Kentucky, a pioneer commonwealth

EDITED BT

HORACE E. SCUDDEB.

American Commontoealtf)£

KENTUCKY

A PIONEER COMMONWEALTH

N.^S.'^HALER

FOURTH EDITION

BOSTON

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street

1888

Copyright, 1884,
By N. S. SHALER.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge :
Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houston & Co.

PREFACE.

THE following account of the Commonwealth of
Kentucky is designed to give the general reader a short
story of the development of that State. The reader
will kindly observe that it is not entitled a history;
the writer desires to disclaim the intention of writing
anything that could be fairly termed a history of his
native State. Such a work would, when properly done,
require the space of several such volumes and a large
amount of special research, which it has not been in
the power of the present writer to give to his task ;
it is the main aim of this little book to set forth the
history of the motives that have led the people in the
shaping of their Commonwealth, using only so much of
the incidents of their life as seemed necessary to make
these motives clear.

Fortunately for this work, previous writers have
made extensive and generally careful compilations,
which give fuller annals of the Commonwealth than
have been secured for any other State, except, per-
haps, for Massachusetts. Chief among these is Col-
lins's Historical Sketches of Kentucky, entitled " His-

yi PREFACE.

tory of Kentucky, by the late Lewis Collins. Revised,
enlarged fourfold, and brought down to the year 1874,
by his son Richard H. Collins, A. M., LL. B.," two
volumes, large 8vo, pp. 683 and 804. Covington, Ky.,
1874. This remarkable work embodies as much pa-
tient labor as has ever been given to the history of
any American State, but the multitude and variety of
the facts brought together make it rather a store-house
of information than a feast that invites the reader.

The present writer has made very extensive use of
the material gathered by Collins. Credit is generally
given in the foot-notes for the points presented by this
history ; but it is due to the writers of that work to
say that this account of Kentucky could not have
been written but for their admirable labors.

Besides this extensive series of annals there are at
least a dozen other works that have a varied value to
the student of Kentucky history. Of these the follow-
ing may be noted for the guidance of students who
desire to go further into the subject : —

1. John Filson : " Discovery, Settlement, and Pres-
ent State of Kentucke." Wilmington, Del., 1784. Re-
printed in England in 1792, 1793, and 1797. Trans-
lated into French and published at Paris in 1785.
Filson was killed by the Indians near the mouth of the
Miami River in 1788. The book is principally inter-
esting on account of its map and for the personal re-
miniscences of Daniel Boone. It laid the foundations
of Boone's enduring reputation as a hero of western
life.

PREFACE. Til

2. William Littell : "Political Transactions in and
concerning Kentucky." 12mo, p. 147. Frankfort, Ky.,
1806. Is only known to the present writer by title.
It is an excessively rare book.1

3. Humphrey Marshall : " The History of Kentucky,
including an Account of the Discovery, Settlement, Pro-
gressive Improvement, Political and Military Events,
and Present State of the Country." 2 vols. 8vo, pp.
522 and 524. Frankfort, Ky. First volume in 1812 ;
second volume in 1824. This is an excellent history
in many respects, but is extremely Federalistic in tone,
and exceedingly unjust to those who differed from the
author in politics.

4. Mann Butler : " History of Kentucky from its Ex-
ploration and Settlement by the Whites to the close of
the Southwestern Campaign of 1813." 12mo, pp. 396.
Louisville, 1834. Second edition, Cincinnati, 1836.

The reader may advantageously consult the following
works : " History of the First Kentucky Brigade (Con-
federate), by Ed. Porter Thompson." Cincinnati, 1868 ;
"History of Morgan's Cavalry, by Basil W. Duke."
Cincinnati, 1867.

There are several other works of less importance, an
account of which may be found in Collins'^ " History,"
vol. i. p. 639, where also will be found a fuller account
of the aforementioned works, with sketches of the lives
of their authors.

The writer has to acknowledge his great obligation
1 See Collins, vol. i. p. 640.

Vlii PREFACE.

to many Kentucky friends for their aid and counsel in
the preparation of this work. He is especially indebted
to General William Preston, Colonel J. Stoddard John-
ston, Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge, Colonel John
Mason Brown, and Hon. W. C. Goodloe, formerly offi-
cers of the Confederate and Federal armies ; to Captain
L. R. Hawthorne, formerly of the Eighteenth Kentucky
Infantry; to R. T. Durrett, Esq., and Thomas Speed,
Esq., Louisville; to S. I. M. Major, Esq., of Frankfort;
to Grant Green, Esq., and to the Hon. Fayette Hewitt,
auditor of the Commonwealth. It should be said, how-
ever, that none of these gentlemen are in any way re-
sponsible for the opinions set forth in this book.

It is fit that the reader should know that the writer,
a native of Kentucky, was a Unionist during the war.
But while his opinions have the color given by his
political position, he believes that he has in most cases
done substantial justice to his friends, the enemy of
that unhappy yet glorious time. If injustice has been
done, he can only plead in extenuation that he sin-
cerely feels that the honor won by the Confederate
heroes is as dear to him as the fame of those who were
on his own side. No one can write a thoroughly un-
biased account of a civil war in which he took any
part whatever. The trials of such days stamp them-
selves indelibly on the mind. We shall have to wait
until the generation which fought the war has entirely
passed away before even-handed justice can be done
to the men who were engaged in it. »,

CONTENTS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION .1

CHAPTER I.
THE PLANTING OP VIRGINIA . 6

CHAPTER II.
GOVERNMENT OF THE VIRGINIA PEOPLE . . . .13

CHAPTER III.
THE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF KENTUCKY ... 24

CHAPTER IV.
THE GEOLOGY OF KENTUCKY 35

CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST KENTUCKIANS 45

CHAPTER VI.
FIRST EXPLORATIONS OF KENTUCKY . . . .53

CHAPTER VII.
EARLY SETTLEMENTS 67

CHAPTER VIII.
SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA 93

CHAPTER IX.
THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS PROBLEMS . . . 121

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X.

FAOB

KENTUCKY AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT . . .131

CHAPTER XL
THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY «... . 147

CHAPTER XIL
THE WAR OF 1812 ... . . . . . 158

CHAPTER XIII.
FROM THE WAR OF 1812 TO THE WAR WITH MEXICO . 172

CHAPTER XIV.

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE
BEGINNING OF THE REBELLION . , . . . 200

CHAPTER XV.

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR .... 231
CHAPTER XVI.

FROM THE ABANDONMENT OF NEUTRALITY TO THE FALL
OF FORT DONELSON '.'-" . . . . . . 257

CHAPTER XVII.

FROM THE EVACUATION OF KENTUCKY IN FEBRUARY,

1862, TO THE BATTLE OF PERRY VILLE . . . 282

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CLOSING STAGES OF THE CIVIL WAR . . .331

CHAPTER XIX.
THE END OF THE WAR 345

CHAPTER XX.
THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT . . . 358

CHAPTER XXL
THE NEW COMMONWEALTH 392

APPENDIX 409

INDEX . 429

KENTUCKY:

A PIONEER COMMONWEALTH.

INTRODUCTION.

THE States of this Federal Union are, by the con-
ditions of their origin, divided into three groups : first,
those that were directly colonized from the Old World ;
next, those that were immediate outgrowths from par-
ticular colonies, deriving their blood and institutions ex-
clusively from one of the original colonies ; and, lastly,
the States that are the product of a miscellaneous im-
migration, and do not owe their existence to any one
of the original sources of population. The second class
of Commonwealths is the least numerous among our
States. Circumstances rarely favored the settlement of
a new territory, great enough to become a separate
State, from the surplus population of one district alone.
In a fashion, Maine and New Hampshire are the chil-
dren of Massachusetts, but each of these States has had
its independent colonization from abroad, and a large
mixture of blood from other regions. Kentucky alone
is fairly to be called the child of another Common-
wealth. She owes to Virginia the most of the people she
received during the half century when her society was
taking shape ; her institutions, be they good or evil, her
1

2 KENTUCKY.

ideals of life, her place in the nation's history, are all
as immediately derived from her great mother Virginia
as are an individual man's from the mother who bore
him.

The population that came to Kentucky from other
States, and the institutions of other States in the way
of laws, customs, etc., had an introduction after the
formative period of the Commonwealth, so that they
have remained as foreign elements compared with the
deep-rooted qualities derived from the Virginian an-
cestry.

This singleness of origin of the Kentucky population
makes it easier and more profitable to trace its history
than that of any other Commonwealth, except those
originally planted on the sea-board. Its history goes
back to that of the parent State even more directly than
that of America to Britain. It will therefore be neces-
sary, in order to find the foundations of Kentucky's
life, for us to trace in outline the history of the Vir-
ginia people, so far, at least, as it may serve to show us
the source of the nature and motives of the folk that
founded the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

It is not an easy matter to see in the history of any
people the forces that have made them what they are.
The natural operations of a wholesome society imper-
fectly reveal themselves to the observer ; like the func-
tions of the well-conditioned individual body, they lie
hidden beneath the surface. It is rather the diseased
states of the body politic, the perturbations of function
marked in the maladies of a Commonwealth, that be-
come matters of history.

In the one hundred and fifty years that elapsed be-
tween the first settlement of Virginia and the settlement

INTRODUCTION. 3

of Kentucky, the English folk of the Elizabethan colony
underwent many important changes, most of which are
known to us only by their results. The organic history
of this body of people during that time is most imper-
fectly known to us. What we know of their formative
processes is trifling compared with our knowledge of
those actions in the New England States. In New
England the historic sense was from the first much
stronger, and the methods of life were far more favor-
able to the preservation of historic materials. These
States were founded with intellectual purposes and by
educated men, who brought a definite theory of life
with them, and from the first set up a strong social sys-
tem that differed widely from that of the mother coun-
try. These founders represented the extremest notions
of the Protestant reformation, and they sacrificed all of
their inheritance that it was possible for men to sacri-
fice, in order to give their new plan of life control of
all their actions. Never have colonies so deliberately
tried to separate themselves from the past of their race.
Starting with a most definite theory of their church
state, they proceeded to bend all their energies to the
preservation of their ideals. For a century immigra-
tion was limited as far as possible to their own sort of
people. In this rigid world there was little chance of
free development of the spontaneous growth of the race
qualities. The result was a truly wonderful society,
but one that shows a wide divergence from the parent
stem. We shall do well to compare these conditions of
the typical New England colony with those of Virginia
and North Carolina.

First let us notice the broad distinction between the
initial motives that led to these two diverse kinds of

4 KENTUCKY.

settlements. While New England was, in a way, the off-
spring of the Protestant revolution, — the greatest and
most beneficent intellectual movement that Europe has
ever known, — the Virginia settlement and that of the
colonies were, at the outset, purely commercial enter-
prises. What there was of faith in the inception of
their history was accidental and of a transitory nature.
The commercial element of the Elizabethan period is
overshadowed in history by the more attractive features
of its intellectual and moral development. It is easy
to see, however, that commercialism was then as intense
an element in the national life of England as it has
ever been in any other time or place. Gold hunger
and land hunger seem to have been at the root of all
the national achievements. Glory was more an inci-
dent to gain than it is now. From the plays of Shake-
speare to the buccaneer exploits of Raleigh, money gain
was the leading motive of the national life.

The dawning splendors of success won by the East
India Company awoke the quick imaginations of that
time. All the new-found shadowy world of the west
seemed full of such possible gains as the Indian Com-
pany was securing. Merchants and nobles made haste
to organize companies to win a like gain out of these
vast unexplored lands. A large share of the scanty
capital of that time was embarked in adventurous
schemes of colonization and conquest, and to one of
these fell the region which took its name from Eng-
land's manly queen.

