USA > Kentucky > A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I > Part 46
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"Respectfully, "G. B. MCCLELLAN, Adj. Gen., U. S. A.
In reply, the governor notified General Mc- Clellan that he had sent General Buckner to Paducah, with orders to carry out the under- standing with him. During the visit of Gen- eral Buckner to Paducah, he, in company with certain citizens, again met General McClellan, and asked him to declare anew the meaning of the Cincinnati agreement. According to one of these civilian witnesses, Hon. E. I. Bul- lock, General McClellan declared that "Ken- tucky was to be left to take charge of her own citizens, and positively stated that if any ap- plication was made to him for assistance for any citizens of Kentucky he would refer them to the judicial and military authorities of the state and extend no aid himself."
Soon after this incident in June, 1861, a special election for members of congress was held in the state, at which the following gen- tlemen were chosen: Henry C. Burnett, James S. Jackson, Henry Grider, Aaron Harding, Charles A. Wickliffe, George WV. Dunlap, Robert Mallory, John J. Critten- den, Wm. H. Wadsworth and John W. Men- zies. Of these ten gentlemen, all were Union men, save Mr. Burnett, who was a States Rights man-the term "Union men" being used here to differentiate the candidates, and not to inviduously reflect upon Mr. Burnett, who was doubtless as much a friend of the Union as his colleagues, but held views as to the rights of the states not held by the others. "The definite question before the people in
that election," says Smith in "The History of Kentucky," "was Union or Disunion." This is perhaps too broad a statement, though in some respects correct. However that may be, the Union majority was very decisive, amounting to 54-750.
Of the gentlemen elected to congress, Mr. Crittenden was the most prominent having, as senator from Kentucky and as attorney general of the United States, attracted the highest attention. Charles A. Wickliffe had been postmaster general of the United States and governor of Kentucky. Wm. H. Wads- worth, of Maysville, had been a schoolmate of General Grant, whose opportunity had come and who was about to emerge from ob- scurity into the bright light of military glory and subsequently the highest political posi- tion in the country. James S. Jackson, young, handsome and brave, was soon to end his career, falling at the head of his brigade of Federal troops at the desperate battle of Per- ryville, Kentucky, October 8, 1862. The oth- ers chosen at this election were not so widely known, but each was a substantial citizen and rendered able service to the cause of the Union. Mr. Mallory, who represented the Louisville district, remained in congress dur- ing the war and was not retired until the August election in 1865.
Recurring to the question of Kentucky neu- trality, Governor Magoffin is found to have hoped that the action of General Mcclellan might lead President Lincoln to officially rec- ognize the neutral position of the state. To that end, he sent General Buckner to Wash- ington to see the president and explain to him the plan by which the state hoped to stem the tide of conflict between the southern states and the Federal government, and, if possible, secure his assent thereto.
Of all the prominent Confederates, General Buckner has been that one who has most strenuously declined to appear in print with relation to his official acts as a military man.
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He has steadily insisted that his official re- ports to the Confederate government made while the events therein referred to were fresh in his mind, should be considered as his contributions to the history of the war. He has sought no post-bellum distinction, as so many others of far less distinction have done, but with that modesty which has always char- acterized him, has been content to leave to the consideration of the people, whom he has served with distinction in civil as in military positions, the final appraisement of the value of those services.
But, in one instance, General Buckner has consented to recede from this position and again acknowledgement has to be made to that interesting, if sometimes mistaken historian, McElroy, for a report of one of the most im- portant episodes of the early history of the war, so far as it refers to Kentucky.
It has been stated that the governor had directed General Buckner to proceed to Wash- ington and confer with that other great Ken- tuckian, Mr. Lincoln, relative to the neutral- ity of the state. Of this visit, McElroy says : "On July 9th, accompanied by John J. Crit- tenden, General Buckner met the president, who he (General Buckner) says wrote and handed me the following paper. He ac- counted for the absence of his signature by saying that he did not intend to write a 'proc- lamation' but to give me a paper on which I could base my statements of his policy and which would be my evidence hereafter, if any difference should arise relative to that pol- icy, and he appealed to Mr. Crittenden, who was present, to identify the paper in any way that he thought proper. This was done by the latter gentleman's subjoining his initials.
"In giving this document to the public Gen- eral Buckner made this statement of his in- terpretation of its meaning: 'I learned when in Washington from some of the friends of the president that he was exceedingly tender- footed on the meaning of certain terms. He
was not willing to "respect" the neutral posi- tion of Kentucky, for that would be to ac- knowledge her right to assume it; but he was entirely willing to "observe" it.' During the conversation he says: 'The president suc- ceeded in impre-sing upon me the belief that "as long as there are roads around Kentucky" to reach the rebellion, it was his purpose to leave her unmolested, not yielding her right to the position she occupied but observing it as a matter of policy.'"
General Buckner states of this manuscript that he later gave it to a friend for safe-keep- ing, who was soon afterwards called away to Arkansas and he was never afterwards able to secure it. But the article in question was not lost though the original cannot be presented. General Buckner furnished a copy of it to the Clarksville ( Tenn.) Jeffersonian newspaper, in which paper it appeared in the issue of Fri- day, September 13, 1861, as follows:
"It is my duty as I conceive, to suppress an in- surrection existing within the United States. I wish to do this with the least possible disturbance or annoy- ance to well-disposed people anywhere. So far, I have not sent an armed force into Kentucky, nor have I any present purpose to do so. I sincerely de- sire that no necessity for it may be presented, but I mean to say nothing which shall hereafter embarrass me in the performance of what may seem to be my duty.
"July 10, 1861.
"'Witnessed, J. J. C.' (the initials of Mr. Critten- den)."
General Buckner says: "This memoran- dum was handed me by President Lincoln in the Eecutive Chamber, Washington, on the 10th of July, 1861, in the presence of Hon. J. J. Crittenden, who, at the instance of the president, witnessed it by marking it with his initials."
The slender thread of neutrality which it was hoped might be used to hold together the Union was speedily to be snapped asunder. The election for members of the general as- sembly held a few weeks later, resulted in the
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choice of seventy-six Union men as represent- atives, and twenty-four States Rights' men. In the senate, where under the constitution but one-half of the members of that body were elected, the other half holding over from the election two years before, there was a Un- ionist majority of sixteen .. If this were not enough to dispel the theory of neutrality, the battle of Bull Run, Virginia, fought July 21, 1861, and which was so disastrous to the Un- ion forces. must have shown every sensible person that a war was pending, and that no one state could prevent its ravages.
The die was cast, and Kentuckians who had hoped against hope that war might be averted, now saw that they must make their choice, and there was no hesitancy upon their part. At Jeffersonville, Indiana, recruiting stations were opened and thither flocked the young Kentucky Unionists who were speed- ily enrolled by Lovell H. Rousseau, a Ken- tucky lawyer of distinction, who was later to become a major general of volunteers, sub- sequently a member of congress, and later still a brigadier general in the United States army, in which latter position he died.
Those Kentuckians whose sympathies were with the south, and there were many thou- sands of them, seeing that neutrality was a barren ideality, turned their faces to the re- cruiting camps in Tennessee, and singly, by couples, scores and companies, swelled the volume of the Confederate forces. Ken- tucky's distinguished sons showed the patlı- way to these enthusiastic young men. John C. Breckinridge, late vice-president of the United States, resigned his position as United States senator from Kentucky and cast his sword in the scale for the south. The senate, notwithstanding his resignation of member- ship in that body. subsequently went through the childish performance of resolving that "John C. Breckinridge, the traitor, is hereby expelled from this body." Expletives were cheap in those days and many people used them without knowing their meaning. The
term "traitor" was in common every-day use, but after the war had ended, no Federal court ever determined its meaning as applied to those who had favored the cause of the south. William Preston, who had served in con- gress and as minister to Spain, went with the south and was later a major general of its armies, and for long years afterwards one of Kentucky's honored citizens; Humphrey Marshall, long in congress and the first com- missioner of the United States to China, be- came a Confederate brigadier general, and subsequently a member of the Confederate congress, where he was serving at the close of the war; Simon Bolivar Buckner, a grad- nate of West Point, who as a very young soldier, had won much distinction in the war with Mexico, and after his retirement from the army, had rendered effective service as inspector general of the Kentucky State Guard, became a lieutenant general in the Con- federate army and, after the peace, was the able and efficient governor of Kentucky. At this writing, he is the sole surviving officer of his rank in the Confederate army and has the pleasure of knowing that his only son, Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., like himself a graduate of West Point, is rendering soldierly service to his country in the Philippines. In 1896, General Buckner was the nominee of the Gold wing of the Democratic party for vice-president on the ticket with Gen. John M. Palmer, of Illinois, a brother Kentuckian and a native of Scott county.
