Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. I, Part 70

Author: Collins, Lewis, 1797-1870. cn; Collins, Richard H., 1824-1889. cn
Publication date: 1874
Publisher: Covington, Ky., Collins & Co.
Number of Pages: 1452

USA > Kentucky > Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. I > Part 70

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The legislature had done nothing to prepare the state for the awful ordeal which was before her-save to provide a few arms ; half of which were distributed to the state guard, and subsequently passed into the southern armies, and half of which were distrib- uted to home guards and were used exclusively in aid of the Fed- eral government ; and yet in no deliberative or parliamentary body in the whole country had the exciting questions of the day been more earnestly or more fully discussed. The legislature had been in session almost continuously during a year and a half. There was not a day nor an hour during that long deliberation, in which these questions did not press themselves persistently for settlement. No member but was impressed with their all-pervading importance; and with all the earnestness, eloquence and ardor manifesting them- selves in the numerous debates, there was no interruptions of kindly relations. The ties of personal friendship remained unbroken to the end. When the final session closed, as its members parted, and clasped hands in adieu, they bade each other God speed-well know- ing that commissions in the Federal army were already signed for

* House Journal, called session 1861, pp. 69, 70, 71.

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many, and that for many more Confederate soldiers were waiting as leaders ; knowing, too, that when they met again to argue the question, it would be at the assize of blood, and be decided by wager of battle.

The legislature was but a type and exponent of the differences of feeling among the people all over the state. In almost every family, certainly in every neighborhood, the solemn election was being made. Topographical position, or peculiarity of property, seemed to have no influence in the decision. The planters of the tobacco region, cultivating their fields exclusively by slave labor, turned their backs upon their plantations and went to range them- selves in the ranks of the Federal army ; while from the northern border, entirely denuded of its slave population, men who had never owned a slave and whose most valuable possessions lay in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, committed their families to God's keeping, and rode away into the southern lines. They felt that it was their fate ; that the crisis was upon them and must be met. They would willingly, nay gladly, have avoided it; but it was here; and each heart, disregarding all other considerations, nerved itself according to its own earnest promptings to do its duty.

The impulse which influenced the legislature to attach to the bill arming the state the proviso that the arms should only be used to defend the state against invasion, was the desire to main- tain a neutral position ; and so hold the state, that while the storm swept wildly around her, she should not be drawn into the vortex. Vain delusion !

Early in August, 1861, the Federal government through the in- strumentality of William Nelson-a Kentuckian by birth, who had been a naval officer from his boyhood, but was now commis- sioned by President Lincoln as brigadier general-introduced large quantities of arms into Kentucky, distributed them to the home guards, and secretly enlisted men and formed a camp in the east center of the state, between Nicholasville and Danville, known as Camp Dick Robinson. Sept. 3, the Confederate States, regarding this as a violation of the assumed neutrality of Ken- tucky, occupied Columbus, on the Mississippi river, twenty miles below the mouth of the Ohio. The more active partisans of each cause immediately began to take decisive positions. The regiment of state guards, commanded by Col. Roger W. Han- son, at once repaired to Camp Boone, in northern Tennessee, and upon that as a nucleus gathered detached companies and battalions of the same force-forming themselves into the organ- ization known during the war as the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Ken- tucky regiments. They were joined soon by the batallion com- manded by Lloyd Tighlman, and a force commanded by Col. Wm. D. Lannom, late a member of the lower house of the as- sembly. Simon B. Buckner, the commander of the state guard, repaired to their camp, was commissioned by the Confederate States brigadier general, and took command of them. Thomas L. Crittenden, brigadier general in the state guard, took service

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in the Federal army. John H. Morgan, a captain in the state guard, mounted his company as cavalry and repaired to Buckner. John C. Breckinridge, then a senator from Kentucky in the United States congress, resigned his seat, and with Col. Wm. Preston, Col. John S. Williams, George W. Johnson, and George B. Hodge, (late a member of the lower house,) passed through Pound Gap and joined the southern army. Richard T. Jacob and Oscar H. Burbridge, late of the house, and Walter C. Whit- aker and Lovell H. Rousseau, late of the senate, took service at once in the Federal army, and were zealous supporters of the Union cause throughout the war. Thomas B. Monroe, Jr., sec- retary of state, became major of the 4th Kentucky regiment in the Confederate army.

