Last week likely marked final reenactment of Battle of Mill Springs

Somerset —

The Battle of Mill Springs has most likely been fought for the final time.

The first time, of course, was 150 years ago, on January 19, 1862. Pulaski County’s entry into the Civil War history books was waged again — with no blood spilled, but passions still running high — in 1998; in 2007; and most recently, last weekend.

The mists of history, however, appear to have enveloped it for good.

The reasons why are twofold: One, odds are good that within a few years’ time, the Mill Springs Battlefield out in the far reaches of western Pulaski County will become a lucrative national park. The other reason is that while the memory of the Civil War never dies, the interest in bringing it to life does appear to fade away.

“... There Won’t Be Another One”

“Honestly, we all feel in the hobby that in the next four years, there won’t be any reenactments anywhere,” said Bill Neikirk. “It’s just run its course.”

Neikirk, of course, is a familiar name and face to any Mill Springs enthusiast. A former president of the Mill Springs Battlefield Association, Neikirk has been a part of each reenactment to be held — from the original in 1998 (amusingly billed in advertisements as “The Battle of Mill Springs, Round 2” with the tagline, “It’s the fight for Kentucky. Again. Be there for the reenactment battle of a lifetime”) to the two held in the 21st century.

Neikirk, the Captain of the Fourth Kentucky Infantry group, has been instrumental in organizing these events, bringing various battalions from around the map together to put on a show for spectators on the Mill Springs grounds in Nancy.

However, “I guarantee you that Bill Neikirk will not put on another” reenactment were the words out of the man’s own mouth.

“Saturday was my last day,” said Neikirk. “I’ll still do reenactments, but not at Mill Springs.

“The only reason people came there was because of Bill Neikirk,” he added, referring to his fellow reenactors. “Unless someone else steps forward, there won’t be another one.”

Of course, the time frame for someone to do that is probably shrinking. Neikirk noted that it’s government policy that you can’t have full-scale reenactments of the battle like the ones Mill Springs has seen on national park grounds.

That’s relevant because it was announced earlier this month — in the days leading up to last weekend’s reenactment — that Somerset’s own Congressman Harold “Hal” Rogers had introduced binding legislation directing the National Park Service to conduct a study that would evaluate the potential for bringing the Mill Springs Battlefield into the national park system.

If the bill H.R. 3792 is approved by Congress, an analysis would be done to consider the economic and educational impacts that incorporating Mill Springs would have on surrounding communities, impact to landowners, and cost of federal government operation, according to information provided by the battlefield association.

The Mill Springs Battlefield is currently preserved and maintained through private sources, but adding the Mill Springs Battlefield site into the National Park Service would help ensure its preservation for future generations — and could provide quite the economic boost to the area.

The Road to a National Park

“If Mill Springs becomes a national park, the site will get a lot more visitors.”

That’s the promise of Gib Backlund, and he would know, since he’s the chief of operations at Stones River National Battlefield.

Located in Murfreesboro, Tenn., along the body of water which gives the site its name, the Stones River National Battlefield pays tribute to a Civil War battle staged about a year after Mill Springs. The battlefield is part of the national park system, and according to that area’s Congressman Bart Gordon, quoted in a December 2009 article in the Mufreesboro Post, the site attracts over 200,000 per year.

This kind of high traffic for a national park site isn’t exactly unique to Stones River — it’s more of a reality for those sites lucky enough to be included in the national park system, which also provides plenty more funding opportunities for parks within its fold than Mill Springs currently sees.

“The economic impact is substantial,” said Backlund, who noted the city of Franklin, Tenn., pushed for analysis of their site to be included as a national park site based on some remnants existing from the battle there.

“They really wanted it to be one because it brings a lot more visitors to the area,” he said.

Neikirk knows that national park status would put Mill Springs on the map — literally.

“If we can get a little green dot on the Rand McNally’s map, that’s significant,” said Neikirk.

Just don’t expect it to happen anytime soon.

Karyn Branham, the interim director for the Mill Springs Battlefield Association, suggested to the Commonwealth Journal that it could be as long as September until it’s known whether or not Congress has passed Rogers’ proposed legislation.

On top of that, she stated, the analysis process is likely to take “at least five years,” based on how these things usually go.

“You have to go through all the hearings,” she said. “... It’s not like you can just say, ‘Take them in.’ There has to be a feasibility study.”

Specifically, the bill Rogers introduced calls for the Secretary of the Interior “to conduct a special resource study to evaluate the significance of the Mill Springs Battlefield located in Pulaski and Wayne Counties, Kentucky, and the feasibility of its inclusion in the National Park System, and for other purposes.”

