More below:

>>>>In fairness to the author, he does describe the burning of Dover on page 143 and quotes a soldier as stating "about two thirds of the town were burnt". He goes on to say that if the courthouse was burned, then it was the old log courthouse and not the current brick one. I believe his biggest error here is stating that Woodward attacked Ft. Donelson, when he actually attacked the Federal garrison at Dover. That would explain why they burned these buildings ostensibly to clear a path for artillery.>>>>

Earlier in his book, on Page 107, Chapter 2, he asks "was the Courthouse destroyed in 1862?" He then goes on to state that it was not and that Goodpseed's History of Stewart County was incorrect in that assertion.

According to two period maps that I have there was only one courthouse in Dover at this time. It was about where the modern traffic light sits today. The brick courthouse currently in use was built well after the Civil War and not on the same site as the period courthouse. There was also no road or ford crossing the Cumberland River where the current road/bridge does.

We have a detailed account of Woodward's attack and the defense of the town by the 71st Ohio's chaplain (A.L. McKinney) who wrote a report that ran in the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper later in August that has also been reported in Volume 5 of Moore's Rebellion Record (Page 591-593) which was published in that book in 1863 originally. Chaplain McKinney reported,

"Just as the attack was made a number of the buildings were fired to prevent the rebels from sheltering themselves in them and behind them. In the height of the engagement thick columns of smoke were ascending from the houses and the red tongues of flame were leaping from the windows and darting through the roofs. Seventeen houses were burned, and among them the court house."

No account I have ever seen of 71st soldiers there make mention of two courthouses. An 83rd Illinois account of the February, 1863 second battle of Dover makes mention of a large naval gun in a redoubt built in the "ruins of the courthouse." On the two period maps I have of Dover this gun site shows up in the middle of the modern traffic light intersection - the site of the then courthouse. One of these maps was published in an issue of the Tennessee Historical Quarterly which carried an essay on this battle.

Col. McKenney states on Page 143 of his book, "Major Hart would never have set fire to the brick courthouse as its lawn was the location of his big siege naval gun..." This is a huge error!!! The four companies of the 71st Ohio that held Dover at the time had no such weapon!

If you check Hart's report in the Official Records (OR 17, Pt 1, Page 37-38) he states that all he had with him were his men - there is NO mention of a large siege gun in any part of his report!!!! And yet the author cites this paragraph using Hart's report and states that there was such a gun.

My wife is the descendant of 71st Ohio soldiers who were with the four Dover companies including one company commander and none of their accounts mention any big cannon being with them - they had no cannon whatsoever in fact of any size. She also has a period drawing of the fort they held in the city cemetery and there is no indication within that fort of having any artillery available.

I have also been through 83rd Illinois Infantry accounts, the regiment that replaced the 71st holding Dover. These sources include the files at the Lincoln Library in Springfield, Illinois as well as a huge number of period newspaper reports. One 83rd Illinois account states that when the regiment arrived they could not fit into the old 71st Ohio fort so they built a new fort on the next ridge over where the modern National Cemetery is today in a horseshoe fashion with the open side being against the river. It was this regiment that got one of the 32 pounder guns from the old Confederate Ft. Donelson and mounted it in the ruins of the old courthouse in the center of the town aiming down the Charlotte Road/Church Street. Ft. Donelson park historian Jim Jobe can help support the evidence for this gun at this time as can the period maps.

On an unrelated matter but yet another error in the book, on Page 327, Col. McKenny states, "Units represented at Donelson on June 13, 1865, were portions of the 71st Ohio Infantry, the 83rd Illinois Infantry and the 13th Wisconsin Infantry." None of these units were there then.

According to Dyer's Compendium, which holds the records for every Union Army unit in the war and where they served based on their regimental reports, the 71st Ohio left the Dover/Clarksville area in August, 1863 and moved over to Gallatin, TN. In July, 1864 they were sent to Sherman's army group then operating around Atlanta and were part of the forces at the Battle of Jonesboro in late August, 1864. They then took part in Hood's Tennessee Campaign being in reserve at Franklin and being part of the Union attack on Overton Hill in mid-December, 1864. They were part of the army that pursued Hood into Alabama before moving to East TN and then Nashville before moving to Texas in June, 1865. My wife has a number of letters from her ancestors while on duty in Texas at this time as well as from Gallatin.

The 13th Wisconsin also left Dover in late August, 1863 moving to Stevenson, Alabama. They remained operating along the Tennessee River in Alabama for a time before heading to East TN in March, 1865 and then, like the 71st Ohio, were ordered to Texas in June, 1865. The 83rd Illinois remained in the Dover/Clarksville area until December, 1864. From there Dyer's Compendium has them at Nashville until the regiment mustered out on June 26, 1865.

Greg Biggs