Appalachian History
Central Kentucky’s limestone ridges and creek bottoms did not look like a battlefield in 1861. Garrard County was a farm country of hemp, cattle, and small towns. Yet within a few months of Fort Sumter, the crossroads around Lancaster, Bryantsville, and the Kentucky River became one of the most heavily traveled military corridors in the interior South.
Here, on Richard Robinson’s farm north of Lancaster, Union officer William “Bull” Nelson built Camp Dick Robinson, the first large Federal base south of the Ohio River. Confederate generals briefly turned the same ground into “Camp Breckinridge.” Skirmishes flared at Lancaster and Paint Lick Bridge. To the north, Hickman Bridge and the rising depot at Camp Nelson guarded the only high crossing of the Kentucky River.
Official dispatches, newspaper engravings, soldiers’ memoirs, and modern archaeology all agree on one point. Garrard County was never just a quiet Bluegrass backwater. It sat on the front line of Kentucky’s Civil War.
Camp Dick Robinson and the end of neutrality
In the spring and summer of 1861 Kentucky tried to stand in the middle of the sectional crisis. The General Assembly declared a policy of “armed neutrality” and Governor Beriah Magoffin resisted both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.
Unionist leaders in the interior counties saw that neutrality would not last. Garrard County judge Allen A. Burton traveled to Washington and helped persuade Lincoln to authorize a Federal recruiting effort inside Kentucky. The president chose a tough Maysville native, Navy lieutenant William “Bull” Nelson, to raise ten thousand Union volunteers for a possible campaign into East Tennessee.
Nelson first armed local Home Guard companies, then looked for a permanent camp. He settled on the 425 acre farm of Richard Robinson at Hoskins Crossroads, seven miles north of Lancaster. The farm sat along the Danville and Lancaster pikes, close to good springs and the deep gorge of Dick’s River. Ten miles to the north on the Lexington road stood Hickman Bridge, the great covered span over the Kentucky River that tied this interior landscape to rail lines and depots around Lexington.
On 10 August 1861 Nelson formally opened Camp Dick Robinson. The Kentucky Legislative Research Commission’s summary for Historical Marker 1750 notes that many of the state’s first Union regiments formed there, even as the Commonwealth still claimed neutrality.
Confederate leaning officials protested. Governor Magoffin wrote to Lincoln demanding that the camp be closed. Lincoln replied that since the camp “consists exclusively of Kentuckians,” and because closing it was not “the popular wish of Kentucky,” he refused to remove the soldiers. That brief exchange, preserved in later summaries of the camp’s history, signaled the collapse of neutrality and fixed Garrard County as a Union stronghold.
Life in camp on Robinson’s farm
From the beginning, Camp Dick Robinson was more than a name on a map. Civil War Governors of Kentucky documents give short, on the ground glimpses of the place. In September 1861 G. W. Mills wrote to Governor Magoffin from “Camp Dick Robinson,” describing camp affairs and political tension. A few weeks later Thomas E. Bramlette, then a colonel and future Unionist governor, reported from the same camp about recruiting and discipline.
Brief regimental entries in the same database and in muster records show how many units passed through Garrard County. The 3rd Kentucky Volunteer Infantry and the 4th Kentucky Infantry, both U.S. regiments, were organized at Camp Dick Robinson before marching on to the western and middle Tennessee campaigns. Muster cards for ordinary soldiers list the camp as the place they entered Federal service.
Contemporary illustrations help us imagine what those men saw. Harper’s Weekly published an engraving titled “Head-Quarters at Camp Dick Robinson, Near Bryantsville, Kentucky” in late 1861. The scene shows rows of tents and company streets anchored by the Robinson farmhouse that served as headquarters. Modern reproductions by PBS LearningMedia and the Kentucky Historical Society identify the print as a view of Garrard County’s great Union rendezvous.
Archaeologists have since matched art with earth. A Phase II investigation by the Kentucky Archaeological Survey identified site 15Gd87 as the core of Camp Dick Robinson, confirming the location through concentrations of military artifacts, trash pits, and postholes that align with the 1862 sketch used by Harper’s Weekly.
