The First 200 Years of Pendleton County

 

Written By: Mildred Bowen Belew

Contributed, with permission, By: Kristin Stoner

 

Military in Pendleton County

 

                   During the Civil War the people of Pendleton County were divided in sentiment and ill feelings often ran high.  Confederate and Union Army’s.  Brothers fought against brothers.  Many gave their lives in defense of the cause, which they believed right.  Pendleton County was never behind in her quota of troops for the Union cause.  Following is a list of some of the men who served from Pendleton County. Probably there were many more.

         James Hall              John Draper

         George Wolfe           John Frakes

         John Simpson             John Vanlandingham

         Thomas Baird            James Courtney

         Martin Spegal       Thomas Marion Barton

         Wm. Harrison McMillian Augusta H. Mangold

         Charles L. Kennett      Anthony McGill

         William Henry Bullock   John J. Marguette  

         Charles Steinford          James Carr

         Marshall Jones          George Arnold

         William Garret         James Isabell

         John Wadsworth      John Gulick

         Nicholas Scheitz       John Haydon

         Sanford Daugherty       John Justice

         Alexander G. Roberts  Patrick Roberts

         John L. Woodson        John Ray

         LaFayette Jones          R.H. Kavanaugh

         G.L. Stowers            John E. Poor

         B.A. Souther            Richard A. Mullins

         R.M. Wood           John L. Melford

         LaFayette Arrington     Joseph M. Clayton  

         David Beal            Samuel Cox

         Samuel Baker           G.W Arnold

         Minor Colvin           William Ackman

         John Courts               Leander Abernathy  

         J.M. Corman             C.C. Barnes

         L. Gosney               R.W. Davis

         J.R. Jackson               Perry Davis

         J.J. McKinley             Frank Davis

         F.S. Mooring             John S. Davis

         Theodore Nelson          Leander Ellis  

         W.N. Penick             Richard Fogle

         John Revenay             Jack Fryer

         Isaac N. Seay            Isaac Gray

         W.T. Turner              J.J. Green

         John Taylor              John A. Hathaway

         Henry Hardman        G.N. Lightfoot

         Benjamin B. Mullins     Matthew Mullins

         Stephen D. Mullins        Ezra Tomlin

         G.T. Montague        George W. Martin

         James T. Clark

         

       Our men have fought in all the wars since, in defending their country, W.W.II, Korean Conflict, Vietnam Crisis, and Desert Shield Storm.  Our County has V.F.W and D.V.A. Chapters.  The Pendleton County boys killed in W.W. II were;

         Roy A. Armstrong           Oscar Barton

         Herman Bowling           Howard R. Butcher

         Benjamin Cummins         Walter Florence

         Harley D. Jones               Kenneth L. Mason

         John Montgomery           Robert Pharis

         Wayne Schlueter              John R. Tomlin

         Robert Ashcraft           Maynard Elmo Bowen

         Norbert H. Budde             Melvin T. Clayton

          Carl Guy Draper            James Gifford

         John R. Klee                  Herbert W. McAtee

         Raye Moore                    William Pugh

         Wayne Steele                John Weaver

 

         

 

From the “Pieces of the Past” , by the Kentucky Post, 1991

  Civil War Battle Fought In Falmouth

          The battle didn’t last long.  Some witnesses said the fighting lasted 40 minutes and others said 10 minutes.  But the bodies of five men lay on the street.

          A band of Confederates, described in one account as Texas Rangers, rode into the city on September 17, 1862.  A few months earlier several hundred Union troops had been stationed in and around Falmouth.  But on that day the only Union troops in the city were the out numbered Harrison County Home Guard, which had been sent to guard the city.

          As with most Northern Kentucky cities, Falmouth’s loyalties were divided.  But for the most part, the city remained a Union stronghold because a camp had been set up there in September 1861 to recruit soldiers for the Union Army and for the Home Guard.

          The Home Guard provided a way for many Northern Kentuckians to join the military without taking sides.  In the beginning the Home Guard’s role was to protect Kentucky from invasion by Union or Confederate troops.  Later when the Home Guard fell under Union control, its role remained primarily defensive and its members seldom were sent outside the state.  Once the draft was instituted, however, most the young men were forced to take sides.

 

          Regular Union troops were recruited at Falmouth for the 18th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry.  The troops were organized during the winter of 1861-1862 and mustered into the army at Falmouth on February 8, 1862.  Eventually 11 companies, totaling 779 men, made up the 18th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, with headquarters at Falmouth. Its officers included Col. William A. Warner of Falmouth, Lt. John J. Landrum of Warsaw, Maj. Frederick G. Bracht of Williamstown, Surgeon-Maj. Joseph Fithian of Millersburg, Chaplain Asa Dury of Covington, Adjutant H.K. Milward of Lexington, Quartermaster J.T. Clark of Falmouth, Sgt. Maj. J.W. Gross of Nicholas County, Hospital Steward A.W. Newton of Falmouth, Quartermaster Sgt. Columbus Metcalfe of Kenton County and Commissary Sgt. Alvin B. Clark of Falmouth.

 

          The job of the 18th Regiment was to guard the Kentucky Central Railroad tracks from Covington to Lexington and found itself in the middle of the war in the summer of 1862 when Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan launched the first of several raids in Kentucky.

 

          One of the battles the regiment participated in occurred on June 16, 1862 at Cynthiana.  The regiment met Morgan again on August 30 in a battle at Richmond; 52 men from the regiment were killed, 115 wounded and most of the rest captured.  Later there were transported by boat to Covington and put under the command of Brig. Gen. Green Clay Smith.

 

          While the 18th Regiment was being reorganized, Confederate troops were creating havoc throughout Northern Kentucky.  Marauding bands of Confederates struck in Florence and Falmouth on September 16th and 17th.

 

          Meanwhile the Harrison County Home Guard was sent to protect Falmouth.  The Home Guard was under the direction of Captain George W. Berry of Harrison County and Greenberry Reid of Bourbon County.  Berry was from the community of Berry.  He was the towns first postmaster.  Reid was a U.S. Marshall in Bourbon County.

 

          Berry reported to Union Gen. Lew Wallace that 28 Confederate Cavalrymen suddenly rode into the city of Falmouth about 3:30 PM on September 17.  Most of Berry’s men were on patrol and only 11 were in Falmouth.  The rebels had slipped past Berry’s guards.

 

          “We fought them for about 40 minutes under the cover of house, when 23 of the retired, leaving five men and five horses on the ground; how menu wounded were carried off I cannot tell.

 

          I counted Cartridges and saw I could not stand another 40 minute attack, and at night fell back there (about 4 miles south of Falmouth.)

 

          I had only one wounded and he very badly.  I send you the prisoner we tool.  He tells me they have 80 pieces of artillery.”

 

          The two Union Home Guard leaders at Falmouth, Berry and Reid, survived the skirmish in Falmouth, but Berry was killed two years later, on June 11, 1864, during the second battle of Cynthiana.

 

          Reid enlisted in the regular Union Army on June 2, 1863.  He held the rank of Captain on Company “H” of the 40th Kentucky Volunteer Mounted Infantry and was mustered out on December 30, 1864 at Catlettsburg.

 

 

Artwork: Sweet Solitude
by Edmund Blair  Leighton