PMG #33 - National Speleological Society

Pine Mountain Fault
Pine Mountain Fault
Newsletter of the PiNe MouNtaiN Grotto KY • NuMber 33 aPril, 2010

The Pine Mountain Fault
Newsletter of the Pine Mountain Grotto Inc./Kentucky
Number 33—April 2010
Contents
Cover: Avis by the entrance to Short Creek Cave by Kenneth Storey
Back Cover: Entrance to Rusty’s pit by Karen Caldwell; Group shot from the PMG Christmas party; F B Spelman
by Elliot Stahl
PMG Christmas party photo ..................................................................................................................................................................... 2
Dinner at the Dupont Lodge
Fear and Loathing in the Tombstone Factory ............................................................................................................................................ 3
With Apologies to the Late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
Ed Bob Remembered ............................................................................................................................................................................. 10
One great grotto companion.
Midnight at the Oasis ............................................................................................................................................................................. 11
Photo by Dan Silvestri
Convention 2009 ................................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Just where did Richard go in Texas?
National Cave and Karst Research Institute’s First Education Director .................................................................................................... 14
Dianne Gillespie new job
TAG 2009 .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 15
Karen finds her way in North Georgia
Munfordville Kentucky Soldier Cave ....................................................................................................................................................... 17
The search for civil war signatures
SEKCI 2009 ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 27
Seeing old friends again
Editor: Kenneth Storey
Newsletter Design and Layout: Kenneth Storey
PMG Officers: Lee Powell-Chair; John Taylor-Vice Chair; Tina Messer-Secretary; Kenneth Storey-Treasurer; Mike Risk-At Large
Committee Chairs: Safety-Mike Stanfill; Pine Mountain Survey-Jimbo Helton; CRF-Mike Crockett; VSS-Jim West; Conservation-Jeremy Napier;
Member Services-Jason Napier; Media-Thor Bahrman; KSS-Richard Hand
The Pine Mountain Fault is published by the Pine Mountain Grotto, Inc. of the National Speleological Society, P.O. Box 460 Pineville, KY 40977.
Regular membership in the Pine Mountain Grotto costs $15 per year. Non-member subscriptions cost $6 per year.
E-mail manuscripts for publication, art work, and photos to; Kenneth Storey: kennethstorey@charter.net, or
mail to: 110 Sweetbriar Court, Winterville, GA 30683.
Copyright 2010 by the Pine Mountain Grotto, Inc.

Group photo from the 2009 PMG Charistmas party. The dinner was at the Dupont Lodge at
Cumberland Falls State Resort Park..
Standing: Amy Vallandingham, Chris Osborne, John Talyor, Mark Joop, Dianne Gillespie, Lee Anne
Bledsoe, Karen Caldwell, Lee Powell, and Thor Barhman
Bottom row: Rose Sisler, and Stacie Moltrum
2

Night Time in The Bunker…Ratbag Calling…
Strange Rumblings from Black Shadow Country…
Memo from the Adventure Sports Desk…
Even Thugs Need Fun
When the man from the Vincent Motorcycle Company
called it took me a while to understand who
he was and what he wanted. I had sealed myself into The
Bunker with appropriate provisions for an evening of The
Finer Things: two dozen raw oysters, a large tray of fresh
sushi, a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (Original Recipe,
of course) with mashed potatoes and extra gravy, a
Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver (stainless steel, pearl
grips, 4-8X variable Leopold scope), three cases of assorted
Flying Dog Ales, a quart of Wild Turkey, a dozen
extra large grapefruit, an untouched blister pack of Benadryl
capsules, and a DVD compilation of Monique Covet
films. So when I picked up the phone and this ratbag
Limey lunatic started spouting some twisted gibberish
about flow rates and burn times and average lumens I was
not inclined to be patient.
“Leave me alone, you twisted pervert!” I screeched
into the receiver. “Your kind has caused me too much
grief already. Haven’t I suffered enough?”
Just as I was about to slam the phone down I caught
the words “Vincent” and “carbide,” and that was enough
to pique my interest. I knew that the Vincent people had
long since given up on motorcycles. There just weren’t
enough riders around who could handle the sheer kinghell
power of the infamous Black Shadow and Black
Lightning—the kind of riders who could take a semicontrolled
drift through a hard, off-camber turn on wet
pavement at 140 and come out laughing at their ability to
outsmart the Sausage Creature once again—so the sick,
twisted minds at Vincent had turned to the more lucrative
carbide generator market.
Ten years before I had spent an entire summer caving
in the Mendip Hills with their first offering, the now legendary
Vincent Inferno, a generator so powerful, according
to the company’s press flacks, that it could be used to
weld broken speleothems back together. It was hard to
control—some would say impossible—and it used up a
generator full of carbide in about fifteen minutes, shoot-
Fear and Loathing in the Tombstone Factory
(With Apologies to the Late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson)
By Raoul Duke, as told to Andy Messer
3
ing a foot-long flame with a noise like fifteen DC 10s
warming up for a head-to-head runway race. But there
are some of us who like that sort of thing. We are, after
all, Professionals.
Now, Ratbag was telling me, Vincent was coming out
with a new generator, a generator that would make the
Inferno look like a mildewed box of discount birthday
candles. This time they would collaborate with Kalashnikov,
the Russian machine gun manufacturer, to produce
the most heinously warped piece of caving gear ever
imagined: the Black Molotov. I could hear Ratbag slobbering
and panting as he talked about it: aircraft-grade
anodized aluminum, pressurized automatic water jets,
double the carbide capacity of the Inferno, infinitely variable
power settings, enabling the user to create anything
from a high-precision cutting torch to a flame thrower
at the touch of a dial. Whatever’s Right. I could feel The
Fear rising as I listened to Ratbag, but I could feel the
excitement, too, the sheer skull-splitting adrenaline rush
of slithering into a dark hole with a truly evil piece of
Professional Carbide Equipment.
No one can say what sort of weird, atavistic urge
causes a man to take up carbide caving in the LED age.
At least I can’t say, though I have felt that urge myself,
more than once, Bubba, and I have given in to it every
time. No one can say that I never inhaled. Buy the ticket,
take the ride. But one thing is certain. Nothing, absolutely
nothing, is more decadent and depraved than a man in
the grip of a serious carbide fixation.
Ratbag was trailing off by this time, blubbering like a
senile English dwarf about how honored his people would
be if I would test the monster for them and write a product
review. It would be “teddible,” he slobbered, “just
teddible” if such a distinguished American cave journalist
as myself didn’t get to try the Black Molotov right out
of the box, before the Eurotrash rabble got their slimy
hands on it.
Naturally, I told Ratbag, I’d be happy to try the
beast and provide an unbiased review. My only priority
would be Getting The Story. Total Coverage. I’d need
an expense account, of course. Attorney fees. Hotel allowance.
Special carbide. Twenty-four-hour crushed ice.
Dry cleaning. Swedish massage. Ratbag said he understood
perfectly. The services of a professional don’t come

cheap, after all. He promised to send a check straight to
The Bunker via courier dwarf.
“A check?” I roared, “A check? You’ll send nothing
of the kind, you Cockney swine! Send cash! And not that
pounds-and-ounces play money you red-coated monarch
sniffers use, either! American dollars, Bubba, in unmarked
twenties, 1972 or earlier! And plenty of them! Send in
care of the Adventure Sports Desk at The Bunker, and
don’t try to short me or I’ll fly over there and rip your
bloodshot Limey eyeballs out!”
This outburst sent Ratbag over the edge, and all he
could manage was a whimpered, “Yes, sir, Mr. Duke, yes,
sir, whatever you want, sir…” before the Kalashnikov
thugs came and carted him away. I could hear his muffled
screams in the background as I hung up, and I chuckled
as I imagined them beating him about the head and face
with rolled up back issues of Pravda. They could do with
him what they would. Everybody takes a turn in the barrel,
Bubba, and tonight was Ratbag’s turn. It didn’t matter.
I knew my money would arrive soon. They wouldn’t
dare stiff me. Even thugs feel Professional Respect.
Werewolves in the Night…Bad Craziness in the Rat
Maze…The Swamp Thing Cometh
The package arrived around noon the next day, delivered
by a bicycle messenger with questionable fashion
sense and a strange tic that caused his left eye to dart off
at irregular intervals, as though trying to make contact
with his left ear. Oddly, his right eye appeared perfectly
normal.
“Do you know what’s in this package?” I asked,
reaching into my jacket for his tip, or possibly the Python
if he gave the wrong answer.
“No sir,” he whimpered, his left eye going increasingly
spasmodic, “they wouldn’t tell me. And I wouldn’t
have wanted to know anyway. It’s none of my business.
None of my business at all.”
“That’s good,” I said, palming him a twenty. “You
never know what information could be dangerous. Anybody
could be watching. Anybody could be listening.
Anybody at all.”
“Yes sir,” he sobbed, “Thank you, sir. God bless you.”
I carried the package into The Bunker, being careful
to bolt the hatchway after me. There had been werewolf
sightings in the neighborhood of late, unexplained disappearances,
rumors of the ghost of Spiro Agnew rampaging
through the hills biting the heads off small children.
No sense taking chances. I laid the package down on the
4
Adventure Sports Desk and cut through the packing tape
and twine with the razor-sharp Rapala filet knife that I
always keep in the top drawer to open envelopes and fend
off rats. The rats had caused me no end of trouble. Giant,
red-eyed fiends with heads like miniature horses, dripping
fangs, their mangy fur swarming with parasites…
[Editor’s Note: At this point Mr. Duke suffered an apparent
breakdown that rendered him incoherent for several
hours. His writing from this period was deemed unreadable
by a Panel of Experts and has been destroyed, on the advice
of this publication’s attorneys. We rejoin the narrative
at approximately 3 a.m. the following morning, after the
intervention of a local team of Emergency Exotic Dancers
had calmed Mr. Duke sufficiently to restore a modicum of
rationality to his ranting.]
…But I digress. It is always bad business to lose sight
of The Task at Hand, especially at a time like this. Focus
uber alles, Bubba, and don’t you forget it. Stay the
Course. Death to the Weird. I opened the box. The
money was there, stacks and stacks of it, old twenties as
requested. And cradled between the stacks was the beast
itself, a football-sized canister of pure malevolent evil, the
Vincent Black Molotov, carbide generator of the Apocalypse.
Dark, sleek, dangerous, suitable only for Trained
Caving Professionals. Just looking at it, I understood
the pure filthy speleo lust poor Ratbag must have felt in
the presence of this thing. But Ratbag was gone now,
gone wherever the Kalashnikov thugs stowed those who
failed to Get With the Program, and I was alone with
this unpredictable beast. But that’s where I’m comfortable,
Bubba, out on the ragged edge. It’s not unusual,
out here, to see a man roast and eat his own spleen and
call it Good. Whatever’s Right, I say. I knew the Molotov
and I were going to be friends.
My plan was to test the Molotov at the annual
Thanksgiving gathering of the Dirty Old Men, a group
of speleo freaks and survey boo-hoos so degenerate even
other cavers shun them. But that was not to be. For forty
odd years this collection of evil swine had met at a secret
location in southwest Virginia, taking over a whole motel
for the Thanksgiving holiday, disgusting the owners and
frightening the maids in a terrifying Invasion of the Mud
People. But the invasion had been called off for this year.
Not enough real degenerates left these days. John Taylor
broke the news.
“As a Doctor of History, and as your Attorney,” John
said, “I advise you to go caving with me and Mike List
instead.”
Mike was driving non-stop from Florida, John told me,
no doubt piloting a banana-yellow Mercedes loaded to the