Analyzed would be “the significance of the Battle of Mill Springs to the outcome of the Civil War,” “opportunities for public education about the Civil War in Kentucky,” “operational issues that should be considered if the National Park System were to incorporate the Mill Springs Battlefield,” “the feasibility of administering the Mill Springs Battlefield considering its size, configuration, and other factors, to include an annual cost estimate,” and “the economic, educational, and other impacts the inclusion of Mill Springs Battlefield into the National Park System would have on the surrounding communities in Pulaski and Wayne Counties.”

Once the study is done, owners of private property connected to the battlefield would have to be notified of the study's “commencement and scope,” and the Secretary of the Interior would submit a report on the findings of the study to the Committee on Natural Resources of the House of Representatives and to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate.

It’s a long road, and once it’s done, the opportunity to hold reenactments will be over — though as Neikirk put it, the end outcome is a definite “win-win.”

Protecting the Park

So why no battles on the national park grounds?

The main reason is safety — for the participants and the site itself.

“A lot of reenactments involve thousands of people,” said Backlund. “You have parking issues. You might have people digging holes, building fires” — things that might damage the environmental integrity of the historic grounds, as well as archeologically significant artifacts still in the ground.

And then of course there’s the matter of all those hundreds or thousands of people firing guns at each other — not shooting to kill, of course, but even with blanks, they’re firearms just the same.

“There’s never been a reenactment on national park grounds,” said Neikirk before correcting himself. “There was one at Manassas (National Battlefield Park in Virginia), but after that one, they said they’d never do that again.”

What happened at Manassas? According to the article “Reenacting the Past” on the National Park Service’s website (www.cr.nps.gov), “the show appeared to be more a celebration than a commemoration of a tragic historical event, a result that the organizers of the overall Civil War Centennial had feared, leading them to advise against planning reenactments.”

The article also recalled that “the National Park Service had paid a heavy cost in terms of personnel time to supervise the event and in direct outlays, such as $10,000 for sanitary facilities. The potential for serious injuries or damage to the battlefield remained a concern. Some resource damage to the historic lands included Chinn Ridge, where heavy usage by camping reenactors necessitated reseeding. Well-defined wagon wheel tracks from the show cut into other parts of the battlefield and required attention.”

That doesn’t mean you’d never see men dressed in outfits of the time, firing historically accurate weapons at Mill Springs as a National Park. “Living History” events — which are annual events at the Mill Springs Battlefield as it is — are within the rules and would likely continue.

The cannon firings familiar to those at Mill Springs are likewise a part of the Stone River experience. Backlund noted that in order for a park to have a historic weapons program, they need to have a trained instructor on hand for using such artillery, but these weapons are “never shot at one another for safety reasons.”

Of course, full-scale reenactments are rare anyway, and not something that just anyone can do.

“You can’t just pull up the horses and wagons and start shooting,” said Diane Bonfert, Director of Recreation and Interpretation for Kentucky State Parks. “It has to be (in conjunction) with some event we’re holding.”

And as Neikirk pointed out, reenactments can be held on private grounds adjacent to the national park site, which can still give the feel of what it was like to fight in that time and place — they just can’t be on the actual battlefield.

Of course, whether or not anyone is interested in doing that still is a problem.

“The last reenactment (in 2007), we put 3,000 (reenactors) on the field,” said Neikirk. “Before that, (in 1998) we put 6,000 out there. We couldn’t get but 150 now.”

Reenactors who came to the latest event were paid $10 apiece to participate. The money adds up, and ultimately comes under the scrutiny of cost analysis, just like anything else, suggested Neikirk.

“Reenactors just don’t show up — you have to do a lot of networking,” he said. “... It’s getting increasingly harder to get troops to come to something. The effort and money just aren’t worth it if you can’t get people to show up. It’s like having a circus — you can’t have a circus if nobody shows.”

So the Battle of Mill Springs — which claimed 148 Confederate soldiers and 50 Union soldiers, and served as one of the first major victories in the west for the Union Army — has likely been put to bed forever, allowing the spirit of past conflict to rest in peace. Yet the future of this beloved Pulaski County landmark looks brighter than ever as it heads toward a possible future with much-coveted federal protection.

“We’ll still have a ghost walk, still do the artillery, still have the ‘Living History’ exhibitions,” said Neikirk. “... It’s a positive thing.”

News Live

Search Results

Related Photos

Site Map