Episode Guest
Andrew Miller – Chief of Interpretation & Resource Management
Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument
Park Stats
- Location: Nancy, Kentucky
- Date created: September 22, 2020
- President when the park was created: Donald J. Trump
- Park size: 647 acres
- Visitors in previous year (2024): 8,579
- Field Notes:
- This battle, taking place on January 19, 1862, was one of the rare winter battles during the Civil War
- First major victory of the West.
- Soldiers from 8 states took part in the battle
- Several areas in the monument are on the National Register of Historic Places, including: the Confederate Mass Grave Monument in Somerset, KY, Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer Monument, West-Metcalfe House, and Mill Springs National Cemetery.
Speed Round
What is your earliest park memory?
Probably my parents bringing me to the FDR home in Hyde Park, New York. We had lived across the river in Highland, New York.
What made you love the parks?
I think a passion for preservation. I’m a history geek. When it came down to it, I ell into the whole Cannonball Ranger thing, but the more parks you work in and the broader the mission, you understand that mission holistically.
What is your favorite thing about Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument?
We have some staff that grew up in the park. And they saw the association preserve this place from the ground up. They truly are the torch carriers. Their parents were helped in that. Their parents donated their effort, their blood, their sweat, their tears. They’ve donated money to the association and here they are now contributing as National Park Service employees. And they’re going to continue that legacy far beyond my career. And they’re going to carry that legacy and truly build this place into what it’s supposed to be. And watching them develop and grow as rangers, and just as people in general has been, really the honor of my life is to be able to lead them.
What is your favorite thing to do at Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument?
Any single opportunity to talk to the visitors when they walk in. Going out into the (park) and walking around and, wrapping my mind around what happened on the battlefield, but meeting visitors, making those visitor contacts and them asking you these really thoughtful and insightful questions and being able to get them to have that aha moment.
This is what national parks are for people to come together and have these amazing opportunities to connect with one another. That’s what it’s all about.
What park have you yet to visit but is on your bucket list and why?
I haven’t been west of the Mississippi to the see those battlefields. That is a bucket list thing. I haven’t done Wilson’s Creek and, I’d like to at least check off the Civil War bucket list.
I’ve never been to Rocky (Mountain National Park). I’d like to go see Rocky and do a full on National Park tour, making my way there. That would be really cool. Mount Rainier is another one I haven’t seen that I would love to see.
So, , it’s just a matter of time.
What are three must-haves you pack for a park visit?
- First Aid Kit
- Water
- Map
What is your favorite campfire activity?
We’re a pretty musical family, so I would say playing the guitar and singing would be fun. Yeah. Just sitting around and noodling on, on having everybody sing would be it.
Tent, camper, or cabin?
I like all of them. I would do all of them. I’m probably gonna go with the cabin. Yeah. I mean, it seems to fit my thing where I like to be out in nature until I don’t, so I’m cool with it.
Hiking with or without trekking poles?
I’m one of those, “oh, poles are dumb. They’re really stupid.” people. And I went down to the Grand Canyon and had the fear struck into me. We got a permit. We went to Phantom Ranch, and they’re all like, “Where are your polls?” Because I have my pack. And I’m like, I don’t need that. They said, “dude, yes you do.” And I was like, “ah, right, whatever.
I want to preface this with, I was working at the Statue of Liberty and I’d worked in a lot of urban national parks. And so for me to try to understand that I was below the Statue of Liberty at that point in the Grand Canyon kind of blew my mind.
They gave me polls, and thank God they did because it changed my perspective and I don’t know if I would ever hike without poles anymore.
And what is your favorite trail snack?
Something salty and a PB&J.
What is the favorite animal sighting that you’ve had?
My grandmother lives in Canada, near Ottawa. When I was a kid I saw a Lynx one time, and I thought that was the coolest thing.
I went and bought an Ottawa Lynx hat. I remember this was like 1992, and I had this Ottawa Lynx hat because I thought that was the coolest thing I ever saw.
What is your favorite sound in the parks?
I love to hear owls and different birds.
What is the greatest gift the parks give to us?
A place of reflection. I’ve heard great stories about survival and life and hardship and people that found themselves at their lowest point and that they just needed a place to go to be able to reflect and unwind or just have some semblance of peace.
