Jessee's Battalion, Kentucky Mounted Riflemen

Jessee's Battalion was a partisan group. These troops often acted independent of major forces and terrorized rural neighborhoods. Among the scores of these renegade troops was a unit comprised of southern sympathizers from Carroll, Henry and Trimble counties who were organized in the spring of 1862 by a Henry County farmer, Captain (later Lt. Col.) George M. Jessee.

At first, Jessee and a company of about 100 volunteers were captured by Union forces before he could get out of the state. At Winchester, he escaped and recruited a second band of volunteers. This group made it to Knoxville, Tenn., and was mustered into the Confederate army. Jessee and his men were ordered back into Kentucky to join up with Gen. E. Kirby Smith, but while en route he and his small band encountered two regiments of federal troops and were surrounded and taken prisoner. A second time, Jesse escaped federal custody, this time with two of his men. Reporting to Gen. Smith at Lexington, Jessee requested he be given a detachment of soldiers to return to Henry County to confront Union Provost Marshal George Pickens and a band of federal soldiers who were allegedly arresting and intimidating citizens of southern sympathy.

Frequently referred to by northern newspapermen as a “band of guerillas,” Jessee and his men were assigned variously to the commands of Confederate Gens. E. Kirby Smith, John C. Breckinridge and other leaders, but largely operated independently under the guise of recruiting new soldiers to the Confederate cause and rounding up stray soldiers who had become detached from their units after various skirmishes in the state.

George P. Mosgrove, in his book “Kentucky Cavaliers in Dixie,” wrote that following a battle in Cynthiana, Jessee was “directed to remain in Kentucky and rally as many of the men, who had been scattered over the state by that disaster as possible and lead them to Virginia. This was a difficult task to perform and was never thoroughly accomplished.”

In reality, Jessee’s men operated primarily in north central Kentucky, “centering his guerrilla raids there on familiar terrain where he could elude Union pursuit,” according to Leland R. Johnson’s “Engineering the Kentucky River: The Commonwealth’s Waterway,” published by the Louisville District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “Reporting to Colonel J. Stoddard Johnston and General John C. Breckinridge in Virginia, Jessee constantly evaded the Union Army,” Johnson wrote. “He struck at railroads and bridges, terrorized Kentucky River steamboat crews and project workers, and took brief control of villages. When Captain Jessee and his guerillas attacked Ghent, Kentucky in August 1864, artillery fire from across the Ohio River at Vevay drove them away. From Ghent, Jessee headed up the Kentucky River to Lock No. 1 and on August 29 he wrecked the lock’s operating mechanisms and lockgates, causing enormous damages estimated at $5,000.”

A newspaper dispatch reported that on Aug. 23, 1864, Jessee with about 150 men “startled the public by a bold and dashing raid. At eight o’clock on Monday evening, he appeared in Carroll County and pushed boldly for the banks of the Ohio River. When within a few miles of Ghent, he came upon a squad of 13 negro soldiers, who were returning from a recruiting expedition into the country. The negroes surrendered on the first demand, and after being deprived of their arms, were placed in a row, and deliberately shot down like wild beasts.”

According to the report, their crime was in being found dressed in the uniform of a United States soldier, and bearing arms to fight against the Southern Confederacy.

After committing this “wholesale murder,” the dispatch noted, “Jessee moved on Ghent and made an easy capture of it, as it was defended by no regular troops. The Home Guards at Vevay, Ind., on the opposite side of the river, with two brass six-pounders (artillery), at once commenced throwing shells across the Ohio, and, before the stores could be plundered, made the town too hot to hold the marauding gang. Ghent was evacuated in hot haste…”

But Jessee’s attempts to evade capture proved fruitless after the Ghent episode. The Cincinnati Enquirer on Sept. 10, 1864, reported that Jessee and 150 men had been captured “without firing a shot” on the afternoon before. The Frankfort Commonwealth newspaper reported the following on Sept. 12, 1864:

“We learn that George Jesse and about one hundred and fifty of his men were bagged, by the Eleventh Kentucky Cavalry, under Col. A. W. Holeman, in Carroll County, not far from Ghent. It appears that Jesse, being informed that the Eleventh was after him, went into camp and set an ambuscade to surprise them. But Col. Holeman was too sharp and quick to be thus caught. Detaching one hundred men, he sent them to approach Jesse in front, while the balance of the regiment made a detour and got into the rear of the guerillas, and when the detachment in front charged, Jesse and his guerillas made a break and ran into the force in the rear. Seeing that they were caught, they at once surrendered. Thus is speedily wiped out, by the gallant Eleventh, a gang of guerillas which have defied the State and National forces for more than two months, robbing, stealing and going where and when they pleased.”

