Flagg Springs

Flagg Springs
 

This community located at Kentucky State Route 10 and Smith Road, Kentucky State Route 735, was built around the Flagg Springs Baptist Church.  The church graveyard is the final resting place of Jefferson McGraw, a central figure in one of the county's most celebrated Civil War stories.

Flagg Springs Baptist Church Cemetery

McGraw was a lieutenant in a state guard unit recruited from southeastern Campbell County to help maintain the state's neutrality in the days before the Civil War.  But after war broke out, McGraw and most of the men joined the Confederate Army.  McGraw returned to Campbell County to recruit more men.  In the process he was captured along with William Corbin, a Confederate captain from nearby California.  Instead of being made prisoners of war, McGraw and Corbin were taken to Johnson's Island in Lake Erie and in a trial that attracted national attention, were convicted and executed for violating a recruiting law even though the law wasn't issued by Union officials until five days after their arrest.

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