Episode Transcript
- This battlefield helps to tell the story of Kentucky’s role in the Civil War. The Commonwealth’s commitment to neutrality eventually faded and led to one of the few winter battles. Join me as we explore Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument. I’m your host, Missy Rentz, and this is the Parks podcast.Missy: In today’s episode, I am joined by Andrew Miller, who is the chief of Interpretation at Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument. Andrew, welcome to the Parks podcast.Andrew: Thanks, Missy.Missy: So let’s start with some park stats and introduce people to a relatively new part of the National Park Service. Mill Springs Battlefield is located in Nancy, Kentucky. It was created on September 22nd, 2020 during Donald Trump’s first term as president. The park is 647 acres, and in 2024 there were 8,579 visitors to the monument. Some interesting facts. This battle taking place January 19th, 1862 was one of the rare winter battles in the Civil War. It was the first major victory of the West. Soldiers from eight states took place in these battles. And several areas in the monument area are on the National Registry of Historic Places, including the Confederate Mass Grave Monument in Somerset, Kentucky General, Felix k Zla Coffer Monument, the West Met Metcalf House and Mill Springs National Cemetery. Andrew, this is such, a unique park and it was probably my first experience visiting such a young park.Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, most people when they go to national park sites expect, certain type of signage, a certain approach, a certain feel. When you get there, you’re looking for the arrowhead everywhere, and you’re looking for this large presence and everything that comes with a National Park site, whether it’s urban or rural, or one of the premier sites or even smaller ones, you’re expecting to see all of this stuff, and a new site doesn’t have all that.Missy: No. And it was really cool the visitor center is amazing. That feels, very new. It’s spectacular. But throughout the rest of the park, there isn’t, I guess I’m gonna, I’m gonna call it the polish, but I don’t wanna say that in a way that detracts from it.’cause it’s really cool and the history is still told. But you really do understand that a park, there’s not like a ribbon cutting and it’s all open. It’s an evolution.Andrew: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that’s important, to remember that every single national park from the original one in Yellowstone all the way to today, everyone has been built up from the ground up. And, that includes, other national military sites or other battlefields or other places of historic or natural significance. Every single one of them has their story of what happened there and what makes them nationally significant and why there was some sort of enabling legislation to create and preserve it. But. You have that aspect of it. And then you have, Hey, where do we put bathrooms? How do we get the people here? Or how do you put signage on highways? How do you develop a unique grid brochure that self guides people through it? All of these tiny little facets, which we sort of take for granted because they’re just supposed to be there. They’re supposed to, you created the Congress, created a park and they plop everything down, and it’s like Legos. Like you build it up fast and there it is. And it’s like, no, that’s definitely not how it happens. For any listeners out there that have gone to some of the newer places especially parks that have been created within the past five years, they’ve seen some with amazing infrastructure that exists, like Mill Springs Battlefield, which we were very fortunate to accept to other news sites, which are. Just a lone wayside in a field that is commemorating the story as they develop the park and as they come up with maybe a general management plan or, or they just go through the hiring process of building out their staff. There’s a lot that goes into it.
Missy: And, you’re very dependent on the work that was done prior to it becoming a park. And we talk about some of these parks and how there’s friends of organizations and there’s all these groups that were really advocating for the park and doing maybe sometimes the work of the park long before Congress actually said, now this is part of the National Park Service.
Andrew: Yeah, I think that a lot of these places, start with grassroots act, you know, activity or just generally local people who have a passion for preserving these places. And I would harken back to our forebearers, the veterans themselves. This is specific for, battlefields and specifically, so American Civil War Battlefields, is that the veterans were the ones that came together, and reconciled their differences in the 1880s and 1890s through a variety of veterans organizations, et cetera. But when it came time to understanding the impact of the American Civil War on our nation’s history, they recognized that there were significant places where blood was shed and people lost their lives, and that they had to come together to. Develop a plan for commemorating them. And that’s that grassroots thing. It starts with individuals and like anything else, we go from enthusiastic 18 year olds, 20 year olds, people who are passionate. Those are the soldiers to graying old men that are now congressmen and senators, governors, lawyers, people of influence in the United States that use, that influence to sway the public into, helping acknowledge and then preserve these places of national significance. Talking in a broader scheme of national parks in general, and then boiling down to Civil War battlefields. And it’s that type of grassroots effort that initiates the first five national military parks, chickamauga, Chattanooga Shiloh, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg. And then throughout the 20th century, incorporating a dozen or so more battlefields, right? So there’s that legacy that was carried through the centennial of the 1960s into people recognizing that as the nation continued to grow, that there was significant, encroachment on civil war battlefields and Revolutionary War battlefields. Creek war Battlefields, war of 18, 12 battlefields, all of these things were in danger of being lost. And, people need places to live. They need housing, they need infrastructure. They need amenities. The communities need to grow. But that encroachment, that growth was impacting very significant hallowed ground. And so a list came out in the late 1980s, of the 10 most endangered civil war battlefields. And this area. Near Nancy Kentucky referred to as Mill Springs. Battlefield was one of the top 10 most endangered battlefields. Local citizens in this area took it upon themselves to put together an association, the Mill Springs Battlefield Association. And it’s through their effort of not only, recognizing the need, putting it all together, organizing themselves through a grassroots effort, and chasing after, grants through the National Park Service, the American Battlefield Protection Program specifically, but a variety of other national, state and local, fund sources to build this battlefield up, acquire the land, and officially preserve it. And that’s significant because this, these people before the National Park Service got here are the ones that did it. They literally did it. The National Park Service did not come in and preserve this land. We are now the torch carriers. We are the people that are fortunate enough to be able to take the legacy of the veterans first, who fought here, and the people that came after them that preserved this, place of significance. And now we get to develop it even further. Organize it in a multifaceted way as a national park should be, promote the heck out of it. So people come here and then, watch as it grows and blossoms into, what we think the veterans would’ve wanted it to be, which is what it probably looked like at the time period of the war.
