USA > Kentucky > A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I > Part 55
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Under the act of congress of March 3, 1865, when a slave enlisted in the army of the United States, the act of enlistment at once freed him and also his wife and children ; and this was the means of emancipating many thousand slaves in Kentucky. But it was not until December 18, 1865 (about two years after "The Emanci- pation Proclamation"), when the thirteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States abolishing slavery was established as a fixed fact, that slavery actually became ex- tinct in Kentucky. And not even then entirely,
persons who had known her during her many years of faithful personal service. This in- stance, only one of many of like character, is referred to here as a proof of the status of the faithful colored servant in the Kentucky fam- ily. Another notable instance of this charac- ter was that of Aaron Dupee, the faithful per- sonal servant of Henry Clay, who had accom- panied Mr. Clay on all his travels in Europe and during his public life in Washington. Aaron Dupee remained with Mr. Clay's family after the death of that great statesman, and died at Ashland on February 6, 1866. Greater devotion to duty and to those who held superior
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stations in social life, was never shown than by these faithful servitors of the white fami- lies of the south, and especially was this so in Kentucky.
It may be interesting now to show some- thing of the death of slavery in Kentucky. The assessed value of slave property in the State in 1860, and later, serves to show its gradual de- clination, as follows :
Year Value of Slaves
1860
$107.494,527.00
1863
57,511,770.00
1864
34,179,246.00
1865
7,224,851.00
There was no appreciable depreciation in 1861 and 1862 from the valuation of 1860.
Going back now to the Emancipation Procla- mation, the chronological incidents of the sub- sequent gradual decline of slavery in the state may be stated.
On the very day that the Emancipation Proclamation was promulgated-January 1, 1863-at Owensboro, Kentucky, negro farm hands were hired for $200 to $250 per annum, and negro cooks for $25 to $125, exclusive of their board, lodging, clothing and medical at- tendance. Prices for such service had never been higher.
On February 18th, the Kentucky senate re- fused to further consider a petition of John A. Bell of Georgetown, Kentucky, praying per- mission for certain free negroes of Brown county, Ohio, to return to slavery in Kentucky. How strange that petition seems, coming about seven weeks after the Emancipation Proclama- tion. But it proves what has herein been con- tended, that slavery in Kentucky was so mild that those who bore its burden were unaware that it was a burden, and, when they had es- caped from it in some instances, desired most of all to come back to it. Even the most radi- cal of those who opposed slavery, cannot ex- plain why this condition should exist.
On March 2d, the legislature enacted that
"negroes claiming freedom under or by virtue of the president's proclamation of January 1, 1863, are forbidden to migrate to or remain in this state." On March 21, 1863, the Federal military authorities under command of Col. Sanders D. Bruce, impressed slaves in Bour- bon county and sent them to Lexington to work on entrenchments and for other labor. Any persons disobeying the order or obstruct- ing its execution, were subject to arrest and imprisonment.
The war department having ordered the en- rollment of the free negroes in Kentucky under the conscription act of congress, the state au- thorities on July 8, 1863, remonstrated against it, most explicitly and urgently and the order was practically suspended.
On August 10, 1863, Gen. Jere T. Boyle ordered the impressment of six thousand slaves in fourteen of the central counties of the state, to work as laborers in extending a military railroad from Lebanon to Danville; owners failing to deliver them, as ordered, were to have all their male slaves, between the ages of sixteen and forty-five taken away from them.
On the night of Sunday, December 13, 1863, when a large congregation of the Pleasant Green Colored Baptist Church in Lexington, was dismissed, a file of soldiers at the door arrested all the men, young and old, and marched them to the jail. Next day, they were sent to work on the military roads.
The last recorded sale of slaves at auction in Kentucky took place near Louisville on December 30; 1863, just a year after the Eman- cipation Proclamation. A man of twenty-eight years sold for $500; a boy of eleven brought $350, and two women, aged eighteen and nine- teen, were sold for $450 and$380 respectively.
In 1864, the slave trouble began as early as January 12th, when Governor Bramlette wrote to Gen. Boyle, relative to the recent action of the Federal Government toward recruiting able-bodied negroes of Kentucky into the First Michigan Colored Regiment. Gov. Bramlette
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
wrote: "No such recruiting will be tolerated here. Summary justice will be inflicted upon any who attempt such unlawful purpose."
