Death of Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer - Part 2
Compiled by Geoffrey R. Walden

Other Accounts by Battle Participants, Written Later

At this stage of the fight an officer, who appeared to be and was taken for one of the staff, emerged from the wood on our front to the road where Gen. Fry was, and accosted him. Fry was colonel then of the Fourth Kentucky. The stranger, who wore a long gum coat which hid his uniform, said: 'Colonel, you are firing on your own men.' Gen. Fry, taking him to be one of Gen. Thomas’ staff, thought he might have made a mistake, and ordered us to cease firing. As he did so, and while in conversation with the officer in the gum coat, a Confederate cavalry officer rode out from behind an old oak tree and shot directly at Gen. Fry, missing the general, but killing his horse. Fry, thinking that the man to whom he was talking was practicing some treachery, raised his Colt and shot him directly in the heart. It was a large Colt revolver, presented to Col. Fry by some citizens of Danville. At the same time some one of the soldiers shot at the aid that fired at Col. Fry, and killed him at a distance of 150 yards. Immediately after some Confederate surgeon was made prisoner, and it was he who recognized the body of the strange officer and said it was Zollicoffer. I would here state with regard to Gen. Zollicoffer that when Col. Fry ascertained who it was he had killed he had his body taken to his headquarters, decently dressed and sent to his family in a beautiful burial case, delivering his sword and watch to his daughter. Every mark of respect was shown the body, and it was sent through the lines with an escort, while our own brave dead were left on the field to have their graves made by the strangers' heedless hand.

Some men claiming to be soldiers have tried to make fame for themselves by falsely and basely asserting that somebody else, not Fry, killed Zollicoffer; they can’t tell who. They seemed to know better than Gen. Thomas, who reported it to the government at Washington; better than those who witnessed the act. Such men were not present at the battle. Gen. Fry never tried to make capital out of it, and will hardly speak of it. I verily think he had wished the fortunes of war had not compelled him to do it.

At the age of 18, John William Stark enlisted in the Confederate Army as a member of Capt. Alonzo Ridley's Company of Buckner's Cuides, serving under General Simon Bolivar Buckner until the close of the conflict. John W. Stark at one time acted as guide to General Albert Sydney Johnston, and General Felix Zollicoffer to inspect fords for defending Bowling Green, KY. When General Albert Sydney Johnson was occypying the residernce of Miss Jennie Blackburn on Adam St. in Bowling Green (as his head quarters), my father, John W. Stark was sent with a dispatch to General Zollicoffer, just before the Battle of Mill Springs, also known as Logan's Crossroads (this was John's second trip to Zollicoffer- the 1st time Zollicoffer was in bed, this time however, he was in consultation with his Generals in his tent).  After reading the dispatch Zollicoffer stated, "Pretty Boy!  How would you  like to see the fun in the morning?  One of my aides is ill and you could act as a Voluntary Aide."  John replied that he would be glad to do so.

My father, John W. Stark, said that General Zollicoffer thought it was "Military Strategy" to cross the Cumberland (while Fishing Creek was swollen) and surprise the enemy, but when the Confederates reached the other side of the river, they discovered they were outnumbered.  John was near Zollicoffer when the general was slain (the large white coat Zollicoffer wore made his stand out as a target).  According to John, Zollicoffer rode up to a Yankee officer (mistaking him for a Confederate officer) began to give him orders.  Zollicoffer was shot.  Zollicoffer was the first man John had seen slain.  John's horse was then shot in the neck.  John, after reuniting with General Crittenden, crossed over the river in a little boat, where he was given a horse and a dispatch to take to Albert Sidney Johnston back in Bowling Green.

Narrative of John William Stark, transcribed by his daughter; courtesy Jeff Bolling.

Col Walthall thought the Yankees were the E Tenn. Reg. or our own troups. He ordered to cease fire and rode in front and asked who was firing into us. They yelled "Kentuckians, come on. We are ready for you." Then occurred for a brief time the hottest firing subjected to during the war. We turned and charged thru them driving them like so many sheep until we cut our way out. Just as we cleared our way out through their main line, we came upon the remains of Gen. Zolicofffer, who had been shot and killed by Col. Fry commanding the same Ky reg that had given us such a cordial invitation to come on. We halted and put Gen Zolicoffer's remains on a blanket and started with him to an ambulance a short distance away. The Federal troups, who were advancing on us like a tornado, discovered the situation and opened the most deadly fire I experienced during the war. Our men were nearly all shot down, being killed or wounded. We dropped the remains of Gen Zolicoffer  and ran for our lives making for a skirt of woods some distance in our front. We were by this time, in perfect disorder and so remained until we arrived at our camp on the banks of the Cumberland opposite Millsprings.