Missy: It is interesting’cause when you’re doing the driving tour, at more established parks, it’s all battlefield. And here you’re driving past people’s homes and as I was doing it, certainly soaking up the history, but then I was thinking, what must it be like to live on? A former battlefield
Andrew: right, exactly. And, that’s would be another, case in point. I don’t think, that’s unique to this battlefield either. I know you’ve probably seen many battlefields on your travels and obviously things like this where, you could go to Fredericksburg and see that the majority of that battlefield is totally taken up with urban sprawl. Another classic case would be, Murfreesboro in Tennessee where Stones River. The battle that happened there, I think, encompassed 6,000 acres of fighting. And they’re reduced. I don’t even know, to a thousand maybe. I don’t even know if they’re that big. So it gives you an idea of what was lost if preservation doesn’t happen, they created that park, I believe, in the 1920s. The place was still rural. I think the local mentality there was obviously that, we’re never gonna grow, right? But obviously Nashville grew and Murphysboro is now considered a satellite, suburb of that. And everybody went there, and then Middle Tennessee State University blew up and all that other stuff. Kennesaw Mountain would be another battlefield. It’s the largest green space, in Atlanta. And so now I think they get 1.1 or 1.2 million visitors a year just to recreate. And all of the land around the preserved part of that battlefield, is just completely built up with many mansions and things like that. So, to your point, tons of people there live on hallowed ground and live on places where the battle was being fought there. So I think it’s unique. I think the difference would be that, this area of Kentucky is so rural, it’s been, it’s both, a blessing in that we are able to preserve and conserve this place. But at the same time, you kind of feel a little out in the, the middle of nowhere,
Missy: Yeah.
Andrew: Somewhat, which is again, there’s pros and cons to
Missy: I did feel like I was within an hour and a half of really great things in that area. Okay. So I wanna, I wanna talk about the battle.
Andrew: Yeah.
Missy: tell me about the battle and what role it played in the Civil War.
Andrew: I think that’s a great question. For your listeners. Most people when they think of the Civil War, think of Gettysburg. That is another National Park site. Or they may think of Vicksburg in Mississippi. But the Civil War battles not in a vacuum. There not one single event. We like to pretend, but not one single event impacts the whole war. We look for simplicity and how we teach history so that we can easily say this happened and this happened, and then this happened. Cause and effect. But this battle that transpires in present day, Nancy Kentucky, it probably shouldn’t have never happened, but through the course of the events during the Civil War does, and it has such a massive impact on how the Civil War was going to progress west of the Appalachian Mountain range, that I don’t think people on both sides were really prepared for its outcome. Plans were set in place, armies collided here, but at the end of the day, the impact it has, truly could be considered a watershed moment. And that everything changes after this battle. And, that in a nutshell is why it’s nationally significant enough to become a National Park site. That would be the one question, why is that a park, right? Because of its significance and impact on our nation’s history. The two respective states, Kentucky and Tennessee are considered sister states. When the Civil War erupts, the first state to secede is South Carolina, is followed by several other states, most of which are very deep southern states. The cotton belt as we would call it. But, as those states seceded and are preparing themselves to self govern, both in individually as a state and then considering a confederacy to link these states, there are four other northern upper southern states that, are debating secession debating on leaving the nation. There’s a lot of reasons for that. Many of the people in these states are constitutionalists and they believe in this nation and they don’t necessarily wanna give up on it. And they’ve already seen these other states go and they’re being wooed and coerced into trying to leave with them. You’re with us, you’re southern states, you should be with us. But many of the people that lived there didn’t believe in that. And with the firing of Fort Sumter on April 12th, 1861, that is where the hostilities truly kick off. There had been minor events before that that you could consider, but when the insurgents in Charleston fire upon a United States military installation Fort Sumter, the war is officially begun. And it’s at that moment where many of these upper southern states do a 180. I mean, again, there are people in the state like we need to go. Most of the other ones were saying, no, no, no. We need to hold, hold strong to the constitution. When the firing starts, they change their tune. And the final state to secede in the southwest Tennessee on, June 8th, 1861. So it gives you an idea of context June 8th. So the firing had happened in April. It’s now June. And the secession delegates had come to Kentucky to also woo and sway this commonwealth into seceding. The governor himself, boffin, was a pro secessionist governor, but the vast majority of the people that lived in Kentucky were not, they remained steadfast to the union, the government, and the constitution. So. Abraham Lincoln said that while I hope to have God on my side, I must have Kentucky because it is a truly buffer between the, what we call the Midwest, but what they refer to as the Old Northwest, the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa. These states, which were union states, were above the Ohio River and Kentucky would now serve as this buffer between Tennessee, which has seceded in these pro-union states. And so it was very important to hold on to Kentucky and really politically try to bend and move with them depending on which way the wind blew. And obviously, Abraham Lincoln is very adept at this as a lawyer, as a politician. He understands that while Kentucky may be very pro-union. It’s also a slave state. And so he is got this very tenuous, situation that he’s gotta work on. All that to be said that the Confederates will eventually be concerned about Union enlistment that’s happening in their state. They know that arms or weapons are being brought into the state to arm these pro-union factions. And so Confederate authorities in Tennessee will march men into the western power of the state to fortify Columbus, Kentucky. And that nullifies the official stance of Kentucky, which had been neutral this entire time. We don’t wanna do anything, we don’t want anything to do with this f recital Civil war. I always say this for those listeners old enough to remember Yosemite Sam, with his two pistols facing both directions. That’s Kentucky. I mean, if you remove the pistols and you put, Colonel Sanders with two pistols. Maybe that’s it. But realistically, they had two pistols pointing at both sides. Leave us alone. And when the confederates march that force into the western part of the state, the state legislature, in Frankfurt decides that they are now, this whole neutrality thing is done. We’ve been invaded. We are now aligning ourselves with the Constitution and the Lincoln administration, and we are officially declaring ourselves for the government. However, there is no, while they do that, this state still remains in limbo. In September as the state, the general, assembly in Frankfurt has decided to go with aligning themselves with the north, a Confederate general named Felix Koli Coffer, who had been tasked with controlling the pro unionist of Eastern Tennessee. And had been sent there to declare a martial law and really suppress pro unionism in the eastern part of the state has assembled a large force on the border near the Cumberland Gap, another National Park site by the way. When he hears obviously that the state assembly, the general assembly in Frankfurt has decided to go with the Lincoln administration. He marches his force and invades the Commonwealth in that direction. And Zali Coffer is this unique individual that, has no professional military background, but he has the kind of influence that you see many officers have in the beginning of the Civil War. So whereas both the Union and Confederate governments are looking for those individuals that, they are. Looking for professionally military trained individuals to lead their armies. There’s just not that many of them at least qualified, so they start looking for important influential figures. And Felix Ley Coffer is one of them. He had been a US politician before the Civil War. He was a newspaper editor. And, this guy, had a lot of influence on the people of Tennessee, by the way. He was a wig. He was not a Democrat and he was not a Republican. He was a wig before the Republican Party really became, a viable political entity. He was very much when all the secession talk was going on in the state of Tennessee was saying, no, we must remain loyal to the Constitution of the United States. And when the shooting started and Lincoln calls for volunteers to suppress the rebellion in the southern states, Zali Kaufer is one of those people in Tennessee that does that 180 flips on his head and says, no, we must prepare to defend ourselves. And he becomes one of those people.