For a time the camp was a small city. Thousands of volunteers from Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Midwest drilled on Robinson’s pasture, drew arms and uniforms from Federal storehouses, and marched out along the turnpikes. The camp’s very existence, built against the wishes of a neutralist governor, hardened Union sentiment in the surrounding counties.
From Camp Dick Robinson to Camp Breckinridge
Camp Dick Robinson was a Union symbol, but in 1862 it briefly flew a different flag. That summer Confederate generals Edmund Kirby Smith and Braxton Bragg marched into Kentucky. Their converging columns routed Union forces at Richmond and threatened Lexington and Louisville.
During this invasion, Confederate commanders recognized the same advantages that Nelson had seen the year before. Bragg ordered that a Confederate depot at Danville be transferred “as rapidly as practicable” to Bryantsville and the old Camp Dick Robinson site, and that the new installation be known as “Camp Breckinridge.” Recruits were to form at Bryantsville and report there for arms and instruction.
The headquarters diary of Confederate staff officer Edward O. Guerrant, later published as Bluegrass Confederate, recorded Confederate use of Camp Breckinridge and Garrard County during Bragg’s campaign, with the old Union camp now provisioning an army that hoped to pull Kentucky fully into the Confederacy.
Harper’s Weekly paid attention as well. An 1862 print captioned “Camp Dick Robinson, Garrard County, Kentucky – The Great Rendezvous” reminded readers that both armies now coveted this ground. Later newspaper coverage of the Perryville campaign reported that “the rebels, at last accounts, were retreating to Camp Dick Robinson,” tracing Bragg’s withdrawal along the roads that converged on Garrard County.
By mid October, heavy fighting at Perryville convinced Bragg to abandon the Bluegrass. Confederate troops pulled back through Lancaster and the old camp, then south toward Cumberland Gap. In their wake, Garrard County fields were littered with burned forage, abandoned equipment, and the scars of hasty breastworks.
Lancaster, 14 October 1862
The Official Records preserve the moment when Lancaster itself became a battlefield. In Series I, volume 16, part 2, a cluster of dispatches are headed “HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF KENTUCKY, Lancaster, Ky., October 14, 1862.”
Lieutenant E. Cunningham wrote from Lancaster to Confederate superiors that the enemy was close in his rear and that cavalry and artillery were falling back along the Lancaster–Danville pike as Bragg’s army withdrew from Perryville. Other telegrams ordered troops to guard crossings on Dick’s River and hold Federal forces in check while the main Confederate column slipped away.
Later compilers placed “Lancaster, Ky., October 14, 1862” in alphabetical lists of Civil War battles and skirmishes, a reminder that what locals remembered as a sharp rear guard clash was serious enough to enter the official chronology of the war.
Regimental narratives add human detail. The history of the Seventy fifth Illinois, published under the title A Waif of the War, notes that at Lancaster on 14 October Captain E. A. Altman was “severely wounded,” the only casualty his regiment suffered in that fight.
A Kansas soldier’s reminiscence gives a glimpse from the other side of town. A blog drawing on letters of a man in the 8th Kansas Infantry recounts that after the pursuit of Bragg they reached Lancaster on the fourteenth, where one company was sent forward as skirmishers. Advancing about a mile through and beyond the town, they “killed or wounded 20 rebels” without losing a man.
These scattered voices agree that Lancaster, briefly, was a bloody hinge. Confederates were trying to escape intact. Union troops were trying to punish them for Perryville. Garrard County’s county seat lay directly in the path.
Scott’s Raid and the fights at Lancaster and Paint Lick Bridge
If October 1862 brought regimented battle to Lancaster, July 1863 brought raiders. Colonel John Scott’s Confederate cavalry swept into eastern and central Kentucky that month, raiding depots and disrupting Union movements in what became known as Scott’s Raid.