As the conditions of the Virginia settlement and its
subsequent history were profoundly affected by the
scheme of its colonization, it will be necessary for us
to glance at these initial stages of its growth. We shall

INTROD UCTION. 5

then see, in brief, the history of its subsequent develop-
ment up to the time when the Kentucky people left
this region to begin their new life. It will not be nec-
essary to burden ourselves with any details of the
Virginia life that have not served to give to its chil-
dren their peculiar qualities ; nor can we hope to see
these formative influences except in merest outline.
As before remarked, it is at best difficult to trace the
organic history of a people ; nowhere in America is
the task so difficult as in Virginia, a region of scanty
and neglected records, where men were more given to
action than to recording their deeds, and where tho
historic sense has never been developed as it has been
in Massachusetts, where it is and long has been pecu-
liarly actire.

CHAPTER I.

THE PLANTING OF VIRGINIA.

THE first Virginia company was organized in 1606,
seven years after and upon the same model as the or-
ganization of the trading association that grew to be
the East India Company. This Virginia company,
though its strength lay in its merchant element, had
its share of heroes of the large, bold, adventurous sort
of the Elizabethan type. Sir George Somers, one of
the commanders in the capture of San Jago de Leon,
and Hakluyt, the historian of northern adventure and
a man full of the heroism of his time, were among its
influential men. The patent of this company gave all
needed commercial powers with a free hand. If
parchments could make a State, Virginia would have
sprung at once into a vigorous life under the control
of these enthusiastic adventurers. But while giving
much, the crafty King James withheld from the cor-
poration the sovereign power which came by circum-
stances to the East Indian Company, and which was
most necessary to the maintenance of any distant col-
ony in those times.

This purely business venture of the first Virginia
company was a chronic failure from the beginning,
though it had a precarious life of eighteen years. Mis-
government in the colony, dissensions in the company,
the generally worthless character of the settlers, and

THE PLANTING OF VIRGINIA. f

the effort to create something like a feudal land ten-
ure brought this experiment to an end. For our pur-
pose we have only to note that its results on the Vir-
ginia character were essentially negative, but for all
that valuable ; they made it clear that a good class of
settlers was necessary to found a prosperous colony,
but such could be obtained only by a fee simple land
tenure, and that such a settlement could not be governed
by a corporation resident in London, but must have a
share of self-government. These were lessons fruitful
of good results for the future of the colony.

With the final dissolution of the company in 1624,
Virginia entered on the truly formative period of its
growth. This change from the control of a corporation
to the government of the crown took place before any
considerable part of the Virginia blood was yet upon
the soil. After the expulsion of the company, settle-
ment went on more rapidly. The early expectations of
wealth from gold mines and from commerce with the
Indians had been dispelled. Never an ounce of gold
was found (at least until after the colonial period), and
the district was too far south for the more valuable furs.
It was soon seen that the only resources were from
agriculture and the shipment of timber, for which Eng-
land then, as now, offered a large market. It is princi-
pally to the introduction of tobacco into the markets
of Europe that Virginia owes its place in history. This
plant began to be tilled during the government by the
company, but during the period when Virginia was a
crown colony its importance increased by leaps and
bounds so that it soon became the foundation of her
prosperity. The rapid development of the habit of
using tobacco, — America's most welcomed gift to the

8 KENTUCKY.

Old World, — the large profits that it offered to the
tillers of the soil, led, in the first place, to a large im-
migration from England ; and, in the second place, to
the wide scattering of the population along the tide-
water district of the colony, and inland as far as the
eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge.

The character of these new-comers has long been a
matter of discussion. With a natural pride, some Vir-
ginia enthusiasts have claimed that the population con-
sisted very largely of gentlemen, while some calumnia-
tors of this people have striven to prove that it was
mainly composed of the more worthless folk of the
mother country. There is, unfortunately, no such clear
evidence concerning the nature of the people that
founded this State as we have concerning the people
of the New England colonies. Putting together the
stores of information that are at hand, we find good
proof that the strength of the immigration consisted of
the yeoman and squire class ; next in numbers were
the destitute and semi-criminal class, who were sold into
temporary service to pay their fines and the costs of
their transportation to the colony ; and for a while,
least in numbers, the Africans, who were sold into per-
manent slavery : of this class we shall learn more when
we come to consider their share in the development and
in the retardation of development in Virginia and of
Kentucky. At this moment we may only note that the
presence of persons held to service should not be re-
garded as characteristic of Virginia, implying a pecu-
liar tone of social life in this colony. The institution
of African slavery was common at this time to all the
colonies, and did not differ essentially from the con-
ditions of enforced service in Europe. African slavery

THE PLANTING OF VIRGINIA. 9

was in no essential way different from the other slavery
so common in the earlier days. Even down to 1830
England tamely submitted to the enslavement of her
own citizens by the Barbary powers.

The geographical conditions of Virginia were sin-
gularly favorable for the rapid extension of population
over a large area. A glance at any sufficient map of
this region will show the reader that the colonial part
consists in the main of a very broad shore plain, with
a nearly flat surface, extending from the coast of the
Chesapeake to the higher land at the eastern slope of
the Blue Ridge. This plain averages about one hun-
dred miles in width, and includes an area of several
thousand square miles, — equal to at least one fourth
of the surface of England. This region is singularly
intersected by deep tide-water inlets, which afford navi-
gable waters with many thousand miles of shore line.
The lands near these tide waters are fairly fertile,
though somewhat malarious. They were easily cleared
with the axe and fire, and were then ready for the
plough. There was no coating of boulders which served
to retard, and still retards, the development of New
England agriculture. These water-ways dispensed with
the cost of an extensive road system, one of the cardinal
difficulties in every new State. The Piedmont district,
on the table-land at the eastern face of the Blue Ridge,
was everywhere within convenient reach of these fiord-
like inlets, so that even there there was less trouble
with road-making than has been encountered in any
other American State.

In the century from 1625 to 1725 there was a steady
but not great immigration from England and southern
Scotland ; little other blood was introduced into the col-

10 KENTUCKY.

ony. Then came a few Huguenot French, after the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes ; but the numbers of
this people who settled in Virginia were less than came
to Massachusetts, to New York, or to South Carolina.
After 1725 the stream of new-comers grew less ; the
best lands were possessed, and the chances for colonists
was less good than before. There was only one notable
immigration from abroad after the last-named date. This
came with the remarkable exodus of Scotch after the
rebellion of 1745. A large part of this folk went to
South Carolina, but Virginia received an immigration
of several thousand of these wanderers, who took up
land in and beyond the Blue Ridge, principally in Am-
herst, Augusta, and Rockbridge counties.

This was, in all respects, the most important contri-
bution ever made to the Virginia population. Exiles
for opinion's sake, principally of Calvinist belief, they
brought to the Old Dominion something of the spirit
that glorified, even while it darkened, the early history
of New England. We may find the spirit of this peo-
ple in every signal event in the history of the Virginia
populations. They were a strength to Virginia in the
Revolution, and their children gave character to the
army of Jackson in the Civil War. They have fur-
nished many of the prominent business men of the State.

From the palatinate German settlements in Pennsyl-
vania there was, in the last part of the eighteenth cen-
tury and the first years of this, a certain amount of
immigration into Virginia. These people were mainly
settled in the lower part of the Shenandoah Valley,
and were never numerous enough to constitute any im-
portant element in the Virginia population.1

1 A small portion of the settlers in the Shenandoah Valley vjere

THE PLANTING OF VIRGINIA. 11

This glance at the sources of population in Virginia
is sufficient to show that, with the exception of tho
slaves, they came almost entirely from the truly British
people. This character it essentially retains to the pres-
ent day. At the time of the Kentucky settlement it
retained it almost altogether.

We shall have to consider one point concerning the
character of this Virginia blood. Although coming from
the British mother country, its origin was in many ways
different from that of the people who settled the Massa-
chusetts colonies. The settlers of Massachusetts were,
in the main, from the towns of Britain : they were much
more generally trained to the arts, and less to agricul-
ture, than the Virginia settlers ; a larger portion of them
were educated men. They were by habit a more social
or perhaps a more gregarious people. This is shown
in their settlements, which took the shape of villages,
and did not lead to the settling of the folk in isolated
farm-houses, as was already the custom of the rural
English. In Virginia the colonists were principally
from the country districts of England. Their absorbing
passion was not for religious discussions ; it was for the
possession of land, for the occupations and diversions
of rural life. When their interests were involved they
tended not to religious disputations, but to politics. This
appetite for land seems never to have been a part of
the New England desires; in Virginia and Kentucky
it was the ruling passion. We find the early laws of

the descendants of the Hessian soldiers who were left in this country
at the end of the Revolution. It is reported that Washington, who
had large holdings of lands in this valley, induced a number of these
forlorn folk to settle there, furnishing them means for their start in
life and to bring their families to this country. I have this impor-
tant statement from Major Hotchkiss, of Staunton, Virginia.

12 KENTUCKY.

Virginia formed to keep the people in close communi-
ties, for the purpose of better defense against the In-
dians; but the danger from the savages, though always
imminent, was not enough to deter the scattering of the
immigrants in their search for large landed possessions.
There is no element in the social differences of these
two populations so prominent or so instructive as this.

There can be no question that these Virginia colo-
nists were a fair representation of the people of the
mother country. Though perhaps less intellectual, less
thrifty, less active-minded, than the settlers of New
England, they were from the strength of the English
soil, a folk bred in the open fields from all time, rich
in the noblest instincts of their strong race ; perhaps
too much without the culture of towns, too little leav-
ened with scholars, too little stimulated by religious dis-
putations for their best intellectual life, but none the
less good seed for the State.

In the next chapter we shall consider some of the
circumstances of the development of this people during
the century and a half preceding that migration to the
west which founded Kentucky and several other States
in the Mississippi Valley. We are limited to the merest
outlines, but though the development of a people is
always a difficult matter to set forth, it is simpler
here than usual.

CHAPTER II.

GOVERNMENT OF THE VIRGINIA PEOPLE.

COLONIAL Virginia may be divided into two areas.
We have first the vast obscurely-bounded domain em-
braced in the original grant, and continued by the royal
charters. This included not only the whole of Virginia
as it is now shown on the map, but all of West Vir-
ginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and in the terms of the charter
everything westward to the Mississippi, and as much
further as the colony had a mind to claim. Those were
the plenteous days when empires were to be had for the
asking. The Virginia that became the mother of States
was a little part of this vast domain between the Alle-
ghany Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay. Taking it
for all in all, it was probably the most fortunate posi-
tion for a colony that the continent afforded : a soil easily
subdued ; of fair productiveness, well suited to a wide
range of crops ; a good milk and grain country ; a cli-
mate that invites to rural and to an open-air life. The
seat of no climatic diseases, it was the most favorable
cradle for a vigorous race that existed near the Atlantic
sea-board. It has been remarkably free from famines
and pestilences. It had the mingled good and ill for-
tune to develop the peculiar agriculture of the tobacco
crop, which secured a means of gaining a degree of
wealth that was obtainable in no other way, though in
return it gave a permanence to the institution of slavery

14 KENTUCKY.

that was not found in the region to the northward. The
relations of the settlers with the Indian tribes were, on
the whole, rather better than in the more northern re-
gions of the Atlantic coast, although there were several
massacres and the usual border warfare with the indige-
nous people. These were not so desperate or so long
continued as in the settlements north of the Delaware.
The Indians in this district were probably even fewer in
number than in New England, and less warlike.