Missy: And did I read this correctly that like Lincoln was very savvy. He, he publicly really, talked about and respected the neutrality and yet provided arms so Kentucky could protect itself.
Andrew: Yep. Secretly, yes.
Missy: Yeah. But then in the end, it was really a fantastic strategic move because, he was getting Kentucky on his side.
Andrew: Right.
Missy: That a right interpretation of what I’ve read?
Andrew: I think it’s very fair. Lincoln, understood that the United States government couldn’t really officially interfere with that neutrality because again, he needs Kentucky. He’s also Kentucky by birth. Whether that played any impact or not, who’s to say really, but his wife, was a Kentuckian. And of course her family lived in Lexington. And he understood the individuals and who they really were in, the state. And he understood that while they may be pro-union, they are also slave holders and the elite are. He understands that, racial equality may not necessarily be on top of everybody’s list in Kentucky, nor was it anywhere in the United States at the time period. So that doesn’t, it just is what it is. But there, I think what he understood was that there were people that were willing to fight for the union, a lot of them. And so how does he utilize that without tripping over this neutrality thing? And he sent a couple of naval lieutenants, one an Eastern Tennessean. He sent that to that man to Eastern Tennessee. And he sent a Kentuckian, to, his home, to start to influence and enlist. Men for the union cause and that individual’s name was William Bull Nelson. And Nelson was, a 300 pound, about as Navy as it gets. And people knew that. And yet they, he was a natural leader and whether he may not, he was a little coarse in how he said things and expected things outta people. That was just his rigid military background as a, lieutenant in the United States Navy. And he was commissioned a general in the army, so unusual right there, leaving his, his naval background to become a, an army officer. Nelson really sets up the first major training facility for Union soldiers, which is near Camp Nelson, another national park site that was gonna keep hitting these national park
Missy: It’s a great story up there too.
Andrew: So that, that was called Camp Dick Robinson, and it was really the first official training facility for Union soldiers. And many of the individuals that fight at the Battle of Mill Springs that were from Kentucky, that’s where they go because that was a place of safe haven, not only for Pro-Union Kentuckians, which is obvious, Hey, just go up the road to Camp Dick Robinson. And, you’re gonna be trained and organized and uniformed and you’ll be in the army. But for those Eastern Tennesseans, the men that were placed under martial law, through threats of violence, up to including loss of property, arrest, and maybe even death, these people in the beginning of the Civil War are so fearful for their lives that they become refugees. From their homes. They leave their wives, they leave their sisters, they leave their mothers and fathers, and they flee through the Cumberland Gap or any other egress through the mountain range to come to the safety of Kentucky and really to the folds of the US Army at Camp Dick Robinson. So we were talking about a massive refugee of trying to bring their families here. And these individuals will be organized, trained, and will eventually end up on the battlefield here at Mill Springs, fighting Tennessean.
Missy: What role did winter play, we mentioned it in the facts. What, how’d that impact this battle?
Andrew: absolutely. Weather. There’s some great books, out there on just weather and the American Civil War. But armies didn’t campaign in the wintertime. If you harken back to Napoleon going to Russia in the middle of winter and losing his entire army, it’s just not a smart decision. And so generally it was just considered that armies hunkered in and they built, their encampments, their winter quarters, and they would just train and subsist or eat and wait until the spring thaw. Just like all of us, if anybody that doesn’t live in Miami, or maybe Vicksburg, Mississippi, new Orleans, y’all think cold’s cold when it turns 40, 50 degrees. Anybody that lives in Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, and Canada, it’s cold. It gets cold in the wintertime. We all hunker in. If you’re from the north and you dread winter. Everybody does the same thing. They do two things. They probably drink whiskey and they just sit in their side and look out the window for five months. That’s about all that you can do when you live up north. But that’s what the soldiers were gonna do. It just didn’t make any sense. The roads would either be frozen solid with, all these ruts and things which weren’t good for, humans walking on it. It definitely wasn’t good for any animals walking on it for long periods of time. They would break the axles and wheels of wagons, artillery, et cetera. It just doesn’t make sense. So winter battles are rare?
Missy: Why did it happen then? Why did they do it then rather than, waiting.