Narrative of T.T. Smith, Co. D, 15th Mississippi Infantry, compiled from his diaries in 1899; courtesy Barbara Bowden, great-granddaughter of T.T. Smith, and Phil Rossi.

We halted a moment where the body of General Zollicoffer lay beside the wagon-track.  He had been shot through the heart by Colonel Fry, of the Fourth Kentucky, early in the battle.  The two officers, each with an aide, had met in the narrow winding roadway as they were respectively getting their troops into position in the woods on each side of it.  All wore water-proof coats or ponchos, and at first did not recognize each other as enemies.  As soon as they did revolvers were drawn; Zollicoffer's aide fired at Colonel Fry and got out of the way, leaving his chief to fall by the return he had invited.  The body had been dragged out of the way of passing artillery and wagons and lay by the fence, the face upturned to the sky and bespattered with mud from the feet of passing men and horses.   It was decently cared for later.

Brevet Brigadier-General J. W. Bishop, "The Mill Springs Campaign," St. Paul, MN, 1890, pp. 69-70.

In the battle of Mill Springs, there were other incidents of thrilling interest.  The fall of Zollicoffer, the Rebel General, was one of these.  ...  I saw a commotion, and ran back to see what it meant, when I saw the dead Zollicoffer and Bailey Peyton lying by the road, slain by Col. S. S. Fry, and the men just around him; among whom were several of the First Kentucky Cavalry, and I noted a young soldier named George W. Cabbell, soon after killed, at the battle of Lebanon, Tennessee.  Fry having the first shot, and giving the command to "shoot him," as he turned to escape, has the honor of being the "slayer of Gen. Zollicoffer."  I called to others, who aided me in lifting his now lifeless body from near the road, back toward the fence line, a little eastward.

As there were three wounds on his body, and only one of them of immediately deadly effect, and that by a large ball, the belief became general in our regiment that two of them were inflicted by men of the First Kentucky Cavalry, the other by Col. Fry, of the Fourth Kentucky Infantry.

As we buried the dead next day, I cut a white oak stick from the place as a souvenir of the fierce conflict at that point, for I noticed that it had five bullet marks and clots of blood upon it.   I learned that when he approached Fry, he shouted "Cease Firing there, those are the Mississippians!"  But I believe this was done through mistake, thinking Fry and the men around him belonged to his own command.  Fry called back, "Who are you?" as his own horse fell under him, but not until after the Confederate chief had turned to flee.

In order to bemean the Union cause, it was charged by the Confederates that the body of Gen. Zollicoffer was terribly outraged on the battlefield, pulling out his hair, etc.  The facts of the case are these, and no more:  some of the privates, out of mere thoughtlessness, not thinking how bad it looked, tore his clothes in order to procure souvenirs of the noted general; but when it was fully made known to the officers who he was, his body was removed from the field, nicely laid out, and a guard placed over him.  Nobody but the guard was even allowed to uncover his face for those who wished to see him.  There was a ruffled place in his hair on one side of his head, which appeared as if a lock had been plucked out, but it did not disfigure his looks. 

Narrative of Chaplain William Honnell, 1st Kentucky Cavalry, from:  Sergeant E. Tarrant, "The Wild Riders of the First Kentucky Cavalry," Louisville, 1894 (1969 Lexington ed.), pp. 63-65.

Col. Fry's Own Accounts

Col. Speed S. Fry generally refrained from taking any sort of credit in killing Zollicoffer, and he always maintained that while he did fire at him, he did not know who he was, and others were firing at the same time. The following accounts are Fry's own, or based on interviews with him.

