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On Saturday, August 30, 1862, 200 Union troops were killed at the battle of Richmond, KY, only a few miles south of Lexington. Northern dead, wounded and missing added up to 4,900, while the Confederates' total was only 750. During Sunday, September 14, Munfordsville, KY, was the scene of battle which lasted till Tuesday, the 16th. Munfordsville was almost 70 miles in a straight line southeast from Hawesville. There were 3,616 casualties on the Union side and 714 on the Southern. At Perryville, KY, on Wednesday, October 8, the Confederates suffered around 7000 combined casualties, while 916 Union soldiers were killed and 3,462 were wounded or missing in the battle. This conflict took place over 100 miles east of Hawesville. Toward the end of the year 1862, on Saturday, December 27, 500 Union soldiers were missing in the battle at Elizabethtown, KY. This skirmish was only 50 miles southeast of Hawesville. The TAYLOR family was keeping in touch with their Scottish and American relatives, who constantly worried about their kinfolks' welfare in proximity of the military conflict. MARY endured another pregnancy while the TAYLORS continued to make their home in uneasy Kentucky as the Civil War progressed. The bigger part of MARY's adult life was attached to Kentucky, residing amongst the citizens of Hancock county and other Ohio River people. She compassionately supervised her young children, obtaining a local doctor when they were combatting illnesses. MARY had grieved at the death of her infant daughter some eight years earlier, and later had provided benevolent care and concern for her husband when his broken arm was mending back in 1856. The sympathetic young mother apparently attended to little Rob when he fell down their front steps and got back up with a fractured nose. Neighboring housewives performed in circumstances very similar to MARY's, most being immigrant women married to miners from the British Isles, with their first-generation American children born in the States. Homes of the Hollands, Greenwoods, Davidsons, Simpsons, Howes, Mikes, Smiths, Gilliams, Fargers, Blackborns, Thorntons, Huttins, Condons, Swenneys, and Forsythes were in the close vicinity of the TAYLOR house in Hawesville. The German family of Filbecks had migrated from the old country through Ohio and were also living nearby. Another German, August Leighman from Prussia, was one of Hawesville's cabinet makers. T. W. Thornton, a 35-year-old native Kentuckian, was the proprietor of the town blacksmith shop, a building which included the full-time residence of the smithy and his wife. Many other of the townspeople were native Americans with occupations of coal-miners, merchants, professionals, boatmen, farmers, slaves, and soldiers who fought on either side during the Civil War. |
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