Andrew: Yeah. Soly coffer entered the state. He was marauding around disrupting all these union camps. He fights a battle near London, Kentucky called the Battle of Wildcat. Mountain or Camp Wildcat, he loses the battle and he’s forced to retreat back into his home state of Tennessee. He looks for a place, as the winner’s coming. It’s November, right? Oh, the ominous winner in Kentucky is upon us, and he must look for a good, viable place to have a winner encampment for his men. He finds on the bend of the Cumberland River, a small locale called Mill Springs. Mill Springs sat on the, bend of the Cumberland River on the south side. It had good fertile farmland, flattened level with, with multitudes of streams that fed to, a really good mill for producing corn and flour meal. And, just about anything an army would need to subsist off, during the wintertime. And so when he arrives, the third week of November, he’s establishing his men and they’re starting to organize and build their winter encampment. And he immediately decides to send the majority of his force across the Cumberland River, to a place called Beach Grove. And Beach Grove is part of the, park here. And he is thinking that if he has both of his men on both sides of the river, he can spread his camps out, improve the health, but really control the river itself. And when we think of civil war battles, we try to simplify. The Army’s marched there and they fought, you need to think about logistics. How do things get to places back then, and the railroad was not what it would become. In fact, in the early parts of the Civil War, especially in the Southern states, many of the gauge system or the width of rails differed. So you needed different engines and different train cars on some of these places because that enabled private railroad industries to, to kind of keep it privatized, Hey, you can’t get on my rail line’cause it’s different than his rail line and he can’t get on yours and you gotta come under mine if you want to go to this place. So anyway, the point I’m making is that, river traffic still dominates the logistics of the Civil War and the Cumberland River, which is just a tributary of the Mississippi, right? All these large rivers, the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, the Missouri, the Arkansas, the white, the red, all of these big large rivers are tributaries, right? Coming into the Mississippi River. So the Cumberland River is going to be a means of not only conveying large amounts of food and ammunition and forage for horses, but it’s also a direct communication line to Nashville those that come here to this area. And they’re familiar with this part of Kentucky. They’re very familiar with Lake Cumberland. We go to Lake Cumberland all the time for house boating and fun and, jet skiing and fishing. But it wasn’t always Lake Cumberland, it was just part of the Cumberland River. That once they, they damned it, that changed sort of this whole area and what it looks like. But this river will float all the way to Nashville. And so Z Coffer is thinking, I have a direct communication line. I can get all the stuff I need, my army’s spread out. Yay. And the unit Army, the authorities in Louisville recognize that soy coffer is hunkered down, but. He’s not that important to them. Their purview is, yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll get to East Tennessee maybe. But it’s just not that area of Kentucky and Tennessee is not good for military operations. There’s not enough food for an army. There’s not enough space. The roads are bad.
Missy: I would think the terrain, they’re so mountainous, it’d be hard to get to it.
Andrew: yes. It’s terrible. And so they were like, no, no. We wanna go to Bowling Green, where it’s nice and flat and fertile. And then we get to Bowling Green and we take Bowling Green and we push the Confederates out of there. We’re gonna go to Nashville. and. So, the unit authorities aren’t really worried about Sy coffer until they start getting these very alarming messages. A union officer had been sent to Somerset, Kentucky with his men Alban Shaw. And Schoff is like, whoa, there’s a lot of guys here and I’m gonna get cut off and I’m gonna get captured. We gotta do something. And it really puts the bug in the, in the authorities in Louisville, and they decide to send, George Thomas, the Union General and his large division of Union soldiers, and they’re going to begin a march from Lebanon, Kentucky to Columbia, Kentucky, and then from Columbia, Kentucky. They’re gonna move east to Somerset. And so that begins on January 1st, 1862 and for 17 grueling days, that weather you talked about the wintertime, has a massive impact on those guys, the union soldiers. The Confederates have hunkered in. They’re, they’ve pretty much completed their winter quarters. They’re imbibing, they’re hunting, they’re gathering food. They’re just surviving there in their little fortification north of the river. The unit army is marching day by day by day, and it really should have taken them about a week to get to Somerset. It takes’em 17 days. So the roads are muddy. They’re bad, they’re terrible. The men are dragging the wagons, dragging the canons through the mud, the mire. They get to a stream that they should be able to walk across, and it’s just a flooded fresh it. They’re washing bridges out, it’s terrible. And they’re having to re bridge those things and keep crossing. And when they arrive at Logan’s crossroads, which is Nancy today, they do exactly what the Confederates were doing. They’re going to spread out their camp, and it’s pouring, been pouring rain on them for days. So they’re soaked and they just want to be warm. And they just want to exist and they just want to sleep. And all the things that we can truly appreciate, know, if anybody’s ever camped and it’s been, sopping wet from rain and they start a fire and they just wanna be warm, that’s what those guys were going through. They’re like, this, this army thing stink. This is not for me. Maybe this isn’t for me. I don’t know. I’m just muddy all the time and wet all the time, and hungry all the time. So these guys are just postulating. They’re, They’re figuring each other out. The union, Thomas in command is like, okay, I guess we’re probably gonna have to march down this road and just attack the Confederates and we’re gonna lose a lot of men. But I think we can do it. And why the battle happens is this, the Confederates, that were down in their encampment. On the north side of, the Cumberland River, Zali Coffer is superseded, so he actually gets a boss, and his boss’s name is George Crittendon. Crittendon is a very famous Kentucky name. Crittenden’s father had been one of the influential politicians in Washington City trying to keep the war from actually happening. His one son joins the unit Army as a general. His other son, George, aligns himself with the Confederacy. And so George Criden arrives in January. He sees the situation. He’s very concerned that the Confederates are on both sides of the river. It’s a recipe for disaster. And now he knows that the unit Army’s on their way. And when they start to arrive on January 17th, the unit Army arrives at Logan’s Crossroads. Corin is so concerned that he calls a Council of war on the 18th and says, we gotta do something before they get all their men here. And it’s almost unanimous that these guys are going to get all of their men together. They’re gonna march up the road and they’re gonna surprise the Union Army on January 19th. It’s out of fear. It’s out of the dire situation that Zoll Coffer has really put them in. They’re also starting to run out of food. There’s a lot of circumstances of why this battle happens and for the Union Army, I just don’t think that they, I think they really figured the Confe just stay, stay put. That is the logical thing to do, but that’s not what happens.