As has been said, the same division of sentiment manifested it- self throughout the entire state. The sympathizers with the Con- federate cause did not contest, to any considerable extent, the election of August, 1861 ; consequently, the supporters of the Federal government were largely in the ascendant in the next legislature. Indeed, many southern sympathizers who were elected did not take their seats at all, but connected themselves with either the military or civil branches of the Confederate service.

The newly elected legislature assembled on Sept. 2, 1861. On the 5th, Gov. Magoffin, in his message, called attention to the fact that the Federal government had forced armed camps into Ken- tucky, and seized by military violence the property of her citi- zens ; he had remonstrated with the Federal authorities, and so- licited them to respect the position of neutrality which Kentucky had assumed. He enclosed copies of his correspondence with the president of the United States and the president of the Confed- erate States (both of them natives of Kentucky). On the same day, he informed the two houses that he had received advices that on the night of Sept. 3d, the forces of the Confederate States had occupied Columbus. On the 14th, a resolution passed the house, by 71 to 26, " instructing Gov. Magoffin to inform those concerned that Kentucky expects the Confederate troops to be withdrawn from her soil unconditionally." A motion to dispense with the rule of the house, to allow a resolution to be offered, making the same request as to Federal troops, was rejected by the same vote .* For a recital of detail, see ante, pages 93-95.

The legislature continued to sustain the Federal government, as the war progressed ; and the intention of the dominant party in the Federal government to subdue the south, even at the cost of the abolition of slavery there and in Kentucky, became more manifest. Earnest remonstrances and determined opposition, by resolution, were made in both branches of the legislature ; but as an integral portion of the government of Kentucky, it finally yielded to the tide, and voted both men and money in unstinted

* House Journal, 1861-62-63, pp. 82-83.

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lavishness. It would be unjust to believe that the conservative Union men, who in the first months of the conflict so loudly ex- pressed their determination to remain neutral, and to resist every effort to drag Kentucky into the war as an active participant, were insincere. In making those declarations, they doubtless spoke frankly the sentiments which really animated them. But they did not foresee what was apparent to the states-rights party- that in the tremendous upheaval about to take place, there was no half-way position ; that the immense proportions the war was to assume, would entirely engulf, within the one channel or the other, all the social elements of the entire country.

Nor would it be just to doubt that, had Kentucky possessed the ability, she would have remained, as a commonwealth, neutral. She was powerless to do so. Her legislature had adjourned in April, as has been seen, making no provision for her defense or organized resistance. Her topographical position rendered a foot- hold upon her territory of vital importance to the military move- ments of both the powerful contending parties. Within two weeks of that adjournment, the battle of Manassas, or Bull Run, had placed beyond the contingency of a doubt or skepticism the fact that war-and war on a scale rarely paralleled in the his- tory of the world-was inaugurated. In the determination evinced throughout the entire north to subjugate the south, and in the death grapple in which the Confederate States felt them- selves engaged, the claim of Kentucky to remain neutral was not to be regarded for an instant, if she were powerless to maintain that neutrality. Of what might have been the result, had she been prepared, in August, 1861, with one hundred thousand of her gallant sons, armed and organized in the field, guarding her frontiers and ready to hurl back invasion whencesoever it came, it is bootless now to speculate. Proclamations and pronuncia- mentoes are but futile defenses against bayonets and batteries.

It is the province of this history to state facts as they occurred, [see pages 83 to 165, ante] ; not to draw conclusions or to argue questions. Posterity, upon those facts, must make up the verdict, and pronounce judgment upon the record.

Gov. Magoffin, convinced that the sentiments of a large ma- jority of the legislature were bitterly opposed to his, and his capacities for usefulness to the people thereby utterly destroyed, on the 16th of August, 1862, tendered his resignation as governor, to take effect on the 18th .* James F. Robinson, speaker of the senate, became, by constitutional provision, his successor. Even as the change was taking place, the veteran legions of the Con- federate army, under Gen. Bragg-their front curtained by the wild riders of Morgan's cavalry-were rushing upon the capital; and the legislature, on Sunday, August 31, 1862, in hot haste adjourned its sittings, and removed the archives and the para- phernalia of the state government to Louisville. . It was an

* Ante, p. 108. t Same, p. 110.

