"Good, Common-Sense Soldiering"

The fight at Kingston began around dawn on August 30, 1862, with skirmishers on both sides trading shots. After being notified, Union Gen. Mahlon Manson led his men south along the State Road and deployed his Army of Kentucky brigade along the ridges on either side of Mt. Zion Church, placing artillery between each of his three infantry regiments while holding another regiment in reserve. As the Union force moved south, a Confederate division under Gen. Patrick Cleburne advanced north from Bobtown, and a fierce artillery duel soon began, heard as far away as Winchester. When Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith arrived, he put into action a plan to turn the Union flank at Mt. Zion Church by ordering his second division under Gen. Thomas J. Churchill to move up a ravine formed by Mound Creek west of the State Road, which concealed them from Union soldiers near the church. Around 10 a.m., the Confederates emerged from the ravine, charged across a field, and struck the Union right flank while the rest of the Confederate force attacked the Union left and center. These coordinated attacks by veteran Confederate troops overwhelmed Manson's inexperienced soldiers, and the flanking move through Mound Creek ravine, locally known as Churchill's draw, worked exactly as intended.

Kentucky · United States