Missy: And they would have all winter to prepare. That’s fascinating. Let’s talk a little bit about planning a trip to, mill Springs. How do you recommend somebody start in planning to come to Mill Springs?
Andrew: Yeah, the best thing to do, you can do one of two things. One is to go on the Parks website. So the parks website is www dot nps, so National Park Service, www.nps.gov/mi sp p. So that will take you to our Parks website. You can also go to Google and type in Mill Springs Battlefield. You can go through the website and plan your visit there. It’ll give you the list of the activities. It will give you, very basic generic information, how to plan your visit. That would include your operating hours, current conditions, weather. FAQs. There’s directions on how to get here, there’s things to do. Our calendar, if you’re looking for a specific type of programmer on there, safety, accessibility. And then there’s just information on the, if you’re like, okay, I wanna go. And you can also do that on the website as well.
Missy: It does link a lot to like the people. So you get a sense of it. And so I think you can definitely do that. But I also wanna say this is one of those parks where if you see the brown sign on the highway and you just wanna get off, this is a great park to do that. I got there, I, I went into the visitor center, talk to you and your colleagues, and then made my way through the museum area and the visitor center and felt so informed. There are a lot of parks where I encouraged do your pre-planning, but this is one of those where you would have just as great of a time if you saw the brown sign and decided I’m ready for a pit stop. And they, came over.
Andrew: I agree too. I do think that that’s a good thing about this park here is, one, you’re gonna see me, but you’re gonna see the rangers. They’re accessible and they are so willing to give you, a little information or a lot, whatever you’re looking for that fits your specific need. That’s what we’re here for. And we have that ability because we are new and small and we’re passionate and excited and all that good stuff.
Missy: Yeah. And I will say I got there right when you opened, and so I feel like I had you all to myself for a while. I got so much information and great storytelling. And then, you know, an hour later there was competition for me and there were more things, but, but great demonstrations and, great conversation. I think that is wonderful. What are people gonna see when they visit?
Andrew: Yeah, when you come here, we’re fortunate to have that infrastructure from the former association. There is a comprehensive museum, with, really amazing exhibits and displays, a lot of artifacts pertaining to the Civil War. Many of them pertaining specifically to, the battle itself. There’s archeology that was done here. So there’s artifacts from the battlefield in the museum. Our park film, we have a 20 minute orientation film for visitors to watch so that they can get really the nuts and bolts of why this place is important. The park itself is discontinuous in that it’s not, all encompassing. You go to the visitor center and then you, can utilize a variety of different interpretive media. The National Park Services app can take you around the battlefield. You would go to the core battlefield. There’s hiking trails on the battlefield. There’s wayside exhibits to read on the battlefield. There’s, several monuments on the battlefield, from the early 20th century. And then you would drive down the road to go to the confederate winter encampment site, which is about nine miles down the road. So you’re going from downtown Nancy area where the battle was fought, and then you follow the root of March. Or when I say the pursuit, when the confederates were lost, the battle and they were routed and, running away, getting, getting back to their fortification, the Union Army pursued’em down the road that you drive down. I mean, you’re following in the footsteps of union soldiers as they’re pursuing the, the fleeing confederates. And then you get to the fortification site and there’s trails down there. You can see where in the ground, literally where the Confederates had dug the really shallow, and I won’t call’em a basement, but these little shallow floors where they had built their log huts they were living in. You can see the evidence is still there. You can go and look at where the river, was and the lake is today. Fortunately for us, we were very lucky over the past six months to officially accept, a historic home, one of two that we, were hoping to receive. The home we received was the Brown Lanier home. Which served as C’S headquarters just prior to the battle. The soldiers weren’t camped around it. And it’s just a really neat example of this part of Kentucky and the evolution of how people were building and adding onto their homes as they were acquiring wealth, which is really neat. So there’s the historic homes and we offer tours every Saturday from May through September, so people can go on a house tour of the Brown Lanier home. That home was the Miller’s home for the Historic Mill, which is an operating mill that’s managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. So they are our neighbors and they manage the entire Lake Cumberland, but the historic mill is operating and you can go to their site and see the mill operate, and you can come to the house where the Millers actually lived,
Missy: And that I think that’s interesting’cause that area. Like we discussed it being remote, but you have Lake Cumberland, you have Mammoth Cave is, I’m gonna say down the street, it’s like an hour and a half away. There are several incredible Kentucky state parks. And so
Andrew: Yep. Absolutely.