Yesterday I had an interview, of two hours, with Colonel S. S. Fry, the hero of Mill Spring, henceforth to be forever associated in American history with the misguided Zollicoffer. He gave us a description of the battle of January 19th, in which he figured so conspicuously. It differs somewhat from the accounts given by the press. It was not Bailie Peyton who fired at Fry but Lieutenant Fogg, aid to Zollicoffer. Fogg was mortally wounded by Captain Vaughn, of Fry's regiment, and has since died.  Zollicofer wore a light drab overcoat, buttoned to the chin, thus concealing his military rank. He doubtless intended to deceive Colonel Fry, and succeeded[.] Fry was in undress uniform, and, of course, was at once recognized as a Federal officer. They rode side by side several paces, so near that their knees touched. Fry all the time supposing Zollicoffer to be a Federal officer--hence his reply, "I do not intend to fire upon our men." The mistake was not discovered until Fogg fired upon Fry, killing his horse. At once, Fry drew his revolver upon Zollicoffer, shooting him through the breast. Instantly he threw up his arms, fell from his horse, and expired. Zollicoffer's horse was secured by the rebels. His sword is in possession of Col. Fry. He has no other trophies save a note taken from the pocket of Zollicoffer, by which he recognized the rebel General.

When he [Zollicoffer] fell a rebel threw down his gun, crept up to Zollicoffer, and was just in the act of taking him up to bear him from the field when he was shot by Capt. Vaughn and instantly killed.

Letter dated February 23, 1862, appearing in the Louisville Daily Courier, March 1, 1862

Col. Fry in a letter to the writer gives the following account of the death of Gen. Zollicoffer:

"In order to ascertain more certainly the exact state of affairs, the firing having nearly ceased, I rode from the right of my regiment some fifteen or twenty paces down to the fence behind which we had been fighting, and, discovering no enemy in that direction, I turned my horse and rode slowly back to that place I had just left. As I neared the road I saw an officer riding slowly down the road on a white horse and within twenty paces of the right of my regiment. His uniform was concealed, except the extremities of his pantaloons, which I observed were of the color worn by Federal officers, by a long green overcoat. His near approach to my regiment, his calm manner, my close proximity to him, indeed everything I saw led me to believe he was a Federal officer belonging to one of the regiments just arriving. So thoroughly was I convinced that he was one of our men, I did not hesitate to ride up to his side so closely that our knees touched. He was calm, self-possessed and dignified in manner. He said to me "We must not shoot our own men," to which I responded, "Of course not; I would not do so intentionally," then turning his eyes to his left and pointing in the same direction he said, "those are our men." I could not see the men from my position, but I now suppose they were there. I immediately moved off to the right of my regiment, perhaps some fifteen or twenty paces from the spot on which I met him. His language convinced me more than ever that he was a Federal officer. How it is that he did not discover that I was one I cannot tell, as my uniform was entirely exposed to view, having on nothing to conceal it. As soon as I reached my regiment, I paused, turning my horse a little to the left, and across the road, looked back to see what was going on, when, to my great surprise, another officer whom I had not seen rode out from behind a large tree near the place of my meeting with the first officer, and, with pistol in hand, leveled it directly at me, fired, and paused for a moment, doubtless to observe the effect of his shot. Instead of striking the object at which it was aimed, the ball struck my horse just above the hip bone making a flesh wound. I immediately drew my Colt's revolver from the holster, and was about to fire, when he retreated behind a tree. Not until this time was I aware that I had been in conversation with an officer of the opposing army. In an instant the thought flashed across my mind that the officer with whom I had met and conversed had attempted to draw me into the snare of death or secure my capture by a false representation of his position, and, feeling thus, I aimed at him and fired."

Gen. Zollicoffer fell pierced by three bullets, for at the same moment several men of the Fourth Kentucky fired upon him.

J. H. Battle, W. H. Perrin, and G. C. Kniffin, "Kentucky: A History of the State."  Louisville: F. A. Battey, 1885, Part 1, p. 393.

LOUISVILLE, Dec. 2. -- Among the first battles of the late war was that fought at Mill Spring, Ky., Jan. 19, 1862, and at the beginning of which the Confederate General, Felix K. Zollicoffer, was killed by Col. (afterward General) Speed S. Fry, commander of the Fourth Kentucky Infantry Regiment. A complete history of that battle, as also the true facts regarding the death of Gen. Zollicoffer, have never before appeared in print, since Gen. Fry has heretofore, with a modesty characteristic of the man, declined to be interviewed with reference to the part he played in the drama. A newspaper representative, however, who has had a personal acquaintance with him for a long number of years, has succeeded in obtaining the general's own statement with direct reference to the battle. In writing of it, he says:

"All the letters and articles heretofore written upon the subject, so far as I have seen, were either the production of parties who never heard the crack of a gun during that engagement, or knowingly perverted the facts. They are in keeping with the one given in your letter to me, viz: that you had heard that Gen. Zollicoffer and myself were schoolmates before the war. I never met that gentleman until the 18th [sic] day of January, when we met upon the Battlefield of Mill Springs, when we sat side by side and held a brief conversation without knowing who the other was -- he taking me for a Confederate officerr and I taking him for a Federal officer, standing, as we were, within a few yards of the right of my regiment.