The mountain range of the Alleghanies on the west
protected colonial Virginia from the fiercer tribes of the
Ohio Valley, and the danger from the savages was never
great enough to prevent the development of the rural
spirit, the scattering of the population in the separated
plantations, which is the characteristic of Virginia coun-
try life. The introduction and swift development of
slavery quickly brought about an important distinction
in the elements of the whole population. The caste of
slave-owners became strongly separated from that of
the poor whites. The wealth and power of the popu-
lation rapidly accumulated in the hands of those who
amassed or inherited capital, while the poor whites sank
into an inferior position, became in a way dependent on
the slave-holding caste, or were pushed on to the lands
that were not adapted to the plantation system. This
process was, in a way, gradual, and has left no marks
of its operation; but before the Revolution of 1776 it is
evident that it was extensively accomplished.

A society organized on this basis has some elements
of strength and many of weakness. Combined with the
principle of primogeniture, which gives the real estate
to the eldest son, it tended quickly to create on this soil
the system of strong families controlling the life about

GOVERNMENT OF THE VIRGINIA PEOPLE. 15

them, and thus gave a more truly British shape to the
life of Virginia than was given to the society of any
other English colony that has been founded in America.
This system of strong families, where power goes by
inheritance, makes a rigid society, but it is very favor-
able to the rapid development of those qualities which
secure the dominance of a State. No time is lost in
trying to sort out in each generation the men of ca-
pacity from those without power ; inheritance deter-
mines where the power shall lie. Imperfect as is this
method of selecting those who are to rule, it works
well in a new society.

Under this system there grew up in Virginia a ter-
ritorial aristocracy, which, in a small way, closely imi-
tated its English archetype in all but title. From a
few hundred homes came, generation after generation,
the people whcr shaped the State. These controlling
families were not necessarily rich ; they were, in most
cases, wealthy only in a relative sense, but they were
by birth persons of a certain distinction. They natu-
rally looked upon the whites who belonged to the lower
caste as of another race. In this they in no wise dif-
fered from their English ancestry, or from all other
Europeans of their time. The New England system
tended towards a pure, an ideal democracy ; town gov-
ernment, church government, all the forces of their
semi-religious commonwealths, were essentially demo-
cratic in their tendencies. In Virginia all conspired to
maintain the social habits of t'he England, or the Europe,
of the seventeenth century.

The wealth acquired by these families was spent in
the ordinary luxuries of the time. A certain manner of
fast living was h«re, as in the' mother country, thought

16 KENTUCKY.

to be the mark of gentlemen, yet politics and literature
were cultivated ; in general, society had a polish that it
wanted in the thriftier and better schooled colonies of
the North.

The clergy of this day had little control over the
public mind. Religion was, to a great degree, imported
with their wines and silk stuffs. Although there were
doubtless worthy clergymen to be found, the colony was
looked upon as a place of deposit for unsatisfactory
priests from the mother country. Without perhaps sink-
ing any lower than the church of the mother country
in the time of its decay, the church in Virginia still fell
far below the level of an ideal Christianity. We look
in vain to colonial Virginia for any distinct religious
movements until the period of the Wesley an revival.
The influence of this second reformation of the English
church, in itself far higher and purer than that of Henry
VIII. 's time, was very great, and profoundly affected
the Virginia people. It is doubtful if any American
community was ever so changed in spirit by a religious
movement as was Virginia by this quickening of the re-
ligious spirit. A very large part of the population, and
these the leaders of its society, were swept away from
their old listless creed by this revival. The dullness in
the religious life of the colon}7 was doubtless due to the
fact that the control of their church system was in for-
eign hands. It disappeared with the change in this re-
lation ; still it remains one of the striking differences
between the life of Virginia and that of the more north-
ern colonies.

The educational system in colonial Virginia was de-
fective ; no general method of public education was
provided. The sons of the planters were educated by

GOVERNMENT OF THE VIRGINIA PEOPLE. 17

British tutors, or were sent to the schools of the north-
ern colonies or to Europe ; the children of the poorer
whites remained, as their ancestors before them had
always been, generally unlettered. The culture of the
better scholars was probably broader than that of the
same class in Massachusetts in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries ; but this culture came to but few
of the citizens. The college of William and Mary,
though a worthy school and of much profit to the col-
ony, never played the large part in the life of Virginia
which Harvard and Yale did in their commonwealths.1
The education of the yeoman class was what it always
had been, a training in the active duties of life. To
this, hedgerow schools in some cases added a little train-
ing in reading and writing, and perhaps the elements of
arithmetic. These are but imperfect data for a study
of the education problem among these people, but the
fact that a large part of the legal papers of that day are
signed by the cross is proof enough of the extreme illit-
eracy of the lower part of the white population.

The political life of the colonial period is not a mat-
ter that gives much satisfaction to any one who shares
the pride of this people. Until we come down to the
period of disturbances that ushered in the Revolution
of 1776, there is little sign of political skill or of a
high sense of political liberty. Little resistance was
made to the general misgovern ment that came from
the crown. Once or twice there were little flashes of
rage, such as the ignoble revolt of Nathaniel Bacon ;

1 Harvard College was so influential in the State of Massachusetts
that, it was thought well to have a provision in the state constitution
forbidding any officer of the school to have any other official position
in the State.

18 KENTUCKY.

but the colony showed in the first one hundred and fifty
years of its life little or no promise of the statesman-
ship, the valor, the intellectual and moral power, that
were to bloom so richly in the last quarter of the eigh-
teenth century. There is probably no transition so un-
expected, so unforetold by previous history, as the awak-
ening of Virginia after 1760. If we had been able to
look over the world of that day, Virginia was perhaps
the last place where we would have expected to find the
power that the Revolution showed to be waiting there
for the call to life.

The fact seems to have been that the original set-
tlement brought to this soil a well-chosen representa-
tion of the English people. A life of few incidents,
of simple activities, left them as if fallow for over a
century. There was nothing to awaken their powers
to full life. At last the accumulated dissatisfactions of
the colonists over the stupidities rather than the op-
pressions of the mother country supplied the needed
stimulus to action.

The system of society fostered by slavery did not
favor the critical spirit in politics which marked the
New England colonies, but it made action even more
intense when the time for it came. Virginia in 1776,
as in 1861, was led into rebellion by the action of its
leading families rather than by the spontaneous out-
burst which characterized the outbreak in Massachu-
setts. Its yeoman class followed where their natural
leaders showed the way in the former as in the later
revolt. This subordination to leaders has always been
a distinguishing feature of all southern societies, ex-
cept, as we shall hereafter see, in Kentucky. While
there is a very large element of individuality among

GOVERNMENT OF THE VIRGINIA PEOPLE. 19

the chosen few, the mass remained in the silent con-
dition that belonged to it in the mother country.

At the time of the Revolution Virginia was the most
populous, and in many ways the richest, of all the col-
onies. Her population was less dependent on the other
world than any other of the American settlements. She
never was a maritime State, despite the fact that she
had a longer shore line than any of the colonies except
Massachusetts, and had been an exporter of ship sup-
plies for a century and a half. Her population was
nearly all agricultural, and the institution of slavery
made her able to send a large part of her white men
into the field when they were called to arms. This
population was in excellent condition for military duty.
Her considerable service in the French wars, together
with various combats with the Indians in her own do-
minion and in North Carolina, had kept her people ac-
customed to arms ; moreover, their habits of field sports
contributed to their training. Not reckoning the negro
population, Virginia furnished a larger share of soldiers
than any other of the colonies except Massachusetts
during the Revolution. Nearly aH of her loyal, able-
bodied folk saw some service during this war, both in
the field and in the more difficult paths of legislation.
She sprang at once into a marvelous activity. Men
who had not exhibited any ability in the petty and
hampered politics of the colony showed at once an
amazing capacity for broad-minded statesmanship and
the higher work of the soldier. After a political and
intellectual night of a century came this brilliant dawn
of power. The seven years of the war sufficed to
awaken the long-dormant energies of the people. Every
hour of the struggle was fertile in intellectual growth.

20 KENTUCKY.

At its end the sleepy and luxurious people had given
a larger share of able and vigorous men than had
perhaps ever before sprung from any equal population
of the race. This remarkable development of character
makes us regret that we cannot see more clearly the
condition of nurture that had made it possible. It
seems likely that it can be in part accounted for by
the inheritance of culture, the united life of a homo-
geneous people, arid the strong control that natural
leaders had upon the society in which they dwelt. Still
it remains a very inexplicable phenomenon, — one that
has never received the attention that its singularity de-
serves.

At the close of the Revolutionary War, Virginia found
herself with a large population that had been long
separated from the ordinary pursuits of life. Their
places had closed behind them ; life in the Old Do-
minion was stagnant. The only chance open to her
was in the broad fields of her great western domain.
The conditions of a community at the close of a long
and successful war are peculiarly favorable for the mak-
ing of new colonies ? and it is natural that at this time
Virginia, no longer herself a colony but a State, where
the best lands were much worn by a shiftless agricul-
ture, should have been strongly affected by the col-
onizing spirit. These circumstances led to a very large
exodus of her population to the westward. The re-
cently founded settlements in Kentucky, begun ten
years or so before, had gone far enough to prove that
land in abundance and of excellent quality could be
had for the trouble of possessing it. Every ambitious
spirit, every man who had within him the sense of
power necessary for the arduous work of facing tlje

GOVERNMENT OF THE VIRGINIA PEOPLE. 21

dangers of a wilderness where he would have to bat-
tle for everything, with nature and the savage, sought
these new fields. It is to these conditions that the
new settlements beyond the Alleghanies owed the most
of the population that came to them in the years im-
mediately following the Revolution. A small portion
of the Kentucky settlers came from southern Mary-
land and from central North Carolina, societies essen-
tially like that of Virginia in their general aspect.

By far the most important element of the Kentucky
colonists came from the soldiers who were disbanded
at the close of the war with Great Britain. The num-
ber of Revolutionary soldiers who emigrated to Ken-
tucky may be judged by the fact that in 1840, nearly
sixty years after the termination of that struggle, the
pension returns showed that there were about nine hun-
dred of these veterans still living in the State ; their
ages, according to the record, varying from seventy to
one hundred and nine years.

This, of course, was but a small part of the host who
had found a dwelling-place within the State. Probably
at least ten times this number had gone to their graves.
Such men were, by their native strength and their
deeds, the natural leaders in the new settlements, both
in peace and war. Thus the Kentucky spirit was the
offspring of the Revolution. The combative spirit left
by the Revolutionary war was elsewhere overwhelmed
by the tide of commercial life ; here it lived on, fed
by tradition and by a nearly continuous combat down
to the time of the Rebellion.

We have now traced, in brief outline, the conditions
of the people who made the Commonwealth of Ken-
tucky from the time of their settlement in this country

22 KENTUCKY.

to the exodus into Kentucky. We have seen that in
the beginning they were mainly rural Englishmen,
who came voluntarily to America, not generally under
the influence of political or religious persecution, but
with a view to bettering their condition as tillers of
the soil.1 It was doubtless, on the whole, a selection
of the best of the country blood of the mother laud.
None but the vigorous, the enterprising, the hopeful-
minded, undertook such changes of life in those days.
The people sold to service were relatively a small part
of this population, and these were in their very prime,
for none others would bring a price. From this picked
people, after a century or more of development in Vir-
ginia, a second selection was made to found the new
Virginia of the west.

As noted on the first page of this work, such a bud-
ding of a new State from an old colony has hardly
a precedent in the history of America. All the Western
States, as well as those of the South, have been settled
by immigrants from several older States, generally with
more or less admixture of people drawn directly from
foreign sources. Their composite blood has made them
perplexing subjects of study, from the diversity of mo-
tives that has come from the differences in their origin.
Ohio, for instance, has in its people a mingling of New
Englanders, New Yorkers, English and German Penn-
sylvanians, Virginians, Kentuckians, Germans, and Irish.