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almost unprecedented instance of a parliament holding its sittings on Sunday; but the members, doubtless, felt it was a time "to stand not on the order of their going, but to go at once." Bragg took possession of Frankfort, and all the country south and west of it; and on the 4th of October, 1862, at the head of over 30,000 Confederate troops, and in presence of a large assembly of citizens, in the State House grounds, inaugurated Richard Hawes as governor of Kentucky. The closing sentences of Gov. Hawes' inaugural address had not died upon the ear, when the roar of the guns of the Federal army, advancing under Gen. Buell, were heard, and his cavalry charged up to the bridge over Kentucky river. Gov. Hawes retired to Lexington.

A volume of recital could not convey to the minds of future readers a more vivid picture of the condition Kentucky was in, than the simple record of these incidents.

While these events were transpiring at the state capital, and in the northern portion of the state, the states-rights men, in the southern part of the state, had not been inactive. Gen. S. B. Buckner, in November, 1861, had advanced at the head of the body of Kentuckians previously gathered at Camp Boone in Tennessee, and occupied Bowling Green. He was soon followed by a Confederate army under command of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. Bowling Green was fortified, and the Confederate advance posts pushed up the south bank of Green river; while the Confederate cavalry swept the country, east and west, and made frequent dashes across that stream into the country occupied by the Federal army under Gen. Buell, lying in its cantonments from the north bank of Green river to Louisville.

But the people of Kentucky were not only agitated by the conflicting claims of a paramount sovereignty between the Federal government and the state government located at Frankfort. Another claimant to sovereignty presented itself, and not only claimed to exercise, but did exercise, in many of the southern counties of the state, for a time, all the power and authority of a state government. A call was published, summoning the people of Kentucky to organize a government. A convention of per- sons, claiming to be delegates from all the counties not under control of the Federal armies, assembled at Russellville, Logan county, on December 18, 1861, and after adopting a constitution, which they proclaimed as the organic law of the state, proceeded to elect Geo. W. Johnson, of Scott county, provisional governor, and also ten citizens of Kentucky as an executive council, as follows :

1. Willis B. Machen, of Lyon co., Pres't. 7. Horatio W. Bruce, of Louisville.

2. John W. Crockett, of Henderson co. 8. Ely M. Bruce. of Nicholas co.

3. Philip B. Thompson, of Mercer co. 9. Jas. W. Moore, of Montgomery co.

4. James P. Bates, of Warren co.

5. James S. Chrisman, of Wayne co.

6. Elijah Burnside, of Garrard co.

10. George B. Hodge, of Campbell co., who resigned, and was succeeded by Samuel S. Scott, of Boone co.

In this body was provisionally vested all the legislative and executive authority of the state. The convention also designated

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Henry C. Burnett, Wm. Preston, and Wm. E. Simms as commis- sioners to negotiate an alliance with the Confederate States. As the result of that negotiation, Kentucky was admitted into the Confederacy, Dec. 10th, 1861, by the following ordinance :

"An act for the admission of the State of Kentucky into the Confederate States of America as a member thereof.

"SEc. 1. The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, that the state of Kentucky be and is hereby admitted a member of the Confed- erate States of America, on an equal footing with the other states of the Confederacy.

Approved, Dec. 10, 1861."

The following were elected as representatives or members of the Provisional Congress from Kentucky :

1. Henry C. Burnett, 5. Daniel P. White,

2. John Thomas, 6. Thomas Johnson,

8. Thos. B. Monroe, sen.,

9. John M. Elliott,

3. Theodore L. Burnett, 7. Samuel H. Ford, 10. George B. Hodge.

4. Geo. Washington Ewing,

The council divided the state of Kentucky into twelve con- gressional districts, and provided for an election by the state at large of persons to represent these districts in the first permanent Congress of the Confederate States. Voting places were provided for, and on the designated day an election was held in all the counties within the lines of the Confederate army, resulting in the choice of the following :

1. Willis B. Machen, 5. James S. Chrisman, 9. Ely M. Bruce,

2. John W. Crockett, 6. Theodore L. Burnett, 10. James W. Moore,

3. Henry E. Read, 7. Horatio W. Bruce, 11. R.J. Breckinridge, jr.,

4. Geo. Wash'ton Ewing, 8. George B. Hodge, 12. John M. Elliott.

These gentlemen took their seats in the congress of the Confed- erate states at Richmond, and continued to act with that body until their successors in the 2d permanent Congress of the Confederate States were elected by the Kentucky troops in the Confederate / armies-none of them at the time being within the boundaries of Kentucky. The members were :

