Alex Baldwin Interesting War Experiences
Narrow Escape #34
Ironton Register – July 7, 1887
Submitted by Peggy A. Wells
King Salt Works down in Virginia, on the Va. and Tenn. R.R. seems to have been in much demand by both sides during the war. The Confederates wanted it for the salt, and the Union boys desired it because the other side wanted it. Many a fight was had there and in that neighborhood, and when the Union troops would make a dash on it, thinking they would surely capture the place, they were pretty sure to find it well-defended.
Alex Baldwin, of Co. B., 39th Ky. (Mounted Infantry, US), tells us of his experience, on a raid in that quarter, in October 1864. He says: “We were ordered from Louisa, Kentucky, to raid King’s Salt Works. We started, 4000 strong, under Gen. (Stephen G.) Burbridge. On the 6th day after we started, we arrived at the place at about 9 a.m. and immediately prepared to charge the reb breastworks. For this purpose, a colored regiment was ordered to charge the rebel position. They advanced with courage and spirit. Poor fellows! Many were shot and killed in that unsuccessful attack, and the ground was strewn with their dead and wounded.
“Our regiment, which was cavalry, was in a valley about half a mile from the works and in plain view of the rebs. We counted off by eights for every eighth man to hold eight horses, and when this was done, the regiment dismounted and started forward to attack. I was one of the lucky eight left back to hold the horses and thought I had struck an easy job. I was very happy thinking how safe I was and wondering which of the boys moving to the attack would never return. But these thoughts didn’t last long.
“The regiment had hardly started when the shells began whizzing about us. They seemed to come around me by the dozen. Well, it must have been a shell that hit me or exploded very close to me, for when I woke up, my brother Jarvis and I were on all fours in the middle of Clinch River. The stream was very shallow, and we didn’t drown, but whether we were blown there or knocked there or dragged there, I don’t know. All I know is that whereas the shells flew thick as rain when I woke up, I was crawling through the low current of that little river.
“I crawled across the river and up a small drain in the direction of our regiment, and there I came to my Captain, sheltering himself under his horse. Col. (Charles) Hanson came up and said the rebs had shot 13 holes in him, and then he went back to the top of the point where he was shot and left on the field. Our regiment was ordered back at 4 o’clock and took a position in some timber, but the fighting continued till sundown when it ceased.
“I then went back to where I held the horses to see if they were any left but found several dead and the others gone. We built campfires on the field at night and, while they were burning, got away from there, but the rebels, who had been largely re-enforced, closely accompanied us and made it hot until we reached the line dividing Virginia from Kentucky. We were three days without rations, but the bushwhackers kept us well supplied with hot bullets.
“We had a very hard time getting out of there, but I had the satisfaction in December of entering their fort at King’s Salt Works and helped myself to what I liked best, providing it was there.
“But we finally got the fort through the sacrifice of many a brave comrade.”
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