1 Although this statement that the Virginia colonists were not fugi-
tives for opinions' sake is true in a general way, it must be remem-
bered that a certain small but important part of the Virginia people
came to the colony when the success of the Cromwellian party made
their old homes untenable ; and that another and more important
part came after the Restoration had made the position of the Puritans
extremely uncomfortable. *»

GOVERNMENT OF THE VIRGINIA PEOPLE. 23

It is not possible to determine how far its qualities are
due to this, that, or the other part of its population. In
Kentucky, on the other hand, we shall find nearly pure
English blood, mainly derived through the Old Do-
minion, and altogether from districts that shared the
Virginian conditions. It is, moreover, the largest body
of pure English folk that has, speaking generally, been
separated from the mother country for two hundred
years. We see, therefore, how interesting is the problem
of this Kentucky population. It has been seriously
maintained that the European blood tends to enfeeble-
ment in American conditions ; that it requires the ad-
mixture of new blood from the Old World in order to
keep its quality unimpaired. There is an experiment
provided that will give a full disproval to this hypoth-
esis. The reader will do well to bear it in mind while
he follows the history of the Kentucky people in the
century of their life as it is sketched in the following
pages.

CHAPTER III.

THE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF KENTUCKY.

BEFORE beginning the historic account of Kentucky
it will be necessary to examine the physical constitution
of the State. This we shall be compelled to do in a
somewhat extended way, for here even more than in
Virginia has this physical character been effective in
determining the history of its people.

The area of Kentucky is about forty thousand square
miles. Of this surface all but about five thousand
square miles lie entirely to the westward of the Alle-
ghany Mountain system, and consists of a set of table-
lands, deeply indented by the southern tributaries of the
Ohio River. Except along the main streams and their
longer branches, where there are narrow strips of allu-
vial land which lie from three hundred to five hundred
feet above the sea, the surface of Kentucky east of the
Alleghanies ranges from five hundred to fifteen hundred
feet above tide-water. The elevation of the surface in-
creases from the district near the Mississippi on the
west, in a gradual way, up to the foot of the Alleghany
chain of mountains on the east. The principal area of
Kentucky is thus a great much-furrowed plain, sloping
very gently to the west, and declining also toward the
Ohio River. On its northern and northwestern face it is
bordered by this river for a length, measured along the
windings of that stream, of about seven hundred miles ;,

THE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF KENTUCKY. 25

on the west it is bordered by the Mississippi for about
fifty miles ; on the south it is separated from Tennes-
see by a conventional line ; on the east, where its bor-
ders march with those of Virginia, the line is the crest
of the Cumberland and Pine mountains ; and from
West Virginia it is parted by the eastern branch of the
Chatterawa, or Big Sandy River. It will thus be seen
that about three quarters of the periphery of the State
consists of natural boundaries.

As is shown by the map, the area of Kentucky is
much extended on an east and west line. It lies across
nearly the whole of the eastern versant of the Missis-
sippi Valley. While its eastern and western axis is
over five hundred miles in length, its northern and
southern is not over one hundred and eighty miles in
extent. This great east and west extension of Kentucky
is better understood when we notice that the southern
borders of the three States, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois,
march with its northern border. As we shall see when
we come to the period of the civil war, this peculiarity
of its form caused Kentucky to have an especial polit-
ical importance during that struggle.

Much as Virginia is favored by the wide-reaching
tidal streams, so Kentucky is blessed by its river system.
The Ohio, the most navigable branch of the Mississippi
waters, gives convenient access to its six hundred miles
of northern front. The Chatterawa, or Big Sandy, the
Nepepernine, or Licking, the Kentucky, the Salt, the
Green, the Tradewater, the Cumberland, and the Ten-
nessee give a greater frontage on wholly or partly navi-
gable rivers than is found in any other State of the
Union. The total length of streams that have been
more or less used for navigation exceeds two thousand

26 KENTUCKY.

five hundred miles. These streams are rarely inter-
rupted by falls or impassable rapids.

The surface of the table-land district, which includes
about thirty-five thousand square miles, is very favora-
ble for the construction of wheelways. The general
surface is not very rough, the streams abound in good
fords, the forests are generally so devoid of underbrush
that wagons can often be drawn through them for
miles. The limited area of the lowlands and alluvial
plains has so far prevented the formation of swamps
that not over two hundred square miles of this area is
morass, and this confined to the extreme western part
of the State. The districts subject to overflow by river
floods do not exceed one thousand square miles, or one
fortieth the surface of the State. So the region is sin-
gularly free from the evils that attend low-lying coun-
tries.

The part of Kentucky that lies within the small
mountainous region of the State contains a surface of
about three thousand miles. It is altogether contained
between the ridges of Pine Mountain, a sharp, wall-
like ridge on the west, and Cumberland Mountain on
the east. It is thus a single mountain valley, lying
between the two westernmost ridges of the Alleghany
system. This trough which forms the valley through
which flows the upper Cumberland, is one of the most
beautiful of the many lovely vales of that chain. The
strong outlines of the bordering mountains have given
it a singular isolation. This mountain system of the
Cumberland, with its nearly inaccessible hills, in good
part walled out Kentucky from the eastward. These
ridges were, fortunately for the needs of immigrants,
broken by two deep gaps, — one, Cumberland Gap, (in

THE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF KENTUCKY. 27

the mountain of that name; the other, Pine Gap, in
Pine Mountain, — through which the Cumberland
River finds its way out into the table-land region to the
westward. No other part of Kentucky save this single
mountain trough has a truly mountainous character.
All the rest is, strictly speaking, table-land, more or
less deeply cut down into valleys by the streams, but
the loftiest ridges do not exceed one thousand feet above
the neighboring river-beds.

Let us now consider the nature of the surface when
the whites first came to it. In the beginning of the
white occupation the surface of Kentucky, except about
six thousand square miles in the central and western
part of its area, was a primeval forest. As there had
been no Indian settlements in that part of Kentucky
east of the Tennessee for many years, this forest terri-
tory was singularly unbroken, having a continuity of
woods unknown in the other States, for the reason that
no other part of the United States not a desert was
ever found uninhabited by the savages and uninter-
rupted with their villages and clearings. This forest
was principally of the broad-leaved trees ; no great ex-
tent of coniferous woods existing then in the eastern
part of the district. Fortunately for these settlers, the
broad-leaved woods were of old growth and singularly
open beneath, so that the early track- ways and wagon -
roads were easily made through them.

The attraction which Kentucky presented to its first
settlers lay in the abundance of the good lands that
were to be had in its area. Its mineral wealth was
never taken into account ; the charms of gold, which
had lured the first settlers to Virginia, had no place in
the motives that led to the second migration of its

28 KENTUCKY.

people. It was soon found that these lands were very
varied in quality. West of the Pine Mountain range
there was a region, about fifty miles in width, where
the soil was lean and of little worth for the uses of the
pioneers. In the middle section of the State, stretch-
ing from the Ohio River to the escarpment of Mul-
drough Hill, lay the rich clay lands since known as the
" Blue Grass " district ; yet west of them the un wooded
district, known as the Barrens, which were at first sup-
posed, from their treeless condition, to be worthless
lands; and still further west a tract of sandy country
like that of the easternmost district, — good lands, it
is true, but not rich enough to attract the first settlers.
It was this Blue Grass l land that was the incentive to
immigration. The soil has a degree of fertility un-
known in any equal area of Virginia, and unapproached
there save in the Shenandoah Valley, which was already
pretty well possessed by settlers before the Kentucky
migration began. After the Blue Grass district was
occupied, the population began to move on to the less
attractive lands.

In the northern part of the State, lying adjacent to
the present line of the Louisville and Nashville Rail-
way, there was a considerable territory afterwards called
the " Barrens," where the forest growth had been de-
stroyed, except along the borders of the streams. This
destruction of the timber was brought about by the

1 The so-called blue gra«s consists of two species of plants, the Poa
compressa and Poa pratense. These grasses are not peculiar to Ken-
tucky ; they are among the most widely distributed grasses; but on
the best limestone lands of Kentucky they attain a singularly luxu-
riant growth. The "blue " of the name is given it on account of the
peculiar hue of its seed vessels, a conspicuous feature during its time
of fruiting.

THE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF KENTUCKY. 29

custom, common to the Western Indians, of burning the
grass of open grounds and the undergrowth of the
woods, in order to give a more vigorous pasturage to
the buffalo and other large game. To this custom we
may fairly attribute the deforesting of the prairie lands
in Indiana and Illinois, and perhaps of more westerly
regions. The annual firing of the low-growth plants led
to the killing of all the young trees. The Indians ap-
parently began their burning of the woods on the line
of the great trail from the Ohio Falls to Nashville,
Tennessee. When the whites came to this country this
savage custom had deforested an area of at least five
thousand square miles. In another two hundred years
the Indians would probably have reduced the larger
part of the surface of Kentucky to the condition of
prairies.

At first the white immigrants conceived a strong
prejudice to this untimbered ground, deeming the ab-
sence of trees an evidence of poverty of soil. But as
soon as the incursions of the Indians were stopped
they saw that the forests speedily repossessed the sur-
face. Although they then made haste to occupy it,
the swift return of the forests after the Indian fires
were stopped caused a large part of this prairie coun-
try to be rewooded before it could be subjected to the
plough. The late Senator Underwood, a very ob-
servant person, told the writer that when he came to
this region, in the first years of this century, the whole
surface was covered by a dense growth of young for-
est trees, which had sprung into life in the preceding
twenty years, or since the Indians had ceased to hunt
within the State.

In woods of beech and ash it takes some centuries

30 KENTUCKY.

of repeated firing of the undergrowth to reduce the
area to treelessness, but in the barren district this pro-
cess had gone on long enough to bring five or six thou-
sand square miles to an essentially treeless condition,
while around the border of the long-fired region there
was a broad fringe of forest, where the fire-scarred
trunks of old yet living trees stood as an open forest
that would have been added to the open land when
the time came for the old trees to die. This was a
process of forest-killing that had doubtless been car-
ried on over the territory of the southwest, only there
the extermination of the woods was more complete
and the history of its process less traceable than in
Kentucky.

As already noted, when the regular hunting expedi-
tions of the Indians into Kentucky were arrested, as
they were in about 1790, this region, relieved from
further firing, began to spring up in forest again. The
germs of the small-seeded trees, maples, etc., were rap-
idly transported by the wind from the nearest remaining
trees which clung about the entrances to the canons
that abound in this district and other clamp places, and
quickly repossessed the ground in forest ; so that before
settlements had made any great headway the region
had been covered by a new but very dense and vigorous
forest, which was harder to clear away than the older
primeval woods.

The area of very fertile soil in the State — that
which may be called of the first order — is about ten,
thousand square miles. This is equal in fertility to the
best English, Belgian, or Lombardian lands, and sur-
passes any other region in this country or in Europe
for its fitness for pasturage land It lies on a lime-

TEE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF KENTUCKY. 31

stone rock, which by its rapid decay constantly restores
to the soil the elements removed by cultivation, so that
there are fields in Kentucky which have been steadily
cropped, with no attention to fallow or fertilizing, for
about one hundred years without apparent damage to
the soil. No other land of the world is so fitted to with-
stand the evils of the utterly unscientific agriculture to
which it has been submitted in former days. The area
of second-class soils, those less fertile than the preced-
ing, easily worn by careless tillage, still affording a good
basis for agriculture, may safely be estimated at about
twenty-two thousand square miles ; the distinctly inferior
soils, those not well suited for any grains without fertil-
izing, or for other agricultural use save as low-grade
pasture lands, and for timber, include about seven thou-
sand square miles. There are not over two hundred
square miles of irreclaimable swamps and arid rocky
fields ; and not more than eight hundred square miles
unfit for pasturage. Nearly the whole of the latter
is forest clad, and with a little care could be made to
produce good timber. It is doubtful if an equally good
showing can be made for any other State in the Missis-
sippi Valley, and there are few regions in the world
where so large an area with so little waste land can be
found.