1. Willis B. Machen, 5. James S. Chrisman, 9. Ely M. Bruce,

2. Geo. W. Triplett, 6. Theodore L. Burnett, 10. James W. Moore,

3. Henry E. Read, 7. Horatio W. Bruce, 11. Benj. F. Bradley,

4. Geo. Wash ton Ewing, 8. Humphrey Marshall, 12. John M. Elliott.

The legislative council elected Henry C. Burnett, of Trigg county, and William E. Simms, of Bourbon county, senators to serve in the Confederate senate for six years. By the 1st of Feb- ruary, 1862, Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, whose army had lain during the months of December and January in and around Bow- ling Green, discovered that a large Federal force was moving, by way of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, to attack Forts Donelson and Henry, which were located near where the dividing line between the states of Kentucky and Tennessee crosses those rivers. Gen. Buell's army meanwhile confronted him on the Green river. He detached Buckner's, Floyd's, and Pillow's di-

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visions, and sent them to the aid of the garrisons of those places ; and on the 1st of February, broke up his camps and retreated with his entire force to Nashville. Gen. George B. Crittenden, commanding the right wing of the Confederate force, had been defeated, Jan. 19th, by the Federal Gen. Thomas at Fishing Creek, or Mill Spring, in the eastern part of the state, and re- treated on Murfreesboro. Fort Henry fell on the 6th and Fort Donelson on the 16th of February, and the entire garrisons and a great part of the relieving force sent by Johnston were captured. Gen. Johnston, effecting junction with Crittenden at Murfreesboro, retreated south, crossing the Tennessee river at Decatur, moved over to Corinth, and there received the forces of Gen. Polk, who had evacuated Columbus, Ky:, on the 1st of March ; and the three united armies fought the battle of Shiloh, April 6 and 7, 1862.

The provisional government of Kentucky had retired with the army, and at Shiloh the provisional governor, George W. John- son, fell mortally wounded-fighting as a private in the ranks of the Kentucky brigade. Richard Hawes, of Paris, was elected by the provisional council to succeed him.

As the Federal army advanced into Tennessee, Kentucky was completely occupied by the Federal troops, and became the base of supplies for their soldiery ; and with the exception of visits from raiding parties of Confederate cavalry, was entirely deserted by the Confederate forces. The exactions for military use were, how- ever, very great. The Federal army supplied itself, during that time, and indeed during the continuance of the war, without hes- itation, with all it required that could be extracted from her peo- ple-forcing, for the most part, the contributor to be content with a voucher promising him payment in the future, if he proved himself loyal.

The raiding parties of the Southern army made exactions quite as severe, if not as continuous. The fierce horsemen of the South disturbed themselves but little with the question of forms, in their military requisitions. If they needed a horse, they bridled him ; if they needed forage or subsistence, they took it. Their theory was-that if the horse or the provender was the property of a state-rights man, he ought gladly and joyfully to contribute it to the cause of his struggling country ; if the property of a Union man, that man was the captive for the time being of the Confed- erate bow and spear, and his goods were lawful prize of war.

Gen. Bragg had, after the battle of Shiloh and the evacuation of Corinth, moved his army by means of the railroads of Alabama and Tennessee eastward to Chattanooga, and on the left flank of Buell's army. Early in August, he launched the reckless cavalry of Morgan upon the front, and commenced a rapid advance up the valley of the Sequatchie into Kentucky. Buell, divining his purpose, started for Louisville with his army, and it became a contest of speed between the two forces.

General E. Kirby Smith, leaving eight thousand of his forces to watch the Federal general, George W. Morgan, at Cumberland

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Gap, with twelve thousand infantry and about a thousand cavalry came pouring through the mountain passes at Pound Gap and Rogers' Gap, careering upon Lexington-where he expected to effect a junction with Morgan's cavalry, and eventually with Bragg's entire army. Smith struck the troops of the Federal general Nelson, at Richmond, Ky., overthrew and routed him in a pitched battle, pressed on and effected the junction with Mor- gan on the 2d of September; and thrust a division of his army forward, down the Dry Ridge turnpike road to Covington, on the Ohio river. Bragg in a few days united with him at Lexington, and moved on-occupying Frankfort and, as has been said, inau- gurated Hawes as governor of Kentucky.

