USA > Kentucky > The story of Kentucky > Part 9
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At the next presidential election (1849) General Zachary Taylor was made President. A slave- holder, and yet, like Clay, favoring gradual emanci- pation, his indefinite attitude on this question, while it won him the popular vote, served to alienat ardent partisans on either side. Even his son-in- law, Jefferson Davis, refused to vote for him.
There were at this time in Kentucky, many men of brilliant ability and many women of excep. tional grace and intelligence. In Lexington lived Joel T. Hart, the poet sculptor. Of him Henry Clay said, " He has more versatility of talent tha: any man I ever met." In Frankfort were John | Crittenden, United States Senator, and afterward Attorney-General for both Harrison and Fillmore. In Louisville was Tom Marshall, whose ready !! and attractive personal qualities have come don to us in many an anecdote and jeu d'esprit. u. .. George D. Prentice. In 1830 Prentice had estab. lished the Louisville Journal ; it became one of the most popular and celebrated newspapers in ti land, and its accomplished editor was justly es-
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teemed as one of the most conspicuous journalists of America.
By this time the loom and spinning-wheel were banished from good society, and the tinkle of the piano was heard in the land. The literary and artistic forces began to assert themselves in the hitherto silent feminine world ; a new type made its appearance in Kentucky - the literary young lady. Amelia B. Welby, Sophia H. Oliver, Rebecca Nichols, Mary Elizabeth Nealy, Eulalie Fee Shan- non and many other musical feminine voices, made themselves heard through the columns of the Louisville Journal, whose editor, as gallant as he was gifted, welcomed each new candidate with a very flattering pen. Genius burst forth from T write poetry s & became quite the fashion" many an unexpected quarter. To write poetry, good or bad, or moonshiny prose for the public prints, became quite the fashion. But the real name was rarely given ; that was alto- gether too bold.
The elder people groaned over this new order of things, and
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sighed dolorously over the days of tedious patch- work, of the homespun blanket and counterpanc. What had the modern girl to show for all her precious years of youth and strength, but a head full of nonsense ?
The Petersons were still in Louisville ; pro -- perous, enterprising, successful; a power in the social world. No thread of homespun ever found its way into their elegant home. Fortunately. Grandma Peterson had accidently dropped a spark from her tallow candle into the closet containing all the precious product of her youthful toil, and failing to discover it in time, the whole mass was converted into ashes; hence, in preferring the lighter fabric of the mills, there was no danger of wounding her feelings.
It was a period of much sociability and merry- making. The Petersons kept open house all the year round. Mrs. Peterson, like her mother, was noted for her cleverness, her good-humor and her skill in entertaining company. But the eldest daughter, Cornelia, with all her advantages of beauty, brains and breeding, failed to achieve any marked social success.
The same constitutional shyness and reserve which, in his youth, had driven her great-grand- father, Edmund Cabell, into the wilderness where through toil and hardship he attained a spiritual
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strength and self-reliance such as few achieve, had descended upon this tenderly-nurtured daughter of affluence, whose every wish was gratified as soon as expressed ; whose every want was supplied by tager hands.
The same intellectual activity, too, which had set the Virginia youth to writing his prayers in the wilderness, characterized the granddaughter. The new caprice of venting one's surplus mental ener- gies through the public prints, furnished the rest- less brain with an occupation ; and soon every one was wondering who the light and airy " Thistle- down " of his morning Journal could be.
No one thought of the "proud, cold " Cornelia Peterson ; who found the freedom of her disguise so fascinating, and the stimulus of praise so agree- able that she soon began to think, " I will write a great book, and help the poor world to be good and happy." Like all Kentuckians she had studied her Bible faithfully ; had read Shakespeare, and certain of the old English authors - and she felt wise in her day and generation.
But her book encountered a colder, less gracious audience in the professional critics; and the un- favorable words that greeted it so deeply wounded the sensitive author that the volume was sup- pressed. In glancing over the inoffensive little book (possibly the only surviving copy) one is con-
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strained to wonder where her censor found materia. for such scathing condemnation. Honest, earnest and, in a day of unusual artificiality, singularly tri !! to human nature, all through it you can feel that the happy author is thanking God for this litt! " something to do." At least she is saying, " i am not that atom which He needed not to build creation with." You can see, too, that it was not wounded vanity that stopped the song, but a feel- ing of the futility of her work.