But Jessee and his men escaped shortly thereafter and in October they were wreaking havoc again. The rebel band remained in local counties, hoping to benefit from Union draft dodgers who agreed to join his command in preference to going into the Union army.

A Kentucky correspondent for the Sacramento Daily News reported on Oct. 13, 1864, “the guerrillas are recruiting very fast, and the band is growing quite formidable. Colonel Buckley, of the Union army, has opened a recruiting rendezvous at New Castle; but Jesse so thoroughly scouts the country and guards the roads, that Union men are prevented from making their way to the Federal camp and enrolling themselves in the service of the United States. The guerrillas are having their horses shod, and are preparing for an active campaign.”

“War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of Official Records of the Civil War” contains a dispatch dated Dec. 16, 1864 from Alvin P. Hovey, brevet major of the Union Army, to Capt. C.H. Potter, Headquarters District of Indiana in Indianapolis: “I am informed by telegram from Madison, Ind., that Colonel Jessee’s men have taken Milton, a small town in Kentucky. They here fired on two steamboats and left in the direction of Bedford, Ky. We must have a small force for the front on the Ohio.”

Jessee and his men were not finished in Carroll County. In early February 1865, his guerillas were believed to be responsible for a brutal killing of the Union Provost Marshal of Carroll County and a lieutenant and private under his command. The Madison Daily Courier reported that Provost Marshal A.V. Carlisle had left Carrollton with about 30 Federal soldiers in search of guerillas.

They divided into two parties of 15 each and proceeded up the Kentucky River, half on one side and half on the other. About noon, those on the upper side stopped to eat. The men were told to “scatter around at different houses to get something to eat,” the report said. Carlisle, the lieutenant and private went to the residence of a Mr. Dean to eat, intending after their repast to gather up the men and resume their march.

About 40 guerillas were said to have attacked the soldiers after Carlisle and the others had left them. The men were compelled to retreat to Carrollton, losing one soldier killed and two wounded.

The guerillas then returned to the Dean residence. On approaching the house, they demanded the surrender of those inside. When Carlisle and his associates refused, Jessee’s men opened fire. Carlisle and his men fled the house hoping to escape. They were captured and taken to a hollow some distance off and “cruelly and willfully murdered in cold blood, and their bodies left on the spot,” the Madison paper reported.

According to The Cincinnati Daily Gazette, on Feb. 6, 1865, “The rebels promised to treat them as prisoners of war, but had not proceeded more than 50 yards from the place of capture when Carlisle and his comrades were tied and then shot. The bodies of the unfortunate men when found were literally riddled with balls and their heads terribly mutilated by being beaten, apparently, with the butt ends of guns.”

On March 31, 1865, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported “On Thursday last, a band of Jessee’s guerrilla’s dashed into Carrollton, Kentucky, and carried off a few horses and a portion of the records of the Circuit Court, which was in session at the time.”

But Jessee’s rampage as a southern knight was soon to end. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Va., on April 9, 1865 spelled the end of the Southern War of Rebellion. A few Confederate troops held out for short periods thereafter, hoping to continue the war, but Jessee and his men were captured for the last time on April 25, 1865 in Eminence.

After the war, Jessee returned to his farm in Henry County and eventually served two terms in the Kentucky House of Representatives.

Source: https://www.madisoncourier.com/carroll_news_democrat/archives/jessee-led-unit-of-southern-sympathizers-during-civil-war/article_65208bc9-7c97-5f29-853b-d4d1b6646e54.html Officers:

Captain George M. Jessee

Roster:
The roster of this unit contains the names of 380 men.

Bibliography for Research:

Arkansas 3rd Infantry Regiment
Arkansas 6th Infantry Regiment

Arkansas 6th Infantry Regiment