Above: Major General Thomas Crittenden
Below: Civil War artillery shell found in Mt. Washington many years after the skirmish of October 2-3, 1862.
Civil War Skirmish: Road to Perryville
“
We were now near Floyd’s Fork, at which place the rebels were reported in considerable force,” wrote a reporter, embedded with the Union Army, in a front page story in the New York Times. It was Thursday October 2nd, 1862 and small arms fire mixed with cannonading thundered in and around the outskirts of Mt. Washington. The “War between the States,” which everyone in town followed in the newspapers and talked about on the street, was now on full display on their doorstep.
Confederate Cavalry Commander Nathan Bedford Forrest had busied his men for days with requisitioning everything they needed, and more, from people in and around the town. They burned the two span wooden turnpike bridge across Floyd’s in hopes of slowing the nearly 20,000 Union troops and supply train lined up nearly back to Fern Creek.
Fences had been torn down to make fires and to allow easier movement of cavalry. William Scott, who lived on the turnpike to Mt. Washington, told his grandson that upon going to his spring house, “found the soldiers there some having filled their canteens with milk some with cream, also the butter was all gone; others had taken the water until none remained.”
There is no exact account of civilian or military casualties, but news reports indicate two confederate dead and several confederates taken prisoner during the skirmish assault on Mt. Washington. Because they were heavily outnumbered, the Confederate Cavalry and their artillery retreated toward High Grove and eventually into Bardstown where the main body of the Rebel Army had moved by the end of that first week in October. Mt. Washington residents would see “war no more,” but rebel sympathizing “guerilla” forces and outlaws would pose a danger for the next several years.
In the following days, the Battle of Perryville would bring a close to the battle for Kentucky and alleviate President Lincoln’s concern that “…to lose Kentucky is nearly to lose the whole game.”
The skirmish between the two forces at Mt. Washington would prove to be the high water mark for the Confederacy’s push toward Louisville, Kentucky’s largest and most important city.