever offered regiments for service in Tennessee and Kentucky in such numbers and of such arms as you may consider necessary for the best interests of the country."OR Series 1, 52 (1), 186. That same morning thirteen carloads of food, military clothing, and arms went forward from Covington.William H. Perrin, J. H. Battle, and G. C. Kniffin, eds. Kentucky: A History of the State (1887. Reprint, Southern Historical Press, 1979), 368. On August 22, 1861, Nelson distributed the long-delayed weapons and equipment to the troops at Camp Dick Robinson.Stevenson, "Lincoln Guns," 137.
Secretary Chase advised Garrett Davis the president would not "disavow, directly or by implication, the action of Lieutenant Nelson under the sanction of his [Lincoln's] own authority, given at the urgent instance of some of the wisest & best Union men in Ky. & Tenn."John Niven, ed. The Salmon P. Chase Papers, 5 vols. (Akron: Kent State University Press, 1993) 3: 85-86, 88-89 (quotation). On August 26, Governor Beriah Magoffin received a reply from President Lincoln that stated Camp Dick Robinson was "established at the request of many Kentuckians." He said they were an "indigenous force" and therefore would "respectively decline to remove" them."Two Noted Civil War Recruiting Camps," Kentucky Explorer, 60-63 (quotations).
At the end of August, Nelson had 3,200 troops, 7,000 arms, and 6 pieces of artillery. There were 1,000 troops in Col. Robert K. Byrd's First Regiment Tennessee Volunteer Infantry and Col. James P. T. Carter's Second Regiment of Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. Col. Thomas E. Bramlette's, Third Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Infantry had about 600 men. Col. Speed S. Fry's Fourth Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Infantry had about 600 men; and Col. Theophilus T. Garrard's Seventh Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Infantry about 600 men. The First Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Cavalry under Col. Frank Wolford had about 400 troops and Capt. John M. Hewitt, Battery B, First Kentucky Artillery about 20 men. At Knoxville, Confederate Brig. Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer was informed that Nelson was being reinforced by another "400 or 500 [men] per day."Perrin, Kentucky: A History of the State, 362-63, 373 (quotation); Kleber, Kentucky Encyclopedia, 158; Thomas B. Van Horne, History of the Army of the Cumberland: Its Organization, Campaigns, Battles, Written at the Request of General George H. Thomas (1875. Reprint, New York: Smithmark, 1996) 4; New York Times, August 28, 1861