gunwales with specialized caving gear and high-powered
grapefruit, as well as a few carefully hidden vials of powdered
souvenir gator heads, Just In Case. I know from sad
experience what a couple of grams of powdered souvenir
gator heads can do to a man, especially a man with my
tightly wound temperament and exotic sensibilities, but I
knew that wouldn’t stop me from answering the call of the
Swamp Thing if I heard its quavering staccato yelp. But
what the hey, Bubba, it’s all for The Cause, right?
“We’ll go to Morrill’s Cave,” John said. “I was there
fifty-six years ago next Thursday. It’s a great cave. You’ll
love it. It’s usually full of spelunkers, but don’t worry.
We’ll kill like champions.”
“Sign me up,” I said.
When the Going Gets Weird,
the Weird Go Caving…
Meeting the Locals… Meeting the Professionals…
Why Does It Burn When I Cave? ...
A Cave Is Just a Cave, but a Good Cigarette Is a
Smoke… The Hodag Screams for Spelunker Blood
As a Caving Professional, I’ve become accustomed to
the company of the Terminally Weird. A group portrait
of any ten cavers would show more varieties of pure human
oddness than all the Viennese quacks together could
ever catalog. These are the people Jim Morrison had in
mind when he sang “People Are Strange,” but even the
Lizard King himself couldn’t have envisioned the kinghell
weirdness that passes for normal behavior around 4
a.m. at OTR. I say this to emphasize the point that a trip
with John Taylor and Mike List would have been weird
enough, even by caving standards, but that the addition
of Jimbo Helton and Jim “Old Yellow Hat” West to the
mix pushed the Gonzo Meter so far past the red line as to
drive sane people weeping into the streets.
But I was comfortable with that. I never go caving
without an attorney, after all, and John is one, albeit a
non-practicing one, and Jimbo is the son and brother of
attorneys, and Jim is married to an attorney, and Mike
is a member of the Law Enforcement Community, so I
figured we were set for whatever bad craziness came our
way. Death to all those who would whimper and cry, as
Bobby Zimmerman said, and lawsuits be damned.
I had what I needed to properly field test the Molotov:
thirty pounds of my special carbide, often whispered
about but rarely seen by other cavers, a closely guarded
blend called Climax Fireball mixed and sold by a legendary
dealer known only as Risk; water collected from karst
springs in the Pyrenees and smuggled into this country
5
by a vicious band of renegade nuns; and—most importantly—a
pair of extra dark Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses to
make the Molotov’s presumably fearful blaze of light tolerable,
even to a person like myself with sensitive retinas.
As backup I had two Sten Lights, a specially modified
Wheat lamp with spare battery, five meticulously restored
antique Autolites, a half dozen Petzl Duos with twenty-
LED arrays where the standard bulbs should have been,
and an assortment of less Professional lights, plus a case
of custom double-charged DuraCells. That was nothing
compared to the collection of lights actually bolted to Jim
West’s helmet, but I was counting on the Molotov as my
ace in the hole.
I met the others in an abandoned parking lot on
the local college campus. The only people weirder than
cavers, after all, are college faculty members, so we
wouldn’t attract so much attention there. Jimbo and
John had brought their cameras to document the Molotov
test, despite my warnings that the thing might melt
the lenses if they got too close. Mike, with his usual propensity
for Doing The Right Thing, had packed a truly
terrifying stash of souvenir gator head, enough, I calculated,
to twist the entire population of Blountville if it
came to that. I went ahead and sampled some, just to be
on the safe side. Besides my caving gear I had brought
along copies of Caves of Tennessee, Caves of Knoxville and
the Great Smoky Mountains, the Tao Te Ching, the book
of Revelation and Rope Bondage for Dummies. If there’s
one thing I learned in cave journalism school it is to carry
an appropriate personal library at all times. Your life may
depend on it. And if there’s one thing I learned from
Richard Nixon, it is to tape record everything. To that end
I was also packing a vintage Teac four-track reel-to-reel
recorder with an on-board battery and an Electro Voice
microphone. I would get the story At All Costs. In the interest
of remaining inconspicuous, we all piled into Jim’s
mini-van—Jim’s collection of multi-hued plastic leis the
only tip-off to the true mind-melting weirdness of its
driver—and headed for Morrill Cave.
It was a long strange trip—but aren’t they all? As
usual, we had trouble finding the place, but, like Blanche
DuBois, I have always depended upon the kindness of
strangers, so I felt confident we would get there if we
could only enlist the help of Local Experts. What follows
is our conversation with the employees of a local
convenience store, transcribed directly from the fourtrack:
Jim: Yeah, hey, we’re looking for Morrill Cave. You
wouldn’t know…
Convenience Store Clerk: Moral Cave?
Jim: Huh? Yeah, Morrill Cave. See, it says right
here…(sound of paper rustling)

Convenience Store Clerk: Hey, Randall… Randall!
These fellows is looking for a Moral Cave…
Jim: See it says right here, ‘Morrill Cave Road.”
Randall: Yeah that’s probably Swine Kingdom
Road. That’s the only thing I could think of that it
could be…
Convenience Store Clerk: That wouldn’t be the
old Sophisticates’ Club, would it?
Jimbo: Really, we don’t know what it is, we just
decided to come over here and look for it.
Convenience Store Clerk: That’s probably the old
Sophisticates’ Club. That’s just off Swine
Kingdom Road a couple miles.
Randall: More than a couple.
Convenience Store Clerk: That’s probably it,
though. They had a lot of—what did they call
it—moral violations in there. You don’t want to go
there, though.
Mike: We don’t?
Convenience Store Clerk: Nooooooo…
Randall: Oh, Lord, no!
Convenience Store Clerk: They shut that place
down, must’ve been four years ago.
Randall: Five.
Convenience Store Clerk: They said it was some
kind of a spelunker hangout, you know. I never
was in there.
Randall: Trust me, you don’t want to go.
Easy, I kept telling myself as this conversation wound
on interminably, just take it easy and keep calm, or they’ll
know you’ve been into the gator head. Don’t mention that
the clerk is actually a giant troglobitic crayfish. Don’t say
anything about the flowstone growing out of Randall’s ear
canals. Just keep recording. Remember that you are a Professional
Cave Journalist.
I have no recollection of how we got out of there or
how we found our way to the cave, but we did, somehow.
Though Morrill Cave is designated as a Tennessee
State Natural Area, it is located on private property,
and the owner charges a five-dollar-a-person parking fee.
Only when we had found the house, paid our fees, driven
down to the parking area and piled out of the van did
Mike realize that he had been to this cave the past summer.
I began to wonder if he was hitting the gator head a
little too often down there in Florida.
We started gearing up. We had parked next to a
van with Indiana plates. Before we had finished changing
clothes the Hoosier cavers showed up, appropriately
damp and muddy, and started telling us about the cave.
“The whole cave smells like an ashtray,” their leader
said, shaking his head. “There’s a group of flashlight
6
cavers in there, and they’re smoking like crazy. We
must have picked up forty cigarette butts on our way
out.”
“Don’t worry,” I told him, draping an arm around
John’s shoulders. “This man is an attorney, and he has
pledged us all to kill like champions. It’s a legally binding
oath.”
The leader looked uneasy, like he desperately wanted
to change the subject for some reason. In a typical caver
gambit, he quickly shifted to making small talk about gear.
“Hey, those are some fancy lights you’ve got there,”
he said, glancing toward the equipment I had spread on
the ground. His eyes shifted to my carbide generator.
“Say,” he began, “that looks like a… Oh my God, it can’t
be. Is that a…”
I silenced him with an evil glare.
“It’s a prototype,” I said, “the Black Molotov. Only
three have been built so far, and the fellows who tested
the other two aren’t around to say what they thought of
it. I’m on a Professional Mission here. It’s a secret, but I
feel I can trust you. That is true isn’t it? I can trust you?”
He blanched and swallowed hard as my right hand
darted into the top of my coveralls. Ordinarily I keep
the Python in a hand-tooled leather shoulder holster,
customized for a quick draw, but in this case I was only
reaching for my M&M’s.
“Look, mister,” he said as he backed slowly toward
the open door of the van, his hands held before him in
supplication, “I don’t want any trouble. In fact, I never
even saw you. I didn’t see any cavers from Kentucky here
at all today, or anyone using carbide.”
I pulled out the M&M’s and tore open the package.
“You’ll go far in life, Bubba,” I told him. But he was
already yanking the van into gear and throwing gravel by
the time I’d finished the sentence.
“He seemed kinda nervous,” Jimbo observed.
“His kind always is,” I said. “But that’s good. It’s not
everyone who has the right sort of nerve endings to taunt
the Sausage Creature.”
Besides Jim’s van, the parking lot contained one
beat-up old Chevy—no doubt the spelunkers’ car—and a
fancy new van. The van’s owners were obviously Professionals,
though of a low sort: caving-for-pay outfitters.
It’s hard to say, Bubba, which group cavers look
down on more. Spelunkers—also known as locals, rednecks,
flashlight cavers—have the edge by virtue of their
reputation for pure atavistic dumbness—carrying a few
weak flashlights, not wearing helmets, descending drops
on frayed clothesline with no clear idea how to get back
up, drinking and drugging underground, spraypainting
the walls, killing bats, collecting speleothems, generally