Roger W. Hanson, a lawyer of high re- pute, who had been a gallant soldier with the Kentucky volunteers in Mexico, became col- onel of the Second Kentucky Confederate in- fantry ; was promoted to be brigadier general, and fell at the head of the Orphan Brigade at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, December 31, 1862, his command of Kentuckians being sub- sequently characterized by Gen. Joseph E Johnston as "the best brigade in the Confed- erate army."
John S. Williams, as captain of a company
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of Kentuckians, had won such honor in the congress in 1861. He became a brigadier gen- war with Mexico as to be thereafter known eral and later a major general in the Confed- erate army, rendering high and gallant serv- ice in the field in many battles, and at the close of the war was secretary of war of the Con- federate States. as "Cerro Gordo" Williams. He became first a colonel and later a brigadier general count- manding Kentucky cavalry in the Confeder- ate army. After the war, he was a United States senator.
Ben Hardin Helm was a graduate of West Point and the brother-in-law of President Lincoln, they having married sisters. He had resigned from the army and was practic- ing law in Louisville when the war began. Mr. Lincoln was anxious to have his services and tendered him a commission in the army, in an arm of the service which would not re- quire him to meet the soldiers of the south in actual conflict. The offer was declined and Helm was subsequently commissioned as col- onel of the First Kentucky Cavalry of the Confederate army. an excellent regiment which saw much hard service and harder fighting to the very close of the war, serving as a portion of the escort of President Davis from Charlotte, North Carolina. to Wash- ington, Georgia, at which place it surrendered on May 9, 1865, exactly one month after the surrender at Appomattox. Colonel Ilelm was promoted to be brigadier general in 1862; was severely wounded at the battle of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and fell at the head of the First Kentucky Brigade of Infantry (The Orphan Brigade), which he commanded at the battle of Chickamauga, September 20, 1863. His remains were brought home to Kentucky and reinterred in the family burial ground near Elizabethtown, just twenty years from the date of his death.
John C. Breckinridge, before referred to, was a major in a Kentucky regiment, organ- ized for service in the war with Mexico; had represented the famous Ashland district in congress ; had served from March 4, 1857, to March 4, 1861 as vice-president of the United States; had been the nominee of the southern wing of the Democratic party for president in 1860, and elected as a senator in
George W. Johnson, of Scott county, a gen- tleman of much distinction and influence, though he had never sought office, was elected provisional governor of Kentucky, and soon afterwards fell bravely fighting in the ranks of a Kentucky regiment at the great battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862.
John H. Morgan had seen service in Mex- ico, and as the commander of a squadron of Confederate cavalry inaugurated a practically new system of cavalry warfare which kept his opponents awake at all hours of the day and night. The trouble the enemy had with Mor- gan was that nobody ever knew what he was going to do next. The only absolute cer- tainty was that he would be doing something, no matter where he might be. His favorite hunting ground was in the rear of the Union lines where he constantly created disturb- ances, burning bridges, tearing up railroad tracks, capturing supply trains, and destroy- ing government property. His command grew in importance and he was finally promoted to be a brigadier general, and in 1864, major general. He met his death through treachery at Greeneville, Tennessee, in 1864.
With Morgan was a young Kentuckian, his brother-in-law, who was practicing law in St. Louis when the war began, but who was to make his mark broad and true before it had ended. This was Basil W. Duke, who en- tered the service as a lieutenant and sur- rendered at Washington, Georgia, as a brig- adier general.
These are but preliminary sketches of some of the prominent Kentucky men who followed the fortunes of the south. More will be said of them and of other Kentuckians in the two armies as these pages proceed.
Kentucky's soldierly honor roll by no means
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consisted of Confederates alone. The record of the state in military affairs; in the Indian wars, and the war with Mexico, was full of honor and in the distressing conflict of 1861-5 it was not to suffer through any reluctance on the part of her sons to brave its dangers.
