Appalachian History Series – The Battle of Limestone Station: The 100th Ohio’s Stand in Washington County
On September 8, 1863, a small stretch of railroad in Washington County, Tennessee, became the scene of one of the sharpest little fights of the East Tennessee campaign. The place was known in the records by several names. Some called it Limestone Station. Others called it Telford’s Station, Limestone Creek, or Limestone Bridge. All of those names point to the same military problem. The East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad ran through a divided mountain country, and both armies understood that whoever controlled the line controlled movement, supplies, prisoners, messages, and the future of Union power in upper East Tennessee.
The fight did not last long when measured against the great battles of the Civil War. It was not Chickamauga, Gettysburg, or Knoxville. Yet for the men of the 100th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, the bridge and depot at Limestone became a disaster that followed many of them into Confederate prisons. For local residents in the Nolichucky Valley, it was proof that the war could arrive by train, by cavalry road, and by the crack of artillery near a familiar creek.
Why East Tennessee Mattered
By late summer 1863, Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside was moving into East Tennessee. This region had long been important to the Union war effort because of its divided loyalties, mountain passes, farms, and railroads. Knoxville fell to Union forces in early September, while Burnside also pressed toward Cumberland Gap. These movements threatened Confederate control from the Tennessee Valley to southwest Virginia.
The Confederate position in upper East Tennessee was thin and uncertain. When Confederate forces pulled back from Knoxville, the line eastward toward Bristol and Virginia still had to be guarded. Railroads were not background scenery in this campaign. They were lifelines. A destroyed bridge could slow an army. A seized train could carry troops deep into hostile territory. A small station could become a battlefield.
Limestone was still a small railroad place during the Civil War. Later National Register documentation for the Nolichucky Valley notes that Limestone was referred to in several records simply as “Limestone Station.” The railroad helped create and shape the place, linking farms and small communities to wider markets and wartime movements. In September 1863, that same railroad made Limestone worth fighting over.
The 100th Ohio Sent East
The Union detachment at the center of the fight belonged to the 100th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. The regiment had been organized at Toledo in 1862 and had served in Kentucky before joining Burnside’s East Tennessee operations. In early September 1863, part of the regiment was sent east along the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad under Lt. Col. Edwin L. Hayes.
The detachment was not a full army. It was a few hundred men placed in a dangerous position, far enough from heavy support that a fast Confederate strike could trap it. Their job was to protect the railroad, hold key points, and help secure Burnside’s advance in a region where Confederate troops had not disappeared simply because Knoxville had changed hands.
The Official Records make clear that Hayes and his men were sent toward Limestone and Telford just as the larger campaign was still unfolding. That timing matters. Burnside’s army was stretching across East Tennessee. Cumberland Gap was about to fall to Union forces, but Confederate troops under Brig. Gen. Alfred E. Jackson were still active in the upper part of the state.
Alfred Jackson Moves from Jonesborough
Brig. Gen. Alfred E. Jackson, sometimes remembered as “Mudwall” Jackson, commanded Confederate forces in the area. He was operating from the Jonesborough and Bristol region, trying to hold together what Confederate control remained east of Knoxville. His command included cavalry, infantry, and artillery, among them Kentucky cavalry under Col. Giltner, North Carolina troops under Lt. Col. Walker, and Burroughs’ Battery.
Confederate reports describe Jackson reacting quickly to the Union presence on the railroad. Lt. Col. Milton A. Haynes, commanding artillery, later wrote from Jonesborough that Jackson sent forward artillery early on the morning of September 8. The sounds of cannon and small arms soon followed. Jackson pressed the attack, and reinforcements were pushed toward the fight.
This was not only a clash between two bodies of soldiers. It was a race along the railroad. Hayes’s men needed time and support. Jackson’s men needed to cut them off before help could arrive. The countryside between Jonesborough, Telford, Limestone Creek, and the railroad bridges became a trap if the Confederates could close it fast enough.
The Morning Fight at Telford’s Station
The first phase of the action came around Telford’s Station. Hayes and the 100th Ohio encountered a larger Confederate force and fought there before falling back. The Twenty-third Army Corps itinerary later described Hayes with about 300 men skirmishing at Telford’s Station against a much larger force under Jackson. The Union detachment then fell back toward Limestone Creek to await reinforcements.