trashing the place, getting lost, getting killed—but I feel
a certain twisted admiration for them. The best of them
are skilled and resourceful cavers, successfully making due
despite a total lack of Professional Caving Equipment,
caving on a Huckleberry Finn level of knowledge and
technology. The worst of them are meaner than cornered
rats and twice as ignorant, and they’ve managed to turn
that into a strength.
I also feel a grudging respect—call it Professional
Courtesy—for the caving-for-pay people. Cavers object
to the increased traffic underground, but they rarely call
for curtailment of their own cave privileges, just those of
other people. And most every caver I know would once
have been a potential customer for these greedy swine,
eager to queue up for a look at the mysterious underground,
and the hell with the objections of snooty elitists
who would keep them out.
All of which would certainly not keep me from impaling
and roasting both the spelunkers and the cavers-forpay
on a hot spit just for the freakish fun of it if the opportunity
arose, but it pays to keep things in perspective.
All geared up, we followed the trail of USA Light
filters down to the cave’s upper, dry entrance. Standing
there at the portal, we all knew the Crucial Moment had
arrived. The Molotov was loaded—armed and dangerous,
as it were—and the Big Bang was at hand. Even Jim
West looked nervous as I put on my helmet and placed
my thumb and forefinger on the ignition knob.
“Let there be light,” I said, and twisted my wrist to
start the fireworks.
Nothing happened. The others let out a collective
sigh of relief as I ripped off my helmet and began to curse
the Molotov fiercely. Then I realized I had forgotten to
turn on the water jets. I flipped them on, twisted the ignition
knob again, and… and had an indelible image of hell
literally burned into my brain as the Molotov’s flame jet
bathed the whole world in a blinding flash of blue-white
light that even the Ray-Bans couldn’t contain. I found
myself wishing I had worn a welding mask.
When my pupils had shrunk to pin-pricks I was able
to see the others, all of them thrown to the cave floor by
the initial blast, lying in twisted heaps, vainly trying to
shield their eyes from the unbearable glare. I knew that
any sympathy I gave them would be taken as a sign of
weakness. I strapped my helmet on, ignoring the scalpsearing
heat at my forehead.
“Get up,” I said. “We’re Professional Spelunker
Hunters, after all. Kill ‘em all, let the hodags sort ‘em
out. Up, up and away.”
One by one they staggered to their feet, put on their
sunglasses, and stumbled down the passage. Maybe we
really would kill like champions.
7
The Hoosiers hadn’t picked up nearly all the cigarette
butts in the cave, and we were able to track the spelunkers
through the spacious passage with ease. The combination
of tobacco smoke and carbide fumes proved an
oddly pungent mixture and the Molotov’s flame burned
up most of the available oxygen, giving the numerous
large formations a sort of hallucinatory quality in our hypoxia-addled
brains. Every scene appeared in stark relief,
the near-blinding light of the Molotov contrasting with
the deep shadows thrown by every breakdown block or
speleothem. I eventually noticed that the others had not
bothered turning their lights on at all.
Still, I wasn’t satisfied with the Molotov’s performance.
I kept shaking it and cursing at it, disgusted by
what I saw as its failure to attain Maximum Possible Firepower.
My fellow cavers winced and covered their eyes
at every violent flare-up brought on by my shaking the
thing, but I didn’t let that deter me. “You’ll thank me
for this someday,” I told them, as they cowered behind a
flowstone mass after one especially garish light show.
The upper passage through which we were traveling
periodically intersected with the lower, wet passage until
we finally reached a climb-up where the two tunnels
diverged. We would be going high, naturally, so Jimbo
rigged a webbing hand line to make the climb safer. It
worked, too, until I tried to climb and the Molotov’s
flame vaporized a foot-long segment of the webbing
right in front of my face. I fell backwards, but luckily
landed on John, who was spotting me, if perhaps not
intentionally. “As your attorney,” he said, as he lay there
on the cave floor, “I advise you not to fall.” Eventually
we all made it up the climb and continued down the
passage.
Not much farther along, we came upon the cave’s
signature speleothem, an enormous flowstone drapery
perhaps forty feet wide and twenty feet tall. In the incandescent
glow of the Molotov it appeared to be melting
like a gigantic ice cream cone on a Dog Day afternoon.
I wasn’t sure whether the heat from the carbide flame
was actually melting the calcite or whether I had overindulged
in the gator head.
“Very impressive,” John said.
“Wow,” Mike said.
“I gotta take a dump,” said Jimbo.
“Damn it!” I screeched, “I can’t believe that Ratbag—may
he rot in hell—stuck me with such a useless
generator. I’ve seen industrial magnesium flares brighter
than this.” Clearly, this Sub-Professional Performance on
the part of my primary light source would be the cross I
would have to bear for my unwarranted kindness to Ratbag,
that scaly, syphilitic little hairball, and for the everexpanding
globalization of the carbide generator industry.
I silently vowed to write my congressman at the first

opportunity demanding American carbide generators for
Americans, by God. But that would have to wait.
We pressed on, soon reaching Morrill Cave’s most
bizarre attraction, the Tombstone Factory. I sat down
and fished in my pack for my copy of Caves of Knoxville
and the Great Smoky Mountains. Having found it, I dug
around some more until I came up with the Teac and
the Electro Voice. I spooled the tape, turned my carbide
flame up a few notches in order to see the page more
clearly and read the following description into the microphone
for later reference:
There is one other mystery connected with this period
in the cave’s history. There are three sites in the
cave where inexplicable slices were made into various
forms of flowstone. Stalagmites, columns, and flowstone
slopes were sliced by some unknown type of
saw, with smooth even faces and with keen accuracy.
The larger of the sites is known as the tombstone
area and contains many cuts….Not only did someone
go to the obvious trouble of making all these
cuts, but they left virtually all of the pieces lying
around; practically none of the cut-out pieces were
taken out of the cave. This is one mystery that will
be difficult to clear up.
That quotation comes from cave historian Laurie
Adams. Larry E. Matthews, the book’s author, does in
fact clear up at least part of the mystery, noting that several
tombstones manufactured from the sawn slabs still
stand in a nearby cemetery. But what of it? Let the dead
bury their dead, I say. That’s gibberish, of course, but
it’s scriptural gibberish, and I take that very seriously
indeed.
I suppose the combination of carbide fumes and my
own mounting agitation at the disappointing dimness
of my light kept me from noticing them until they were
upon us: spelunkers, three boys and a girl, serious rednecks,
all of them smoking, the devil-red embers of their
discount cigarettes glowing as they greedily sucked smoke
into their lungs. They all wore the dull, sullen look of
their breed as they shielded their eyes from the Molotov’s
glare, but one of the boys did manage to speak, in a rudimentary
way. “That there’s a purty bright light,” he said.
“Bright?” I barked at him. “You call this bright? This
is twilight compared to what this thing ought to be putting
out. Bright? You wouldn’t know bright if it melted
your eyeballs, you swine! This pathetic thing is a pitiful
waste of my custom carbide.”
This outburst hardly seemed to phase him, though he did
seem to sense, in some dim recess of his primitive brain,
that he had given offense. “I never meant nothin’,” he
said.
8
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you all smoking? Smoking?
In a cave?”
Spokesboy spoke again. “We never meant nothin’,”
he repeated, seeming to have a single stock phrase ready
for any occasion.
“Jesus Criminy!” I yelled, yanking the cigarette out
of his mouth and stuffing it, still lit, into the pocket of his
muddy flannel shirt. “Don’t you fools know what hodags
are? Don’t you know how much danger you’re in?”
“We never meant nothin’,” he said for the third time,
varying the emphasis for some subtle effect discernible
only to him.
“It doesn’t matter what you meant,” I said. “Hodags
don’t care what you mean, for God’s sake. All they care
about is a good bloody, gristly meal of spelunker meat,
and they’re drawn to the smell of cigarette smoke. Have
you ever seen that movie, The Descent?”
Spokesboy gave a little nod.
“The creatures in that movie are prairie dogs next to
real hodags. The director had to tone down the violence
to get it past the ratings board. Real hodags will eat your
eyeballs, slowly, one at a time, while they’re still in your
head. And what comes after that starts to get painful.”
Obviously the smart one of the group, Spokesboy
looked a bit uncomfortable now. The other three still
wore the utterly vacant stare of the living dead, but I
didn’t let that bother me. I’ve met John Sununu, after all.
“There’s only one thing you can do,” I told him.
“Get out of the cave as quickly as you can, without smoking
any more.”
Now the girl came to life for the first time and piped
up, “Without smoking?”
“Yes,” I said, “without smoking. Mike, where’s that
gator head?” He reached into his pack and came out with
a softball-sized bag of finely ground lizard. “Here,” I told
them. “Each of you eat about an ounce of this stuff. It’s
hodag repellent. Seeps out of your intestines and into
your pores. Hodags hate the smell of it. It’s your only
hope.” They did as they were told, and we sent them on
their way with a warning to try to use as little light as
possible on the way out so as to avoid the monsters’ attention.
I noticed that Spokesboy’s shirt was smoldering,
but I didn’t mention it.
“Man, that was a lot of gator head you told them to
eat,” said Mike. “Do you think they’ll be all right?”
“They never were.”
“They was just kids,” said Jimbo. “They didn’t know
no better.”
“Let’s rock ‘n’ roll,” I told the others. “Tempus fugit.
Time’s a’ wastin’.” We moved ever deeper into the
cave, threading our way through breakdown. By now I