Missy: definitely a spot where you could put together a really incredible vacation,
Andrew: you definitely,
Missy: history, everything.
Andrew: There’s something for everybody. There’s Big South for 40 minutes South here, which divides the Kentucky and Tennessee border. Camp Nelson is an hour north of here if you’re looking to understand, logistics in the Civil War, and then, African American enlistment and, their powerful story up there. and then you have about an hour to the west of here, you have Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace, and then about an hour and 20 minutes you have Mammoth Cave
Missy: You just gave my tour that I took.
Andrew: Yeah. And, really is this wonderful location where if whatever direction you wanna go in, you’re gonna be able to see and do a lot of really
Missy: You really are.
Andrew: It’s amazing.
Missy: Can you bring a dog?
Andrew: Yeah. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. The only place in the entire park that a dog is not, other than a service animal is the museum. But the dogs can come into the visitor center. We have, a bark, a really active bark Ranger pro program, that anybody can come in and do. And then, we have, a poop receptacle in the park. We have one at the visitor center, one at Zo Crawford Park. And one down at the Brown Lanier home. So you can walk your dogs, obviously the Bark Ranger ethos of, you know, bringing, leashes, keeping them on leashes and cleaning up after them and all that stuff. And we are, um, dog bowls out for water, so they have a water receptacle. so we love dogs. We wanna see’em. And the incentive is bring your dog, get your park ranger badge here.
Missy: Absolutely. Okay, so this is a new park, only five years old, and parks evolve. what can we expect to see in the coming years?
Andrew: yeah. So, one of the most interesting things when you walk into the visitor center, one of the things you’re gonna see on the wall is you’re gonna see what we would assume is the most historically accurate map. It was done just after the battle. It shows you not only what Nancy looked like at the time period of the Civil War, through the eyes of an engineer that did this map, but where every single fence was and every single, location of a home. And that’s gonna be one of the most important guiding documents for, for a cultural landscape report that really will enable the National Park Service, hopefully the next 25 years. to transcend this back into what the battlefield looked like in 1862. And so what you’re gonna start seeing over the next couple years is we are actually. replacing the original fencing and putting that in the locations, so that you have a very good context of at least where the battle was fought and where the property lines were. you’ll also see a lot of new signage there, so we will have a lot of NPS Arrowhead Signage tour stop signage that’s being, installed. you’re gonna see more ranger programs, a larger presence of the public as we try to get more, larger groups, and rv tours to come Here we are developing a staff ride, so we are very aware that there’s a large active duty military presence in this region. for a battlefield, a staff ride brings, active duty military members of all branches and, gives them a good educational opportunity to apply what they do today. And. What happened here in the battlefield, and it’s a good educational opportunity for them, to branch the path with the present. And so we’re putting our staff ride together to enable that as well. So there, there’s just a ton more stuff that’s gonna go. our trail systems are gonna expand. and then we are hoping that over the next couple years that we’ll be able to get, a National Park service film completed here. and she’ll start looking at a, rehabilitation of the museum to get more accessible exhibits, et cetera. I think that visitors, when you come to Mill Springs Battlefield. And you see it as it is, it’s sort of a blip and to where it’d be like, oh, that was really cool. But it is evolving to the point where if you come back, it’s not gonna be like it was the first time you’re gonna be, unless you really loved it the first time. You’re like, oh man. But that’s not gonna happen. You’re gonna be like, whoa, the new film is amazing. Whoa, the museum’s awesome. Oh my God, the trails are so developed and they got all this great information and all this wonderful stuff. I think it’s just super exciting to be a part of, I know staff here feels the exact same way, so it,
Missy: I was there like a month ago and you’ve already told me things that
Andrew: Yeah, exactly.
Missy: pretty significant changes, which Andrew, so we finish each episode with a speed round of questions. Just answer with what first comes to mind.
Andrew: Okay.
Missy: What is your earliest park memory?
Andrew: Probably my parents bringing me to the FDR home in Hyde Park, New York. We had lived across the river in Highland, New York, and I just have a very vivid, my mom went to the culinary, she took a couple courses there, and I have a very vivid memory, very young. This is late eighties, and, going to the FDR home and then late years later finding out, oh yeah, by the way, that’s a national Park society. Like, oh. But that would be the first park that I very vividly remembered in my mind. Yeah.
Missy: What made you love the parks?
Andrew: I, I think just, a passion for preservation. I’m a history geek. I think that when, when it came down to it, I think I fell into the whole Cannonball Ranger thing, but the more parks you work in and the broader the mission, you really understand that mission holistically. And, I’ve really bought into that. Within the first year, I was a volunteer, so for those listeners, yes, I am a manager in the National Park Service now, but I started out as a volunteer and you can too. So that passion really developed through volunteerism and contributing and being like, whoa, this is awesome. I didn’t even know this was a thing. And then learning more and developing and recognizing that this was a viable career option and then going for it. That’s where it was like, it just clicked and, never looked back. Right. Here we are.
Missy: What is your favorite thing about Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument.
Andrew: My favorite thing. You know what? We have some staff here that, grew up in the park and I find it really fascinating that, exactly what I just said. I was a volunteer and I developed, they had probably no idea that this was ever in the realm of possibility. And they saw the association preserve this place from the ground up. They truly are the torch carriers. Their parents were helped in that. Their parents donated their effort, their blood, their sweat, their tears. They’ve donated money to the association and here they are now contributing as National Park Service employees. And they’re going to continue that legacy far beyond my career. I mean, they’re younger than I am, far younger than I am. And they’re going to now be able to carry that legacy and truly build this place into what it’s supposed to be. And watching them develop and grow as rangers, and just as people in general has been, really the honor of my life is to be able to lead them, but really just watch them lead me. I’m the one they’re dragging me around, to me that’s the best thing bar done is to watch the park grow and watch them grow with it.