To Captain Cahill, a recruiting officer, he wrote: "Kentucky will furnish white men to fill the call upon her for troops; she will not enlist colored men nor permit any State, which is unwilling to meet the measure of duty by contributing its quota from its own popula- tion, to shelter itself behind the free negro population of this State."
But this pointed statement of Governor Bramlette, himself a former Union soldier, had no effect. The states of the north which had done so much to goad the south into a declaration of war, were not altogether willing to send their sons into that war and when the quota of these states fell below what it should be, its recruiting officers came into Kentucky and Tennessee and recruited regiments of negroes which were credited to those northern states in which there had been a falling off in enlistments. The writer, after the war, knew a man who had served as a major in a Tennessee regiment of colored infantry, which was credited to Connecticut. The people of the north were extremely willing to stir up strife and many of them were more than willing to have others fight it out. Some southern peo- ple, who never thought deeply on the slavery question, were used to saying: "The negro makes a mighty good shade." These northern people who came south to recruit negro regi- ments to be credited to their several states, evi- dently thought that "the negro makes a mighty good subsitute."
On February 17, 1864, the legislature passed an act prohibiting the importation of slaves into Kentucky for merchandise, and on the 22d of the same month, protested against the enlistment of Kentucky slaves in the United States army. On March 4th, Gen. Burbridge ordered all impressed slaves to be released from their work and sent home to their masters.
March 10, 1864, Colonel Frank Wolford, commanding the First Kentucky Cavalry, United States Volunteers, whose devotion and loyalty to the Union none who knew him ever doubted, upon being presented by the citizens of Fayette county with a splendid sword, sash, pistol and spurs, at Lexington, made one of his characteristic political speeches, in which he denounced the order for the enrollment of negroes in Kentucky as "unconstitutional, and unjust ; another of a series of startling usur- pations. It is the duty of the people of Ken- tucky to. resist it as a violation of their guaran- teed rights. * The people of Ken- tucky do not want to keep step to the music of the Union along side negro soldiers. It is an insult and a degredation for which their free and manly spirits are not prepared ; while it is an infraction of the rights of the State which it is the duty of the Governor, under his oath, to support the Constitution and see it faithfully executed, to resist with all the constitutional power of the commonwealth. What, with Abraham Lincoln on the one side and Jefferson Davis on the other, the beloved Union of our fathers is now, like Christ cruci- fied between two thieves." It will be observed that Colonel Wolford was a frank, outspoken man. This speech created much excitement and led to his arrest for speaking disrespectfully of the president. He was also deprived of his commission in the army, but President Lincoln, who did not insist very strongly upon prosecu- tions and punishments for what in these days would be termed "lese majeste" subsequently returned it to him, and "Old Frank," as his friends and foes alike called him, went on talk- ing and fighting in a devil-may-care way until the war had ended, after which he rested com- fortably in a seat in congress for several terms. There was no other Kentucky soldier in the Union army like Col. Frank Wolford.
On March 15th, Governor Bramlette, by proclamation, recommended the people to sub- mit quietly to the enrollment of colored troops
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
and to "trust the American people to do us the justice which this congress may not do." On the 22d of March, he, together with Archibald Dixon and Albert G. Hodges, left Frankfort for Washington to consult with the president on the matter which was compromised, the gov- ernor consenting to the enrollment on the con- dition that no enlistments of colored troops were to be made unless Kentucky should fail to furnish her quota of white troops. But the eastern states continued to enlist Kentucky negroes and credit them to their own account.
At a public meeting in Danville on March 21, 1864, the Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge said in a speech that "he was an emancipationist, although a large slaveholder ; he had two sons in the Union army and two in the Confederate army, and would not have these sons killed for all the value of all the slave property in the world; he had been called to Frankfort to consult with Governor Bramlette about the course to be pursued in reference to the enroll- ment of slaves here; the state officers were determined to obey, as they were bound to do, the laws passed and orders issued upon that subject ; he had seen the proclamation issued which had done so much to quiet the public apprehension, and, that too, when the governor had already prepared a different one; he was bound, as a gentleman, to support that procla- mation, although it did not suit him exactly; it answered, however, a good purpose-it foiled one part of the scheme to bloodily baptize Ken- tucky into the Southern Confederacy; this scheme, he understood to embrace an emente of the Kentucky troops in consequence of Wol- ford's arrest, and a general rising in the State, strengthened by a contemporaneous invasion by a rebel army ; the conspiracy,-of the exist- ence of which the proof was overwhelmingly strong-had failed, so far as the defection of the Kentucky troops and the uprising of the people were concerned."