Carolana’s compilation of Kentucky actions, drawn from the Official Records, lists three related skirmishes on 31 July 1863. One took place at Lancaster, another at Stanford, and a third at Paint Lick Bridge. The reports for these actions were filed by Union officers Major General George L. Hartsuff and Colonel William P. Sanders and by Scott himself.
The Civil War Encyclopedia’s summary of the fight at Paint Lick Bridge, drawn from Federal reports, tells the story. Pursuing Scott’s men, Sanders led a mixed command of Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, East Tennessee, and Illinois mounted troops. After following the Confederate rear guard through the night, his column found Scott’s main body drawn up at the bridge.
“For an hour,” the account relates, there was an obstinate fight. Then a portion of the Union force charged, capturing around thirty Confederates and wounding others. No casualties were reported on the Union side.
Regimental histories of Kentucky cavalry fill in local color. A nineteenth century history of the First Kentucky Cavalry, built from the Official Records, lists “Lancaster and Paint Lick Bridge July 31” among the regiment’s actions in 1863. Tarr’s narrative The Wild Riders of the First Kentucky Cavalry adds stories of scouts and night marches on the roads around Lancaster and Paint Lick, reinforcing the impression of Garrard County as a place where cavalry columns constantly crossed paths.
For residents, Scott’s Raid meant more disruption of crops and fences, another round of frightened nights, and another set of stories about who helped which side. For military planners, the skirmishes of July 1863 proved that any Confederate expedition into central Kentucky would have to reckon with the same turnpikes, bridges, and water gaps that had confronted Nelson and Bragg in 1861 and 1862.
Hickman Bridge, Camp Nelson, and Garrard’s river frontier
While Camp Dick Robinson and Lancaster sat in the interior of Garrard County, the county’s northern edge brushed the Kentucky River and one of the most important bridges in the state. Hickman Bridge, a long covered span on the Lexington–Danville turnpike, was the only high crossing of the Kentucky River south of Frankfort and an obvious military choke point.
During the war, Federal authorities poured resources into guarding that crossing. The National Park Service’s “A Bridge Too Far: Battle of Hickman Bridge” notes that on 28 March 1863 Brigadier General Quincy Gillmore’s command fought Confederate troops under General John Pegram south of the bridge, driving them away from the span. In reporting the action, Major General Ambrose Burnside boasted that his forces had driven the enemy from in front of Hickman’s Bridge and out of central Kentucky.
A month later, the United States Army began constructing Camp Nelson just north of the Garrard line. The depot soon became one of the largest Federal supply bases in the western theater and, crucially, a major recruiting center for United States Colored Troops. Batteries and earthworks guarded Hickman Bridge and the palisades above the river. The south bank within Garrard County became part of that fortified landscape, tying local farms to a national story of emancipation and logistics.
Taken together, Camp Dick Robinson, the Lancaster turnpikes, Paint Lick Bridge, and Hickman Bridge show how Garrard County’s geography made it a natural corridor. Armies could not pass between the Bluegrass and the Cumberland Plateau without touching these roads and crossings.
Remembering Garrard County’s Civil War
After 1865 the physical traces of war faded. The government lease on the Robinson farm ended and Richard Robinson struggled to collect what he was owed for years of occupation, a story later retold in Senate claims documents and biographies of William Nelson.
Twentieth century local historians tried to preserve what memories remained. Works such as Forrest Calico’s county history and later narratives of Lancaster and its churches compiled rosters of Confederate and Union soldiers, recounted skirmishes in and around town, and preserved reminiscences that would otherwise have vanished. More recent county histories and blogs like “Civil War in Garrard County” mine those earlier books for details on the skirmish of Lancaster and the occupation of the town.
Today, roadside markers and digital projects help knit all of this back together. Historical Marker 1750 stands near the Robinson farmhouse site, summarizing the camp’s role and repeating Lincoln’s defense of the “camp of loyal Kentuckians.” Civil War Governors of Kentucky offers searchable, annotated transcripts of letters and petitions from Garrard Countians on both sides of the conflict. Archaeological reports, the Official Records Atlas, and high resolution scans of Harper’s Weekly engravings let present day readers compare maps, prints, and modern aerials to locate long vanished streets of tents.