"The first shot that was fired struck my horse, this coming from a Confederate officer named Ewing, as I afterwards learned, an aid on Gen. Zollicoffer's staff. I was looking directly at him when he fired,. his ball being intended for myself. I then wheeled, fired, and killed the General myself. Young Ewing was fatally wounded just after he fired his pistol, and died before reaching his home in Nashville."

Correcting a number of erroneous reports with reference to both himself and Zollicoffer, the General further says:

"To have been schoolmates just before the war would make us quite old boys, trudging to some college or schoolhouse with books under our arms. I was forty-one years of age at the outbreak of the war, and I judge he was as old, if not older, than myself. In 1846 or 1847 he was in Congress from the Nashville (Tenn.) District, and I was a captain in the war with Mexico. It was also erroneously said just after the battle that he and I were rivals for the hand and heart of the same young lady."

Undated newspaper clipping, ca. 1889, in a scrapbook originally belonging to Mrs. Frederick Zollicoffer Jackson, Jr., now in the collections of the Mill Springs Battlefield Assn.

Other Accounts

General Felix K. Zollicoffer was killed early in the engagement. His death did much to demoralize the Confederate forces. Mistaking the enemy for his own troops, he advanced on the 4th Kentucky Infantry; he was shot immediately, fell under a large oak tree, which stands to this day, and is known through that country as Zollicoffer's tree.

Bennett H. Young, "Zollicoffer's Oak," Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 31, 1903, p. 167.

General Zollicoffer, having ordered the advance of his little command, rode forward with several of his staff officers through the forest to inspect the position of the enemy, and passed into the Mill Springs road beyond the Federal line of battle. Discovering his mistake, he endeavored to retrace his route to his own command, but had proceeded only a few hundred yards when he found himself directly in front of the Fourth Kentucky Federal Regiment, under command of Colonel Speed S. Fry. The Federals, who were expecting the arrival of a new brigade commander, mistook General Zollicoffer for their new brigadier, his uniform being enveloped in an oil-cloth overcoat, and he having come from the direction of Somerset, or Columbia. General Zollicoffer quickly discovered his mistake, and, to put a bold front on the matter, rode up to Colonel Fry, and, after the usual salutations, started down the road, accompanied by his staff, in front of Colonel Fry's command and about thirty feet in advance of it. He had not proceeded far when Major Henry Fogg, of his staff, drew his pistol and fired toward the Federal line (it is said by some persons who were engaged in the battle that it was Major Ewing, and not Major Fogg, who fired the shot). In a moment a volley from the Federal line was discharged, instantly killing General Zollicoffer and Lieutenant Evan Shield, and mortally wounding Major Fogg.

The story that General Zollicoffer was killed by Colonel Fry has gained general belief, but there is very little reason to sustain it. On his body were found two wounds -- one made with a musket-ball, which was mortal, and another by a pistol-shot, which produced a severe but not a mortal wound. If Colonel Fry fired, and his ball lodged in General Zollicoffer's body, it was not the missile that caused his death, this having been the result of the musket-shot.

Gen. Marcus J. Wright, "Sketch of General Felix K. Zollicoffer," The Southern Bivouac, Vol. 2, No. 11, July 1884, p. 492.

A federal surgeon who performed a post-mortem examination of Zollicoffer's body reported that a minie ball pierced the left breast, passing through the heart and coming out the angle of the scapula, left a fist-sized hole. Neither pistol shot was the immediate cause of death.

From R. Gerald McMurtry, "Zollicoffer and the Battle of Mill Springs," The Filson Club Historical Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 4, October 1955, p. 309 (source: The Crisis, Columbus, OH, February 5, 1862, p. 16)

The day was apparently going well for the Confederates, and Zollicoffer was ascending a hill where the enemy had collected his strength. As he rose forward to supposed victory, he came upon a regiment of Kentuckians (Union) commanded by Colonel Fry, concealed in a piece of woods. He did not become aware of his dangerous position until it was too late. Although a rubber overcoat concealed his uniform, a man who recognized his features called out, "There's Zollicoffer! Kill him!" An aide to Zollicoffer instantly fired and killed the man who had recognized the general. Zollicoffer, hoping still to deceive the enemy, rode within a few feet of Fry and said, "You are not going to fight your friends, are you?" pointing to a Mississippi regiment some distance off. The reply was a pistol shot from the colonel and a volley from his men, and General Zollicoffer fell from his horse, dead, pierced through by many balls.