While thousands of Kentuckians were find- ing their way into the Confederate ranks, yet other thousands were enlisting in the cause of the Union. Among those who were active in this direction may be named as prominent factors, Wm. Nelson, a lieutenant in the navy, who entered the volunteer military ser- vice, was promoted to be brigadier general and major general, and who met his death while yet a young man, at the hands of Gen. Jeff C. Davis, of Indiana, in a personal diffi- culty at the Galt House, Louisville, in Sep- tember, 1862.
Thomas L. Crittenden, a son of John J. Crittenden, became a major general in the Federal army and through long and arduous service, did honor to the illustrious name lie bore. His brother, George B. Crittenden, held equal rank in the Confederate army.
Jerry T. Boyle became a brigadier general and for a time commanded the military di,- trict of Kentucky.
Speed Smith Fry also was a brigadier gen- eral and for a long time was believed to have fired the shot from a pistol which killed Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer, of the Confederate army, at the battle of Fishing Creek. It is now known, however, that the officer in question was killed by minie balls, several of which pierced his body.
Frank L. Wolford entered the army as col- onel of the First Kentucky Federal cavalry, a body of first-class fighting men. Wolford had a unique career ; though an officer in the Federal army, he was banished to the Confed- erate lines as a result of his tendency toward free speech. After the war he served several terms in congress.
Thomas J. Wood, an officer in the regular
service, became a major general and served throughout the war with great credit and later as a general officer in the Regular army.
Walter C. Whittaker entered the volunteer service as colonel of the Sixth Kentucky in- fantry, was promoted to brigadier and brevet major general.
J. J. Landrum was colonel of a Federal reg- iment.
T. T. Garrard, a near kinsman of former Governor Garrard, was a gallant colonel and brigadier general, leading the brave mountain boys who followed him always to the place where there was "the most beautiful fighting."
John M. Harlan was colonel of the Tenth Kentucky Infantry volunteers; was subse- quently attorney general of Kentucky and candidate of the Republicans in 1871 for gov- ernor of the state. Since 1877, he has sat as a justice of the supreme court of the United States, where he has splendidly maintained himself to his own honor and glory as well as to that of his native state.
John Mason Brown, a distinguished law- yer. a son-in-law of General Preston of the Confederate army, was a colonel of volun- teers, an honor to Kentucky in the field and later at the bar. This is but a sketch of a few of the men of Kentucky who were prom- inent in the beginning of the war. Some of them will receive further notice. Others, omitted here, will find places in later pages, while yet others may not be named at all, as the limitations of space prevent the publishing in full of Kentucky's roll of fame, Federal and Confederate.
Gen. William Nelson established a recruit- ing station at Camp Dick Robinson in Gar- rard county, and busily engaged in organizing troops for the Union army. General Grant moved a force to Belmont opposite Columbus, Kentucky, and threatened that place. General Polk, of the Confederate army, on September 3. 1861, thereupon occupied Columbus and Hickman, Kentucky, fortifying each place,
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General Grant's movement having been made September Ist. On the 5th of September the Federal forces occupied Paducah and other points in Kentucky. Gen. Robert Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame, was ordered to the command of the Federal forces in Kentucky. On September 20th, the legislature passed an act directing the governor to call out 40,000 Kentuckians to repel the invasion by armed forces of the Confederate government. No notice was taken of the armed Union forces at Camp Dick Robinson.
Neutrality had flown away as chaff before the wind. Thereafter, Kentucky was consid- ered by the Federal authorities as a territory which could be entered at will and held as long as the Confederates did not drive out the Union forces. There was a sentiment exist- ing in the non-combattant force which gravi- tated to the ruling power and this brought re- cruits to the recruiting station at Camp Dick
Robinson. Many of the men who flocked thither made subsequently good soldiers and on many battlefields bravely upheld the honor of the state, though, in doing so, they more than once confronted their equally brave op- ponents from Kentucky. No other war of modern times has had so pathetic a condition as this. At Shiloh, when the fighting had ended. Federal soldiers searching among the killed and wounded, found their brothers dead upon the field in the Confederate uniform. Can one, in these days of peace, imagine what a condition such as that must have meant to the brave men who wore the blue uniform of the United States forces or the gray of the Confederates? "The horrors of war" is a tame expression ; it was the very hell of war which confronted these gallant Kentucky boys who offered up their lives in defense of their respective opinions.