The fighting at Telford was brisk enough that Haynes’s later Confederate account remembered wounded men there when he arrived with artillery. By the time he reached the station, he heard that the Federals were retreating and that Jackson was pursuing them. The Confederates then pushed on toward the sound of artillery at Limestone Bridge.
For Hayes’s men, the withdrawal was not a simple retreat to safety. It was a movement from one dangerous point to another. Behind them, the railroad was vulnerable. Ahead of them, the creek, bridge, blockhouse, and nearby buildings offered a place to stand, but also a place where they could be surrounded.
The Stand at Limestone Creek
At Limestone Creek, the Union soldiers took position near the railroad bridge and nearby structures. Confederate reports place them around a blockhouse and stone and brick buildings used as barracks. From those positions, the 100th Ohio could fire on approaching Confederates and use the railroad works for cover.
Jackson’s men brought pressure from several directions. Haynes wrote that Giltner’s Kentucky cavalry, dismounted, was engaged on the opposite side of Limestone Creek, cutting off the Federals’ railroad communication to the south. Walker’s North Carolina troops came up after a forced movement, while Confederate artillery was placed in battery and fired case and canister into the woods and buildings where the Union soldiers held.
The Union defense was stubborn. Col. John W. Foster, writing from Morristown on September 9, reported that after the morning fight Hayes withdrew from Telford’s to Limestone Station. There, around early afternoon, he was attacked again by a reinforced enemy. Foster estimated the Confederate strength between 1,000 and 1,800 men, with artillery. He believed Hayes yielded only after a determined defense against overpowering numbers.
The railroad itself had become part of the Confederate attack. Foster reported that before the surrender, the enemy had destroyed the railroad for several miles in Hayes’s rear. That meant the 100th Ohio could not simply fall back by rail. Reinforcements were slowed. Escape routes narrowed. What began as a railroad guard duty became a fight inside a closing ring.
The White Flag
As the Confederate attack tightened, the Union position became impossible. Ammunition was running low, the enemy had artillery, and the railroad line behind Hayes was cut. The Tennessee historical marker at Limestone summarizes the result plainly. After about two hours of fighting, the 100th Ohio surrendered to a larger Confederate force led by Alfred E. Jackson, and more than 200 Union officers and soldiers were taken prisoner.
The numbers vary by source, which is common with small Civil War actions reported from different sides. The NPS unit history for the 100th Ohio records 240 men captured while guarding the railroad. The NPS Tennessee battle list gives Union losses at Limestone and Telford Station as 12 killed, 20 wounded, and 240 missing, for a total of 272. Foster’s report estimated about 200 prisoners. Haynes, from the Confederate side, claimed the surrender involved near 350 officers and soldiers, the remnant of a larger force that began the fight in the morning.
These differences should not hide the central fact. The 100th Ohio detachment was overwhelmed. The Confederates won a sharp local victory. The Union line in upper East Tennessee had been reminded that railroad posts could be isolated and destroyed.
Prisoners and the Long Aftermath
The battle ended quickly for those who escaped, but not for those who were captured. Many of the prisoners from the 100th Ohio entered the Confederate prison system, where the consequences of Limestone lasted far beyond the day of battle. Prison letters and later accounts from captured men help show what the official reports cannot fully capture.
George Duncan Forsyth, an officer of the 100th Ohio, wrote from Libby Prison in Richmond later in 1863. Douglass O. Kelley, another captured officer, also wrote from captivity. These letters are more useful for understanding the aftermath than for reconstructing every movement on the battlefield, but they give the fight a human shape. The surrender at Limestone was not only a number in a report. It meant separation from comrades, uncertainty, prison disease, hunger, and for some men, death far from Tennessee.
Later veteran memory also kept the action alive. Jacob Fewloss of the 100th Ohio published a reminiscence decades after the war, recalling the regiment’s ordeal at Telford and Limestone. Because it was written long after the event, it should be read carefully and compared against official reports. Even so, it offers the kind of ground-level memory that official military correspondence often lacks.
Local memory has also preserved the battle. The historical marker near Limestone records the fight at the bridge and the surrender of the Ohio men. Local histories and cemetery records connect the battle to individual soldiers, including men who survived prison and others who did not. One local account states that some Union soldiers escaped across the Nolichucky River with help from a local ferry operator, a reminder that civilian choices in divided East Tennessee could shape the fate of soldiers on both sides.
