The Civil War in Kentucky

            My visit to the EKU's Special Collections and Archives was a very enjoyable and memorable experience.  It was special to be able to hold such important documents in my hands that were so old.   A lot of the documents that I seen were undecipherable to me because I was not real used to reading cursive handwriting. The documents that I focused on were located in Box 1, and the two main documents that I will discussing in this post were located in folders 2 and 5.  Folder 2 contained personal documents, while folder 5 contained military documents.

            The item that I read which was in the personal documents folder was a soldier's account of a skirmish he took part in.  It was in Knox County, Kentucky approximately 12 miles from Cumberland Gap.  It did not seem like a major battle.  I could not decipher how many he said were killed, but he said, "...wounded 9 and took 8 good horses, and saddles, 8 double barrel shot guns, 9 sabers, pistols, ..., and did not lose a single man nor none wounded and took 4 prisoners and sent them to London..."  This soldier was under the command of Colonel Mundy, who was a Union officer from Owen County, Kentucky.  The soldier signs his name as L. Budd (something) chief bugler in the 1st squadron of the Kentucky Calvary I think is what it says.

            Another item I looked at was the General Order No. 70.  This document recognized the Third Division for the success they had in the "Gibraltar of Kentucky!" as the document says .  It was dated February 19, 1862.  Therefore, this letter could have been in correspondence to the battles of Middle Creek and Mill Springs which were both Union victories that helped secure Union control in Eastern Kentucky during this part of the war.