Newburgh, First Northern Town Taken by the Confederacy
Near Evansville, Indiana
The Ohio River town of Newburgh, just east of Evansville, holds a distinction most residents know well: on July eighteenth, eighteen sixty-two, it became the first town in a northern state captured by Confederate forces during the Civil War. Confederate partisan Adam Rankin Johnson crossed from Kentucky with fewer than forty men, but he had a trick. He mounted fake cannon on a bluff across the river, the barrels actually charred logs and a stovepipe, convincing the town's defenders they were hopelessly outgunned.
Newburgh surrendered without a fight. Johnson seized a Union arsenal, loaded the weapons into boats, and was back in Kentucky within hours. He earned the nickname Stovepipe Johnson and a promotion to colonel.
The federal government responded by dispatching regular Army troops to Indiana, a consequence one small bluff and a stovepipe had made unavoidable.
