Siege of Cincinnati

[5fish]

September 10, 1862 - Cincinnati, OH, prepares for a Confederate invasion, from the likes of Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan, Maj. Gen. E. Kirby Smith and/or Gen. Braxton Bragg, CSA.

Yes, the Confederates were at the gates of Cincinnati in September of 1862 and General Lew Wallace came to their aide with squirrel hunters...

https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Siege_of_Cincinnati

In September 1862, Confederate forces under General Kirby Smith captured Lexington, Kentucky in the second year of the American Civil War. Smith dispatched General Henry Heth to capture Covington, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. Major General Horatio Wright, commander of Union forces in Kentucky, ordered General Lewis (Lew) Wallace to prepare Covington's and Cincinnati's defenses.

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Civilians from sixty-five counties numbering 15,766 men reported for duty at Cincinnati. These men became known as the "Squirrel Hunters."

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Many of the Squirrel Hunters had no military training and carried antiquated weapons. Despite these shortcomings, they still rallied together to help defend Ohio from Confederate invasion.

You will have to read the link to see how the story ends... squirrels and all...

 

[5fish]

I found more on the Squirrel Hunters the "Minute Men" of Ohio...

Ohio’s “Minute Men”: Squirrel Hunters and the Defense of Cincinnati

Many of these men had no previous military experience, and the weapons they brought were outdated–more suited to small game hunting than combat, and thus the source of their enduring nickname. A 1915 article from the Amherst Weekly News characterizes the men’s weapons as “pitchforks, clubs and pistols and blunderbusses of the vintage of 1812 or thereabouts.” Churches, meeting halls, warehouses, and even Cincinnati’s Fifth Street Markethouse were commandeered to operate as makeshift barracks and dining halls as men crowded in to come to the city’s defense.

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Between volunteer defenders and the regular army, Heth’s men reported a force of 70,000 along the border, and the Southern advance was quickly and effectively repelled without direct conflict or bloodshed. A Confederate scout is reported to have said of the volunteers, “They call them Squirrel Hunters; farm boys that never had to shoot at the same squirrel twice.”

Need read the link to see what happen to the Squirrel men...