The Battle Rages Higher by Kirk C. Jenkins

Author:Kirk C. Jenkins [Jenkins, Kirk C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, United States
ISBN: 9780813128665
Google: cLm-G_44CP0C
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2010-09-12T00:36:53+00:00

EPILOGUE

Starting Over

“I Am A Soldier Now And Under Military laws. Therefore I Cannot Go home At My own option.” So Ben Foster had written from Camp Hamilton Pope on December 2, 1861. Now that the men were not under military laws for the first time in over three years, for many of the veterans their lives before the war seemed long ago and far away. They were like immigrants in Louisville, turned loose in a world very different than the one they had left, and many were not quite sure what to do with themselves.1

For the first few days, some of the men wandered from one bar to another, simply enjoying the freedom to go where they pleased. It would be a long, hard six months for the people of Louisville as the city became a way-station for the demobilizing armies, and the chaos was just beginning in the early days of January. The Gait House, the grand old hotel that had been the scene of so much over the past few years and had hosted every major figure from the western theater of the war, had burned in the early morning hours of January 11, four days before the Fifteenth Kentucky was mustered out. Some minor looting followed the fire, and a couple of soldiers were arrested trying to sell valuables taken from the smoking shell. Additional robberies and minor rioting broke out from time to time through the next few weeks. Most of these incidents were fueled by the saloons; the bars down by the wharf were brightly lit late into the night, boisterous, yelling, celebrating soldiers trying to shove their way through the swinging doors inside, where the smell of sweat and cheap alcohol hung heavy in the air while the prostitutes from Green Street did a brisk business.

Other soldiers walked around the city, observing the effects of more than three years of war. After several years where the city had begun to resemble a ghost town, Louisville was beginning to recover. Where so many houses had been available only the previous year, the Democrat claimed in early 1865 that there was not a house available in the entire city. Meanwhile, a group of Louisville entrepreneurs with an eye for an opportunity organized the Louisville Business Association to provide the building materials for the new construction they were sure was coming. The City Railway Company was expanding its service as well. And just in time, too—the downtown streets were a mess. A Democrat reporter claimed to have “waded through the streets, swam the gutters, and slid to the river.” Hogs roamed the streets, and dead animals were common.2

Several of the Fifteenth Kentucky soldiers met their families in Louisville. Capt. Daniel O’Leary of Company K met his wife, Lizzie, and they remained there four months before moving on. Not all the soldiers’ families had fared as well during the war as the O’Learys, however. In February, one of the major tasks facing Major General Palmer, now in charge

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.