General Simon B. Buckners march across Muhlenberg County from A History of Muhlenberg County by Otto A. Rothert Toward the last of September, 1861, General Buckner, with about fifteen hundred men, moved from Bowling Green to Hopkinsville. He marched by way of Rochester, where on September 26th he attempted to destroy the lock and dam on Green River. His soldiers created considerable excitement along the line of march. The rear guard of his army was very reckless, and treated the people along his route somewhat roughly. On his way to Hopkinsville General Buckner passed through Greenville, where he viewed the remains of Charles Fox Wing, who had died the day before. He camped that same night at the Reuben Ellison spring, southwest of town. I well remember when, on the next morning a little after sun-up, he resumed his march. The day was clear and calm. We could distinctly hear the rattle of the war-drum as it sounded out on the morning air, although we were five miles from the camp. This war tocsin sounded the alarm to the people of Muhlenberg that danger was ahead. Its music touched and fired the patriotism and nerve of the Union element in the county. This was the first army that had ever passed through Muhlenberg, and considerable excitement prevailed, especially along Buckners line of march. A good many of the natives left their homes and took to the woods. I had never seen a marching army, so I rode over to the upper Hopkinsville Road, believing that I could there see Buckners entire command. But when I arrived there I found that part of the army had taken the lower Hopkinsville Road, which ran past our home, that I had left only an hour before. General Buckner was with that part of his army, and the General himself stopped at our house and talked with my father, who knew him when he was a boy at the old Buckner Furnace on Pond Creek (South of Greenville). I was informed that the divisions would be reunited at the Prowse Bridge, on the lower Hopkinsville Road. So I followed on to the bridge, where I saw General Buckner and his men, including the Muhlenberg boys with whom I was acquainted, who had joined the Southern army. They were all in good spirits, although marching to become targets for the missiles of death. Some of them never came back. Buckners army continued its march and reached Hopkinsville on the 29th, after having had a little skirmish with some of the Home Guards in Christian County. From Wikipedia: Simon B. Buckner (Sr.), was born at Glen Lily, his familys estate near Munfordville, Kentucky. He was the third child and second son of Aylett Hartswell and Elizabeth Ann (Morehead) Buckner. Named after the South American soldier and statesman, Simón Bolívar, then at the height of his power, Buckner did not begin school until age nine, when he enrolled at a private school in Munfordville. His closest friend in Munfordville was Thomas J. Wood, who would become a Union Army general opposing Buckner at the Battle of Perryville and the Battle of Chickamauga during the Civil War. Buckners father was an iron worker, but found that Hart County did not have sufficient timber to fire his iron furnace. Consequently, in 1838, he moved the family to southern Muhlenberg County where he organized an iron-making corporation. Buckner attended school in Greenville, and later at Christian County Seminary in Hopkinsville.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 00:32:41 +0000
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