Confederate Military History, Vol. 8 (Tennessee), Confederate Publishing Co., 1899, p. 348.

In the darkness of the morning it was difficult to distinguish between the Federals and Confederates, many of the latter still wearing blue uniforms.  General Zollicoffer was convinced that the regiment in his front was Confederate, and peremptorily ordered the Nineteenth Tennessee to cease firing, as they were firing upon their own troops. He then rode across toward the Federal line to put a stop to the firing there. Just as he entered the road, he met a Federal officer, Col. Speed S. Fry, of the Fourth Kentucky, and said to him quietly, "We must not shoot our own men." General Zollicoffer wore a white gum overcoat, which concealed his uniform, and Colonel Fry, supposing him to be a Federal officer, replied, "I would not, of course, do so intentionally." Zollicoffer, then, pointing to the Nineteenth Tennessee, said, "Those are our men." Colonel Fry then started toward his regiment to stop their firing, when Major Fogg, Zollicoffer's aide, coming out of the wood at this instant, and clearly perceiving that Fry was a Federal, fired upon him, wounding his horse. Fry, riding away obliquely, saw his action, and turning, discharged his revolver. The ball passed through General Zollicoffer's heart, and he fell exactly where he had stood. Zollicoffer was near-sighted, and never knew that Fry was an enemy. His delusion was complete, as Major Fogg and others had remonstrated with him about going to the front.

William Preston Johnston, The Life of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, New York, 1878, p. 402. (This is the only source I have seen for Gen. Zollicoffer's reported near-sightedness.)

Col Fry said he had mistook General Zollicoffer for the adjutant of the 10th Indiana until he said you are firing on the Mississipians over there still pointing to his left. Col Fry then knew General Zollicoffer was a Confederate and shot at him with a pistol. Two scouts of Company H of the 1st Ky Cavalry were out East of the road in the woods but closer to Gen Zollicoffer than Col Fry was. Col Fry called out to the two scouts to shoot that man. One of them whose name was Ike Chrisinan [Pvt. Isaac Chrisman, Co. H] said to his comrade - hold my horse. I can get him. He said he took as deliberat [sic] aim as he even did the shooting at a squirrel and his comrade both said at the fire of his gun (which was a Sharps Rifle) that they saw the water fly from the breast of General Zollicoffer’s white oil slicker. … General Zollicoffer’s horse ran some ten or twelve feet before General Zollicoffer struck the ground and while he was falling a squad of the Second Minnesota shot from behind the North fence and killed Lieutenant Bailie Peyton Jr., shot General Zollicoffer in one of his thighs and the calf of one of his legs. … The Federals advanced to General Zollicoffer and Bailie Peyton’s dead bodies and carried them East of the roads, stripped General Zollicoffer’s oil slicker from his body and when they found they had killed a Confederate General they began cutting his clothes from his body and the hair from the left side of his head in two places. But when the officers came to his body they put a stop to the outrage and Col Fry had General Zollicoffer’s body removed to Logan’s crossroads.

In the year 1911 Rev. T. J. Mercer who belonged to Co. I, 12th Ky Infantry and was a lieutenant in his company was on a visit to me. He and I got up a conversation about the battle and I asked him who he believed fired the shot that killed Gen Zollicoffer. He said young Ike Chrisinan. … He said the ball that killed Gen Zollicoffer entered his breast (right breast I think he said), and he turned the body over and the ball had gone thru his body diagonally and came out behind his left shoulder, and that he had a wound in one of his thighs, and also another in the calf of one of his legs. One of my neighbors Mr. J T Edwards who belonged to the same company which Ike Chrisinan belonged to says while he did not see Chrisinan fire the shot that Chrisinan claimed from the day of the battle until the regiment was mustered out that he fired the shot that killed Gen Zollicoffer.

John Simpson, unpublished account titled "A Boy’s Story of the Battle of Fishing Creek and Other Incidents of the Civil War," Bronston, KY, undated (ca. 1927), handwritten copy in the collection of Duke Turpin, Pulaski County, Kentucky.
(It must be noted that these are the recollections of a local boy who was 14 years old in 1862, who supposedly watched parts of the battle, but who could not possibly have seen all that he describes, and so much of what he wrote must be considered hearsay.)