On April 18, 1864, Gen. Burbridge issued General Order No. 34, for the enlistment of
able-bodied negroes in Kentucky to be mus- tered in squads and forwarded immediately to camps of instruction outside of the State ; own- ers of slaves that were accepted as recruits were to receive certificates that would enable them to receive compensation as authorized by law.
By June 6th, negro volunteering was brisk, especially in Lexington, where one hundred and ten were recruited in two days. On June 7th, Col. Cunningham, commanding colored troops in Paducalı, made a raid into Union county, known during the war as "The Little Southern Confederacy," and impressed a steamboat load of slaves into the United States service. He was accompanied by two gunboats to assist in persuading the owners to consent to the impressment. By July 15th, more than 12,000 slaves had been taken out of Kentucky and enlisted elsewhere, being credited to north- ern states the quotas of which had not been filled by voluntary enlistments. Two regiments were enlisted and organized at Louisville, while six or seven others were in process of organization at Camp Nelson in Jessamine county, to be credited not to Kentucky but to northern states whose quotas were short.
On July 24th the secretary of war issued an order to the effect that if the owners of slaves who have left their service and taken refuge in the camps, or resorted to the towns, desire them to become soldiers in the United States service, they have only to indicate this desire to the provost marshals, who will arrest the negroes and put them in the service. All Ken- tucky negroes who had run off, or been per- suaded to go to the adjoining states to be en- listed for the sake of the bounty (of which they got only a small part or none), were or- dered to be seized and enlisted in the Kentucky regiments.
Camp Nelson, having been for several months a rendezvous for runaway slaves-the men being forced into the army and the women fed on government rations and generally idle-
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
Gen. Speed S. Fry, on August 23d, issued a general order expelling all the Kentucky negro women from the camp, but not those from Tennessee and other southern states. The or- der stated that "all officers having negro women in their employment will deliver them up to the patrol to be brought to these headquarters. Any one attempting to evade this order will be arrested and punished."
Gov. Bramlette, on November 23, 1864, is- sued a proclamation calling upon Kentuckians "whose slaves have been taken for army pur- poses, to devote whatever sum the government may pay for them to the noble purpose of relieving the wants and supplying the neces- sities of the wives and children and widows and orphans of Kentucky's Union Soldiers." He offered to contribute in this way whatever was received for his own two slaves and ex- pressed the hope that "five hundred thousand dollars will be contributed to this noble charity." However, the charity did not ma- terialize, as the government never paid a cent for the slaves and no reasonable person ever expected that it would do so. It never seemed to occur to anyone that anything should be paid to the slaves who had so long been de- prived of their liberty.
The writer before named, from whom much of the data herein given is taken, says: "We have now come to January 1, 1865, two years after the date of the Emancipation Proclama- tion, and we find that slavery, while a very sickly affair, was still a recognized institution in Kentucky. Congress had, by joint resolu- tion, proposed the thirteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, to the effect that slavery should nowhere exist in the United States or in any place subject to their juris- diction. Governor Bramlette, on February 7, 1865, submitted this amendment to the legisla- ture of Kentucky for consideration." There was in that body some discussion as to ratify- ing the amendment with the proviso that con- gress appropriate the sum of $34,179,246, the
assessed value of the slaves in the state in 1864, for payment to the owners of these slaves who were to be made free if the amendment were adopted by the necessary number of states, but this came to naught. On February 17th the amendment was rejected by a large vote, as all who had any wisdom or forethought knew it would be.