Buell had reached Louisville, gathered up his stragglers, re- furnished his army, and with great celerity advanced towards Frankfort with one column of his army, and passed another down the south bank of the Kentucky river on Bragg's left flank, threat- ening his rear. Bragg, disgusted with the lukewarmness which manifested itself on the subject of recruiting for his army, "lost his head," divided his army to meet the division Buell had made of his, fought, near Perryville, Boyle county, the larger force which Buell had on the south bank of the Kentucky river with the smaller moiety of his own, defeated it, called back his larger body from the direction of Lexington and Frankfort, and re- treated out of the state with more rapidity than he had entered it. But about five thousand recruits had joined him, mostly con- necting themselves with his cavalry commands, while his own loss of veteran infantry was quite as large.

For the details of the several changes in the administration of the state government-the election of Beriah Magoffin as gover- nor in August, 1859 ; his resignation, August 18, 1862, a little more than a year before the expiration of his term of office; the succession to the vacant chair of governor by James F. Robinson, speaker of the senate ; the election of Colonel Thomas E. Bram- lette as governor for four years, in August, 1863; the election of John L. Helm, in August, 1867, and his death on September 8th, five days after his inauguration-being succeeded by lieutenant- governor John W. Stevenson; the latter's resignation on Feb- ruary 13th, 1871, and the accession, for five months, of Preston H. Leslie-who entered upon a full term of four years, by elec- tion in August, 1871-see the Annals in the foregoing pages 81, 108, 127, 181-2, 211, and 216. Other incidents and events in the political history of the state, of much interest-besides some of serious, if not commanding, importance-are briefly recorded in the Annals, and to which the reader is referred.

From the time of the battle of Perryville, in October, 1862, no serious demonstration was made on Kentucky by the Confederate forces. The cavalry of the south under General Morgan, with Colonels Duke and Breckinridge, continued to manifest their in- terest in Kentucky affairs by rapid visits on horseback, and wild gallops over the state, until the death of that daring partisan, at

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Greenville, Tennessee, September 4, 1864. Morgan passed through central Kentucky on the wonderful ride he made north of the Ohio; and again, later, entered the state, capturing Mount Sterling, Paris, and Cynthiana, but was defeated finally at the lat- ter place, and withdrew through the mountains.

The southern armies were slowly but surely pressed back, until in April, 1865, the war ceased-with the entire and complete sub- jugation of the south. All that the states-rights men had prophe- cied would be accomplished if unresisted-all that the Union men had indignantly denied to be the objects of the war-was accom- plished: the South was conquered, the slaves were freed, and ne- gro political equality recognized throughout the nation. Neigh- borhood strifes and animosities had been engendered in every vil- lage and hamlet. Men who had been playmates in boyhood, who under ordinary circumstances would have gone through life lean- ing for kindly support on each other, and laid each other with tenderness in the tomb, had found social ties disrupted, and per- secuted each other with vindictive hate. The statute book of the state was black with laws of more than Draconian severity. Mothers wept in every household, for the lost darlings who were sleeping the sleep of the brave in both Federal and Confederate uniforms.

." But the terms of peace had scarcely been signed, when the great popular heart of the state swelled, with generous and mag- nanimous rivalry, in the effort to repair the past. The soldiers who had fought and striven under the successful banners of the Union, came back with no bitterness in their hearts, with no taunts on their lips. The war-worn exiles of the southern army, long before formal permission had been given by either the state or Federal government, were summoned back, and received with open arms and affectionate greetings by both the Union and states- rights men. The people of the whole state seemed to remember with sorrowful pride the noble men who had died gallantly in the ranks of either army. Over their faults was thrown the mantle of the sweet and soothing charities of the soldier's grave; while for their services was manifested and displayed unstinted admira- tion for the valor with which they had borne the dangers and pri- vations of the war.

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Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. I, Part 70

Author: Collins, Lewis, 1797-1870. cn; Collins, Richard H., 1824-1889. cn Publication date: 1874 Publisher: Covington, Ky., Collins & Co. Number of Pages: 1452

Author: Collins, Lewis, 1797-1870. cn; Collins, Richard H., 1824-1889. cn
Publication date: 1874
Publisher: Covington, Ky., Collins & Co.
Number of Pages: 1452