(Narrative of Jerry O'Connor)

Then all of a sudden, 'twas quiet.  And out of the mist, come this officer.  He had on a white raincoat, and he was a-ridin' all by himself, and Colonel Fry got back onto his horse and rode up, knees a-touchin', beside him.  They sat a-talkin'.  I says to myself, "Mickey, Boy" -- that was the name I called myself them days -- "looks like two big high-ups like that, they could be a good target was some chap of a mind to shoot," and just then other horsemen come up, and one ridin' alongside this officer in the white raincoat let out a yell and begun to shoot with a pistol.  He hit Colonel Fry's horse, and Colonel Fry jerked out his pistol and begun to shoot too.  "They're not ours!" somebody yelled, and me, I had a Sharp's rifle and I let go with it quick, aimin' at the white raincoat.  The man fell off his horse.  And then everybody was shootin'.

Minnie Hite Moody, "The Man Who Shot General Zollicoffer," The Georgia Review, Vol. 19, No. 3, Fall 1965, pp. 299-308 (quote on p. 303).  This is a very strange article, about an old veteran living in Ohio in the early 1900s, who claimed to have been in a Federal cavalry unit at Mill Springs, and claimed to have shot Gen. Zollicoffer.  Since the veteran was born in 1848, the entire story is extremely unlikely.

(Narrative of James Chrisman, Wayne Co., Kentucky, a local civilian)

… I had gone that morning over to Taylor’s store and took my squirrel rifle with me, and as I returned I was caught between the lines of the two armies. I kept close to the federals, to watch my opportunity to get through. As I was going to make the attempt a German regiment charged near me and I moved on with them. At this moment Gen. Zollicoffer made a charge to meet them. He advanced in front, firing his pistol, and had killed ten men near me. I thought I would be the next man, and I raised my rifle and fired at him. He fell without a groan. … After the battle a detail was made to look after the dead and wounded and the second man found was Zollicoffer. He was laid out on a number of fence rails and as soon as he was identified his clothes were stripped from him and cut into pieces by the soldiers for relics. … I have heard that soon after the battle the Colonel Frye was receiving honors for having killed Zollicoffer. Would to God he had instead of me; for the act has haunted me to this day. I cannot sleep. And yet I did it to save my life. I did not know the man.

Rebecca Hunt Moulder, "’Remorse and Repentance’: The Death of General Felix K. Zollicoffer," Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Summer 1978), pp. 170-174; originally published in the Birmingham Weekly Iron Age, April 30, 1885.

On January 31st [1862], an ambulance containing the body of General Zollicoffer passed on its way to Nashville, where his family lived. It was under a flag of truce, through military courtesy. We had already seen "live" generals, but no dead ones of either side. There was a great rush to get sight of the coffin containing all that remained of Zollicoffer. A few succeeded in gratifying their curiosity, but more did not. During the entire remainder of the war the death of this celebrated rebel was the subject of a harmless jest. Whenever anybody inquired what the news was he would be gravely told, "Zollicoffer's dead!" I think this was due to the fact that in the army the air was generally full of the wildest and most absurd rumors--"grapevines" we called them--concerning the military operations in our own and other departments. We learned that not a tithe of what we heard could be believed. But we knew that General Zollicoffer had been gathered to his fathers. We had seen the hearse that was bearing his body to the grave, and some had seen the coffin itself. So when we informed an anxious inquirer that Zollicoffer was dead we were telling him what we knew to be true--and about the only thing we did know.

The remains of General Zollicoffer under the direction of the Confederate authorities layed in state, at the Tennessee capitol for a day or two before burial, until the vast throng of citizens and soldiers could see it. When I saw the remains I was shown where one ball had entered his body in the breast, but whether there were any other bullet holes, I cannot recall.

Lieutenants Godfrey M. Fogg, and Shields, of Nashville, Aids of Zollicoffer were killed with him. In the march to the cemetery the remains of Zollicoffer were accompanied by his fine horse, which at that time was brought to Nashville with a hole in his right ear, said to have been received when Zollicoffer fell.

Bromfield Ridley, Battles and Sketches of the Army of Tennessee, Mexico, MO, 1906, p. 41.

I am indebted to Mark Jaeger of the 10th Indiana Infantry Homepage for information from various newspaper articles quoted here.

See also chapter 5 of Raymond Myers' The Zollie Tree (Louisville, The Filson Club, 1964 and 1998) for additional analysis of various sources on General Zollicoffer's death.

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