had given up on coaxing the sort of spelunker-roasting
performance I had hoped for out of the Molotov and had
settled for a more moderate klieg-light glare instead of
the promised nuclear flash. So when we met the cavingfor-pay
group the guides and clients hardly even had to
shield their eyes.
Aside from a few random and readily expendable children
and parents, the caving-for-pay clients turned out
mostly to be college students from a school in western
North Carolina. If there’s one thing more useless and
asinine than a college student, Bubba, I wouldn’t want
to hear about it. And anybody who takes college students
into caves must be a world class fool and a king-hell masochist
besides. Try as I might to reason with myself—we
were running low on gator head, and I was finding it hard
to collect my thoughts—I couldn’t resist the temptation
to pull out the Teac and interview one of them.
Duke: So, uh, what are you…I mean why did you…
Oh, jeez, hodags, look out!!!...That was close…I
don’t know how much longer I can… Say, you
wouldn’t happen to have any powdered souvenir
gator head on you, would you? No. No, you’re
a clean-living American young person. Of course
you’d have nothing to do with something like
that. I don’t condone it either, of course.
Naturally. Did you know that I’m a doctor of cave
journalism? What‘s your name, little girl? Just
speak into the microphone.
College Student: Heather.
Duke: Heather?
College Student: Yeah.
Duke: Jeez O Pete. What kind of twisted lunatics
are your parents? Did your mother watch a lot of
daytime dramas?
College Student: What are you talking about? Is
there something wrong with you?
Duke: Wrong? With me? No, why? I mean, I’m
sweating a little. Kind of hot in this cave. I feel like
my forehead’s on fire. And my light’s kind of dim,
that’s a problem. But no, I’m fine. I’m a Caving
Professional, after all. Sort of like your guide, but
without such closely spaced eyes.
College Student: Get away from me. I never would
have come in this filthy cave if I’d known I’d meet
somebody like you.
Duke: Heather, wait! I love you! You remind me of
Estes Kefauver! Come back!
But where were we? We were talking about college
students and things got a little out of hand. I avoid the
little punks myself, always a good policy in This Day and
9
Age. But I was strangely drawn to Heather and she had
deserted me. I felt like a dog took my place. And whenever
I feel that way it’s time for a dose of Revelation. I
sat down on a rock, produced the book from my pack,
opened it at random, and read this: “And the fruits that
thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things
which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and
thou shalt find them no more at all.” So no more Heather.
The other college students were milling about the passage,
all but the ones standing enraptured and entranced
listening to a caving story Jim West was making up on the
spot. One of the milling-about ones wandered over to me
and asked what I was reading. I leapt to my feet, threw
my hands in the air, and cried out in a loud voice, saying,
“Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the
habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and
a cage of every unclean and hateful bird! For all nations
have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication,
and the kings of the earth have committed fornication
with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich
through the abundance of her delicacies!” Then I wept
and scourged myself and rent my garments. The student
actually turned on his heel and ran, no mean trick on the
muddy floor of the passage. Some people can’t handle the
truth, I guess.
Eventually the caving-for-pay group headed out, and
John, Mike, Jim, Jimbo and I were left alone in the passage,
each of us sitting on a rock and pondering his losses.
We had planned to keep going until we reached the bitter
end of the passage, but it was plain now that we wouldn’t
make it. John said he thought several of his internal organs
had been crushed when I fell on him. Mike was discouraged
at the thought that we had used up all the gator
head and he would have to drive all the way back to
Florida without any. I had somehow lost Heather. Jimbo
was dangerously constipated. It was time to go home.
Another Night in The Bunker…
The Strange Revenge of Punxatawney Phil…
The End of the Black Molotov…
God Loves Dick Cheney…
Freak Power in the Pine Mountain Grotto
But that was last year. Tonight it’s snowing outside,
piling up in three foot drifts, and the wind is howling.
The Bunker is windowless and soundproof, but I can
feel it just the same. Punxatawney Phil saw his shadow
today, according to news reports, and bit his handler’s
index finger clean off before retreating to his hole for six
more weeks of peaceful wintry sleep. The paramedics said

they’d never seen so much blood, but the snow soaked
it up. That fellow will never be the same. The rest of his
life he’ll look at the mangled stump of his finger and see
psychedelic visions of hideous yellow rodent teeth clamping
down on tender flesh, crushing bone, severing ligaments.
He’ll never celebrate Groundhog Day again. And
what’s the other name for Groundhog Day? Candlemas.
The blessing of the candles takes place today, a more civilized
ritual that involves no rodents at all. And what do
candles do but give light? Unlike the Vincent Black Molotov,
which never gave enough light, never took it as far
as I wanted to go, never blazed with quite the glory I
expected. I sent it back to Ratbag—turns out the Kalashnikov
thugs only gave him a few playful lacerations—like
the groundhog handler, he’ll never be the same but it’s
probably for the best—with my succinct handwritten review:
“Ratbag, when it comes to the fate of this generator,
Conrad had it right in Heart of Darkness: ‘Exterminate
all the brutes.’”
Ed Bob Remembered
By John Taylor
10
Change is in the air. There’s a new president in Washington
now. The previous president, Dick Cheney, was
transfigured immediately after the inauguration, rising
into the sky with a glowing beneficent sneer on his lips.
Jim West’s latest stint as chair of the Pine Mountain Grotto
ended with the New Year. No one thought it could
happen, but a bald man is now chair of the PMG. His
campaign centered on the perfidiousness of his “longhaired
opponent,” which was strange since no one was
running against him. More and more cavers are using
electric headlamps these days. Even Risk is talking about
getting out of the carbide business, moving to Dubuque
and opening a pizza joint with go-go dancers.
But I’m still here, right where I like it, dug into the
bunker with all the necessities… and a few luxuries, if it
comes to that, just a crazy hillbilly with a brain full of gator
head and a heart full of hate. Res ipsa loquitur. Let the
good times roll.
Last September PMG lost a fellow member and long time grotto companion. For
many years Ed Bob was a common sight at Cranes Nest. Always there to greet fellow
cavers before you ever reached the front door.
—Editor
Ed Bob was a stray when he arrived at Crane Nest and seemed
to be just out of puppyhood. The first mention of him in my
caving log was March 20 1998 so he must have been around
12 or 13 years old. We had grown old and gray together but
when you look at photos taken ten years ago they show no gray
in his face. He was still physically vigorous and only recently he
and I hiked through the Blanton Forest to Knobby Rock near
the top of Pine Mountain. Although Ed Bob never articulated a
particular point of view, I just have to believe that Crane Nest is
a fabulous place to be a dog.
September 2009 email
— John Taylor
Younger John and Ed Bob Lisa Storey

Midnight at the Oasis
PMG member Dan Silvestri photographed this group of stalagmites in a section of
Gap Cave known as the Rimstone Riviera.
It was taken during one of several photo trips in the ongoing CRF survey of Gap
Cave at Cumberland Gap National Park.
11

Hall’s Cave, Kerr, Texas
This cave is in the Segovia Member of the
Edwards Limestone Its passages were controlled
by the rudistid reef that has a high porosity and
permeability. Rudists fossils decorate the roof of
the cave. The cave is entered by walking down a
talus slope in a sinkhole. Inside there are abundant
stalactites and drapes, although most are dry. The
large amount of travertine and the dry rimstone
dams both indicate that the cave once experienced
wetter conditions. The cave faunas have been
sensitive to both moisture and temperature
changes.
Hall’s Cave is located in the center of the
Balconian biotic province. Its most numerous
living vertebrate is Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana (
Mexican free-tail bat), whose colonies often occupy
the cave in the summer. In most years a bachelor
colony of only males forms, but in the summer of
1991 the cave housed a maternity colony. The cave
is also the summer home for the Hirundo fulva (
cave swallow).
The Hall’s Cave fauna provides detailed information
about changes in temperature, moisture, and soil
depth in central Texas over the last 18,000 years.
The presence in the fossil record of Sorex ( shrews),
Zapus hudsonius ( meadow jumping mouse),
and Microtus ( voles) prior to 13,000 years BP
indicate a cooler climate. That the area around
Hall’s Cave was also moister prior to 13,000 years
BP is indicated by the presence of Synaptomys
cooperi ( southern bog lemming), and Cryptotis
parva ( least shrew). Cryptotis has been replaced
by Notiosorex crawfordi ( desert shrew). Cryptotis
Convention 2009
Richard Hand
During last year’s convention in Texas Richard had the chance to go
on three different cave trips. Here are his impressions on those caves.
— Editor
12
parva now resides in the moister northeastern
states, and Notiosorex crawfordi remains part of
the Texas fauna today.
Hall’s Cave deposits also document the longterm
denudation of the local soils. Prior to 10,000
years BP Cynomys ( prairie dog) was present in the
area around the cave. They require soil at least a
meter deep. As the soil thinned they vanished from
the area, and Thomomys ( pocket gopher) became
the dominate soil resident. These faunal shifts in
the fossil record indicate a significant drying and
thinning of the soil.
In summary, the abundance of small animal
fossils in Hall’s Cave provides an opportunity
to interpret their changes as a reflection of the
environment of the area during the terminal
Pleistocene and Holocene.
Thanks go to Rick Toomey, III for a very
instructive field trip.
Friesenhahn Cave
Bexar County, Texas
The Edwards Formation resisted karst
development until the Balcones Faulting that
occurred during the Miocene. For this reason,
except for Fyllan Cave, the ages of all known cave
deposits in the area fall within the last 25,000
years. Friesenhahn Cave is located near the
Balcones Escarpment on the southeastern edge of
the Edwards Plateau. It is best known for its rich
collection of mammoth ( Mammuthus columbi)

milk teeth associated with numerous articulated
skeletons of the extinct scimitar cat (Homotherium
serum (= Dinobastis serus)). During the Pleistocene
the original cave entrance may have been a pit trap
for animals, but as the talus cone enlarged animals
could freely enter and leave the cave. Homotherium,
Smilodon fatalis ( sabertooth cat), Canis dirus
(dire wolf ), Arctodus ( an extinct bear), and Ursus
americanus ( brown bear) all entered the cave,
probably denning there. Below the talus cone, slate
gray clays indicate the presence of a reducing pond
environment. As the sediment nearly filled the
entrance only small carnivores, rodents, and turtles
could enter. Then it closed completely.
The modern entrance is a karst window, a
thirty foot pit directly into the room in which the
cat skeletons were found. There was an adult and
two kittens of different ages. The facts that the
skeletons were still articulated and that they were
so well preserved indicate that they must have died
with rapid burial, most probably in a cave flash
flood.
The Scimitar cats had shorter upper canines
than the sabertooth cats, but their canines were
more flattened ( like knives), and they had sharp
serrations ( blood groves). Their forelimbs were
strikingly elongated, and together with their shorter
hind limbs, they assumed a sloping-back posture
like modern hyenas. They were fleeter of foot than
the slow, heavy sabertooth cats, and were able to
prey on juvenile mammoths. They followed their
prey into extinction near the end of the ice age.
Several other animal species have been identified
in the cave. There is such a rich faunal assemblage
that bones and teeth protrude from the bottom of
the talus cone, the walls, and the floor of the cave.
This site promises to keep paleontologists busy for
decades to come.
Cave Without A Name
At this time this is a beautiful show cave. It is
also located on the margin of the Edwards Plateau.
Extinct species have been found in its fossil record:
a mastodont, an ovibovid (musk ox), and a horse.
13
Also mammals now of more northern affinities, that
have been extirpated from the area have been found:
Sorex cinereus (masked shrew now living in Canada
and the northern states), Microtus pennsylvanicus
(meadow vole now living in Canada and the northern,
eastern, and mountain states), and Mustela erminea
(ermine or shorttail weasel now living in Canada and
the northern and western states). This cave offers a
peak at the history of animal life in the area.
See the Hall’s Cave report for more details.