Had she lived a little longer (she died abroad the following year, aged nineteen) she would have realized how little a sharp review mattered; how little, indeed, her work mattered save as a means of training and discipline. She would have learned to receive all criticism, even the most intolerant. with generous kindliness, remembering that we are all - even critics - but mortal, and happily not a !! able to see alike.
" Thistledowns " was not the first book suppressed by a Kentucky author because of supersensitive- ness to criticism. In 1816 John M. Harney, whos " Echo and the Lover" had been widely copied. suppressed the book because of harsh criticism o' his " Chrystalina," and ceased to write.
There were many other sweet singers whose voice- were first heard through the columns of the Louis- ville Journal. Besides the tender verses of George
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" THE FIRE-BELL IN THE NIGHT."
D. Prentice, thrown off in the scant leisure of a crowded life, there were William O. Butler, whose " Boatman's Horn" had resounded throughout the land, William Ross Wallace, Fortunatus Crosby, Thomas H. Shreve, George W. Cutter, Sallie M. Bryan, Rosa Vertner Jeffrey, Mattie Griffith and - many others. The other Kentucky papers did not cultivate fine writing to such an extent.
CHAPTER VIII.
"'FRATRICIDAL WAR.'
W
'E have seen that the intellectual bias of Kentucky has always been political rather than literary; and that GENERAL R.ANDERSON. she recognized, almost from the first, the magnitude of the slav- ery problem. In the State Emancipation Convention which met in 1850 we find slave-hold- ers earnestly discussing the question, " Which would be better for the slave?" With freedom comes responsibility and care and sometimes want. There are bitter, desolate journeyings through the wilderness, and hopeless murmurings after the flesh-pots of Egypt.
Not only the South, but a majority of the North. shrank from the responsibility of turning loose upon the country a great mass of ignorant, shift- less people. Gradual emancipation seemed the
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only solution. And the convention demanded the insertion into the new Constitution of a clause giving the Legislature "complete power to perfect a system of gradual emancipation."
Soon afterward the inscription, "Under the auspices of Heaven and the precepts of Washing- ton, Kentucky will be the last to give up the Union," was placed upon the block of Kentucky marble which the State contributed to the Wash- ington monument.
Yet although Kentucky favored the gradual emancipation of her slaves she was not inclined to let them be snatched away by the Abolitionists. Could not she be trusted to manage her own affairs ? Now and then a freed slave returned to his master and begged to be taken back. Was not that, they argued, sufficient proof that slavery, after all, was not so bad? What did those meddlesome Aboli- tionists know about either master or slave? It was only because they had no slaves themselves ; the discomfort and loss of their meddling would all fall upon the South. How many of these same "philanthropists" were willing to buy a slave and set him free ? How many would become responsi- ble for the support of the emancipated after they were free? Down with the Abolitionists; they were fanatics and incendiaries, all of them, ready for a theory to sweep the South with flame!
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Yet even in Kentucky " the theory " had taken root. Cassius M. Clay and many others liberated their slaves and boldly advocated immediate abo- lition. Slavery, so long a thorn in the flesh of the political body, was beginning to threaten its life. The enactment of the "Fugitive Slave Law," con- pelling the Northern people to assist in the recor- ery of runaway slaves. served to intensify their aver- sion to slavery; while the forcible seizure of their slave property roused the South to a more bitter resistance.
At the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. allowing slaves into any territory that desired it, regardless of the limitations fixed by the Missouri Compromise, each party began to realize that active measures were necessary to save itself from a per- petual minority. Then there was a race to see which could first fill up the territories. The North, having more emigrating material on hand, came out ahead ; in 1858 Kansas was ready to come into the Union with a non-slaveholding constitution.
