Videographer Robert Tipton films Camp Nelson superintendent Ernie Price for a recent video about Camp Nelson for the Blue Grass Trust deTour series. The video is available on Blue Grass Trust’s website, www.bluegrasstrust.org/pastdetours. Photo furnished
One of the most recent additions to the National Park System is conveniently located in our own backyard.
Camp Nelson National Monument, located in Nicholasville, officially joined the ranks of the National Park Service as a National Monument in 2018, said Ernie Price, Camp Nelson’s superintendent, but is only now ramping up to accept visitors.
For more than 20 years, the site has been a historic park in Jessamine County. Built in 1863, the site served as a supply depot and hospital during the Civil War, at one time holding as many as 300 structures and a population equal to Lexington’s at the time on 4,000 acres. The camp supported Union troops in their campaigns into Tennessee and other Southern battle sites.
But when it was built, Kentucky was a slave state – which meant the camp was built by slaves.
When President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, it only freed the slaves in states that were in rebellion to the nation. Since Kentucky was not in open rebellion, the law didn’t apply to Kentucky slaves. But the federal military facility did offer slaves a step toward freedom: By working on the camp and enlisting in the Union army, slaves were about to set on a path to emancipation, Price said.
“The camp became one of the largest recruiting stations for African American men in the country, who eventually became part of the U.S. Colored Troops,” he said.
Along with them, however, came their wives and families. As the men volunteered for service to the war effort, the women and children stayed on at Camp Nelson as refugees.
It was a risky and dangerous proposition. Not all who sought freedom were granted it, Price said.
According to the National Park Service’s Camp Nelson website, those who couldn’t serve in the war were expected to return to where they came from. In one official military order, women and children were asked to leave the site. In what’s called the November 1864 expulsion, Union soldiers forcibly escorted women and children from the camp, then destroyed the refugee cabins.
It was an unusually cold winter, however, and freezing temperatures and harsh conditions took their toll on the refugees. More than 100 deaths were recorded, causing national media attention and public outcry.
A few weeks after the expulsion, the military reversed its policy and began constructing government-sponsored buildings – a communal mess hall, a school, barracks for single women and the sick, and duplex family cottages – as part of a new “Home for Colored Refugees” at the site.
This video about Camp Nelson was produced by the Blue Grass Trust in partnership with the Media Collaboratory, as part of the Blue Grass DeTours series.
Those who had been turned away now had a home. However, they still weren’t free. It wouldn’t be until March 3, 1865, when Congress passed legislation that emancipated the wives, children and mothers of U.S. Colored Troops. Not only did the legislature give the refugees at the camp legal protections, but it also provided incentive for African American men to sign up as part of the U.S. Colored Troops.
On April 9, 1865, the Civil War ended. Some activity continued at the camp, Price said, including a commissary. By 1866, the government was looking for ways to cut expenses and ceased operating the camp. Instead of abandoning it, the military dismantled it.
Over the course of those three years though, Camp Nelson rose as a self-sustaining city on a hill with everything from tents to stables to a hospital to barracks to training grounds.
Now, the work continues to bring that history back to life. Price said the park is working on improvements to its Visitors’ Center and hopes to reopen the doors to the public by the end of June. In the meantime, visitors are welcome to walk the more than four miles of public trails, which include interpretive wayside panels.
Photo furnished