The position of Kentucky brings it between the par-
allels of 36.30 and 39° north latitude. The height of
the surface, being an average of about seven hundred
and fifty feet above the sea, gives it an average temper-
ature about three degrees colder than belongs to its po-
sition with reference to the tropics. The climate shares
in the peculiarities of the Mississippi Valley ; it is of
the continental nature. The seasonal range of tempera-

32 KENTUCKY.

ture is large, but less than that of any other of the Ohio
group of States. The extremes of summer heat are not
greater than about 100° Fahr., and of winter cold
about —10° Fahr., the winter cold being somewhat less
than in the States that border it on the north. The
rainfall is rather larger than the average for the Mis-
sissippi Valley, the amount being about forty-eight
inches. It is less liable to droughts than the States to
the north of the Ohio. This is due to its larger share
of the rainfall derived from the Mexican Gulf and to
its more generally forested surface.

This region, owing perhaps to its excellent natural
drainage and its forest covering has been singularly free
from the malarious and other fevers that have proved a
great scourge in many of the Western and Southern
States. Yellow fever has attacked but one part of the
State, namely, the town and neighborhood of Hickman,
on the Mississippi River. The ordinary miasmatic fever
does not occur except along the principal rivers, and
there is exceptional. The climate and soil permits a
considerable range of products. All the elements of
our ordinary American agriculture, the principal grains,
roots, fruits, etc., find favorable conditions here. Cot-
ton is cultivated in the region adjacent to the Missis-
sippi, and the vine has been successful in many parts of
the State. The original settlers brought the industry
of tobacco culture with them, and this has always been
one of the staple crops ; at the present time nearly one
third of the American production of this plant being
from Kentucky. The varied capacities of its agricul-
ture may be judged from the fact that in each of the
several censuses of the government the State has been
first in some one agricultural product, and in each dert

THE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF KENTUCKY. 33

ade has changed the element in which it has held the
first place.1

Although this presentation necessarily omits many im-
portant facts concerning the surface conditions, it gives
some idea of the goodness of the inheritance which fell
to the adventurous spirits from Virginia, North Caro-
lina, and Maryland, who came to it in the latter days
of the last century. It is only necessary to add that
the soil was very easily brought to the uses of man.
Lying almost altogether south of the region in which
the glaciers acted, these lauds were not covered with the
accumulation of bowlders which have been so serious an
obstacle to the subjugation of the lands in more north-
ern regions. They are, on the other hand, as a whole,
more open to the process of impoverishment by careless
agriculture than the soils in glaciated countries, which,
though stubborn and of limited original fertility, have
the advantage that they are less quickly exhausted by
careless tillage. The result is that Kentucky now con-
tains considerable areas of exhausted land, though little
that is irretrievably ruined.

Although, as a whole, the natural scenery of Ken-
tucky is not very picturesque, it makes an agreeable
impression on the mind. The surface is never perfectly
level, but is cast in the broad, gentle curves that give
an ever-varying grace to a country. In the richer por-
tions the exceedingly fertile soil and the consequent lux-
uriance of vegetation confer a singular brilliancy on the
landscape. The entire absence of grinding poverty, the
vigorous growth and physical beauty of men and women,
the sleek herds in the fat pastures, — all together serve

1 The tables in the Appendix will show this fact with greater

clearness.

3

34 KENTUCKY.

to give the traveler through this land a sense of abiding
prosperity such as comes to him in no other country.
He feels that here, for once at least, the man, the soil,
and the climate have fitted so well to each other that dis-
ease and poverty have but little place in life.

Statistical inquiries will serve to support this impres-
sion of the eye. The death-rate is lower than in any
other State from which goes forth each year a great tide
of the younger people, and pauperism is almost un-
known.

CHAPTER IV.

THE GEOLOGY OP KENTUCKY.

THIS sketch of those resources of Kentucky which
have had or may have an influence on its history re-
quires some discussion of the geological structure of the
area of the State. The following account aims only at
the presentation of those facts which are required for an
understanding of the mere outlines of this structure.
Little is given that has not some bearing on the ques-
tion of common resources.

All the important geological features of Kentucky it
has in common with the adjacent districts of the Mis-
sissippi Valley. The bed rocks shown to the eye within
its borders belong to the lowest formation commonly
known in this country as the Trenton series of rocks,
from the fact that beds of this age were first described
from that part of New York. These rocks, which are
but scantily exposed in Kentucky, though they appear
in East Tennessee and Virginia, were mainly deposited
in a deep, open sea. They consist of limestone and
clay shales, and furnish fairly fertile soils, over which
lie several other formations, known successively up-
wards as the Hudson River, Medina, Clinton, Niagara,
mingled limestones, shales, and sandstones, deposited,
as the others, in the old seas. Above these lie a great
thickness of very black shales, known as the Ohio
shales ; still above them a great thickness of limestones,

36 KENTUCKY.

shales, sandstones, which are commonly called the sub-
carboniferous rocks, because they immediately underlie
the coal. While all these vast deposits were forming,
this region remained beneath the surface of the ocean,
as is shown by the numerous marine fossils that they
all contain ; but with the last of the sub-carboniferous
beds we find all at once evidence that this part of the
world had been suddenly lifted above the sea, and had
become overspread by forests. This proof is given by
certain other seams of coal containing land plants.

It is tolerably certain that from the time of this first
elevation above the sea to the present day the whole of
this region has never been, for any length of time, if at
all, beneath the ocean. Occasionally during the long
ages of the coal period portions of it were deeply buried,
as is shown by the marine animals found in the lime-
stones that were then formed, and at many times the
surface was buried beneath far-extending areas of fresh
or brackish shallow waters ; but never since the begin-
ning of the coal measures has it been given over to the
deep. The beds of rock beneath the surface of Ken-
tucky, that are mainly marine limestones and shales,
have probably a total thickness of nearly ten thousand
feet, of which about two thousand feet are exposed to
view in the central part of the State along their some-
what upturned edges. This great section is mainly com-
posed of the remains of animals and plants that have
died in the sea and been cemented together on its floor.
This life-born series of rocks rests upon the old gra-
nitic and other crystalline rocks that are seen to consti-
tute the deeper part of the earth's crust, wherever we
find our way to it. Above these marine rocks we find
the great series of coal measures, where only the coal

THE GEOLOGY OF KENTUCKY. 37

beds and a few thin limestones owe their origin to or-
ganic life ; all the rest of the rocks being made up al-
together of the waste of old lands in the shape of mud,
sand, and gravel. This coal-measure series is about
thirty-five hundred feet deep at its thickest point, which
is near Cumberland Gap, in the southeast corner of the
State.

This account of the rocks found in Kentucky must be
supplemented by some statement of their distribution.
Through the middle of the State, extending in a north
and south line from near Nashville, Tennessee, to
Cincinnati, Ohio, and beyond, rises a very broad, low
geological ridge ; not that the surface is higher, but the
beds are bent upwards, as we may observe the annual
layers of wood curved over a knot on the surface of a
planed board. It is here that the lowest beds of rock
are exposed by the Chazy arid Trenton limestone. This
ridge is not of equal height in all its parts ; it sags down
like a broken ridgepole in the region between Lexing-
ton and the line that separates Kentucky from Tennes-
see, so that newer rocks, the Devonian and carbonifer-
ous strata, lie on its middle part than we find near Lex-
ington or the Tennessee line. It is this wide geolog-
ical ridge that brings to the surface the rocks which by
their decay form the Blue Grass soil in the middle of
the State. But for its ample uplifted back Kentucky
would have had no soil to tempt the early settlers to
their new home.

On either side of this principal central field of lime-
stone and other marine rocks we have the great coal-
measure districts of Eastern and Western Kentucky.
That on the west is but a fragment of the great western
coal field of the Ohio Valley, which extends into In-

58 KENTUCKY.

diana and Illinois. That on the east is likewise a part
of the great Appalachian coal field which occupies a
large part of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia,
Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. These two coal fields
were once united over Central Kentucky, but have been
worn away, leaving their waste upon the hill -tops:
they have together an area of about twelve thousand
square miles, of which the eastern is by far the larger
and better of the two. This coal district is somewhat
less valuable than that of Pennsylvania, but is ex-
ceeded in value by that of no other State. All the
Kentucky coals are of the bituminous species, varying
a good deal in their quality, which is generally ex-
tremely good. They are easily mined, and the total
supply of this buried solar force is about equal to that
of Great Britain.

Next after the coal beds the iron-ore deposits are
the principal sources of underground wealth in this re-
gion. They are much less extensive and varied than
those of Virginia, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Michigan, or
North Carolina, but are probably exceeded by those of
no other States. Owing to their close proximity to the
coal beds, where the smelting fuel may be found, they
are better disposed for working than any other ores,
except, perhaps, those of Alabama and Virginia. The
first iron smelting done in the Mississippi Valley was
begun in Bath County, Kentucky, in 1790, at a time
when it was deemed necessary to guard against Indian
incursions against the furnace. The industry has had a
considerable importance ever since this early day.

The other mineral resources of Kentucky are very
limited, there being no strata exposed within the area
that belong to the group of metamorphic rocks ; no gran-

THE GEOLOGY OF KENTUCKY. 39

ite, gneiss, or mica schists; no very metamorphosed
limestones, with a single exception, no specimen of dike
stones. There are none of the precious metals to be
found within its borders. There are some veins of lead
in the limestone districts, but they are not worth the
working, for they are generally narrow and belong to
the type of gash veins, which have no certainty of ex-
tension in any direction. The very circumstances that
have given so much good land and such an easily ac-
cessible surface have not favored the formation of the
vein deposits of any kind. There are some deposits of
petroleum, but they have never been worked to much
profit, for they do not give flowing or free-pumping
wells, and cannot compete with the richer deposits of
the Pennsylvania or West Virginia districts.

Kentucky is richly provided with easily quarried and
excellent building stones. The several limestone series
all yield good coarse marbles, and several of the sand-
stones are among the best for their uses. Cement
rocks are abundant and widely distributed, and fine
clays abound in the coal measures. The oolitic beds
from the sub-carboniferous limestone afford the best
architectural material of this country : a massive but
easily quarried rock that may be readily carved when,
taken from the quarry, but which hardens after expos-
ure, and is proof against fire, retaining a warm cream
color under the difficult conditions of our smoky towns.

As a whole, Kentucky is not so favored in the under-
ground resources as it is in its soil and climate, yet in
those more important resources of power derived from
coal beds and iron ores it is one of the most favored
areas in the country. It is naturally fitted for agri-
culture, in itself the best of resources, and it has a lib-

40 KENTUCKY.

eral proportion of the most important of the earth's
products, — cheap fuel, cheap iron, and good construct-
ive stones.