In celebrations of Memorial Day weekend,
I usually attend Speleofest. I did attend
Speleofest this year, but I had a different
reason to celebrate, obtaining my dream job.
As many of you know, NSS education is my
focus, where I became Education Division
Chief at the Nov ember 2008 BOG meeting.
It was too at this meeting that II became
aware that the National Cave and Karst
Research Institute (NCKRI) was searching
for its first education director. I applied for
the job in December, interviewed for the
position in April and anxiously awaited the
NCKRI”s decision.
I was packing my gear for a fun filled
weekend at Speleofest when, Dr. George
Veni, executive director of NCKRI, calls me
to ask the question, “So do you want to move
to Carlsbad?” With this began the latest
adventure in my life, building a nationwide
cave and karst educational program.
The U.S. Congress created NCKRI in 1998
as a federal entity, located in the City of
Carlsbad, New Mexico under the auspices of
the National Park Service. In 2006, NCKRI
changed to a non-profit corporation,
operated through the New Mexico Institute
of Mining and Technology to maximize its
flexibility to enter into partnerships with
other entities and to be in a better position
to raise funds. Dr. George Veni was brought
on board in 2007, as the institute’s director.
Dr. Veni has vey high aspirations for
NCKRI. He knows that it is through
partnerships that NCKRI will build its
foundation for success. My position as
education director for the institute reflects
this idea. I have the task before me to build
a cave and karst educational programs both
formal and informal with national focus.
National Cave and Karst Research
Institute’s First Education Director
Dianne Gillespie
Pine Mountain Grotto wishes Dianne all the best in her job.— Editor
The first thing that I am doing to accomplish this task is to travel
nationwide to research existing programs, and to build and gain
partnerships. My trip across the US began with International
Congress of Speleology in Texas and will be complete at near
the end of November. When my trip is complete, I will use my
research to build NCKRI’s educational local, state and national
programs.
Some of the goals that I have for cave and karst education is
to get the issues and ideas included in the National Education
Curriculum Standards and state curriculum standards in the
states that have cave and karst resources, from Oregon to
Florida. Build programs that bring a better understanding
of caves and karst terrains to educators, land planners, city
planners, and government officials.
NCKRI Headquarters is designed to conduct research and business in ample
laboratory, library, and office space, while educating the public about the importance
of caves and karst through its museum, classrooms and bookstore. With
technical expertise from Bat Conservation International, NCKRI Headquarters
will be the world’s first building to include a bat roost as part of its design. Phase
1 construction will be complete in November 2009.
Photo courtesy of NCKRI
14

TAG 2009
Karen Caldwell
I arrived at TAG at 11:55 eastern time on Thursday night
(worried that I would be stuck sleeping in the car outside
the gate, because information said registration closed at
midnight). After checking in I proceeded to our usual
PMG campsite location. Finding a new spring and lake
in our usual area, I did not find the small contingent of
PMGers that I was looking for. I asked lots of people who
were still awake and no one knew anything about Lee
Powell or Mike List or PMG. Although, several people
pointed me to the Pigeon Mountain Grotto (who by the
way have a sign...Where is ours? and we need to get it
to the people going to events!) I then drove around in
circles literally for half an hour looking for PMG. Once I
decided to check the other side of the camping areas. Bad
idea. It was muddy, really muddy. I don’t know that I had
seen the traction light in my new car before, now I have
and I was almost stuck. At least I could reverse. I went
back to the dryer (not dry, just dryer side) and drove
around a couple more times. Being discouraged and tired
by this time I gave up, pulled over on the side of the trail,
took the cooler and a box out of the back seat and slept
there. In the back of the car which is what I was trying to
avoid by arriving on time.
I woke in the morning drove a very short distance
(around the same place I had driven at least 5 times the
night before) and saw Lee. Lee and Mike both have new
vehicles which I did not recognize and I couldn’t see well
enough in the dark to find them. It might have been
easier if both of them had not been in bed when I arrived.
At least I finally found them.
Forgetting that I was now in Eastern time, I thought
I had time to eat breakfast and get ready when Mike told
me we were leaving for a cave trip at 10:00. A few minutes
later he said we’re leaving in 10 minutes. So, I hurried
and grabbed food for breakfast in the car and something
to eat for later (you know me food first). Then I tried to
get my caving gear together in a hurry. We all know how
well this usually goes. So I had most of what I needed.
No extra batteries or back up lights, and no hair band,
but otherwise mostly together.
Jim (a trip leader from SCCi) took us on a nice trip
of Anderson Spring Cave. Wet crawl, only my left arm
and pack were dry when we came out. It was a good
15
trip though. Wet and muddy, but had some very nice
formations, if you climbed up to see them. Which we
all did except Mike who patiently waited for us to come
down. I should have stuck the back of my neck in the
stream when we got out like Lee did to get the mud out
of my hair (It worked for him, he did not have any mud in
his hair). When we got back to the showers I had clumps
of mud in my hair. How nice, I think mud makes you hair
shiny or something so it must have looked good the next
day, but the only mirrors were in the port-o-johns so I
didn’t hang out to fix my hair in there.
Friday night was the band, a small bonfire, and a very
windy storm (we took cover in Lee’s new soccer mom
van..I shouldn’t make fun, it slept very nicely and I didn’t
have to get my tent out).
Mike List and Karen at the entrance to Anderson Spring Cave.
Lee Powell
Saturday the three PMGers (Anne Elmore was also
there, but she didn’t stay or cave with us) joined Fred
and Gary (I don’t know anyone’s last name) and took a
trip to Rusty’s. Lee and I took lots of pics (some included
here) while the others explored. I was terribly rude and
climbed out on top of some guy, but I had to go and he
was really slow.
The whole other group was climbing on some
modified self made systems that were very slow, but maybe
I was just in a hurry. They all seemed really interested and
impressed by my rope walker. Which I know you don’t
really need at Rusty’s but it is all I have so I used it.

The whole other group was climbing on some modified self made systems that were very slow, but maybe I was just
in a hurry. They all seemed really interested and impressed by my rope walker. Which I know you don’t really need at
Rusty’s but it is all I have so I used it.
Saturday night we ate Chinese and I learned that I am surrounded by true friends who say rude things. We got
back just in time not to win anything in the door prize drawing and see the fire lit. They had a DJ and dancing (I think
I like the band better) at the munchie pavilion. And Lee and I stayed up late enough to attend the SCCi raffle drawing
which to our displeasure was proceeded by an auction which took about an hour before we could find out that we
hadn’t won anything in the raffle either.
Lee did buy a new frog system which we took back to Rusty’s Sunday afternoon to test. It worked well and Lee was
good at it. We bounced a few times and then went in search of a corn maze. We found one, unfortunately they didn’t
advertise the times so it was closed when we arrived.
It was a good TAG. We missed all the other PMG members who make it great. We hope you will all come back
next year and join us for TAG 2010.
Lee in Rusty’s. Karen Caldwell
Saturday night’s bonfire ready to burn. Karen Caldwell
16
PMG’s campsite with no PMG banner. Karen Caldwell
Karen and Lee deep inside Rusty’s Cave. Karen Caldwell

MUNFORDVILLE, KENTUCKY
SOLDIER CAVE
Sarah A. Blankenship, Joseph C. Douglas,
Lynn K. Roebuck, and Marion O. Smith
All photographs taken by Elliot Stahl
Between mid-December 1861 and early March 1862, a number of Union soldiers from Ohio, Indiana,
and Pennsylvania visited a small cave on the northern outskirts of Munfordville, Kentucky. The duck
under crawl entrance is in a steep sinkhole on the west side of what was then the Louisville and Nashville
Railroad, and leads to about 500 or 600 feet of up and down meandering passage with a vertical extent of perhaps
thirty-five feet.
Some 146 years later caver Chris Clark toured part of the grotto, noted some of the soldier names, and even
learned a bit about one of them. On August 11, 2009, Chris graciously led Joseph C. Douglas, Sherry Persons,
Elliot Stahl, and Marion O. Smith to the cave to record and photograph the names. While there, Joe found in
the back upper level names which Chris had not seen. A few months later, on November 5, Marion returned on a
solo visit and copied additional soldier and suspicious old names. The following names and initials were recorded
on these two trips:
E W Brent 1862 W. S. Iler
Co. C. 15 Re O.V. U.SA 1862
JEFF. McDowell
Co. B. 15. O.V. USA 1862 A. B. Harry
Co. E 65 REG OVM
J. B. M 1862
W m Pumfrey
D. Vornhork(??) Co E 65 Reg OVM
Co C? 65 OV Feby 17 1862
Feb 15 62
N. McD. Coe
W. Fies 64 th Ohio
Co. B. 64. REGT Mach 3 1862
OHIO. VOL
M. J. HALSEAD
H R D DEC 30 1861
O. Culbert OV Isaac A. Mills 1862
A. M. Burns J M Y
Co. I 15 O.V. G H I
1861 H. A. Miller H. Seiters
A?V Co. I 15. OV
John Waters F. H. KLAINE
Co F. 65 Regt
17

G. W. Cummins Feb 20 th O.V.I 62
2 nd Lieut Comp I
15 th OV F. B. SPELMAN
Co E 65 Re OV. USA
R E LINE
R M DAVIDSON
Jacob Somerville Co I 1 st Regt OVM
Co C. 38 Ind 1862
J H WELLS
J M GRADEN
Co A 78 th Reg THOMAS YOE(?)
OM 1862
A. J. NEEL
Co A, 78 PV A P(?) HAITY(?)
65 OVM
_____ RUSSELL Feb 17 th 1862
____ March(?) 1862
L Q Fletcher 1862
A DENNIS Fremont
H YOUNG P.(?) B. S
_____ 1862
SMITH FREY
B P Doyel
M R C 1862
R O Lucas
W A Lowry
Co H 78 PV W Bettinghaas
As inscribed on the cave walls, soldiers from six
regiments are represented, the 1 st , 15 th , 64 th and
65 th Ohio, 38 th Indiana, and 78 th Pennsylvania. But
research has revealed that men from other outfits were
there too, certainly the 49 th Ohio and 57 th Indiana.
These military visitors saw the cave during at least
two periods: December 1861-early February 1862
and middle February-March 1862. There is a chance
that other soldiers found the cave six months later.
The 1 st and 15 th Ohio, 38 th Indiana, and 78 th
Pennsylvania, distributed among three brigades,
were all part of the recently organized 2 nd Division
of the Army of the Ohio, commanded by Brigadier
General Alexander McD. McCook. On December 9,
1861, the 2 nd Division was ordered to move forward
from its position near the railroad below Nolin. The
experience of the 15 th Ohio for the next two months
was probably typical of McCook’s soldiers. 2
On December 10 the 15 th moved “to the village
of Munfordville on Green river where” they “went
into camp about one-fourth of a mile north of the
18
W. F. HINMAN 1
town.” Their camp was named Camp Wood for a local
resident, “George Wood, a member of the Kentucky
Military Board.” Within a few days “the men set
about making their quarters more comfortable. The
regiment was encamped on a steep hillside” where
sometimes “the ground had to be graded and leveled
off before the [Sibley] tents could be properly placed.”
The 78 th Pennsylvania camped on the north bank of
the river. 3
While at Munfordville the regiments all took their
turn on picket duty. Many of the days were inclement,
with Captain Amos Glover (1832-1890) of Company
F and other members of the 15 th Ohio recording
“cold & sleeting,” “too cold for drill,” “unsettled
& snowy,” and rainy weather. The historian of the
38 th Indiana wrote that “The winter was unusually
severe and much sickness prevailed.” He claimed the
“ground around the camp was tramped until the mud
was like mortar.” 4
Sergeant Andrew J. Gleason (c1837-1910),
a diarist from the 15 th Ohio’s Company F, on

