In November 1861, Confederate General Felix Zollicoffer ordered captains Thomas Estill and Victor Von Sheliha to find a base camp on the Cumberland River, and they chose Mill Springs for its abundant food, forage, grist and saw mills, and ferry. On November 29, Zollicoffer marched his army into the fertile valley, where he wrote that beef, pork, and corn were plentiful and inexpensive and that the better classes of citizens sympathized with his force. These resources revived his foot-sore army as raw soldiers drilled into a fighting force, while mounted patrols rode north from Beech Grove across the river seeking the Union army. National attention focused on this part of Kentucky because Zollicoffer's army held the eastern end of the line marking the northern extent of the Confederacy. The quiet ended on January 19, 1862, when two armies fought ten miles north at the Battle of Mill Springs. After the Confederate defeat, hundreds of wounded men were brought here for medical care, and according to the New York Herald every house, hut, hovel, and stable was filled with wounded soldiers. During the rest of the war, hundreds of soldiers continued to pass through Mill Springs, including Union garrison troops, Confederate cavalry, and guerrillas. In March 1863, Confederate General John Pegram's cavalry fought an engagement here, and that summer Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's cavalry passed through the county at the start of Morgan's raid into Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio.