Bracken County Home Guard at Cynthiana

While doing research for a book project, I was able to obtain a listing of Bracken County men who served in a Home Guard company that saw action at the First Battle of Cynthiana on July 17th, 1862. This is one part of Bracken County’s Civil War history that is not often told and hence it might be interesting to those who read the blog.

As you may know, the Home Guard was the Union response to the southern leaning State Guard. The Home Guard members would be called for duty during times of crisis, and were not well trained, well equipped, nor well armed. They would be closer in function and experience to the militia of the American Revolution than to the regulars of the United States Army. Many members of the Home Guard were men usually too old for regular or volunteer service.

William A. Pepper, serving as captain of the Bracken County Home Guard during the summer of 1862, wrote out a listing of the men that served in this small company. Based on burial locations most of these men came from the Johnsville district. Pepper, who in 1862 was fifty-four years old, was an older brother of Andrew Jackson Pepper, already featured in a previous blog post.

On July 4th, 1862, John H. Morgan launched his First Kentucky Raid. There were not many Federal troops in the state of Kentucky to effectively mount a pursuit, so Home Guard companies were mustered into emergency service and a few of them, including the one from Bracken County, were thrust in front of Morgan’s path as he maneuvered from Georgetown towards Cynthiana. The men from Bracken County gathered together and left the county on Tuesday, July 15th. John J. Landram was in command at Cynthiana, and on the afternoon of July 17th placed Pepper’s company among the brick and frame structures in the town, these buildings serving as defenses.

Morgan’s command reached Cynthiana in the afternoon of the 17th, a hot and dry Thursday. Pepper’s men were to see their first (and for some their last) military action. Defending the buildings they thwarted Morgan’s men as they tried to cross the river until finally yielding and falling back, building to building, towards the rail depot along the Kentucky Central Rail Road. After about an hour of fighting, the Union troops surrendered and were paroled on that same day. The Bracken County men, those that had to make the return journey to their homes, did so in many cases shorn of shoes as the Confederates forced the men to give them up, causing many a bloody foot walking on the rocky Oddville pike. Shoes were not the only things the men lost. Pepper would write to Kentucky state adjutant general John W. Finnell, “The property lost is 2 Revolvers 1 sword 2 drums 42 Government guns which Cost us $125 each the revolvers 20 each[.]” (Pepper’s writing is filled with misspelled words and missing punctuation) Men were also relieved of coats and hats. In this condition the company returned to Bracken County on July 20th.

The following men were noted by Pepper as having been wounded or killed at Cynthiana:

Fourth Sergeant George Walker - killed in battle

Private P. B. Boughner - killed

Private Cris [Christian] Lether [Lederer} - wounded in two places

Private William Hile - wounded in the thigh

Private Henry Hires - killed while on picket

Some of the men in the Home Guard company, like Benjamin Jackson and J. R. Robinson would go on to join Kentucky volunteer units and see service on other battlefields, but in every case the men of the Bracken County Home Guard would remember their first military action at Cynthiana.