I.
Introduction
Wednesday, October 19, 1864 was a
quiet day, cool and overcast from a recent rain in the small Vermont town of
St. Albans. The little town of 2,800 people was located only fourteen miles
from the Canadian border. The day before the town was crowded due to the weekly
“market day” but today there were few people on the streets. The town clock had just struck 3 o’clock as a
group of townsmen were talking in front of the American House Hotel on Main
Street when a man rode up on a fine black horse and dismounted. Some of the men
may have recognized the tall handsome young stranger who had been in town
several days. Some had taken him for a minister as he was often seen reading
his Bible and conversing on religious topics. Now they were astonished when he
drew a pair of Colt Navy pistols and announced to them in a cool even voice,
“Gentlemen, I am a Confederate officer, my men have come to take your town.
Anyone who resists will be shot.” At that moment small groups of Confederate
raiders were entering the town’s three banks and taking “in the name of the
Confederate States Government and in retaliation for the treatment of Southern
citizens by the Federals forces under Sherman and Sheridan” what later was
declared to be over $200,000.00 in gold and silver coin, greenbacks and bank
securities. The three groups of “bank robbers” then converged on the village
green where their leader and other raiders held townsmen under guard. As other
aroused citizens now realized what was happening they began to fire at the
raiders with shotguns and squirrel rifles from doors and windows. The raiders
returned fire, one raider would be wounded, one citizen killed and two wounded.
The raiders began tossing bottles of incendiary “Greek fire” in an attempt to
set fire to buildings as they galloped out of town on the toll road headed
north to the border. They thundered through the toll gates, bringing the
gatekeeper out screaming that they had not paid the toll. In less than thirty
minutes it was over. Lt. Bennett H. Young and his twenty-one rebel raiders had
brought the war to New England and fought the northern most land action of the
Civil War.
It is a difficult task to condense the life,
character and accomplishments of Bennett Henderson Young into a manageable
length for a short article. He was such a talented, many sided man of so many
different activities. His biographer Dr. Oscar Kinchen called him “a man of
many adventures”. Certainly he was.
II. Youth
Born in Jessamine County, Kentucky
on May 25, 1843 he was one of seven children of John Young and Josephine
Henderson. His father was the successful owner of a hat factory in
Nicholasville. Both grandfathers were veterans of the Revolutionary War. One of
his great uncles was credited with killing Col. Patrick Ferguson, the Tory
commander at the Battle of King’s Mountain. Bennett grew up on a large farm
about six miles west of Nicholasville and attended nearby Bethany Academy. The
Young’s were devout Presbyterians, his older brother Daniel was a prominent
minister and Bennett was expected to follow him in the ministry.
In the spring of 1861 Bennett was
involved in an altercation at Bethany Academy over the flying of a Confederate
flag at the school. In September 1861 he enrolled in Centre College in
Danville. In October 1862 his studies were stopped by typhoid fever. After his
recovery he left home to enlist in the Confederate Army.
III.
Morgan’s Cavalry
In early 1863 Young left home
slipping through enemy lines into middle Tennessee where he found the command
of General John Hunt Morgan. The command had recently returned from a
spectacular raid through Kentucky which would be known as the “Christmas
Raid”. Young enlisted as a private in
Co. B of the 8th Kentucky Cavalry commanded by Col. Roy Cluke. This
regiment had been raised in central Kentucky during the 1862 Kentucky Campaign
and many of Company B’s men were Bennett’s friends and neighbors from Jessamine
County.
On February 14, 1863 Col.
Cluke led a force of about 750 mounted men including his 8th
Kentucky into south central Kentucky to disrupt enemy communications and
destroy supplies. Despite the freezing temperatures and blinding snowfalls the
raid was a success with Cluke’s force destroying over a million dollars of
Federal supplies. Col. Cluke later described the raid as a game of cat and
mouse with the Union forces. Cluke’s
force captured Mt. Sterling twice paroling nearly 300 Union troops. Young was
learning how to operate inside enemy lines, lessons he would put to good use
later. Cluke’s force returned to middle Tennessee in late spring and took part
in the operations of Morgan’s command patrolling and skirmishing with Federal
cavalry through the early summer.
