Born in Bourbon County, Clay was the son of Congressman Brutus J. Clay and the nephew of Cassius M. Clay, Lincoln’s Minister to Russia. He saw action at Middle Creek and later served with Wheeler’s Cavalry in Tennessee. Wounded and captured during the Battle of Puncheon Creek, he spent the last year of the war in an Ohio prison. Colonel Ezekiel Field Clay was the son of U. S. Congressman Brutus J. Clay, Bourbon County stock-breeder and president of the Kentucky Agricultural Association. In October, 1861, Clay organized a Bourbon County company of mounted men and took them to Prestonsburg, where they enlisted in the newly-formed First Kentucky Mounted Rifles, C.S.A  Clay was one of the organizers of the regiment, and following its baptism of fire during the Battle of Ivy Mountain, he was singled out for praise by his commanding officer, Colonel John S. Williams. During the 1862-63 period Clay and his men served with Marshall’s Army of Southwestern Virginia, participating in Marshall’s Fall 1862 invasion of Eastern Kentucky and the abortive raid on Louisa in the Spring of 1863. Transferred to Georgia, Clay and his men served with General Nathaniel B. Forrest’s cavalry after the Battle of Chickamauga and rode with Wheeler’s cavalry during their famous raid through Middle Tennessee. At Shelbyville Clay was badly wounded and lost his horse, but he recuperated in time to participate in the Knoxville campaign. In April 1864 he led a brigade of cavalry into Eastern Kentucky and, at Puncheon Creek in Magoffin County, was surrounded by a superior force of Union troopers and badly defeated. Wounded in the eye, Clay was captured and sent to a Union prison on Johnson’s Island, located on Lake Erie near Sandusky, Ohio, where he remained until Lee’s surrender. After his release Clay returned to his family estate in Bourbon County and spent the remainder of his life breeding horses. His farm, known as Runnymede, became famous under his management and is still widely celebrated as the home of many of Kentucky’s finest thoroughbreds.

Colonel Ezekiel F. Clay of the 1st Kentucky Mounted Rifles

The Middle Creek Battlefield Foundation

The Samuel May House Archive Main Page

Middle Creek Main Page Why They Fought Here The Opposing Commanders The Confederate Waiting Game The Artillery That Failed The Union Command Post The Confederate Command Post The Union Assault Monroe's Bayonet Charge A Desperate Fight, But Few Casualties The Mount Sterling-Pound Gap Road The John M. Burns House The Samuel May Farm The Middle Creek Foundation

Colonel George W. Monroe Colonel Lionel A. Sheldon Colonel Don A. Pardee Colonel Hiram Hawkins Colonel John S. Williams Colonel Alfred C. Moore Colonel George W. Gallup Dr. Stephen M. Ferguson

Eastern Kentucky Civil War Battles

The Skirmish at Abbott Shoal

Steel engraving from E. Polk Johnson's A History of Kentucky and Kentuckians, Vol. II (Chicago, 1912).