CHAPTER XLIX.
OUTLAWED "BUSHWHACKERS" AND "GUERRILLAS"-ARREST OF SOUTHERN SYMPATHIZERS- TERM "REBEL" NOT OFFENSIVE-KENTUCKY ADMITTED TO THE CONFEDERACY-PROVIS- IONAL GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED-CONFEDERATES AT BOWLING GREEN-RETREAT INTO TENNESSEE-GENERAL SHERMAN'S "CRAZY" ESTIMATE-BUELL AND JOHNSTON "LINING UP"-FALL OF FORT HENRY-BUCKNER, HERO OF FORT DONELSON-FORTUNES OF WAR AND LIFE-NASHVILLE OPEN TO ATTACK-NUMBER OF KENTUCKY UNION TROOPS SHILOH AND JOHNSTON'S DEATH-KENTUCKY TROOPS AT SHILOH-METEORIC .MORGAN AND DUKE-LINCOLN'S EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION-MILITARY INTERFERENCE.
Prior to this time, those who had wished to join the armies of the Confederacy had done so without let or hindrance, but condi- tions had changed and to reach the southern lines required diplomacy and the utmost care. Men went south singly or on small squads; such a thing as the easy passage of an entire company southward was no longer known. Home guards, armed with guns sent from northern arsenals, were formed in every county and while they formed no strong ob- stacle to the organized bodies of Confederates with whom they occasionally and so far as they were concerned, accidentally came in contact, they made dangerous the passage southward of recruits for the southern army. But by no means did they prevent the move- ments of those recruits. It became the rule . for these latter to travel by night from the home of some southern sympathizer, who acted as their guide, to the home of another of like sympathies, where they would remain in hiding during the day and proceed again at night with their last host as a guide. In this manner thousands of men made their way from Kentucky into Tennessee and Virginia, there to enlist in the Confederate army. A gentleman, who many years afterwards held
Vol. I-21.
a high position in the service of the govern- ment of the United States, owed his safe progress through the lines of the Union army into those of the Confederates to a Kentucky woman who, mounted behind him on his horse, guided him through the mountain fastnesses in the darkness of night, never leav- ing him until he had successfully passed the Confederate outposts, after which she bravely made her way homeward on foot.
The men who braved the mountain passes in daylight marches were confronted by the "bushwhacker," whose sympathy for the Un- ion was strong enough to lead him to fire from behind a tree upon a man whom he chose to class as an enemy, but was not equal to bringing him to a recruiting office where he could don a uniform and thereafter meet his enemy upon an equal footing. Some of these "bushwhackers" at a later period of the war, met a fate they had little expected in the ear- lier days of their experience. On the retreat of the Confederate army under General Bragg from Kentucky, in 1862, seventeen of them, who had been especially obnoxious and ac- tive, hanging on the outskirts of the line of march and firing at will upon the troops, were captured and incontinently hanged to a tree
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by the roadside. At another point, three of the same ilk who had made themselves equally busy as non-combattants in killing the sol- diers of the retreating army, were captured and shot. An expeditionary party, com- manded by Major Clarence Prentice, the Con- federate son of the distinguished George D. Prentice, the Unionist editor of the Louis- ville Journal, was sent at one time against these predatory gentlemen. On his return to headquarters he made this laconic report : "It is a gratifying reflection that many of them will 'whack' no more."
It may seem to the reader of these words in these days of peace that the treatment ac- corded these "bushwhackers" was unduly se- vere, but it should be remembered that they were not connected with the Union army ; they were not soldiers at all, but merely murder- ers. They sneaked behind trees and rocks along the mountain sides and, as opportunity presented, fired from their points of vantage upon unsuspecting soldiers passing their way, and then fled from pursuit. The solitary sol- dier, straggling behind his regiment, had no chance for escape. He was ruthlessly mur- dered and robbed. It was because of these facts that the "bushwhackers" when captured, neither expected nor received clemency.
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