Missy: What’s your favorite thing to do at Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument?
Andrew: Any single opportunity to talk to the visitors when they walk in, you’re self included. I know I caught you and we talk for a long time, but going out into the resource and walking around and, wrapping my mind around what happened on the battlefield, but meeting visitors, making those visitor contacts and them asking you these really great and, thought and, and insightful questions and being able to get them to have that aha moment, you know, and it doesn’t even have to be civil war. This is what national parks are for, is for people to come together and have these amazing opportunities to connect with one another. That’s what it’s all about.
Missy: What park have you yet to visit, but it’s on your bucket list and why?
Andrew: I haven’t been west of the Mississippi to the Seaboard battlefields that is a bucket list thing. I haven’t done Wilson’s Creek and, I’ve like to at least check off the Civil War bucket list. I’ve never been to Rocky, so, I’d like to go see Rocky and, and do a full on National Park tour, making my way there. That would be really cool. Mount Rainier is another one I haven’t seen that I would love to see. So, it’s just a matter of time.
Missy: What are three must-haves you pack for a park visit?
Andrew: So if I’m going out in the park, my, I have a little first aid kit. If I’m going out there, water would be the second thing. And I bring a map of the battlefield. So if I’m doing this battlefield, that’s what I bring for context. I think if I’m going hiking, the first two things and then probably, take repellent or something like that.’cause, unlike many parkee that, that are gonna, get a permit and camp, I’m probably gonna walk in and be like, God, this is beautiful. And walk right back out, get in my car, put on the AC and cruise down the road and be like, that was awesome. I got my park sign picture. We’re happy, we’re good. Let’s go back to the hotel. And I’m not even, I’m not even upset about it.
Missy: What is your favorite campfire activity?
Andrew: We’re a pretty musical family, so I would say playing the guitar and singing would be fun. Yeah. Just sitting around and just kind of noodling on, on having everybody sing would be it.
Missy: Are you in a tent, camper, or cabin?
Andrew: I like all of them. I would do all of them. I’m probably gonna go with the cabin. Yeah. I mean, it seems to fit my thing where I like to be out in nature until I don’t, so I’m cool with it.
Missy: And are you hiking with or without trekking poles?
Andrew: So interestingly enough, I’m one of those, oh, poles are dumb. They’re really stupid. And I went down, to the Grand Canyon and, had the fear struck into me. We got a permit. We went to Phantom Ranch, and they’re all like, where are your polls? Because I have my pack. And I’m like, I don’t need that. Like, dude, yes you do. And I was like, ah, right, whatever. And, I just wanna preface that I was working at the Statue of Liberty and I’d worked in a lot of urban national parks. And so for me to try to understand that I was below the Statue of Liberty at that point in the Grand Canyon kind of blew my mind. Or maybe not, I don’t know. But anyway, they gave me polls and thank God they did because it. It changed my perspective and I don’t know if I would ever hike without Poles anymore. It just, you go from being a kid, I can do this stuff. And like, dude, you’re not hiking in the Grand Canyon without Poles. they were right. you know, never too old to learn something. Right.
Missy: What’s your favorite trail snack?
Andrew: Probably just, something salty. Like a pb and j sandwich would be totally fine. Pull out of the bag, just kind of munching that, walking around.
Missy: What’s your favorite animal sighting?
Andrew: You know what I saw, when I was a kid, we were in Canada. My grandmother still lives in Canada, near Ottawa, and we saw a Lynx one time, and I thought that was the coolest thing. I went and bought an Ottawa Lynx hat. I remember this was like 1992, and I had this Ottawa Lynx hat because I thought that was the coolest thing I ever saw.
Missy: What’s your favorite sound in the park?
Andrew: I love, I love to hear, uh, like owls out in the park, but I really just like, to listen to different bird noises I’ve, started to download and listen to some different bird calls and things just so that when I’m out in the park, people will ask you tons of stuff like that so I’ve been and, and, and trying to identify different species of birds on when I’m on the battlefield.
Missy: And finally, what is the greatest gift that parks give to us?
Andrew: A place of reflection. I’ve heard great stories about, survival and life and hardship and people that, that found themselves at their lowest point and that they just needed a place to go to be able to reflect and unwind or just have some semblance of peace. and A national park is going to give you whatever you want it because they’re diverse and they offer so many different opportunities for anyone, to cut loose. And the good part is they’re ours. That’s the thing that I like the most, is that, they’re for the people. There, There are spaces that are preserved and conserved for people so that we have a place to go to when we need that opportunity.
Missy: Andrew, thank you so much for spending time with us, for sharing your passion for this park and teaching us about Mill Springs Battlefield.
Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. We’re here for you, so, anybody that wants to come out, we’re looking forward to chatting with you. Thanks for the opportunity.
Missy: Absolutely. That’s it for today’s episode. Until next time, we’ll see you in the parks.
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please be sure to like and share on your favorite podcast platform. Music for the parks podcast is performed and produced by Porter Hardy. For more information, please follow us on Instagram at the parks podcast. Or visit our website@theparkspodcast.com.