Though General Lee had surrendered his army, April 9, 1865, and everyone recognized that the war was over, recruiting for the army appears to have continued, so far as negroes were concerned, in Kentucky. On April 20-22, 1865, there was a correspondence between Gen. James S. Brisbin of the United States army, and Governor Bramlette. The former showed that emancipation was being brought about in Kentucky, regardless of the action of the legis- lature, through the enlistment of the slaves. General Brisbin, who appears to have had charge of these enlistments, informed the gov- ernor that he was engaged in recruiting seven- teen regiments of slaves in Kentucky and that "negro enlistment had bankrupted slavery in Kentucky, over twenty-two thousand of the most valuable slaves having already gone into the service, while the few thousands left are being rapidly gathered up by the recruiting officers, and put into the service. Even old men and boys are found to be fit for duty in invalid regiments and are taken. From seventy to one hundred enlist daily, freeing, under the law of congress of March 3, 1865, an average of five women and children per man. Thus from three hundred to five hundred black peo- ple are daily made free through the instru- mentality of the army."
The tax assessor of Boone county on May 6, 1865, reported 1,851 slaves in that county and enumerated upon his assessment lists, but he placed "no value" upon them and his assess- ment was approved. That these slaves still remained voluntarily with their owners in that county as late as May, 1865, two years and five months after the Emancipation Proclama-
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
tion, shows that slavery, unjust as all must now admit it to have been, could not have been a universally grievous and oppressive burden upon the slaves in Kentucky. Boone County abuts upon the Ohio river, just below Cin- cinnati, and escape thence from oppression into Ohio was always an easy matter even in the darkest days of slavery ; and escape in 1863-5 was always easy even in Kentucky itself.
The assessment of property for the whole state made in May, 1865, showed slaves to the value of about seven and a quarter million dollars, still voluntarily remaining with their masters at that late date-one month after the surrender at Appomattox and. practically. the end of the war which forever destroyed slav- ery. Not one of these slaves so enumerated, but could have left their servitude-and they knew it-long before they were enumerated as remaining with those whom they claimed as their masters. It is a tribute to these faithful servitors and to those who maintained over them a patriarchal watchcare, that they de- layed so long an acceptance of that freedom which came finding them so ill-adapted to its acceptance.
On May 6, 1865. the enlistment of slaves in Kentucky was discontinued by order of the war department. At that date, the war was practically over and the further enlistment of men was as ridiculous as had been many other of the efforts of the government to control the movements and actions of the people in the border states. Kentucky had done its full duty to the Union. It had, in one way and another, sent more men into the Union army than it had into that of the Confederacy, yet it had been notably represented in each army, and had the right to claim that its duty had been done. It will never be known how many Kentuckians served in the two armies, but it will be known, until time shall be no more, that those who did so serve performed every duty demanded of them and that when the great conflict was ended the Kentucky volunteers
came home without a stain upon the banners under which they had fought whether of the U'nion or of the Confederacy. There was but one exception to this splendid record and that has been referred to in a preceding chapter in which was chronicled the performances of a man who dishonored the uniform he wore and the flag under which he served.
In the light of today, it seems very odd to record that on June 4, 1865, Judge George W. Johnston, of the city court of Louisville, com- mitted a negro slave named Jacob Hardin to the workhouse, "until his master shall give bail that he will not be suffered to go at large and hire himself out as a free man." Gen. John 31. Palmer, then commanding the Department of Kentucky, prohibited the enforcement of the law, and ordered the release of the slave "unless detained in custody for some other cause than the order of the city court of Louis- ville." On July II. 1865, General Palmer ordered his quartermasters to pay all wages earned by negroes to them "and not to their pretended masters unless with the consent of the negroes." On September 11. 1865. General Palmer and General Brisbin were indicted by the grand jury of the Jefferson circuit court in Louisville, for abducting slaves and other- wise violating the slavery code of Kentucky. Of course, nothing ever came of these indict- ments and they are only referred to here to show how hard slavery died in Kentucky.
Joseph Wingate, mayor of Lexington, in view of the fact that great numbers of refugee slaves had assembled in Lexington and were a burden upon the town for their support, on Oct. 16, 1865, issued a proclamation notifying the owners of the slaves to remove them from that city to their homes and take care of them, or "legal proceedings will be instituted under the state laws to compel compliance." Where- upon General Palmer ordered General Brisbin. who was in command at Lexington, to inform said mayor that "you are instructed to protect the people of his city from the violence he
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invites : that no portion of them can be seized and removed from that city at the mere will of persons who may call themselves 'owners and claimants'; that all the people of the state are presumed to be free and will be protected as free until orders are received to the con- trary."