December 30, 1861, alluded to “exploring a noted
cave in the vicinity.” It is assumed that it was the same
Munfordville soldier cave under scrutiny in 2009. 5
On February 14, 1862, McCook’s 2 nd Division
marched north to go to the Ohio River, board
steamboats, and reinforce Major General U. S.
Grant’s army in front of Fort Donelson, Tennessee.
En route, the news was received that operations at
the fort were going well, and the division was counter
ordered back south. On the 16 th some portions of it,
including the 15 th Ohio, crossed the Green River and
camped about a mile south of Munfordville. From
there the 2 nd Division took part in the Army of the
Ohio’s long, slow march to Nashville,
with various commands arriving there
February 25 to March 6. 6
The 57 th Indiana and 64 th and 65 th
Ohio regiments provided a number of
the second wave of soldier visitors to the
cave at the north end of Munfordville.
The latter two units were part of the
Sherman Brigade raised under the
authority of Ohio’s governor by U.S.
Senator John Sherman. The 57 th was
organized at Richmond, Indiana, and
from late December 1861 until mid-
February 1862, it was stationed in the
Bardstown and Lebanon, Kentucky
areas as part of the 21 st Brigade. Both
the 64 th and 65 th Ohio were organized
at Mansfield, Ohio, and in mid-
December 1861 they moved by rail to Cincinnati and
then by steamboat to Louisville. By the 30 th of that
month they had marched to a camp four miles east
of Bardstown. There they stayed just over two weeks
becoming part of the 20 th Brigade, which like the 21 st
Brigade, was in the 6 th Division of the Army of the
Ohio under Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood. 7
The 64 th and 65 th Ohio were among the
regiments which marched in stages, January 14-
24, some seventy-six miles to Hall’s Gap, Kentucky.
There the decent road ended, and they were put to
building “corduroy roads to facilitate the movement
of supplies to General [George H.] Thomas’s forces
at Somerset.” This was hard work since “the road
was almost impassable . . . one great channel of
mud.” Their job was “to fell trees, cut the trunks
into lengths of twelve feet, split these into sections,
and lay them transversely, covering them with a few
inches of earth.” By then Thomas had eliminated
19
the Confederate threat in southeastern Kentucky by
defeating General Felix K. Zollicoffer’s army at Mill
Springs. About February 8, Wood’s 6 th Division was
ordered back west to the Louisville and Nashville
Railroad and southward to Munfordville as part of the
Union army buildup there. The 64 th and 65 th Ohio
by February 10 had trudged forty-four miles back
to Lebanon. On the 12 th they boarded railroad cars,
slowly moved to Lebanon Junction, and then south.
At 2 AM on February 13 they reached Munfordville
and passed the remainder of the night in a cornfield. 8
At Munfordville were many soldiers massed for a
forward movement. “There were camps everywhere—
infantry, artillery and cavalry. Tents
covered every field for miles.” After
daylight the men of the 20 th Brigade
set up tents a half mile from Green
River. By the 15 th men of the 21 st
Brigade, including the 57 th Indiana,
were present. There “were some very
wet and dismal days” at the camps.
The Sherman Brigade’s “cornfield was
decidedly too muddy for comfort,”
and the men “were obliged to resort
to some desperate shifts” to get by. By
February 24 Wood’s division began
crossing Green River to join in Major
General Don C. Buell’s Army of the
Ohio advance to Nashville. 9
The following September
14-17, in their movement toward
Louisville, the Confederates under General Braxton
Bragg forced the surrender of over 4,000 Federals
at Munfordville. The Union defenders were a
hodgepodge of detachments, companies, recruits,
and large portions of the 60th , 67th , 68th , and 89th Indiana regiments. It is possible that a few men
sought the safety of the cave by the railroad during
this attack. However, so far no names found in the
cave substantiate this notion. 10
Marion recording one of the names
in his notebook.
Identification of the soldiers who left evidence
of their existence on the walls of the Munfordville
cave is uneven. For some almost too much is known.
For others just the barest of facts have been found.
A continued and determined effort would no doubt
expand biographical knowledge. For those who want
to know more about the less developed individuals
feel free to continue the research. Below is what has
been learned about twenty-five of the cave’s Civil War
visitors.

Edward W. Brent (c1840-c1920/21) was possibly a son of English-born Edmond Brent, a school
teacher, and his wife Frances, who in 1850 lived in Knox County, Ohio. On December 14, 1861,
he joined Company F, 65 th Ohio Infantry as a private, and only served until July 4, 1862, when
he was discharged due to disability. Sometime thereafter, he married a woman named Ellen G.
By 1868 he moved to Jefferson County, Missouri, where he worked on a farm. At a later date he
lived in St. Louis and made his livelihood as a builder. He died there between January 3, 1920,
and June 16, 1921. 1870 Census, Mo., Jefferson, Plattin Twp., Hillsboro P.O., 23; (1890)
Veterans Census, St. Louis, St. Louis, 179 th Enum. Dist.; (1890), 39 th Enum. Dist., 6A; (1920),
St. Louis, Ward 18, 1A; Official Ohio Roster, 5: 499; Civil War Pension Index, 1861-1934.
Andrew M. Burns (c1840-fl1876), a son of Andrew Burns (1813-fl1876) who served as the
1861-63 chaplain of the 65 th Ohio, was a resident of Richland County, Ohio. He served as a 1 st
sergeant in the three months service of the 15 th Ohio. Then on September 9, 1861, he entered
the three years organization of the same regiment as 1 st lieutenant of Company I, serving briefly
the next winter as a member of General A. McD. McCook’s staff. On April 30, 1862, he was
promoted captain. On the following July 5, while the regiment was about two miles north of
Huntsville, Alabama, he returned from a leave. Later, about January 24, 1863, from Murfreesboro,
Tennessee, he again went home on leave, carrying lists from the several company commanders
“of . . . men who were absent with or without leave, with instructions to look them up and have
them returned to the regiment.” Soon after, March 18, Burns resigned his commission. 1850
Census, Ohio, Ashland, Dist. 139, Milton Twp., 25; Official Ohio Roster, 2: 497; A. A. Graham,
comp., History of Richland County, Ohio: Its Past and Present (Mansfield, Ohio, 1880), 335;
Biographical Encyclopaedia of Ohio of the Nineteenth Century (Cincinnati, 1876), 72; Cope,
Fifteenth Ohio, 21, 172, 261; The Ohio Historical Society Civil War Documents, Series 147-34:
96.
Nathaniel McDowell Coe (May 26, 1834-February 15, 1897), a son of James and Maria McDowell
Coe, was born at Sugar Creek, Wayne County, Ohio. By 1860 he had become a permanent
resident of Ashland County. During the war Nathaniel served in the Union army three times.
The first enlistment was in the three months version of Company H, 15 th Ohio, April 23-August
29, 1861. Then on the following October 10 he became a member of Company E, 64 th Ohio
Infantry, gaining promotions to corporal November 28, 1861, and later to sergeant. He was
wounded at Chickamauga September 20, 1863, and held prisoner eight days. On November 30
the next year he was slightly wounded at Franklin, and mustered out only ten days later, having
fulfilled his term of service. Finally, he was active March 27-May 30, 1865, in Company H, 6 th
U.S. Veteran Volunteer Infantry (Veteran Reserve Corps). On February 28, 1867, he married
Letitia J. Tannehill (1838-1921), and they eventually had seven children. After Nathaniel’s
passing she recorded that “He was a very energetic practical man and good financier” who
“served the Presbyterian Church at Perrysville [Ohio] for 24 years preceding his death.” 1860
Census, Ohio, Ashland, Hanover Twp., Loudonville P.O., 10; (1880), Green Twp., 991; (1890)
Veterans Census, Enum. Dist. 2: 2; (1900); Ancestry.com/One World Tree re James Coe and
Maria McDowell; Ancestry.com, genealogy, rootsweb, re Letitia Tannehill Coe; Hinman,
Sherman Brigade, 966.
George Wallace Cummins (c1839-c1867/68), a son of William and Jane Cahill Cummins of
Crawford and Richland Counties, Ohio, was a clerk before the war. On September 9, 1861, he
enlisted in Company I, 15 th Ohio Infantry (three years service) and three days later became its
2 nd lieutenant. His brother, Abraham C. Cummiins, was the company’s first captain, until his
resignation on April 20, 1862. George was successively promoted 1 st lieutenant two days later,
and captain March 18, 1863. At Missionary Ridge, November 25, 1863, he was one of seven
20

