PRESENTATION OUTLINE
The Battle of Richmond, Kentucky, fought August 29–30, 1862, was a stunning Confederate victory by Major General Edmund Kirby Smith against Union major general, William "Bull" Nelson's forces, defending the town.
After the Confederate Army fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, beginning the Civil War, additional states seceded. Virginia voted to secede from the Union on April 17, 1861, and existed briefly thereafter as an independent republic before joining the Confederacy on June 19, 1861. Shortly thereafter, in recognition of Virginia's strategic importance, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond.
Peninsula campaign
In the late spring of 1862, a large Federal army under Major General George B. McClellan landed on the Virginia Peninsula. McClellan, who had enjoyed early publicity from a series of successes in western Virginia, was assigned the task of seizing and occupying Richmond
One of the Civil War's most daring prison breaks, the Libby Prison Escape, took place in February 1864 when more than 100 Federal captives escaped and fled into the night.