Although the geological structure of Kentucky is of
a very simple nature, it gives rise to some interesting
local features that have had their effect on the history
of the State. Among these we may mention the salt
licks and the caverns, to which latter class belongs the
Mammoth and other great caves of the State. The
principal salt licks, in number a hundred or more, are
scattered over the central or Blue Grass district of the
State. They consist generally of saline springs, that
bubble up from the strata of Trenton age, which have
impregnated the soil about their basins with common
salt. To these springs the large herbivora of the coun-
try once resorted to obtain the annual supply of saline
matter that was necessary for their life. When the
whites first came to this country, the buffalo, the elk,
and the deer frequented these salt springs in great
numbers^ For many years these species of large game
shot at the licks afforded the pioneers an important
source of supply of food and hides. The licks were also
valuable to them, as by boiling down the waters they
were able to secure an abundant provision of salt, which,
next after gunpowder, was the most necessary article of
common use and the one most difficult to procure. To the
geologist these salt licks have a very peculiar interest.
In the first place, they have a remarkable origin. When
the rocks whence they flow were formed on the Silurian
sea-floors, a good deal of the sea-water was imprisoned
in the strata, between the grains of sand or mud and in
the cavities of the shells that make up a large part of
these rocks. This confined sea-water is gradually being

THE GEOLOGY OF KENTUCKY. 41

displaced by the downward sinking of the rain-water
through the rifts of the strata, and thus finds its way to
the surface : so that these springs offer to us a share
of the ancient seas, in which perhaps a hundred million
of years ago the rocks of Kentucky were laid down.1

About these springs there is generally a bit of
swamp ground, due to the slow down-sinking of the
underlying rocks as they are deprived of a part of
their solid matter by the ascending springs. These
swamps contain a wonderful collection of the bones of
the large herbivora, which for ages resorted to these
springs. Not only do we find the bones of the animals
which occupied the country when the whites first came
to it, — the buffalo, the elk, the deer, etc., — but, also,
deeper in the mire, or in portions that indicate a greater
antiquity, great quantities of the bones of the fossil ele-
phant, his lesser kinsman the mastodon, the musk-ox,
an extinct long-legged buffalo, the caribou, or Ameri-
can reindeer, and various other creatures which dwelt
here in the time when the last glacial period covered
the more northern regions with a mantle of ice. The
largest, and to the geologist the most interesting, of
these swamp-bordered springs is known as Big Bone
Lick. This is situated in Boone County, about twenty
miles southwest of Cincinnati, Ohio. At this point
there is a swampy lowland around the salt springs that
contains a wonderful mass of elephant, mastodon, bison,
and other bones. Of the mammoth alone there are
probably hundreds of skeletons, which were engulfed
in the soft mud about the spring mouth, when, in the
olden days, these great creatures resorted to this place

1 For a detailed account of these licks see vol. L, part ii., p. 232,
Memoirs of the Kentucky Geological Survey, by N. S. Shaler, 1876.

42 KENTUCKY.

for their annual salting. When the whites first came
to the district the ground was thickly strewn with
skeletons. The early settlers used them for supporting
their camp kettles and for seats by the fireside.

The caverns of Kentucky, especially the Mammoth
Cave, have obtained a deserved celebrity. These cav-
erns lie in the limestone rocks, which are found just
under the coal - bearing series. As these limestones
are better developed in Kentucky than in any other
States, they afford a more extensive series of under-
ground galleries than are found elsewhere. A region
of at least five thousand square miles of area has the
limestone rocks within two hundred feet of the surface
penetrated by these channels, after the fashion of a piece
of worm-eaten wood. These galleries are of very varied
sizes : from a crevice scarcely bigger than a mole hole
to those as great as the aisle of the noblest cathedral.
In this area there are doubtless a hundred thousand
miles of ways large enough to permit the easy passage
of man. These channels are excavated by the streams
that, gathering on the surface, quickly pour through
" sink holes " into their subterranean ways. They are
from time to time abandoned by the free-running wa-
ters, and are then slowly filled in by stalactitic incrus-
tations, deposited by the water that trickles drop by
drop through the roof.

This underground world of Kentucky is full of in-
terest to the intelligent observer. In the vast, deep-
buried chambers of these caverns he finds a still air, of
perfect purity and of unchanging temperature. The
scenery is often singularly majestic ; again of a weird
and marvelous beauty. A strange life, consisting in the
main of species that never emerge from the caverns,

THE GEOLOGY OF KENTUCKY. 43

adds to the strangeness of this world. These species
are generally blind, often quite without eyes, affording
a striking illustration of the relation of the animal or-
ganism to its environment.

On the floor of the drier parts of these caverns lies
a deep coating of dust, in which can often be seen the
prints of the moccasins of Indians, made a century or
more ago by savages who sought refuge in these caves
from their enemies. In some caves this dust was used
by the aborigines as a burial-place, and in these caves
the bodies are preserved by the dry, pure air in a mum-
mified condition.1 In this dust the early settlers found
a source of supply of nitre, which is the most essential
ingredient of gunpowder. The earth was leached with
water, which dissolved the nitre ; the solution was then
boiled down, and the residuum was the u villainous salt-
petre," which was so necessary to the pioneers' life.
This use of the common earth — " petre-dirt," in the na-
tive parlance — was introduced by Dr. Samuel Brown,
who was the first professor of medicine in the West.
He was chosen to be professor of that art in the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania in 1799. To him the State
owes much help in its early industry. Among other
things he introduced there the newly-discovered art of
lithography.2

Last among the interesting geological features of
Kentucky we may notice the singular convulsion known

1 See, for a more complete account of these caverns, Memoirs of
the Kentucky Geological Survey, by N. S. Shaler, vol. }., part i.
1876.

2 The art of gunpowder-making was early carried on in Kentucky,
and a large part of the powder used in the campaigns of 1812 was
made in the State. It is said tha.t the negroes were the principal
adepts in the art

44 KENTUCKY.

as the New Madrid earthquake of 1811-13. In Novem-
ber of that year the whole valley of the Mississippi was
rudely shaken by a strong movement of the earth. This
disturbance was most severe in the region near the junc-
tion of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and in its energy
is to be compared with the greatest shocks that the
world has undergone. A large area of the Mississippi
shores sank down, and a tract of several hundred square
miles of good soil was permanently depressed beneath
the water.

After the first few appalling shocks the convulsions
became less violent, but at more frequent intervals,
until at the end of two years there was a nearly constant
slight oscillation of the earth, which only perturbed a
small region. Gradually the movements ceased, and
since that day there has been no notable shock in the
Mississippi Valley. It was fortunate that this great dis-
turbance came at a time when the country was scantily
peopled, for in the present condition of the country it
would cause a fearful loss of life and property.

CHAPTER V.

THE FIRST KENTUCKIANS.

IT has already been noticed that when Kentucky was
first settled by the whites there were no aborigines
resident within its bounds except some of the Chicka-
saw Indians, who held a narrow strip along the borders
of the Mississippi River, and a small settlement on the
Ohio, opposite where Portsmouth, Ohio, now stands.
The absence of resident Indians in this very fertile coun-
try, abounding in game, constitutes one of the most
interesting problems of the country. It is evident that
it was a recent condition, for there is abundant proof
of the extensive occupation of this district by an agri-
cultural people at a period not many centuries anterior
to the time when it first became known to Europeans.
The whole surface of the State, except the easternmost
part, abounds in mounds, ditched and walled fortifica-
tions, and other evidences of extensive and permanent
occupancy by a considerable population.

A good deal of unnecessary mystery has been woven
around the history of this ancient folk termed the
mound-builders. It has been supposed that they were
a much more civilized people than any of our Indians ;
that they mark the presence of another and peculiar
race on this continent. Further researches have shown
that this is not the case; that these mound-builders
were in fact of the same race, of the same tribes, as

46 KENTUCKY.

our ordinary aborigines, who have by various chances
become somewhat changed in their habits.1

In brief, the history of the earliest settlers of Ken-
tucky seems to be this. There is no evidence yet found
to show that there were any human beings in this dis-
trict more than one or two thousand years ago. None
of the remains in Kentucky can by any reasonable sort
of inference be carried further into the past than this.
The first settlers known to us were, as far as all the
evidence goes, essentially like our ordinary Indians, ex-
cept that they were perhaps more given to agriculture
and trusted less for their support to the chase. That
they were largely agricultural is shown by the fact that
their remains are most plentiful in regions of good soil,
and least so in the more sterile country, though there
was no great difference in the amount of game which
the regions afforded. They were, it is true, mound-build^
ers, but so were the Indians of our Southern States to
within the historic period. Their only peculiarity lay in
the circumstance that the buffalo was as yet unknown
in this country ; so that this great incentive to a wild
life, this abundant resource of the chase, was not af-
forded them. They were, therefore, necessarily soil-
tillers, looking to regular labor for their subsistence.
About a thousand years or so ago, perhaps less, the buf-
falo, a creature of the plain lands, began to appear in
this part of the country. It is the present writer's be-
lief that the way of the creature to the eastward had
been favored by the deforesting of the level lands of Il-
linois and Indiana in the same way as the " Barrens "

1 See the Memoir on the Mound-Builders, by Mr. L. Carr, in vol.
ii., Mvmdrofthe Kentucky Geological Survey, N. S. Shaler, director,
Frankfort, 1883, for a full discussion of this subject. »,

THE FIRST KENTUCKIANS. 47

of Kentucky had been made treeless. At any rate, the
coming of this creature coincided with the change of
these peoples to a more barbarous condition ; agricul-
ture became less necessary, for the chase would supply
immediate needs at all seasons. This plentitude of
meat appears to have had a debasing effect on all the
peoples of the Ohio Valley. They no longer tilled as
much ; their settlements, with their mounds and forts,
were abandoned as far as this epoch-making beast ex-
tended his march.

The Indians of the South, where the dense forests
and the swamp-margined streams presented a barrier
to the migration of the buffalo, remained principally
soil-tillers, as did the Indians of New York, while other
western tribes became nomadic. Extensive warfares
were waged between these diversified peoples, and Ken-
tucky became one of the principal seats of their com-
bats, — a sort of border-land such as separated the Scots
and English in their days of combat.

In Kentucky the Chickasaws alone held their ground,
being the most northern of the sedentary Southern In-
dians. Their strongholds on the bluffs of the Missis-
sippi and the inaccessibility of this country on account
of its deep, sluggish, mud-bordered streams, seem to
have given them a sufficient measure of protection
against their enemies, but elsewhere in the State the In-
dians were rooted out by their wars.

The last tenants of the State, east of the Tennessee
River, were the Shawnees, — that combative folk who
ravaged this country with their ceaseless wars from the
head-waters of the Tennessee to the Mississippi, and
from the Lakes to Alabama.

It was no small advantage to the early settlers of

48 KENTUCKY.

Kentucky that they found this region without a resi-
dent Indian population, for, bitter as was the struggle
with the claimants of the soil, it never had the danger
that would have come from a contest with the natives
in closer proximity to their homes. As it was, they
had not to wage a perpetual warfare with a fierce
enemy, near its base of supplies, but only to deal with
raiding parties, who soon exhausted their stock of pro-
visions, which could not be supplied from the game,
diminished as it was by the effective hunting of the
whites. When they came to carry the war north of
the Ohio, the whites found that even great military ex-
peditions, such as that of St. Clair, might receive crush-
ing defeats from their enemy. Any such army of In-
dians as were met in several of the campaigns north
of the Ohio, would, for half a century after the settle-
ment of Kentucky began, easily have made an end of
this feeble colony.

It was very fortunate for this first English settlement
north of the Alleghanies that it found this open ground,
made difficult of access on the north by a great river,
and remote from the centres of the native population.
In their relatively safe place the infant colony grew
strong, and from its vantage ground, which constituted
a great salient into the Mississippi Valley, they were
able in time to make overwhelming assaults upon the
flank of the Indians north of the Ohio.

It is interesting to note that the French colonists
never made the least effort to explore, much less to
possess, Kentucky. They occupied, and in a way con-
trolled, much of Indiana, Illinois, and a part of Ohio,
but it is doubtful if they ever sent an explorer into
the interior of Kentucky. This was due to the fact

THE FIRST KENTUCKIANS. 49

that the French theory of occupation in America was
utterly different from the English. The French en-
deavored to bend the Indians to their purpose, and
made no distinct effort to colonize the Ohio Valley
either from the Canadas or from Louisiana. As Ken-
tucky was unoccupied by the Indians, it was neglected
by the French. There is a little but rather untrust-
worthy evidence that they made a feeble effort to de-
velop some of the lead mines near the Ohio, but noth-
ing came of it.