captains of the regiment who “were conspicuous for their gallantry, and were with their men
cheering them on.” On June 21, 1864, the 15 th captured Bald Knob near Kennesaw Mountain,
Georgia, and defended it against a counterattack. There, Cummins, with his and two other
companies plus a few other detachments fortified the Knob “under a most terrific fire from
two or three batteries of the enemy.” Soon after the capture of Atlanta, starting September
3, Cummins escorted north “sixty seven of the non-veterans of the regiment whose terms of
service had expired.” He rejoined the 15 th Ohio at Marietta the following October 4, having
come down on the train from Chattanooga the day before, passing Big Shanty (now Kennesaw)
ten minutes before the Confederates struck and began tearing up the track. On January 12,
1865, Cummins was mustered out of service at his own request, and the next day started for
home from northern Alabama, where his regiment had been engaged in the pursuit of Hood’s
army after its crushing defeat at Nashville. At some point George married a lady named Harriet,
but whether or not they had children is undetermined. The war apparently affected his health
because between October 31, 1867, and April 1, 1868, he died. 1850 Census, Ohio, Crawford,
Auburn Twp., 659; (1860), Richland, Shelby Sharon Twp., 249; Official Ohio Roster, 2: 497;
Graham, Richland County, 935; Official Records, Ser. 1, Vol. 31, Pt. 2: 276; Vol. 38, Pt. 1: 409;
Cope, Fifteenth Ohio, 21, 560, 568, 684; Civil War Pension Index, 1861-1934.
Robert M. Davidson (b. c1841), possibly a resident of Hancock County, enlisted in Company I,
1 st Ohio Infantry (three years version) on September 10, 1861. He gained promotion to corporal
September 23, 1862, and was mustered out September 14, 1864. Official Ohio Roster, 2: 26.
William Fies (October 17, 1841-November 22, 1920), a son of Wilhelm Fiess and Magdalena
Egel, was born in Ellmendingen, Baden, Germany. During spring 1847, the family emigrated to
America, settling at first in New York City. In August 1852 they moved to Marion, Ohio, and six
years later young William was apprenticed to Widman and Diebold to learn cabinet making. On
October 30, 1861, he enlisted as a private in Company B, 64 th Ohio Infantry, and subsequently
gained promotions to corporal November 16, 1862, and sergeant April 1, 1864. By his own
statement William took part in all the campaigns, battles, and skirmishes the company and
regiment were participants “except . . . Chickamauga, at which time I was on detached duty
and engaged in recruiting service.” At Stones River he was slightly wounded. Late in the war at
Franklin he and five others of his company were captured and were sent south to Corinth, Selma,
Montgomery, Meridian, and finally to Andersonville prison in south Georgia. On March 26,
1865, he was among a sizeable party of prisoners sent to Vicksburg and released. Eventually, he
and many hundreds of former prisoners and others were crowded onto the steamboat Sultana
to be carried up the Mississippi River. Not far north of Memphis, about 2 AM, April 27, 1865,
a boiler exploded, triggering a fire and great loss of life, probably over 1,700 men. Fies initially
suffered “the left side of my face bruised and bleeding, my left hand badly scalded, and my left
shoulder disabled, which afterwards proved to be a very bad dislocation.” The boat was ablaze
and he jumped overboard. After a number of adventures he ultimately drifted into a cottonwood
sapling which he climbed. After daylight a steamboat came up the river and launched a row boat
to rescue him. He was taken back to Memphis, but later was sent on another boat to Cairo and
from there to Columbus, Ohio. He received ill-treatment there and took “French leave” for
home. But he was called back and was mustered out of the army at Columbus May 30, 1865.
On November 17, 1867, William married Anna C., daughter of Justus Haberman, and
they had at least eight children. From 1866 until 1877 he was part of the firm Fies, Schaffner,
and Dreyer in the furniture and undertaking business. After then he continued those occupations
alone. At various times he served the town of Marion as city clerk and councilman. Official Ohio
Roster, 5: 439; Hinman, Sherman Brigade, 945; Chester D. Berry, ed., Loss of the Sultana and
Reminiscences of Survivors (Knoxville, 2005 [1892]), 124-33; Ancestry.com, One World Tree,
21

Wilhelm Feiss genealogy; Leggett, Conaway and Company, The History of Marion County, Ohio
(Chicago, 1883); 1880 Census, Ohio, Marion, Marion, 2 nd Ward, 214C; (1900), 3 rd Ward, 14A;
(1920), 9B.
LaQuinio Fletcher (b. c1841) joined Company F, 49 th Ohio Infantry August 16, 1861. He was
detailed as a printer in the quartermaster department October 24-December 31, 1863, and was
advanced to corporal a month and a day later. On May 27, 1864, he was wounded at Pickett’s
Mill, Georgia, and January 1, 1865, he was transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps. Official
Ohio Roster, 4: 518.
Smith Frey (b. c1834), perhaps from Morrow County, was an enlisted man in Company C, 15 th
Ohio Infantry (three years) August 30, 1861-September 20, 1864. Official Ohio Roster, 2: 469.
James M. Graden (d. 1862), probably a resident of Indiana County, Pennsylvania, was mustered
in as a private of Company A, 78 th Pennsylvania Infantry on October 12, 1861. He died at
Nashville November 1, 1862. Bates, Pennsylvania Volunteers, 2: 1036, 1038.
Matthew J. Halstead (d. 1863), who was likely an Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, citizen,
entered service October 12, 1861, and served as 2 nd lieutenant, Company K, 78 th Pennsylvania
Infantry, until his death at the battle of Stones River, January 2, 1863. Bates, Pennsylvania
Volunteers, 2: 1070.
Abraham B. Harry (b. 1836), on November 14, 1861, became a private in Company E, 65 th
Ohio Infantry. He was wounded at Stones River, December 31, 1862, and mustered out at
Nashville, December 14, 1864. Official Ohio Roster, 5: 496; Hinman, Sherman Brigade, 1035.
Wilbur Fisk Hinman (October 17, 1840-March 21, 1905), a student with a “mild stammer” in
his speech, enrolled at Berea, Ohio, October 12, 1861, as a private in Company E, 65 th Ohio
Infantry. He was then described as five feet ten inches tall with grey eyes, brown hair, and a
light complexion. During his service he was successively promoted to 1 st sergeant November 5,
1861; 1 st lieutenant June 16, 1862; captain of Company F June 14, 1864; and major, October
10, 1865. He was commissioned lieutenant colonel November 24, 1865, but never mustered
as such, being released from duty six days later at Victoria, Texas. At Chickamauga, September
19, 1863, his right arm was hit by a bullet near the elbow which necessitated several months of
recovery time.
After the war, until 1885, he lived in Cleveland, Ohio, making his living as a reporter for
the Herald and then city editor for the Leader. He also twice served terms as clerk of the local
county common pleas court. In early 1870 he married Sarah M. Everett, and within six years they
had two sons and a daughter. For a decade, until 1895, he lived in Washington, D.C., working
first as the Leader’s correspondent and then as an associate editor of the National Tribune. He
moved back to Ohio, where in Stark County he edited the Alliance Review and Evening Star. In
1902 for a short time he was an editor for Success, a magazine in New York, and again returned
to Washington, D.C., where he was employed in the Census Bureau. A few years later he died
from pneumonia at his home, 1306 Spring Street, N.W., and was buried at Arlington National
Cemetery.
Hinman wrote three books: Corporal Si Klegg and His Pard, Cleveland, 1887, a fictitious
account of his wartime experiences; Camp and Field, Sketches of Army Life, Cleveland, 1892;
and The Story of the Sherman Brigade, Alliance, Ohio, 1897. Official Ohio Roster, 5: 494, 498;
Hinman, Sherman Brigade, 690, 787, 1004; Corporal Si Klegg (2002 [1887]), biographical sketch
of Hinman by Brian Pohanka, ii, v, xiii; Arlington National Cemetery Website, Wilbur F. Hinman.
22

Wilson S. Iler (c1841-September 14, 1864), son of David (1814-1877) and Bithynia Truex Iler
(1816- 1900), resided with his parents before the war in Morrow County, Ohio, where he was a
farm hand. On August 30, 1861, he entered Company C, 15 th Ohio Infantry (three years service),
becoming the regiment’s “Principal Musician,” meaning bugler, June 1, 1863. The author of
the regimental history many years later recorded that Iler was among those on the roster who
was fond of singing. While the regiment was camped at Bellefonte, Alabama, in August 1863
Iler and others “got together and sang the songs which were popular at the time: ‘When this
Cruel War is Over’ and ‘a Response By a Soldier,’ and selections from the ‘New York Glee and
Chorus Book.’” Another time singers from another regiment came over and Iler “got together a
quartette who sang, ‘Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming.’” Some few days later, September 6,
at Winston’s Gap, Alabama, Iler again had a “little concert” with members of another regiment.
On May 27, 1864, during an assault at Pickett’s Mill near Dallas, Georgia, after he “had blown
. . . the bugle,” Iler “seized the musket of a comrade who had fallen” and went “forward with
the line.” He “was soon laid low by bullet wounds in his arm and leg.” At a field hospital his
arm was amputated. While there the adjutant of the 15 th Ohio saw him, acknowledged that Iler’s
“sunny disposition and cheerful manners” had “endeared him to everyone who knew him,” and
observed that “although suffering from pain he was as cheerful as ever, said he would soon be
back, and added, ‘Adjutant, a bugler only needs one arm.’” But, a few months later, at a hospital
in Chattanooga, Iler succumbed to gangrene. He was buried in the National Cemetery there,
Section F, grave 567, now 2169. 1850 Census, Ohio, Morrow, Gilead Twp., 1001; (1860) 25;
Official Ohio Roster, 2: 456, 470; Cope, Fifteenth Ohio, 302, 303, 473, 474, 475; Ancestry.
com, P. McCarrell Family Tree; Roll of Honor. Names of Soldiers who Died in the Defence of
the American Union, Interred in the National Cemeteries at Chattanooga, Stone’s River, and
Knoxville, Tenn. (Baltimore, 1994 [1866]), No. XI: 152.
Francis H. Klaine (April 1840-fl1920), a native of New Jersey whose parents were from France,
apparently lived in or near Holmes County, Ohio, before the war. On October 28, 1861, he
entered Company F, 65 th Ohio Infantry as a corporal. On June 20, 1862, he was commissioned
2 nd lieutenant to date the previous March 30. Later that year, November 8, he resigned and left
the army. By May 1865 he was in Nevada making $600 a year, probably as an engineer for the
Potosi Works. He resided in Tuscarora many years, continuing to work as an engineer. About
1876 he married a woman named Mary and by 1884 they had two daughters. Sometime after
1890 he moved his family to Santa Clara County, California, where he became an “Orchardist.”
Official Ohio Roster, 5: 498; Reid, Ohio in the War, 2: 382; U.S. IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862-
1918, RG58 (M779, Roll 1), National Archives, Divs. 3 and 11, Dist. 1, Nevada, May 1865,
p. 30; 1880 Census, Nevada, Elko, Tuscarora, Enum. Dist. 4, p. C43; (1890) Veterans Census,
Nevada, Tuscarora, Enum. Dist. 4, p. 1; (1900), Calif., Santa Clara, Santa Clara Twp., 76 th
Enum. Dist., 4A; (1920), San Jose Twp., 9A; Civil War Pension Index, 1861-1934.
William A. Lowry, a probable resident of Butler County, Pennsylvania, was mustered in October
12, 1861, as a private, Company H, 78 th Pennsylvania Infantry. He was elevated to corporal
February 1, 1862, and in March 1863 discharged to accept another promotion, the nature of
which is thus far undetermined. Bates, Pennsylvania Volunteers, 2: 1063.
Robert O. Lucas (b. c1838), likely a resident of either Holmes or Coshocton County, became
a private in Company K, 65 th Ohio Infantry October 26, 1861. He was promoted to hospital
steward April 1, 1862, and presumably served until November 30, 1865. Official Ohio Roster,
5: 500.
23

