The June 1862 capture of the Cumberland Gap was a Union victory during the American Civil War leading to Union occupation of the Cumberland Gap for three months.
The Confederates held a long line of fortifications across Kentucky, Tennessee and into Missouri under Albert Sidney Johnston. The center of Johnston's defenses was Bowling Green, KY with the left flank anchored at Island No. 10 on the Mississippi River and the right held by Brig. Gen. Felix Zollicoffer at the Cumberland Gap.
In early 1862 the Union Army had met with great success in the Western Theater. A string of victories at Mill Springs, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Island No. 10, and Shiloh had broken the Confederate defenses at several key points, and both Zollicoffer and Johnston had died in action (at Mill Springs and Shiloh respectively).
7th Division, Army of the Ohio - Brig. Gen. George W. Morgan
1st Battalion, Kentucky Cavalry - Lt. Col. Reuben J. Munday
Independent Company, Kentucky Engineers - Capt. William F. Patterson
Stevenson's Division - Brig. Gen. Carter L. Stevenson
3rd Georgia Battalion - Lt. Col. Marcellus A. Stovall
Tennessee (Rhett) Battery - Capt. William H. Burroughs
In March 1862 Brig. Gen. George W. Morgan sent a brigade under Brig. Gen. Samuel P. Carter against the eastern end of the Confederate defenses at the Cumberland Gap. These defenses were now held by Col. James Edward Rains after Zollicoffer's defeat and death at Mill Springs. The Confederate works were considered too formidable to be taken by direct assault and Carter's force lacked sufficient artillery to match the well placed Confederate batteries.
By April, General Morgan was moving against the gap with the remaining three brigades of his division. Morgan's force now included the brigades of Carter, James G. Spears, John F. DeCourcy and Absalom Baird along with a brigade of artillery and cavalry. Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Carter L. Stevenson brought up the remaining brigades of Seth Maxwell Barton and T.H. Taylor to Col. Rain's defense. Morgan proposed to Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell that Chattanooga be threatened in order to force the Confederates to pull their strength away from the Cumberland Gap. At the same time General Edmund Kirby Smith, Confederate commander in eastern Kentucky, proposed a threat against Nashville to draw Union forces away from the gap. Only Morgan got his wish. A Union division under Brig. Gen. James S. Negley attacked Chattanooga on June 7, 1862. This demonstration against Chattanooga was small but it proved the Union forces could strike where they wanted. It was enough for Kirby Smith to reconsider Stevenson's position at the Cumberland Gap.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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