Kentucky Ancestors, Volume 46, Number 3 - Kentucky Historical ...

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States, Enemy States (Lexington, 2009), 202. 30. Ned Fauntleroy, United States Colored Troops Enlistment form, catalogued as Edmond Fontroy, Compiled Service Records, U.S. Colored Troops, Eighth Colored Infantry: Finch-Hall, microfilm reel 0006, Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana. 31. Edmond Fontroy, Civil War Pension Certificate No. 912915, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington D.C. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Lucas, “Freedom is Better than Slavery: Black Families and Soldiers in Civil War Kentucky,” in Sister States, Enemy States, 203. 35. Ibid., 203. 36. Claire Prechtel-Kluskens and Joann Williamson, “U.S. Regular Army Registers of Enlistment and Enlistment Papers, 1798-1914,” National Genealogical Society Magazine 35:4 (2009): 40-44; Edmund Fontroy, Carded Medical Records, Volunteers: Mexican and Civil Wars, Entry 534, Record Group 94, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780-1917, NARA; Edmond Fontroy, Compiled Service Records, United States Colored Troops, Eighth Colored Infantry: Finch-Hall, microfilm reel 0006, Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana. 37. Edmond Fontroy, Civil War pension certificate No. 912915, NARA. 38. Ibid. 126 | Kentucky Ancestors
Defending the “Dark and Bloody Ground”: Kentucky Militia Service in Early Indian Campaigns, 1790–1811 by John P. Deeben During the nascent years of the American republic from the end of the Revolutionary War to the outbreak of the War of 1812, the United States military frequently clashed with Native Americans on the frontier regions east of the Mississippi River. In an effort to protect growing American settlements and assert U.S. authority over the trans-Appalachian territories acquired from Great Britain at the end of the Revolutionary War, the federal government often employed “citizen soldiers” in state militias to help defend their local communities. Situated in the heart of the republic’s new frontier, Kentucky militia units played a prominent role in defending the western borders of the United States, participating in major campaigns from the battle of Fallen Timbers during the Northwest Indian War (1790–95) to the battle of Tippecanoe in the Wabash expedition of 1811. Various military records at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., describe those operations, including the activities of the Kentucky militia and the service of individual soldiers. Historical Background Despite the establishment of a strong federal government under the U.S. Constitution in 1789, the frontiers of the United States remained a volatile, dangerous area in the early 1790s. On the Kentucky frontier, state and federal officials routinely called out county militias to guard local neighborhoods, monitor Indian movements along known pathways, and provide an early warning of potential hostilities. Lieutenant Archibald Dickinson’s detachment from the Ninth Regiment, Kentucky Militia under Lieutenant Colonel James Trotter, for example, was raised explicitly “to guard the hands employed in cutting of wood, hauling of stone, coal, etc.” at the Slate Creek Iron Works from 1 January to 24 June 1793. Other specific military assignments included that of Lt. Robert Modrel’s Company, ordered by Kentucky governor Isaac Shelby “to be stationed at Laurel River on the Wilderness Road for the term of six months” from 8 July 1793 to 8 January 1794; or Sgt. Patrick McAffry’s Guard of Kentucky Volunteers, called out on 18 January 1794 “to escort Thomas Love, Paymaster to the Kentucky Volunteers, from Kentucky to headquarters.” 1 Even before Kentucky achieved statehood, small companies of scouts and spies were raised in Madison County as early as 5 June 1790, and in Lincoln County from 25 May to 20 November 1790. 2 Captain Presley Gray mustered a militia company from Nelson County on 2 October 1791 for an expedition against the Shawnee and Miami under Maj. Gen. Arthur St. Clair. Intending to avenge an earlier American defeat under Gen. Josiah Harmer in October 1790, St. Clair instead met with an even greater disaster at the Battle of the Wabash on 4 November 1791. Sustaining over nine hundred casualties—the worst ever suffered by the U.S. Army in an Indian campaign—St. Clair’s force was completely routed (one member of Gray’s Company, Pvt. Thomas Baird, was killed in action). 3 In March 1792, two companies of Kentucky volunteers under Captains John Dyall and Joshua Baker also briefly served. Spring 2011 | 127
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