During the Civil War, many Home Guard companies quickly came together during the chaos and uncertainty of the initial weeks and months of the war, as men were anxious to join the fight. These smaller groups were often the first military units to form, sometimes centered around prewar militia groups, or geographic circumstances, and were perhaps easier and quicker to join without the usual military paperwork.
In Kentucky during the summer of 1861, weeks after the war started, the state created "county-based companies of Union men" that it called Home Guards. However, the organization of these units was "never uniform throughout the state" and was frequently rather "informal."[1]
In Campbell County, several such units popped up, usually based around the town or community where the members lived instead of just the county. These included groups in Brooklyn and Jamestown as well as in the Mt. Vernon and Mt. Pleasant areas of what is now Ft. Thomas. Gus Artsman’s (or Artzman’s) company of the Kentucky Police Guard and the 42nd Kentucky Enrolled Militia regiment also organized largely in Campbell County, the latter not until the late summer of 1862.
Around the state, as summer of 1861 transformed into fall, “many Home Guard units saw action in defense of their communities, although the combat value of most Home Guard companies was slight.” These were not well-trained, disciplined troops. These were groups of men, usually without military experience, coming together for a common cause.
When these local groups entered combat, they often experienced a similar fate as similar companies. “Confederate units, especially those led by John Hunt Morgan, who often encountered Home Guardsmen, seldom had much trouble brushing aside even the most persistent of men.”[2]
William Sanders was born on January 16, 1829, in England, three decades and a wide ocean away from the war that would eventually decide his fate. He later made his way across the cold and often dangerous Atlantic Ocean to the United States, settling in Campbell County, Kentucky by the late 1850s, when he married Elizabeth Band, another immigrant from England, on October 3, 1857, in Newport.
In 1860, he lived in Newport with his wife, two children, and 16-year-old Thomas Sanders, who may have been his nephew, as the census reports he was also an English native. William worked as a clerk.
After the Civil War started, William joined Artsman’s company of the Kentucky Police Guard, a short-term home guard unit based in Newport, enlisting as a sergeant on September 19, 1861, but he mustered out just two weeks later on October 4. This company included 70 men, likely all or mostly from Campbell County, including a Thomas Sanders, quite possibly William’s family and housemate. Thomas would have been 18 by this time.
After leaving that unit, William enlisted as a second lieutenant in another local group of citizen-soldiers, this time John Arthur’s company of Newport Home Guards. In mid-1862, danger approached a region not terribly far from Campbell County, so the men of this unit travelled south to Cynthiana in Harrison County to face an approaching enemy force.
Confederate General Morgan, of course, was soon to become the scourge of many Union supporters in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, and a hero to southern sympathizers. He had just recently “launched his first major raid into Kentucky,” hoping to interrupt Union communication lines and to recruit more men for his cause.
On July 17, he had arrived in Cynthiana, “strategically located on the Kentucky Central Railroad and the Licking River.” His troops, about 800 in number, soon met the enemy, some of whom had “positioned themselves across the river in houses and had posted artillery to contest the bridge crossing.
The Confederates attacked and soon forced their opponents to surrender. They “captured more than 300 horses, destroyed Cynthiana’s railroad depot and nearby railroad track, and wrecked a Union camp.”[3]
The beaten Union forces included the Newport Home Guards, which had been “badly cut up” during the battle.[4] This unit had suffered losses reported as two men killed, six wounded, and two missing.[5]
William was one of those casualties, suffering an undocumented wound which was not immediately fatal. He was able to leave the battlefield having “distinguished himself by his bravery” on that ground.
His wounds were apparently serious, as he eventually was admitted to St. John’s Hospital in Cincinnati, where he died of his battlefield injuries on November 18, four months after the engagement. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Southgate, Kentucky, where his colleagues attended the funeral of this immigrant who had given his all in defending his adopted homeland.[6]
His widowed Elizabeth lived until 1920, but in 1871 remarried, now to John Henry Stegeman, another Civil War veteran, having served as a 1st Lieutenant in the 5th Ohio Light Artillery.
Those few lines in the newspaper and a headstone were the closest to fame or glory William Sanders ever received but his story is another one worthy of recognition and a place in the memory of this bloody war.
[1]Hughes, Nicky. Home Guards. Taken from The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Kleber, John E. (Editor-in-chief); Clark, Thomas D.; Harrison, Lowell M.; Klotter, James C.; (Associate Editors) University Press of Kentucky. 1992. p. 438
[2]Ibid
[3]https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/99
[4]Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, July 19, 1862
[5]Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, July 21, 1862
[6]Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, November 19, 1862
The first photo is from https://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=711423
The next one is courtesy of https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/files/show/111
The headstone photograph came from findagrave memorial id 88684715
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