For Appalachian and Bluegrass historians, Garrard County’s experience complicates any simple picture of “Union Kentucky” or “Confederate Kentucky.” A single farm could host a Union training camp in 1861, a Confederate depot in 1862, and then return to growing corn under a bankrupt owner. A small county seat could see brief but sharp fighting, then watch as regiments marched off toward Nashville and Atlanta.
Lancaster and Camp Dick Robinson remind us that the Civil War’s grand campaigns were lived out on specific hillsides and crossroads. For a few intense years, the backroads of Garrard County were as strategically significant as any big city.
Sources and further reading
Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, volumes 16 and 23, especially the correspondence headed “Headquarters Army of Kentucky, Lancaster, Ky., October 14, 1862,” and the reports on Scott’s Raid and the skirmishes at Lancaster and Paint Lick Bridge. The Portal to Texas History+2Carolana+2
Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, 1895), plates indexed under “Lancaster, Ky.” which trace the Perryville campaign and the Confederate retreat through Garrard County. Internet Archive
Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, subject file “Camp Dick Robinson” and documents such as G. W. Mills to Beriah Magoffin (12 September 1861) and Thomas E. Bramlette to Beriah Magoffin (October 1861), for on the ground accounts of recruiting and politics at the camp. Civil War Governors+2Civil War Governors of Kentucky+2
Harper’s Weekly, issues of 23 November 1861 and 1 November 1862, especially the engravings titled “Head-Quarters at Camp Dick Robinson, Near Bryantsville, Kentucky” and “Camp Dick Robinson, Garrard County, Kentucky – The Great Rendezvous,” accessible through the Kentucky Historical Society, PBS LearningMedia, and SonOfTheSouth.net. rarenewspapers.com+3Son of the South+3PBS LearningMedia+3
“A Waif of the War; or, The History of the Seventy fifth Illinois Infantry” for the regiment’s brief account of the skirmish at Lancaster on 14 October 1862 and the wounding of Captain E. A. Altman. Wikimedia Commons
John R. McBride, History of the Thirty Third Indiana Veteran Volunteer Infantry and Sergeant Thomas H. Tarr, The Wild Riders of the First Kentucky Cavalry, for regimental perspectives on service at Camp Dick Robinson and cavalry operations around Lancaster and Paint Lick Bridge. Internet Archive+1
Civil War Encyclopedia, “Paint Lick Bridge, Kentucky, July 31, 1863,” and Carolana’s “All Known Battles and Skirmishes – Kentucky” and 1863 chronology, for synthesized accounts of Scott’s Raid and the fighting at Lancaster, Stanford, and Paint Lick Bridge. Civil War Encyclopedia+2Carolana+2
“Camp Dick Robinson,” Wikipedia, and Kentucky Legislative Research Commission, “Kentucky’s Civil War: Garrard County’s Camp Dick Robinson” (Legislative Moment, Historical Marker 1750), for concise overviews of the camp’s establishment, its challenge to neutrality, its brief Confederate occupation as Camp Breckinridge, and its eventual replacement by Camp Nelson. Wikipedia+2Legislative Research Commission+2
Kentucky Archaeological Survey, “Phase II Archaeological Evaluations of Camp Dick Robinson, Garrard County, Kentucky,” and public site description for 15Gd87, for material culture and spatial analysis of the camp’s layout and features. Kentucky Transportation Cabinet+1
National Park Service, “A Bridge Too Far: Battle of Hickman Bridge,” Camp Nelson National Monument, for the story of the March 1863 fights near Hickman Bridge and the early history of Camp Nelson as a fortified depot and recruiting ground. National Park Service
Local histories and memory pieces, including early twentieth century Garrard County histories and modern blogs such as “Civil War in Garrard County Kentucky” and online 8th Kansas Infantry projects, for rosters, anecdotes, and community perspectives that help tie official records back to Lancaster’s streets and farm families. From the Barber’s Chair