Mill Springs and Kammerling

Nine days after Middle Creek, Eastern Kentucky was secured for the Union on this date in 1862 at the Battle of Mill Springs.

A bayonet charge by the 9th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was a key factor in the victory, and that regiment would undertake two similar charges in 1863 at Chickamauga. By then it was commanded by Col. Gustav Kammerling, who was also at Mill Springs. Like most of his men, he was a German immigrant who went home to Cincinnati when their three-year enlistment expired in 1864.

Kammerling is brought up by Tom Sweeny in conversation with Frank Herron, Ely Parker and others in The Last Circle of Ulysses Grant.

The Confederates retreated after Mill Springs to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where a major battle was fought at the end of the year (after the Confederates had advanced back into and then retreated from Kentucky). General George Thomas, who had commanded the Union army at Mill Springs, would play major combat roles at both Murfreesboro and Chickamauga, and reviewed the 9th Ohio when it mustered out in Georgia.