In 1854 the eminently respectable Whig party had adopted the irresponsible title of " Know-Noth. ings " and instituted a general crusade against for- eigners. In August, 1855, at the election of Gov- ernor Morehead and other State officers, a riot occurred in Louisville in which twenty-two people were killed, twenty houses burned, and a great deal
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of property destroyed. By such lawless proceed- ings the Know-Nothings lost caste and became gradually submerged in the Republican party.
Presidents Polk and Buchanan had each depre- cated any interference with slavery; but neither seems to have been entirely satisfactory to his - party. At the next presidential election both par- ties split in two; the Southern Democrats nomi- nated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky (then Vice-President), who believed that slavery ought to be admitted into the territories; the Northern Democrats, who held by the old Missouri Com- promise, nominated Stephen A. Douglas - who by this time had repented of his Kansas-Nebraska bill. The radical Republicans nominated Lincoln, who believed that slavery was doomed; and the Conservatives John Bell.
Abraham Lincoln, born in the Kentucky wilder- ness, was elected. The Union went to pieces. The old flag was torn down at Fort Sumter; the South Carolina flag floated in its place; and Presi- dent Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand men to put down the rebellion. Jefferson Davis, also the son of a Kentucky farmer- esteeming slavery of more advantage to the South than was the Union - was elected President of the Southern Confederacy. Armed soldiers sprang up, flags, new and old, fluttered - the war was here!
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At the first note of war, some one has said, every Kentuckian was on his feet. Perhaps so, for Ken. tuckians are apt to be impulsive. And it is all the more to their credit that the most of them sat down again - to consider whether either the wrongs of the "persecuted South " or those of the
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"outraged Union " justified the slaughter of her best citizens.
Each State had entered the Union fully fore- warned that there was absolutely no divorce. " Can a State leave the Union if dissatisfied?" asked New York, hesitating before committing herself to
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the bonds. "Never! " was Madison's reply. " The Constitution cannot provide for its own overthrow." It is " We the people of the United States," not " We the States."
Kentucky was sincerely attached to the Union. Long ago she had settled what she would do when this crisis should arrive. She had chosen for her motto: " United we stand, divided we fall." Even though she believed that a State had a right to nullify the acts of Congress she did not believe that a State had any right to withdraw from the Union.
Neither had she any wish to fight over the mat- ter. She said: " I do not believe in this war. And although I have no wish to give up my slaves, I would even do that rather than leave the Union, or enter into a long and bloody contest." In Ken- tucky, where every man formed his own opinion independently. this war meant an array of brother against brother, of father against son. Was it any wonder then, that she did not believe in it?
Socially and commercially she was more closely allied to the South. Her domestic and business relations were almost entirely with the South. On the other hand she was deeply indebted to the North in educational matters. Her teachers had been mainly from the New England States; many of them were able men and women who afterward
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attained brilliant eminence in law and politics, in literature and science.
Considering herself in no way responsible for this " fratricidal war," Kentucky decided to remain neutral and, if possible, act as mediator between the belligerents; earnestly offering her services to effect "a just and honorable peace."
Clay, whose influence was not alone for his own day and generation, was no more; and Webster. whose deep devotion to the Union had made patriot- ism the fashion - he, too, had gone; who was there to take their places and keep the Union together :
" The War of the Rebellion," says General Sickles. who was in Congress just before the war, "was caused by the whiskey. The fights, the an-
gry speeches were whiskey Nervous ex- citement seeking relief in whiskey, and whiskey adding to nervous excitement. If the French As- sembly were to drink some morning one half the whiskey consumed in one day by that Congress, France would declare war against Germany in twenty minutes." We do not hesitate to quote this now, for whiskey is no longer the fine fellow he then was. In these better days the whiskey drinker ha- to steal away with his bottle like a thief in the night; and liquor selling is left to the foreigner a- a disreputable calling. We know, too, that there were many, even then, who did not touch it.
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If anything could have peaceably settled the question of slavery the Crittenden Compromise should have done so. This "olive branch " was offered by John J. Crittenden of Frankfort who for more than forty years had faithfully served his country as governor, senator and attorney-general. It guaranteed the continuation of slavery not only in the slave States but in the District of Columbia, in all territory south of the central line, and in any territory north of it which desired it. Every facil- ity for the recovery of fugitive slaves or their value was offered ; and any act of the free States conflict- ing with the fugitive slave act was declared null and void. But although Senator Crittenden com- manded the respect of the whole country, as much on account of his purity of character as of his intel- lectual ability, his compromise met with little favor outside his own State.