IV. The
Great Raid
In the early summer of 1863 General
Morgan was ordered by Army of Tennessee commander Braxton Bragg to make a
diversionary raid into Kentucky to keep Union forces from interfering with Bragg’s
move from middle to eastern Tennessee. Morgan asked for permission to extend
his raid into Indiana and Ohio to be more effective. Bragg would not authorize
Morgan’s foray north of the Ohio River but Morgan was determined to take the
war into enemy territory. His division of two brigades of 2500 men headed north
into south central Kentucky on July 2nd.
When the 8th Kentucky
reached the Cumberland River near Burkesville they found the river near flood
stage with a swift moving current. Loading their arms and equipment on a ferry
boat the men allowed their horses to swim and stripped off their clothes to
keep them dry. Shortly after reaching the far bank they were confronted by a
force of Union cavalry. Quickly retrieving their weapons the still naked rebels
charged the Federals who quickly retreated, apparently the sight of hundreds of
naked men firing and yelling was too much for them.
The next day Bennett’s regiment,
this time fully clothed, fought a skirmish at Columbia, Kentucky and moved on to
the Green River. On July 4th, Morgan’s command reached Tebb’s Bend and
was confronted with a well fortified stockade manned by the 25th
Michigan Infantry. Morgan decided to attack instead of bypassing this force.
Furious attacks by the Confederates which left over forty of the command dead
were unable to take the stockade and Morgan was forced to move on toward
Lebanon. The next day Morgan again attacked Federal infantry at Lebanon stationed
in buildings near the railroad. Here Bennett witnessed the death of popular
Thomas Morgan, the younger brother of General Morgan who was killed in one of
the assaults. In one of the attacks Bennett’s best friend Vincent Eastham was
severely wounded. Under fire, Bennett carried him back to a field hospital
where he left him to return to the fight. Later he found that his friend had
died from his wound.
Morgan turned west bypassing
Louisville and reached the Ohio River at Brandenburg on July 8 where he crossed
his command into Indiana on two captured steamers. After defeating Union home
guards at Corydon Morgan turned northeast toward the Ohio line. Bypassing
Cincinnati on the north the Confederates were continuously in the saddle and
being pursued by thirty thousand Federals. The command rode almost the entire
width of the Buckeye State to Buffington Island on the Ohio River where Morgan
intended to cross the river into Virginia. The men and horses were exhausted by
17 days of continuous riding and fighting.
Cluke’s regiment was part of the force that was assigned to hold back
the Union pursuers to allow the rest of the command to cross to safety. After a
brief but fierce fight the Confederates were scattered, a few crossing the
river, many others captured and several hundred escaping north led by General
Morgan. Young was among this group with Morgan and was in the vanguard for the
next six days until finally the exhausted remnant of Morgan’s command was
surrounded near Salineville, Ohio and surrendered on July 26. 1863. The longest
cavalry raid of the war had come to an end. During the raid Young had
demonstrated the courage and leadership skills which were noticed by his officers.
Prison and
Escape
Young was confined briefly at Camp
Chase then moved to Camp Douglas in Chicago in August. Many of his comrades
from Morgan’s command were imprisoned here. Conditions at Camp Douglas were
among the worst of the Northern prisons. Bennett soon attempted an escape but
failed and received a 30 day sentence in the underground dungeon as punishment.
Later he was successful in bribing a guard and escaping in early 1864, making
his way into Canada.
Secret
Service
In Canada Young went to Toronto
where he enrolled as a student in the University of Toronto. He contacted
Confederate agents there and met with Confederate commissioners Jacob Thompson
and Clement C. Clay. Clay was impressed
with Young and his ideas and gave him letters of endorsement to the Confederate
Secretary of State Judah Benjamin. Young
left Halifax, Nova Scotia in June for Bermuda where he obtained passage on a
blockade runner bound for the last open port of the Confederacy at Wilmington,
North Carolina. At the mouth of the Cape Fear River the blockade runner came
under heavy fire from Union gunboats. Young volunteered to take the place of a
lookout that refused to stay at his post because of the danger. Bennett helped
guide the ship to safety under the guns of Fort Fisher. Traveling to Richmond
he met government authorities and received from Secretary of War James A.
Seddon a commission of first lieutenant in the regular army and approval of his
plans for retaliatory strikes in the North. Young returned to Wilmington and catching
the same blockade runner outbound he sailed to Bermuda. Before leaving he met
Capt. Moffitt, commander of the Confederate raider CSS Florida which was
refitting in the port of St. George. Moffitt offered Young a place on his
ship’s staff which Bennett turned down to return to Canada.
