THE DEATH OF GENERAL FELIX ZOLLICOFFER

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 General Felix Zollicoffer is another of the prominent people buried in Nashville's Old City Cemetery. He was the first Confederate General to be killed in the Western Theater during the Civil War. Zollicoffer was born in Maury County Tennessee on May 19, 1812 and died January 19, 1862 at the Battle of Fishing Creek Kentucky. It is also called the Battle of Mill Springs. Zollicoffer began learning the printing business at the age of sixteen. He would work at many newspapers over the years. Zollicoffer would also serve in many political offices including the state legislature and three terms as a U.S. Congressman. His only military experience before the Civil War was as a young Lieutenant in the Second Seminole War. He was opposed to secession and voted for Nashvillian John Bell in 1860. In 1861 Zollicoffer attended the Washington Peace Conference which was a last minute effort to avoid the Civil War.

  On May 9, 1861 he was commissioned as a Brigadier General in the State Provisional Army by Governor Isham G. Harris. At the outbreak of the war he was the editor of the Nashville Banner and lived in a house that sat on the same corner where the Tennessee Performing Arts building is today. Zollicoffer was the epitome of a political general that was common in the Civil War. He had little or no military experience. On July 9, 1861 he was transferred to the Confederate Army as a Brigadier General. He was sent to East Tennessee with 4,000 raw troops to suppress anti-Confederate resistance. In September he was sent to capture Cumberland Gap and Eastern Kentucky. He fought in two battles. The battle of Barbourville which was a Confederate victory and Wildcat Mountain, which was a defeat.

  Zollicoffer eventually set up winter quarters at Mill Springs Kentucky. By this time he was superseded by Confederate General George Crittenden and was assigned to command of a brigade. The South bank of the Cumberland river was a good defensive position. The North bank, however; was low and flat which was a poor defensive position. Zollicoffer was ordered to move to the South bank. He refused because he didn't have enough boats to cross over quickly. Zollicoffer was afraid that he would be attacked while crossing the Cumberland. It was almost dusk and raining on January 19, 1862 when he was attacked by Union General George H. Thomas. During the battle Zollicoffer and an aide ran upon a Union Officer in the dark. Union Colonel Speed S. Fry was surveying the battlefield. Thinking Fry was another Confederate officer Zollicoffer ordered him not to fire on his own men. Fry tried to escape and was shot at by Zollicoffer's aide. The aide missed Fry but managed to kill his horse. Fry and other Union soldiers shot Zollicoffer dead. There were accounts that Zollicoffer's body was abused by Union soldiers. Union soldiers cut off pieces of his uniform and hair as souvenirs. Captain John Free wrote the following eyewitness account.

Capt. John W. Free, Co. A, 31st Ohio Infantry, in a letter dated "Camp near Somerset, Ky., January 26, 1862"; Perry County Weekly, New Lexington, Ohio, February 5, 1862 (transcribed by Jo An Sheely.

" I visited the tent where Zollicoffer's dead body lay. The soldiers divided his garments among them as trophies, and even plucked his hair from his head, until orders were imperatively given not to do so any more. But his pants and the fine buckskin shirt, is no doubt scatered all over the different States of the North as some 4 or 5 different states were here represented".

Union officers eventually took control of the body and he was treated with respect from that point on. Zollicoffer was embalmed by Union forces and sent back to Nashville where he was buried in Nashville's City cemetery.








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