In June, 1861, a " border State convention " met at Frankfort. It was composed of leading men in Kentucky and Missouri who announced their de- termination to maintain the Constitution and pre- serve the Union, but to take no part in the war. The Governor, with the approval of the Legisla- ture, had (May 16) refused to furnish troops " for the wicked purpose of subduing sister States." This attitude was, in a meeting at Louisville, indorsed by such men as Hon. James Gutherie,
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Hon. Archibald Dixon, Hon. John Young Brown .. Judge Bullock, Judge Nicholas and other pron. . nent Union men.
The State Guards, composed of fifteen thousand men, were placed under the control of a military board of trusted citizens, presided over by th Governor ; and one million dollars provided for arn ing and training the militia -" neither arms no" militia to be used against the Government of th United States, nor the Confederate States, unles- in the sole defense of Kentucky." General Sinio .. Boliver Buckner was appointed Inspector-Gener ... of the State forces.
We all have our shabby pages. We try to L heroic and are only ridiculous. But there can never be anything ridiculous in a wish to refrain from war - chief of the three great national calamities "war, pestilence and famine." The time will con. when the heroism of war will suffer the sans shrinkage and depreciation that has befallen th heroism of single combat, so glorified by clas -: and scriptural chroniclers.
The State declared for peace and the Union ; b each citizen decided for himself. Kentucky hej been settled by soldiers. Her lands had helped : pay the war debt of the Revolution. It was hard' possible that these sons of soldiers, whose father- had borne a heroic part in every struggle in which
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their country had been engaged, should sit idly by while their brothers fought and died.
Yet the hearts of the fathers and mothers were very sad, for youth is adventurous; with intelligence und a sympathetic nature it is easily moved by popular oratory. " The Kentuckians come slowly," aid a Confederate recruiting agent, "and require about three speeches a day. When thus stirred up they go, almost to a man. Since I have found that I can't be a great general I have turned recruiting igent and sensation speaker." By such means as these, by promises of money, or of glory - and these failing, by the hated draft - material for war, which, too frequently, marks the "glorious " eras of history, is obtained.
In the meantime extreme partisans were slipping away to either side. It is still a debated question which side first violated the neutrality of the State. It matters little, since as early as July General William Nelson had a Federal camp in Girrard County (Camp Dick Robinson) and Colonel Withers had recruited a Confederate regiment in Kentucky, holding his rendezvous at Camp Boone, Tennessee. President Lincoln, though he promised to make no war on Kentucky, unless she made war on the United States, declined to remove the small United States garrison at Covington ; and President Davis would only promise "to respect Kentucky's
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neutrality so long as the people of Kentucky maintained it themselves." Even this half-heart ... promise was broken at the first opportunity.
"Go home, raise cotton and make money." Southern statesman had said to his people, "th border States will attend to the war." But Kentuck approved less and less of the war. The vote of the State showed a two thirds majority for the Union but she believed that there was no need of fighting: that the South, if let alone, would soon see the ern of her way and return of her own accord. In Augus: the Governor wrote to President Lincoln reque- ing the removal of the Federal troops, expressin his aversion to war and his wish to save Kentuck: from becoming a battle-field for the contendin .. parties.
The President declined, saying that the forte " consisted exclusively of Kentuckians in the vicin- ity of their own homes, and was raised at the urgen solicitation of many citizens."
Although Kentucky had repeatedly declared he' determination to remain penceably in the Uni neither North nor South seemed able to compr hend how she could do so and yet keep clear of ti .: quarrel. Her sincerity was questioned by both ... tions. As her geographical position, as well as l. known military ability, or temperament, made h. good-will a matter of importance, for awhile a fai
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show of respect for her wishes was maintained upon either side. The Confederates, although actively engaged in recruiting throughout the State, confined their permanent encampments to Tennessee soil. General Anderson, commander of the Federal mili- tary department which included Kentucky, kept his headquarters at Cincinnati, and General Rous- seau, also a Kentuckian, had his recruiting camp across the Ohio, on Indiana soil.