Arriving in Toronto with his orders
Young began gathering a group of escaped Confederate prisoners of war for his
missions. Most of them were Kentuckians of Morgan’s command. Since inflicting
retribution on the North for its treatment of the Southern people seemed one of
the main reasons for his planning he named his unit the “5th Company
Confederate Retributors”. While this band was forming in Canada in August and
September, Lt. Young was sent on other missions where he worked with two former
members from Morgan’s cavalry, Capt. Thomas Hines and Captain John B.
Castleman. Hines had escaped with General Morgan and was now the leader of a
network of agents whose plans included working with the Copperhead movement in
the North and attempts to free Confederate POWs at Camp Douglas, Johnson’s Island
and Camp Chase in Ohio. Young now became a secret agent carrying funds and
information to Hine’s agents in Chicago and New York. These missions were
dangerous and his fate had he been captured would have been execution or a long
imprisonment. None of these operations were successful most of it due to
Federal agents infiltrating the organization and discovering its plans and
arresting Hine’s men.
The St.
Albans Raid
In September Young returned to his
plans to raid the towns in Vermont. The objects of the raid were not only
retribution but to scare the New England populace into asking for military
protection which might divert troops from the front, to sow seeds of doubt in
the Northern voter’s minds on the Lincoln administration’s handling of the war that
might influence the coming presidential election and to use the money taken
from Northern banks to finance Confederate operations in Canada.
Bennett carefully chose twenty-one men, almost
all Kentuckians from Morgan’s command, men he knew he could trust. He did not
want a repeat of the problems that had plagued Hines operations. Young’s men
began referring to the raid as the “Vermont Yankee Scare Party”. St. Albans was
chosen because it was an important rail hub and for its proximity to the
border. Young and his men began traveling in small groups to St. Albans
beginning about a week before the raid. The raid was a desperate affair, many
years later Young in reflection expressed that it was the reckless escapade of
a youth burning with patriotism for the South and wondered that he ever undertook
it. The raid did cause uproar along the border and for a while a tense
situation between the United States and British governments brought the prospect
of trouble. The raid had no lasting effects on the course of the war.
But tactically the raid was a great success.
It was as well planned and executed as any modern “special ops” mission such as
the one that killed Osama Ben Laden. And as bank robbers Young and his men
succeeded in doing something the James-Younger or Dalton gangs never did; the
successful robbery of three banks simultaneously without losing a man. The
amount of money taken would be equivalent to over 3 million dollars today.
There were several comic incidents during the raid. In one of the banks a
nearly deaf ninety years old sat complacently behind a newspaper during the
robbery. After Bennett’s men left the man asked who those “rude young men”
were. In one of the banks Young’s second in command Thomas Collins forced the
bank tellers to raise their hand and swear an oath to the Confederacy. The town
photographer mistook the firing for the celebration of a Union victory. Coming
out of his business just as Young rode by he asked the raiders about the
“celebration”. His answer was a shot over his head from a raider’s pistol. The
Greek fire was great disappointment. Whether due to a faulty mix of ingredients
or the damp condition of the buildings and bridges they attempted to burn only
a single structure, an outhouse, was destroyed.
The raiders rode north breaking into smaller
groups and dividing the money as they crossed the border. Bennett left the
others before they reached the border to take the one wounded raider, Charles Higbee
to a local woman who that was either a Southern sympathizer or was paid to hide
him. Young and his men were mistaken in the belief that any pursuit would halt
at the border and they would be safe. The stubborn Vermonters formed two posses
of citizens and discharged Union soldiers and pursued the raiders across the
border. They alerted Canadian law enforcement officers who began arresting the
exhausted raiders in the places they had stopped for the night. After leaving
Higbee Young made his way by back roads, crossed the border then stopped at a
farmhouse near Freligsburg. While warming himself at the fireplace he was
surprised by the Vermonters. After a brief struggle Young was captured. The
posse was preparing to take him back to St. Albans when he was rescued by
Canadian constables who took into custody saving him from a possible lynching.
Fourteen of the raiders were captured by Canadian authorities along with a
considerable amount of the stolen money.
United
States authorities claimed the raiders were criminals guilty of murder and
robbery. Young claimed that he and his men were Confederate soldiers involved
in an act of war ordered by their government and had broken no laws in Canada. The prisoners were removed to a British
garrison at St. John’s to await an extradition trial. They were removed to
Montreal in November. Canadian public opinion was very favorable to them as
Young as his men were perceived not as the thugs represented by the US
authorities but as articulate, courteous well bred gentlemen from good families
in Kentucky. The prisoners became celebrities and were treated more as guests
than prisoners by their captors.
