Asa Lewis
Asa Lewis was a young Barren County, Kentucky farmboy, who was born about 1843. Asa joined Company E, 6th Kentucky Infantry Regiment of the "Orphan Brigade" of the Confederate States Army, Lewis received no training, but was simply handed a rifle and told he was a soldier. Lewis served with distinction at the Battle of Shiloh in the American Civil War and was promoted to corporal.
On December 26, 1862, General Braxton Bragg had the young Asa Lewis executed for desertion after he went home to make arrangements for the financial needs of his starving mother and sisters, after his one-year enlistment had expired. The civil war troops called going home, with intention of return a "French leave".
Asa Lewis was buried in the Murfreesboro City Cemetery. The bodies in that cemetery were moved after the war and the exact site of his grave has been lost but in 1996, the Glasgow Cemetery in Kentucky allowed a tombstone to be erected "in memory of" the young Barren County boy.
The execution of Asa Lewis deepened the resentment between the Kentuckians and General Bragg. The Kentuckians petitioned that the sentence be commuted, but Gen. Bragg stood firm.
Asa Lewis and William Horsfall of Newport, Kentucky, were the subject of a 2008 KET documentary hosted by Winchester, Kentucky native Matt Long.
