Kentucky Ancestors, Volume 46, Number 2 - Kentucky Historical ...

Wildcat is preserved and accessible to visitors.
• They were dispatched to Cumberland Gap
to secure the historic gateway in the spring of
1862. Colonel Garrard fought in skirmishes at
Cumberland Gap, from 21-23 March 1862. 43
He occupied the Cumberland Gap until 16
September 1862, 44 when Confederate Generals
Bragg and Kirby Smith invaded Kentucky. 45
Colonel Garrard retreated to Greenupsburg
[present Greenup] on the Ohio River. 46 He
remained in southern Ohio from 16 September
1862 to 3 October 1862. 47
• The Seventh was sent on an expedition to the
Kanawha Valley of Virginia [later West Virginia]
on 21 October 1862; 48 they remained there until
10 November 1862, when they were ordered to
Memphis, Tennessee. 49
• Finally, they did duty at Memphis, Tennessee,
from 10 November 1862 until 20 December
1862. 50 They joined Major General Sherman
and participated in the Yazoo expedition between
20 December 1862 and 2 January 1863; 51 they
saw duty at Chickasaw Bayou, Mississippi, 26-28
December 1862, 52 and Chickasaw Bluff on 29
Dec 1862. 53
Private George Thompson Baker became ill in
January 1863. 54 He was treated aboard a Mississippi
River hospital steamer. 55 He never returned to
active duty. 56 His Compiled Military Service Record
(CMSR) chronicled his last six months. Muster rolls
revealed that he was sick aboard a hospital boat in
January and February 1863; that he had smallpox;
that he was treated at the general hospital near
Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, in March and April 1863;
that he was “sick and sent up the river” by May 1863;
that he died aboard the U.S. hospital steamer R. C.
Wood on 21 June 1863. 57 Casualty records indicated
that his cause of death was dysentery; that his
personal effects were inventoried; and that his name
was entered on the Death Roll. 58 He was mustered
out of service, posthumously, on 5 October 1864,
at Louisville, Kentucky. 59 The Seventh Kentucky
Infantry Regiment lost a total of 319 men to battle
and disease. 60
The Whitley County, Kentucky, tax rolls indicate
62 | Kentucky Ancestors
Muster-out roll for Private George T. Baker (NARA microfilm)