The trial was front page news. Eminent
Canadian attorneys were hired by the Confederate commissioners. Ironically,
much of the $40,000.00 turned over to the commissioners by the raiders who
escaped capture was used to pay for the captured raiders’ defense. Young kept
up the spirits of his men with tongue in cheek letters to St. Albans. In one letter,
he requested copies of the town’s newspapers be sent to them since they so
enjoyed their editorials on the raid. In another letter sent to the hotel where
he had stayed he apologized for having left without paying his bill. He
enclosed his payment in cash from the Bank of St. Albans.
When the extradition hearings
resumed on December 13th the defense lawyers had found a legal
loophole. The extradition treaty between the Canadian government and the United
States stated that only a warrant signed by the Governor General of Canada could
be used to arrest and extradite the accused. Since the warrants were local, the
court had no legal authority to try the defenders. Unexpectedly and over the
angry objections of the U.S. attorneys the judge agreed and ordered the
defendants released immediately. However Bennett Young and four of his men were
arrested two weeks later under a charge of conducting “uncivilized warfare”
during the raid. After documents received from the Confederate government were
received which confirmed their status as Confederate soldiers under orders of
their government the charge was dismissed but they were held under a new charge
of violating Canadian neutrality. Young himself now acted as their attorney and
claimed his men had no part in the planning of the raid, only himself. His men
were released in April. Young was released on bond and spent the next six
months awaiting trial in Toronto. The charge was finally dropped after the
war’s end for lack of evidence in October, 1865.
Post War Career
Young was finally free but was a man
without a country. He could not return to the United States due to the St.
Albans charges. During his time in Canada he had met and fell in love with
Mattie Robinson. She was the daughter of Rev. Stuart Robinson of Louisville, a
Presbyterian minister who had fled to Canada to avoid being arrested for his
anti-administration and pro-Confederate views. They were married at Niagara
Fall (on the Canadian side) in 1866. His wife died in 1881. They had one child,
a girl Josephine who died at the age of 20.
While in Canada Bennett Young had
found another love; his legal struggles had kindled a desire to study law. Fearing
he would not safe from the United States government who had offered a large
reward for him he decided to move to Great Britain to study international law.
He studied for two years at Queen’s University in Ireland and the University of
Edinburgh in Scotland. Returning briefly to Canada in 1868 he read law under
another pro Confederate exile from Kentucky, Judge Joshua Bullitt. He was finally able to return to Kentucky
under the amnesty offered by President Andrew Johnson in the summer of 1868. Bennett
settled in Louisville and began his law practice.
Bennett Young’s rise in the legal
profession was extraordinary; in five years he was among the most prominent and
sought after attorneys in Louisville. He would be in active practice for fifty
years and would have one of the largest law practices in the South. Later at
the turn of the century he would be legal counselor to Governors William Goebel
and John C. Beckham. Young was a delegate to the state constitutional
convention in 1890 and was instrumental in its construction.
In 1872 Young partnered with another
Louisville attorney and went into the railroad business. Buying a defunct line
they turned it into a profitable business. In the 1880s he formed the
Louisville and Southern Railway. He was often in conflict with the L&N
railroad who was his bitter rival. Under his leadership two notable railroad
bridges were built. One bridge over the Ohio River in Louisville was the
largest of its kind at that time. It was instrumental in increasing
Louisville’s commerce and prosperity in the next decades. The other bridge was
an engineering marvel over the Kentucky River at Tyrone which still stands and
has always been known as “Young’s High Bridge”.
Family Man
and Author
Young remarried in 1895 to Eliza Sharp. They
had two children Eliza and Lawrence. They purchased an old estate south of
Louisville naming it “Youngland”. During his spare time Young loved to garden
and collect prehistoric Native American artifacts. He began writing, having
countless articles published in magazines and journals on religion, law and
history. He was the author of several books including his best known “Confederate
Wizards of the Saddle”. His last book published posthumously was a collection
of children’s stories about “Dr. Gander”, the goose who ruled the barnyard at
Youngland. He was a founding member of the Filson Club. In his personal life he
continued to be a devout Christian, serving as superintendent of his church’s
Sunday School for fifty years. It was said of Bennett Young that he was never
seen to drink intoxicating liquor, use tobacco in any form or utter a word that
would offend a lady.