Thus the first settlers found themselves, in the main,
free from these dangers due to the savages and their
Gallic allies. The land lay more open to 'their occu-
pancy than any other part of this country ever did to
its first European comers. The Southern Indians had
no interest in it ; in fact, the coming of the white man
must have been, on the whole, advantageous to them, as
it served to make an end to the raids of the Northern
Indians. None of the tribes north of the Ohio had a
very good title to the ground, or were willing deter-
minedly to fight for it, as they did for the land about
their villages. What resistance they made was soon
overcome by the valor of the first of Virginia colonists
that came to this region.

There is yet another circumstance concerning the
condition affecting the early settlement of Kentucky
that deserves mention : this is the peculiar law concern-
ing the allotment of the public domain, which has been
in use both in this State and in Virginia since their
foundations were laid.

When Virginia was settled it was under a charter,
or patent, that gave the control of the unoccupied
country into the hands of its authorities. Although
4

50 KENTUCKY.

during the British period there was a semblance of con-
trol by the home government over these allotments,
they were practically managed by the colonial govern-
ment alone. Grants were, after the first days of the
colony, made on the payment of various fees, for sur-
veying, etc., and a small tax per acre for the land
" taken up." This is substantially the same method
as that followed by the Federal government, with the
irnportant difference that Virginia, arid several other
Southern colonies, never made any preliminary survey
of the land before it was sold to settlers. Each claim-
ant was required to have his own survey made, desig-
nating thereon the bounds of the land occupied. This
was then recorded in the land-office of the State, and
gave the basis for the issue of the land warrants. This
system had advantages and disadvantages of great mo-
ment. It allowed the rapid settlement of the country
and the establishment of titles long in advance of any
possible map - making. With a compass and a chain
a surveyor, with a few hours' work, would give the
bounds of a tract of a thousand acres, so that they
could be held or sold with safety. While the settle-
ments of the Northwest have had to follow in the wake
of the government surveyors, the settler in Kentucky
became his own surveyor.

The disadvantages of this method were, however,
very great. There being little or no limitation of size
to these surveys, they were of all areas and shapes.
The poor man was content with his patch of one hun-
dred acres ; the speculative capitalist of the day would,
perhaps, " run out " a hundred thousand acres or more.
In time half a dozen patents would be laid over the
same land. Areas of un patented land, of all shapes and

THE FIRST KENTUCKIANS. 51

sizes, lay between the patents. As land grew dearer
the would-be " blanket " patents were put over exten-
sive districts, in the hope of capturing these unappropri-
ated lots. Of all these conflicts the Virginia, and, fol-
lowing it, the Kentucky land-office took no note. To
this day one can, if he please to pay the costs, " pa-
tent" any land that lies in Kentucky, and repeat the
process on the same area each year. The State only
guarantees the entry if the land is unpossessed under
previous title of valid kind. In time a vast amount of
litigation and no end of trouble came out of this scheme.
At this moment, owing to the absence of records, there
are hundreds of thousands of acres in Kentucky over
which no sort of ownership has ever been exercised.
No taxes are collected on them. If they have ever
been surveyed, no one knows under what patents they
are claimed. While this primitive and imperfect sys-
tem of distributing the public lands was the best possible
for this early day, — was, indeed, a condition precedent
to any settlement at all, — it left a train of doubtful
titles that has to this day proved harmful to the best
interests of the State. This evil is, however, rapidly
passing away, for possessive titles have, in almost all
cases, remedied any flaw in the original claim. This
system of allotting land is a good specimen of the
American capacity for simplicity in matters which else-
where would have been arranged in a more complicated
but less adequate fashion. It should be said that this
description of the method of titles does not apply to the
district west of the Tennessee River; that was pur-
chased from the Indians long after the settlement of
Kentucky. This small part of the State was divided
into rectangular areas, as in the Northwestern States.

52 KENTUCKY.

The imperfection of the early land system of Ken-
tucky may serve to show the difficulties that came to
this lone Commonwealth from the absence of all gov-
ernmental care in its founding. All the other new
States of this Union have had their early stages of de-
velopment guarded by the Federal government. They
were provided with an effective land system, a system
of laws suited to their needs, and the protection of
government troops. The Kentucky settlements had to
do without these important aids.

CHAPTER VI.

FIRST EXPLORATIONS OP KENTUCKY.

WE have now noticed the principal features in the
history of the folk that furnished the greater part of the ,
early colonists of Kentucky, as well as the physical
conditions of the land itself. We may next proceed
to consider the history of the earliest explorations and
the first steps toward the settlement of the State.

Although Virginia had a just claim to all the re-
gion of the Ohio Valley north of the parallel of 36° 30',*
that is, if there were any justice in the colonial grants at
all, this empire of the unknown was little esteemed in
the early days of that colony. They knew only that it
lay far beyond rugged mountains, peopled by their new-
found enemies the red men, and claimed by their hered-
itary enemies the French. Some knowledge of it they
had from their expeditions against the French, and the
chance reports of the few travelers who ventured near
it, but it was not until there began to be a need of find-
ing place for the growing population of the colony
that they turned their minds toward this country. At
this time the settlements were well up to the borders
of the Alleghany Mountains, — indeed, all the richer
valleys of the eastern part of that chain were pretty
thoroughly taken up by settlers. The greater part of
this region was of a nature to be extremely repellent
to the Virginia farmer. The price of grain and cattle

54 KENTUCKY.

was exceedingly low ; he was accustomed to feel that
he must either have ground well fitted to tobacco, or
else soil that would give a large return for his labor in
the less exportable crops. Therefore the fairly good
lands of the Alleghanies seemed, and indeed were, to
him worthless. It is a simple application of the theory
of rent taught by political economy.

The Alleghanies were, however, an extremely diffi-
cult— indeed, at first a nearly impassable — barrier to
western movement. They consisted of a number of long
ridges, set in rank behind rank ; their slopes were steep,
their forests dense, and where they were cut by streams
these flowed in canon-like gorges generally unfitted for
roadways. No other than a forest-bred people would
have dared this wilderness in search of cheap and good
"land. It is difficult to picture to ourselves the hazard-
ous nature of this movement. We must believe that
the first adventurers had slow imaginations or a rare
valor, else the evident risks of their project would
surely have sufficed to deter even the bravest men,
spurred by no sense of duty to this enterprise of con-
quering a far-away and mythical land.

The colonial charters of Virginia gave to that col-
ony a claim upon all the lands of the Mississippi Valley
that lay to the west of the boundaries of Pennsylvania
and New York, as well as of the colony itself. At the
time when these grants were made, and for generations
afterward, this western domain was to Virginia a very
intangible property, if indeed it deserved the name of a
possession. The little that was known about it came
mostly through the French authorities, or from a few ad-
venturous traders who had visited that country. To the
Virginians of the seventeenth and the first decades <jf

FIRST EXPLORATIONS OF KENTUCKY. 55

the eighteenth century, charter rights in a country from
which came recurrent dangers in the shape of French
or Indian wars seemed of no value whatever. When,
however, the fall of Louisburg and Quebec and other
events in the warfare with the French in Canada began
to show that the English were likely to win control of
the continent, when the fear of the savages was some-
what diminished by a long arid generally successful
struggle with them, the minds of the Virginia people
began to dwell upon the possibilities of that broad and
fertile country which lay beyond the barren ridges of
the Alleghanies.

The history of Virginia shows us that there were sev-
eral reasons which led its people to desire western pos-
sessions long before the more northern colonies began
to look to the Mississippi Valley for new homes. In
the first place, the Virginia people came from the more
rural population of England and Scotlan^l, and from
the beginning were ever in their mode of living a less
urban people than the more northern colonists of Amer-
ica. Within the tobacco belt agriculture was a much
more profitable occupation than it ever became within
the northern colonies during the colonial times. This
and the other crops produced by slave labor were won
by a careless tillage, that rapidly reduced the fertility
of the land, and made it desirable to seek fresh fields
for the devastating ploughs.1

1 It would not be possible to contrive a more perfect means of rap-
idly exhausting the soil than the method of tillage commonly in use
in the old days in this Virginian country. The " tilth," or depth of
the ploughing, rarely exceeded six inches, and oftener was less ;
ploughs were run year after year at the same depth, until there was
a hard pan formed by the action of the plough heel, which shut the
roots of the crops out of the sub-soil. Manuring was never under.

50 KENTUCKY.

The use of slave labor in agriculture demands exceed-
ingly rich soils ; even with so exportable an article as
tobacco, tillage cannot profitably be carried on by means
of slaves on lands ' that are not excellent in quality.
This is plainly shown by the fact that the hill regions
of the South did not become occupied by slaveholders.
In all the vast expanse of the Alleghanies, where the
soils are relatively poor, there is scarcely more negro
blood than there is in New York or New England, and
those negroes who are now found there are mostly waifs
recently brought by the railways and other modern en-
terprises. Here and there, where the Alleghanies in-
close small areas of limestone rock, which by its clay
produces soils of the first order, the slaveholder planted
himself and for a time tilled his crops ; but as a whole
the institution did not fit mountain regions, however
fertile the valleys might be, for the tracts of arable
land were not large enough to permit the plantation
system to be applied to their tillage, so that they fell
to the non-slaveholding class. The student of general
history will find interest in the fact that this unfitness
of the Appalachian system of mountains for tillage by
slaves became a very important element in the civil
war. The people of this district during the conflict
were either armed Union men or lukewarm adherents
of the Confederacy. The Appalachian district formed
a great salient of anti-slavery people that cut the South
nearly in twain.

taken ; not uncommonly the stables were allowed to fill with unre-
moved dung until the beasts could no longer enter them. When the
exhaustion of the abused soil was so complete that it could no longer
be profitably cultivated, the place was "turned out," the healing for-
ests again possessed it, while the proprietor went "over the divide "
and set about his devastating work on another farm.

FIRST EXPLORATIONS OF KENTUCKY. 57

In the middle of the last century the lands fitted for
the use of slaves in Virginia, at least in that part of the
State east of the Blue Ridge, were fully occupied. The
Shenandoah Valley was in good part set-tied, and the
whole of its fertile parts was possessed either by active
tillers or by large owners like Lord Fairfax, who re-
tained them for speculation. The farming class found
themselves faced by the long parallel ridges of the Al-
leghanies, which stretch in an almost continuous wall
from the border of New York State to the country of
the Gulf slope, a region unfit for tillage.

The compulsion to westward migration then acting
upon the Virginia people was something like that which
in the olden days drove their remote ancestry from Cen-
tral Asia over the lands of Europe to the Atlantic. Ill
neither case were the people crowded in the sense that
the Belgium or the Massachusetts people are now
crowded together, but they were in each case aggre-
gated beyond the limits of their conditions. With herds-
men there can only be a very few people to the square
mile; with slave agriculture the number may be
greater, but still far below the number that may advan-
tageously inhabit the same district under conditions of
freedom.

Even before 1750 adventurers seeking trade with the
Indians had been exploring the Alleghanies for ways
into the West. It had already been found that the
most practicable route was by following to the south-
ward the great mountain trough that separates the Blue
Ridge from the Alleghany range of mountains. The
course of this valley is nearly to the southwest, and its
high-lying fertile limestone plains are drained in turn
by the Shenandoah and the Roanoke, that send their

58 KENTUCKY.

waters to the Atlantic, and the Kanawaha, or New
River, and the Tennessee, tributaries of the Ohio. In
this trough, that separates the eastern and western
ranges of the Appalachian Mountains, the traveler can
journey through a length of many hundred miles with-
out having to pass over any difficult ways.