At that same period, the Kentucky Central Railroad Company directed its conductors to refuse to transport slaves unless they were pro- vided with written orders from their masters. A number of slaves with military passes were refused transportation. The Louisville and Jeffersonville Ferry Company also refused military passes after the abrogation of martial law.
On October 21, 1865, General Brisbin noti- fied Jason Williams and wife at Lexington that unless they paid their ten slaves, children of a colored soldier, reasonable wages for all their labor since March 3, 1865, when congress passed the act freeing the wives and children of negro soldiers, "suit would be entered be- fore the Freedman's Bureau and steps taken to compel payment."
On November 3, 1865, Granville Pearl, Judge of the twelfth circuit court district, ap- peared in Lexington under arrest, by order of General Brisbin, whose command there was composed of a brigade of negro soldiers. Judge Pearl was arrested because in the dis- charge of his duties as a judge, he had ordered the sale in partition among some infant heirs, of a negro woman who, to avoid the sale, had married or pretended to marry, a negro soldier. A week later, General Brisbin notified Garrett Davis, Brutus J. Clay, and other prominent citizens of Bourbon and Fayette counties, that he would bring suit against them before the Freedman's Bureau, for wages alleged to be due to some of their own slaves, whose hus- bands were serving in the army.
On November 1, 1865, Gen. John M. Palmer was indicted by the grand jury of the Jeffer- son circuit court for enticing slaves to leave
the state, and was held in $500 to answer. This indictment was, in the December follow- ing, dismissed by Judge Johnston on the ground that before it was returned, the re- quisite number of states had adopted the thir- teenth amendment to the constitution abolish- ing slavery, and that, therefore, all criminal and penal laws of Kentucky relating to slavery were of no effect.
On December 18, 1865, William H. Seward, secretary of state of the United States, an- nounced by proclamation that the legislatures of twenty-seven of the thirty-six states ( three- fourths) had ratified the thirteenth amend- ment, "and it has become valid to all intents and purposes, as a part of the constitution of the United States." The ratifying states were Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Illi- nois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ver- mont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The nine states which refused to ratify the amendment were California, Delaware, Flor- ida, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon and Texas. In both Ohio and West Virginia the amendment was voted on twice by two separate legislatures. In Ohio, the first legislature voted to reject the amendment ; the next legislature reconsidered the matter and voted to ratify it; and, in the final count the vote of the second legislature was counted. In West Virginia, the first legislature voted to ratify the amendment ; the next legislature re- considered the matter voting to reject it and in the final count, the vote of the first legis- lature was counted.
It will be observed that among the states reported as ratifying the amendment abolish- ing slavery were Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, all of which had seceded and formed a part of the Confederate states and not one of which had representation in the congress of the United States at the
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time when their legislatures made up of south- ern "scalawags," northern "carpetbaggers" and ignorant plantation negroes, are alleged to have solemnly voted to amend the or- ganic law of the Union. It seems that they were back in the Union for the pur- pose of ratifying constitutional amendments, but in the matter of sending representatives to sit in congress, they were outside the Union. During the war it was claimed that no state could withdraw from the Union ; when the war had ended, it was contended that the seceding states had forfeited the right to representation in congress because they had left the Union, and when it was desired to amend the constitu- tion these same states were recognized as hav- ing never left the Union and as being compe- tent to pass upon a proposed amendment to the organic system upon which the govern- ment rested. Those whose years do not per- mit their minds to go back to the period imme- diately following the war, may find difficulty in understanding this anomalous condition of political affairs, but those who are older will recall that, in those days, nothing was deemed impossible or improper which bore hard upon the prostrate south. No indignity conceived in the mind of the most wicked partisan; no reversal of the declarations made while the war was in progress, was permitted to stand in the way of a congress, most of the members of which had very carefully abstained from risking their lives along the battle line when that war was most dangerous. All this hap- pened a long time ago. Whether the thirteenth amendment was legally or illegally ratified does not matter now. It killed slavery forever in our country and for that reason, all good peo- ple can overlook possible irregularities and give thanks that the curse which the north first put upon the south, has been removed from that section for all time and that it can return to us no more. Every southern man can and does give thanks to the Great Jehovah that lie, at last, is set free, however much the northern
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