September the third the Confederate forces under General Polk of Tennessee moved into Kentucky and took possession of Columbus, situated on a high bluff commanding the Mississippi River for five miles - afterward known as the " Gibralter of the West." Immediately the Legislature hoisted the United States flag over the Capitol, and de- manded the withdrawal of the Confederates as vio- lators of the neutrality of the State. They refused unless the Federals at "Dick Robinson " also with- draw. The Federals refused, reiterating the Presi- dent's words, that "it was not a very large force and consisted exclusively of Kentuckians, placed there at the solicitation of Union-loving people, merely for the defense of the State."
September the fifth Governor Magoffin proposed to the Legislature to borrow money for the pur- pose of keeping Kentucky clear of the invading armies. The House took no action on this propo-
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sition, but voted seventy-one to twenty-six to order the Confederate forces encamped on Kentuck; soil to decamp; and the governor was requested to call out the militia "to expel the invader. Their resolutions were vetoed by the governor o :. the ground that the Union troops were not in- cluded. However, he notified Governor Harris of Tennessee of the presence of a large Confederate force, in direct defiance of Kentucky's neutrality. Governor Harris promptly responded that he was confident they were there without the consent o: President Davis and that he had telegraphed a request for their withdrawal. Mr. Davis, in turn. telegraphed General Polk, " The necessity justifie- the action;" and wrote him, later, " We cannot permit the indeterminate quantities, the political elements, to control our actions in cases of mili- tary necessity."
On the morning of the sixth General Grant - who also had had his eye on Columbus -with two regiments and a battery, entered Paducah, forty miles above on the Ohio. He issued a proclam ... tion assuring Kentucky that he came to defend her against their common enemy; that she might "pur- sue her usual avocations without fear, as the strong arm of the Government was there to defend her."
September the fourteenth General Zollicoffer telegraphed Governor Magoffin that, as the Federal
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forces, in defiance of Kentucky's neutrality, had established camps in the central and other portions of the State, he had taken possession of the three long mountains in Kentucky. If the Federal forces would withdraw, those under his command should be withdrawn.
In fact, Kentucky's neutrality was hopelessly shattered; her fair land, once the bone of fierce contention between rival Indian tribes, was now the object of a contest no less bitter ; a contest that bade fair to keep up her reputation as a "dark- and bloody ground."
On September eighteenth the Legislature. re- solved that the Confederates must be expelled ; that the Federal troops were assembled for the purpose of preserving the peace; that General Anderson, a native Kentuckian, be requested to take instant command, with authority to call out volunteers for the purpose of expelling the in- vaders; and that the State forces must be placed under command of General Thomas L. Critten- den. The Governor vetoed these resolutions as a direct infringement of the neutral attitude they had chosen. Yet after they were passed, he lent his assistance in putting them into execution.
The arrest of Col. R. T. Durrett and ex-Governor Morehead at their homes in and near Louisville (September 18) led to a general exodus of " South-
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ern sympathizers " from the State. Among these were John C. Breckenridge (ex-Vice-President), Hon. William Preston (ex-Minister to Spain), W. N. Haldeman (Editor Louisville Courier), the Mon- roes, the Marshalls, the Johnsons, the Clays, and other prominent secessionists. Governor More-" head and Colonel Durrett were, without warrant or legal authority, arrested as suspected rebels. They were taken to Fort Lafayette in New York Har- bor, and afterward to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, where they were kept for months in close confinement.
Innumerable other arrests were made all over the State. General Anderson issued an order (October 7) in which he "regretted that arrests were being made on the slightest and most trivial grounds." He requested civil and military authori- ties not to make any arrests " except where parties were attempting to join the rebels, or were engaged in giving aid or information to them; and in all cases the evidence must be such as would convict before a court of justice. Many, he said, had been "arrested while quietly remaining at home. and others had been taken out of the State -all contrary to his wish." He urged a " discontinuance of these ill-timed and unlawful arrests."
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