Robert M. Davidson
Jefferson McDowell
Henry A. Miller
24

Jefferson McDowell (c1841-November 23, 1863) was one of three sons of Guernsey County
farmer Christopher McDowell who served in Company B, 15 th Ohio Infantry (three years unit).
Jefferson enlisted September 6, 1861, and died in a Nashville hospital from a wound received
at Chickamauga, Georgia, September 20, 1863. 1860 Census, Ohio, Guernsey, Madison Twp.,
Antrim P.O., 91; Official Ohio Roster, 2: 463, 465; William G. Wolfe, Stories of Guernsey County,
Ohio: History of an Average Ohio County (Cambridge, Ohio, 1943), 275, 283.
Henry A. Miller, sergeant of Company H, 78 th Pennsylvania Infantry, was mustered in October
12, 1861. On February 18, 1863, he was made sergeant major. He is perhaps the person who
scratched “1861 H. A. Miller” on the cave wall. Bates, Pennsylvania Volunteers, 2: 1063.
Isaac A. Mills of Buena Vista, Indiana, was most likely the man who left his name in the
Munfordville cave. He served in Company E, 57 th Indiana Infantry from December 21, 1861,
until November 6, 1862, when he was discharged because of disability. Another candidate,
a “plain” Isaac Mills (b. c1831) was a private in Company D, 49 th Ohio Infantry, which was
brigaded with the 15 th Ohio. But the Mills with the middle initial “A” is thought to represent
a higher probability. Official Ohio Roster, 4: 511; Report of the Adjutant General of the State of
Indiana (8 vols., Indianapolis, 1865-69), 5: 636.
William Pumfrey (c1815-fl1880), a native of Berkshire, England, was a prewar farmer in Royalton
Township of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. He was married to a lady named Maria Ann, and they
had before 1860 seven children of whom one apparently did not survive. Pumfrey was the oldest
soldier to visit the Munfordville cave, serving as a private in Company E, 65 th Ohio Infantry
from October 18, 1861, until his muster out at Nashville December 14, 1864. He returned to
Cuyahoga County and resumed farming, dying sometime in the mid to late 1880s. Official Ohio
Roster, 5: 497; 1850 Census, Ohio, Cuyahoga, Royalton Twp., 160; (1860), 103-4; (1870),
North Royalton, 20; (1880), Strongsville, Enum. Dist. 76, p. 363C; (1890) Veterans Census,
Strongsville Dist., Enum. Dist. 175, p. 1; Civil War Pension Index, 1861-1934.
Henry Seiters (b. c1833), likely from Richland County, enlisted as a private in Company I, 15 th
Ohio Infantry (three years) September 7, 1861, and was discharged August 16, 1862, on a
surgeon’s certificate of disability. Official Ohio Roster, 2: 498.
Jacob Somerville, a resident of Scott County, was mustered in September 18, 1861, as a private
in Company C, 38 th Indiana Infantry. At some point he was transferred to the Veteran Reserve
Corps. Indiana Adjutant General Report, 5: 203; 8: 165.
Festus B. Spelman (c1834-November 13, 1915), whose mother, Elizabeth (b. c1806), was
widowed before 1850, was a laborer in Marlboro Township of Stark County, Ohio. He became a
private in Company E, 65 th Ohio Infantry, November 11, 1861, gaining a promotion to corporal
January 1, 1864. For a while, beginning the following September 28, he was on detached duty
at Chattanooga. His discharge by order of the War Department was dated November 30, 1865,
at Columbus, Ohio. Curiously, in the 1890 veterans census, he only claimed service through
December 25, 1863. He returned home, became a farmer, and sometimes lived with his brother,
William. He never married, and eventually became a resident of the Ohio Soldiers and Sailors
Home near Sandusky in Erie County, where apparently he died. Official Ohio Roster, 5: 495;
1850 Census, Ohio, Stark, Marlboro Twp., 843; (1880), Enum. Dist. 145, p. 149C; (1890),
Veterans Census, Marlboro Twp., Enum. Dist. 20, p. 6; (1910), Erie, Perkins Twp., Enum. Dist.
51, p. 1B; Ohio Department of Health Death Index, p. 8071 (Ancestry.com).
25

Dolsen Vankirk (c1843-December 31, 1862), who probably lived in either Ashland or Erie
County, began service in Company G, 65 th Ohio Infantry, as 1 st sergeant, October 5, 1861. He
was promoted to 2 nd lieutenant August 12, 1862, and a few months later, at the battle of Stones
River, was “struck squarely in the forehead” and fell dead. Official Ohio Roster, 5: 502; Hinman,
Sherman Brigade, 47, 348.
James H. Wells was mustered in September 18, 1861, as a private in Company H, 38 th Indiana
Infantry. He was killed in action, but the date and place are not named in the regimental history.
Henry F. Perry, History of the Thirty-Eighth Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry (Palo Alto,
Calif., 1906), 352, 384.
The above sketches bear out what is already known about most Civil War soldiers, that their military
experience was not easy. Seven of the Munfordville cave signers were killed, mortally wounded, or died of
disease; five were wounded (including the person captured); one captured; three discharged for disability; three
transferred to the Veterans Reserve Corps (including one of those wounded); and two resigned. Why did they
visit the cave? The most probable reason was curiosity, but it may also have been to escape the nasty weather.
Those there during the winter of 1861-62 were mostly new to the army and had not been in combat. One
wonders that when they innocently placed their names in the cave how much death and suffering did they
foresee.
1 Diary of Marion O. Smith, Aug. 11, Nov. 5, 2009.
Sources
2 The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (70 vols. in 128 books,
Washington, D.C., 1880-1901), Ser. 1, Vol. 7: 460; Thomas B. Van Horne, History of the Army of the Cumberland (2
vols., Cincinnati, 1876), 1: 65
3 Alexis Cope, The Fifteenth Ohio Volunteers and Its Campaigns War of 1861-5 (Columbus, Ohio, 1916), 47; Samuel P.
Bates, History of Pennsylvania Volunteers (5 vols., Harrisburg, Pa., 1869-71), 2: 1030-35.
4 Harry J. Carmen, ed., “Diary of Amos Glover,” The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, 44 (1935), 258-
59, 263; Cope, Fifteenth Ohio, 51-54; Henry F. Perry, History of the Thirty-Eighth Indiana Volunteer Infantry (Palo Alto,
Calif., 1906), 18.
5 Cope, Fifteenth Ohio, 3, 53; Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1866 (12
vols., Akron, Cincinnati, 1886-95), 2: 455.
6 Cope, Fifteenth Ohio, 77-78; “Diary of Amos Glover,” 263-64; Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the
Rebellion (Des Moines, Iowa, 1908), 1503.
7 Ibid., 1140-41, 1526-27; Wilbur F. Hinman, The Story of the Sherman Brigade (Alliance, Ohio, 1897), 34-35.
8 Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War: Her Statesmen, Her Generals, and Soldiers (2 vols., Cincinnati, 1868), 2: 378-82; Dyer,
Compendium, 1526-27; Hinman, Sherman Brigade, 85, 87, 92, 93, 95-96.
9 Ibid., 96-97, 103; Reid, Ohio in the War, 2: 378-82.
10 Official Records, Ser. 1, Vol. 16, Pt. 1: 959-67.
26

Rear entrance to Short Creek. Kenneth Storey
Last year’s (2009) SEKCI was smaller in numbers
from pervious ones but still turned out to be a good
event. Lisa and I arrived Thursday night at Crane’s
Nest and were greeted first by the guard dogs
Frankie and Ed Bob. Several people were already
there and hanging out in the back. Caver friends,
some we hadn’t seen in a few years, welcomed us.
After catching up a little, John showed off his new
library cabin. Just up the hill from the hot tub John
had a small cabin built to house his large collection
of books and videos. We were expecting a simple
box of a house with a few shelves, but instead found
a beautiful room with hardwood floors and white
shelves. It looked like someone’s living room. His
carpenter friend did a really fine job on it.
Friday morning came early, especially with
only a few hours sleep. While Bill Friz went out
to make sure the road rally course was in order,
we hung out at John’s waiting for other folks to
show up. We trapped a few friends into watching
our slide show from Italy (sorry guys). By Friday
afternoon the party had grown.
We enjoyed the evening talking under Jim
West tarps. No caving this trip because of WNS so
we instead talked about caving.
Saturday there were choices to make. Road
Rally, hang around the house or go 4 wheeling with
Jimbo and his friend. I still wanted to at least see
cave entrances so I chose the road rally. Lisa chose
4 wheeling with Jimbo. There was an extra space
on the 4 wheeling trip, so Richard Hand decided
to go too.
I rode along in Bob Thren’s truck (thanks
for driving Bob) along with David Newson. First
stop was breakfast where I had a good talk with
Gerald and Avis. They followed us on the road
XIV
South East Kentucky Caver Invitational
Kenneth Storey
Relaxing under a Jim West tarp. Kenneth Storey
John Taylor’s new library. Kenneth Storey
27

ally. Not sure if that was the best decision but off
we went to the first stop. I was navigating so you can
guess what happened. We did get lost a few times but
Gerald’s group still wanted to continue to follow us.
We saw caves I’ve been in before and a few that
I have never seen. So at least I got to smell cave dirt.
Several times I would hear from Lisa as they rode all over
the top of Pine Mountain (Lisa here: we were having a
great time riding around the mountain. Thanks Jimbo
and Curt!).
We finished a good day off with the cookout.
Again, many thanks to Bill Fritz for dinner. Also thanks
to Bill Fritz, John Talyor, and Paul Johnson for setting
up the road trip. Thanks John for letting us crash in
your front yard, again.
This year’s SEKCI will be on June 4-6. Hope
to see you all there.
Hail Cave. Kenneth Storey
28
Lisa, Jimbo, and Richard. Curt
Curt and Richard shooting the rapids. Lisa Storey