Humanitarian
Despite his success in the business
and literary fields it was his charity work that shows the true greatness of
his character. He took the lead in establishing the Colored Orphan Home in
Louisville 1879 and served as its president for twenty-five years. He also
helped establish and promote the Booker T. Washington Community Center for the
social welfare of the city’s African American children. He was a leader in improving
race relations and was concerned with the legal rights of African Americans,
sometimes offering his services pro bono if they were too poor to obtain his
services. He helped establish and served as finance manager of a Presbyterian
school for orphan girls in Anchorage. He served as president of the Kentucky
School for the Blind for many years and often entertained its young students
with his stories of the Civil War and Dr. Gander. He helped rescue the
Louisville Free Public Library from bankruptcy in the 1870’s.
Confederate
Veteran
In 1889 Bennett Young joined the
United Confederate Veterans and for the rest of his life was active in all
Confederate veteran affairs throughout Kentucky. He served as Commander of the
Kentucky Division several times and became known as one of the great orators of
the Lost Cause. S. A. Cunningham, the editor of the Confederate Veteran
Magazine said, “no other speaker could move the Confederate heart as this
Kentuckian”. He was the architect of the hugely successful reunions of the UCV
which he brought to Louisville in 1900 and 1905 when the city received thousands
of gray clad old veterans with great fanfare. Lt. Young now became “Colonel”
and then “General” in the ranks of the UCV. In 1912 he was elected Commander in
Chief and was reelected each year until he voluntarily stepped down in 1916. He
was then made honorary Commander in Chief for life.
He was constantly sought after as a
speaker for veteran and memorial occasions. He was chosen to be the speaker for
the South at the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, the
greatest gathering of Blue and Gray veterans ever held. His message was always
one of reconciliation and a reunited country. He partnered with the United
Daughters of the Confederacy on many memorial projects throughout Kentucky.
Just some of the projects in which he was the driving force were: the
Zollicoffer monument at the Mill Springs battlefield, the Nicholasville Confederate
monument, saving the Jefferson Davis Home in Todd County and turning it into a
state park, building of the Jefferson Davis Highway and his greatest monument
work the Jefferson Davis monument at Fairview. This 351 foot high obelisk is
second only to the Washington Monument.
The establishment of Kentucky’s Confederate Soldiers Home in Pewee
Valley would have not been possible without his efforts. During his lifetime
Bennett Young was always concerned with those in life who could not help
themselves. Seeing many of his former comrades in declining heath, financially
unable to support themselves and many with no family to care for them he was
determined to establish a home for them. In 1899 he proposed to the Kentucky
Division of the UCV to establish such place. He was appointed chairman of a
committee to raise the funds and secure the legislature’s approval for a state
operated institution. Young used the success and enthusiasm from the 1900 UCV
reunion as the springboard for establishing the Home. The Home opened in 1902
and until its closing in 1934 it provided comfort for over eight hundred needy
Confederate veterans. From its opening till his death Young served as the
President of the Board of Trustees. No group mourned his passing more than his
comrades of the Home. He can certainly be called the “Father of Kentucky’s
Confederate Soldiers Home”.
Last Days
Bennett Henderson Young never
retired. He was active in his career and his charities until his death. By his
76th birthday in 1918 he had accomplished more than most people will
in several lifetimes. In failing health
that autumn he and his wife traveled to Florida for the winter but his health
continued to decline. He felt the end was near and told his wife and doctor “I
want to die in the Bluegrass State”. He returned to his home in Louisville
where on the afternoon of Sunday, Feb. 23, 1919 he spoke his last words, an
affirmation of his Christian faith; “I am ready. I am ready to cross the border
and be with him I love so well.”
There was a great outpouring of
grief from the many people whose lives he had touched in his city, state and
all over the South. One who knew him expressed it well,
“The passing of General Young from
our midst removes a mighty power, a pillar of strength and a man among men. His
life was full of good deeds. He was a friend of the high and the mighty, saint
and sinner, poor and humble. His heart went out to all men. His deeds of kindness
will live in the hearts who are left to feel his loss… We shall never see his
like again.”
Upon his marker in Cave Hill
Cemetery is the simple inscription “I have kept the faith”.
Sam Flora
Speech
before Orphan Brigade Kinfolk Association Reunion at Pewee Valley, Kentucky on
June 8, 2013.