A Small Battle with a Wide Shadow
The Battle of Limestone Station was not large in scale, but it shows how war worked in the mountains of East Tennessee. Campaigns were not only decided by grand assaults. They were also shaped by bridges, depots, local roads, telegraph lines, ferries, and the speed at which men could move between them.
For the Confederates, the victory gave Jackson’s command a needed success at a moment when East Tennessee seemed to be slipping away. It showed that the Union occupation of Knoxville did not mean Confederate resistance east of the city had collapsed. It also briefly disrupted Union confidence along the railroad.
For the Union army, the fight exposed the danger of small detachments guarding long lines of communication. Burnside’s larger campaign continued, and Union forces would soon strike back across East Tennessee. Yet the loss at Limestone remained one of the painful small disasters of the campaign, especially for the 100th Ohio.
For Washington County, Limestone became part of a local Civil War geography that included Jonesborough, Telford, Carter’s Station, the Nolichucky River, and the railroad corridor toward Virginia. These were not remote places to the people who lived there. They were home ground, turned into military ground by armies that needed the same roads, bridges, fields, and rail lines that local families used in ordinary life.
Why Limestone Station Still Matters
Limestone Station matters because it reveals the Civil War at a human and local scale. A few hundred men sent to guard a railroad found themselves facing cavalry, infantry, and artillery. A small station and creek bridge became the difference between escape and capture. A fight that lasted only hours shaped prison records, family stories, local memory, and the way later generations understood the war in upper East Tennessee.
The battle also reminds us that Appalachia’s Civil War history cannot be reduced to one side or one story. East Tennessee was divided. Families, counties, and communities held competing loyalties. Confederate soldiers from the region fought to defend the railroad and reclaim ground. Union soldiers from Ohio fought to keep the line open for Burnside’s army. Local residents watched, helped, suffered, hid, resisted, or tried to survive.
Today the names Limestone Station and Telford’s Station may seem small beside the great battlefields of the war. But in September 1863, those names marked a hard lesson. In the mountains, a bridge could become a battlefield. A railroad depot could become a prison road. A local fight could carry a long shadow.
Sources & Further Reading
U.S. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series I, Volume 30, Part 2. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1890. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000625514
Scott, Robert N., ed. The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Civil War. Columbus: Ohio State University eHistory. https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/war-rebellion-official-records-civil-war
Tennessee State Library and Archives. “September 8, 1863: Action at Limestone Station.” Tennessee Civil War Sourcebook. https://sharetngov.tnsosfiles.com/tsla/cwsb/1863-09-Article-112-Page150.pdf
Tennessee State Library and Archives. “September 8, 1863: Action at Telford’s Station.” Tennessee Civil War Sourcebook. https://sharetngov.tnsosfiles.com/tsla/cwsb/1863-09-Article-128-Page171.pdf
Confederate States of America War Department. Official Reports of Battles; Embracing Col. Wm. L. Jackson’s Report of Expedition to Beverly; Maj. Gen. Price’s Report of Evacuation of Little Rock; Maj. Gen. Stevenson’s Report of Battle of Lookout Mountain; and Lt. Col. M. A. Haynes’ Reports of Engagements at Knoxville, Limestone Creek, and Carter’s Station. Richmond: R. M. Smith, 1864. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Duke_University_Libraries_%28IA_officialreportso04conf%29.pdf
Haynes, Milton A. “Report of Lieutenant Colonel M. A. Haynes, Engagement at Limestone Creek.” In Official Reports of Battles. Richmond: R. M. Smith, 1864. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Duke_University_Libraries_%28IA_officialreportso04conf%29.pdf
National Park Service. “100th Regiment, Ohio Infantry.” Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UOH0100RI
National Park Service. “Tennessee Civil War Battles.” The Civil War. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/tennessee.htm
Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association. “Limestone.” TCWPA Battlefield Assessment. https://www.tcwpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Limestone.docx.pdf
Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association. “Telford Station.” TCWPA Battle Site. https://www.tcwpa.org/battle-site/telford-station/
Tennessee Department of Tourist Development. “Battle of Limestone Station Historical Marker.” Tennessee Vacation Civil War Trails. https://classic.tnvacation.com/civil-war/place/3361/battle-of-limestone-station-historical-marker/
TNGenWeb. “Battle of Limestone Station.” Washington County, Tennessee Military Records. https://tngenweb.org/washington/records-data/washington-county-military-index/miscellaneous-military-records/battle-of-limestone-station/
“The War in Tennessee; A Battle at Limestone Station; Capture of 300 of Our Forces.” New York Times, September 19, 1863. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/svc/tmach/v1/refer?res=9E06E6DB123FE336A0575AC1A96F9C946291D7CF&pdf=true
Fewloss, Jacob. “Overwhelmed. Reinforcements Came Too Late to Save a Gallant Band from Capture.” National Tribune, March 4, 1897. Reprinted in Dan Masters, “Brisk Fight with the Johnnies: The 100th Ohio at Limestone Station.” https://dan-masters-civil-war.blogspot.com/2020/08/brisk-fight-with-johnnies-100th-ohio-at.html
Masters, Dan. “Brisk Fight with the Johnnies: The 100th Ohio at Limestone Station.” Dan Masters’ Civil War Chronicles, August 16, 2020. https://dan-masters-civil-war.blogspot.com/2020/08/brisk-fight-with-johnnies-100th-ohio-at.html
Masters, Dan. “A View from Behind the Bars: A Buckeye at Libby Prison.” Dan Masters’ Civil War Chronicles, July 2021. https://dan-masters-civil-war.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-view-from-behind-bars-buckeye-at.html
Kelley, Douglass Ottinger. “1863: Douglass Ottinger Kelley to Zina H. Kelley.” Spared & Shared 22, February 3, 2022. https://sparedshared22.wordpress.com/2022/02/03/1863-douglass-ottinger-kelley-to-ebenezer-kelley/
Korenko, Leslie. “Douglas O. Kelley Is Captured and Sent to Libby Prison.” Erie County Ohio History. https://eriecountyohiohistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/1863-September-1-1863-Douglas-O.-Kelley-is-Captured-and-Sent-to-Libby-Prison.pdf
Bolton, Nannie Margaret. “1864: Nannie Margaret Bolton to Her Uncle.” Spared & Shared 23, July 31, 2024. https://sparedshared23.com/2024/07/31/1864-nannie-margaret-bolton-to-her-uncle/
McElroy, John. Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons. Toledo: D. R. Locke, 1879. https://archive.org/details/andersonvillesto01mcel
Dyer, Frederick H. A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. Des Moines, IA: Dyer Publishing Company, 1908. https://archive.org/details/08697590.3359.emory.edu
Ohio Roster Commission. Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1866. Akron: Werner Printing and Manufacturing Company, 1886-1895. https://archive.org/details/ohiowarroster05howerich
Stevens, Larry. “100th Ohio Infantry.” Ohio in the Civil War. https://www.ohiocivilwar.com/cw100.html
National Park Service. “Knoxville Campaign, Part I.” Camp Nelson National Monument. https://www.nps.gov/cane/knoxville-campaign.htm
Stoecker, Jen, and Carroll Van West. The Transformation of the Nolichucky Valley, 1776-1960, Greene and Washington Counties, Tennessee. National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, 2001. https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/64500763_text
Encyclopedia Virginia. “The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad during the Civil War.” Virginia Humanities. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/the-virginia-and-tennessee-railroad-during-the-civil-war/
Tennessee Department of Tourist Development. “East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad.” Tennessee Vacation Civil War Trails. https://classic.tnvacation.com/civil-war/place/2330/east-tennessee-virginia-railroad/
Library of Congress. “Civil War Maps.” Geography and Map Division. https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-war-maps/about-this-collection/
National Archives. “Civil War Records in the Cartographic Research Room.” https://www.archives.gov/research/cartographic/civil-war
Davis, George B., Leslie J. Perry, Joseph W. Kirkley, and Calvin D. Cowles, comps. Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1891-1895. https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~26835~1110232:Contents–Atlas-official-records-Un
Author Note: This article is part of an ongoing effort to recover the smaller Civil War actions that shaped Appalachian communities as deeply as larger campaigns. Limestone Station shows how a railroad bridge, a small depot, and a few hundred soldiers could leave a long memory in East Tennessee.