From this valley there are two natural ways to the
Ohio : at the crossing of the New River, or from the
mouth of the Greenbrier River, it is possible to turn
sharply to the north down that stream, and then along
its banks to follow a tolerably direct line to the Ohio,
the stream itself being unnavigable for much of its
length ; or, better still, the mountain valley may be fol-
lowed about a hundred miles further to the southwest
to a point where for a considerable distance the Cum-
berland River and the Powell branch of the great Ten-
nessee run for some distance parallel to each other, sep-
arated only by the narrow wall of the Cumberland
Mountain. At this point the Cumberland Mountain is a
single ridge, generally too steep even for horse-paths,
but at several points it breaks down into traversable
passes. Crossing this mountain over any of these
passes, the westward farer had only to follow the Cum-
berland, as it cuts its way through the Pine Mountain
and the irregular hills still farther to the west, to find a
difficult but practicable way into Eastern Kentucky, one
possible to pack animals, which could find foothold on
the Indian paths or buffalo trails, and easily made pos-
sible to that ship of the wilderness, the admirable
American wagon.1

1 At the time when Kentucky was settled the European pack-sad-
dle was still in general use in this country. It was almost the only
means of conveying burdens employed down to the end of the six-

FIRST EXPLORATIONS OF KENTUCKY. 59

From the time of the settlement of the Shenandoah
Valley this southward extension of its fertile lauds was
well known to the Virginians. As early as the seven-
teenth century one of the frontier forts was placed in
the southern part of the valley. These ways to the
West were traversed even in the seventeenth century
by many of those hardy spirits who skirmish beyond
the advancing lines of civilization.1

The first authentic report of a deliberate journey be-
yond the line of the Alleghanies is that of Doctor
Thomas Walker, who in 1750 traveled to the central
parts of the region afterwards called Kentucky, and re-
turned with a good report of the country. This journal
still exists in manuscript. He seems to have been a re-
markably intelligent explorer, for he noticed the east-
ernmost outcrop of the Appalachian coal-field, which so
far is probably the first mention of any fact of a geo-

teenth century. It held on in Virginia for more than a century after
it had generally passed out of service in the Old World. Remnants
of its use may still be found in some of the sequestered corners of the
Southern Appalachians. But for this simple instrument the settle-
ment of Kentucky would hardly have been possible, for it was many
years before a wagon road was constructed.

1 Even as early as 1654 a certain Colonel Wood was in Kentucky
as an explorer, but of his route we know little or nothing. Raffi-
nesque, in his most untrustworthy annals of Kentucky, says that a
Captain Bolt came from Virginia to Kentucky in 1660. In 1730 John
Sailing, a Virginian, was taken prisoner by the Cherokee Indians and
carried to Tennessee, thence to the salt licks of Kentucky ; a second
capture by Illinois Indians led to his traveling as far as Kaskaskia ;
escaping from his second captivity by ransom, he finally reached Vir-
ginia again. He was probably the first Virginian to tread the way
leading to Kentucky by Cumberland Gap. which so many of his fel-
lows were to follow, but as his journey was not voluntary he cannot
claim real credit as an explorer. There is also a tradition that in
1742 a man named John Howard crossed the mountains and went
down the Ohio, but the fact is doubtful. (See Collins, i., p. 15.)

60 KENTUCKY.

logical nature concerning any part of the Virginia
mountains. Walker named the principal features of
the country he traversed : the Waseoto mountains,
which he called Cumberland; the Shawnee River, to
^which he gave the same name ; the Chatterawah, which,
with the Virginian dislike of Indian names, he called
the Big Sandy. There is some excuse for his calling
the finest of the Alleghany Mountains and the most
beautiful of its rivers after the very unsavory George,
Duke of Cumberland, and the beautiful Chatterawah
the Big Sandy ; for the fact is Kentucky had been re-
cently in good part abandoned by the Shawnee Indians
as a place of residence, and had become a border fight-
ing-ground between the Indians north of the Ohio and
the Cherokees and other tribes of the Tennessee Val-
ley and the country to the south and east of it, so that
the traveler had no chance to get the aboriginal names
of its geographical features from natives.

In 1751 Christopher Gist, an agent of the Ohio Com-
pany, a corporation having from Virginia an unplaced
grant of 500,000 acres of land, visited Shawnee town,
at the mouth of the Scioto River, where Portsmouth,
Ohio, now stands. Here he found a settlement con-
taining about three hundred Indians : one part of their
lodges on the southern, or Kentucky side of the Ohio,
but the most on the northern, or Ohio, border of the
stream. So entirely was Kentucky at this time aban-
doned by the Indians that this was probably the only
settlement within the limits of the State, except some
Indian towns along the Mississippi River. There were
many Indian traders residing at this settlement, show-
ing that the country had already been extensively pen*
etrated by those adventurous men. Gist's explorations

FIRST EXPLORATIONS OF KENTUCKY. 61

were extended as far as Big Bone Lick, whence he
obtained jome of the fossil elephant remains.1 Thence
he followed an Indian trail up the Kentucky and across
the mountains to the Kanawha.2

In 1752 Lewis Evans Lsued the first map of the re-
gion, including Kentucky.3 It is probable that few
copies of this map remain in existence. In 1756 a white
woman, a Mrs. Mary Inglis, was taken prisoner in
Southwestern Virginia and conveyed to Central Ken-
tucky, where she escaped and made her way home afoot
after a journey of appalling difficulty.

The narrative of her adventures is thus given in Col-
lins's " History of Kentucky : " —

" The first white woman in Kentucky was Mrs. Mary
Inglis, nee Draper, who in 1756, with her two little
boys, her sister-in-law, Mrs. Draper, and others, was
taken prisoner by the Shawanee Indians from her home
on the top of the great Alleghany ridge, in now Mont-
gomery County, West Virginia. The captives were
taken down the Kanawha to the salt region, and, after
a few days spent in making salt, to the Indian village
at the mouth of the Scioto River, where Portsmouth,

1 Big Bone Lick was early looked upon as the principal curiosity of
the country. Many of the expeditions encamped there. When first
visited by the whites the bones of the mammoth and the mastodon
were plentifully scattered over the ground about the salt springs.
The camping parties used the ribs of the fossil elephants for tent poles
and the vertebrae for seats and as rests for their camp kettles. At a
later time Jefferson had a valu&ble collection of these remains brought
to Washington and deposited in the government buildings, along with
other geological material that this many -minded man brought to-
gether. These specimens remained in the patent-office until at length,
it is on tradition reported, they were sent to the bone mill by one of
the ignorant servants of that office.

2 See Collinp, i. 15. 3 See Collins, i. 15.

62 KENTUCKY.

Ohio, now is. Here, although spared the pain and dan-
ger of running the gauntlet, to which Mrs. Draper was
subjected, she was, in the division of the prisoners, sep-
arated from her little sons. Some French traders from
Detroit visiting the village with their goods, Mrs. In-
glis made some shirts out of the checked fabrics. As
fast as one was finished, a Frenchman would take it
and run through the village, swinging it on a staff,
praising it as an ornament and Mrs. Inglis as a very
fine squaw ; and then make the Indians pay her from
their store at least twice its value. This profitable
employment continued about three weeks, and Mrs.
Inglis was more than ever admired and kindly treated
by her captors.

" A party setting off for Big Bone Licks, on the
south side of the Ohio River, about one hundred and
forty miles below, to make salt, took her along, together
with an elderly Dutch woman, who had been a long
time prisoner. The separation from her children de-
termined her to escape, and she prevailed upon the old
woman to accompany her. They obtained leave to
gather grapes. Securing a blanket, tomahawk, and
knife, they left the Licks in the afternoon, and to pre-
vent suspicion took neither additional clothing nor pro-
visions. When about to depart, Mrs. Inglis exchanged
her tomahawk with one of the three Frenchmen in the
company, as he was sitting on one of the big bones
cracking walnuts. They hastened to the Ohio River,
and proceeded unmolested up the stream, — in about
five days coming opposite the village their captors and
they had lived at, at thn mouth of the Scioto. There
they found an empty cabin, and remained for the night.
In the morning they loaded a horse, browsing near by,

FIRST EXPLORATIONS OF KENTUCKY. 63

with corn, and proceeded up the river, escaping obser-
vation, although in sight of the Indian village and In-
dians for several hours.

" Although the season was dry and the rivers low,
the Big Sandy was too deep to cross at its mouth ; so
they followed up its banks until they found a crossing
on the driftwood. The horse fell among the logs, arid
could not be extricated. The women carried what
corn they could, but it was exhausted long before they
reached the Kanawha, and they lived upon grapes,
black walnuts, pawpaws, and sometimes roots. These
did not long satisfy the old Dutch woman, and, frantic
with hunger and exposure, she threatened, and several
days after at twilight actually attempted, the life of her
companion. Mrs. Inglis escaped from the grasp of the
desperate woman, outran her, and concealed herself
awhile under the river-bank. Proceeding along by the
light of the moon, she found a canoe — the identical
one in which the Indians had taken her across the river
five months before — half filled with dirt and leaves,
without a paddle or a pole near. Using a broad splin-
ter of a fallen tree, she cleared the canoe, and con-
trived to paddle it to the other side. In the morning
the old woman discovered her, and with strong prom-
ises of good behavior begged her to cross over and keep
her compa-ny ; but she thought they were more likely
to remain friends with the river between them. Though
approaching her former home, her condition was grow-
ing hopeless : her strength almost wasted away, and
her limbs had begun- to swell from1 wading cold streams,
frost, and fatigue. The weather was- growing cold, and
a light snow fell. At length, after forty days and a
half of remarkable endurance, during, which she trav-

64 KENTUCKY.

eled not less than twenty miles a day, she reached a
clearing and the residence of a friendly family, by
whose kind and judicious treatment she was strong
enough in a few days to proceed to a fort near by, and
the next day she was restored to her husband. Help
was sent to the Dutch woman, and she, too, recovered.
One of the little boys died in captivity, not long after
the forced separation; the other remained thirteen years
with the Indians before his father could trace him up
and secure his ransom. Mrs. Inglis died in 1813, aged
eighty-four. Her family was one of the best, and her
daughters married men who became distinguished." *

In 1765 Colonel George Croghan, who had pre-
viously visited the Ohio with Gist, made a surveying
journey down that stream from Pittsburg 16 the Mis-
sissippi. The survey was of the rudest sort ; he made
an error of ninety-seven miles in his estimate of the
distance from Pittsburg to the junction of the Ohio
and Mississippi, and similar errors in all his determina-
tions, but his work deserves to be remembered as the
first effort to do surveying in this basin. In 1766 a
party of five persons, including a mulatto slave, under
the command of Captain James Smith, explored a large
part of what is now Tennessee, and probably extended
their journey through Southern Kentucky.

Journeys to Kentucky now became frequent. Every
year sent one or more parties of pioneers to one part
or another of the country. In 1769 Daniel Boone
and five companions, all from the Yadkin settlements
in North Carolina, came to Eastern Kentucky. One
of the party was killed, but Boone remained, while
his companions returned to their homes. Thus it will
1 Collins, ii. p. 53.

FIRST EXPLORATIONS OF KENTUCKY. 65

be seen that Boone's first visit was relatively late in
the history of Kentucky explorations. Almost every
part of its surface had been traversed by other ex-
plorers before this man, who passes in history as the
typical pioneer, set foot upon its ground. In the time
between 1770 and 1772 George Washington, then a
land-surveyor, majje two surveys in the region which
is now the northeast corner of Kentucky, included in
the present counties of Greenup, Boyd, and Lawrence.

The reader should bear in mind the fact that these
movements were made in the face of grave dangers
from the Southern Indians. The Shawnees, the most
warlike of the Western tribes, had, it is true, been driven
from their settlements in Kentucky, but the land was
claimed by the Cherokees, a numerous and combative
association of tribes. In 1756 the Earl of Loudon,
then commander of the British troops in America and
Governor of Virginia, built a fort on the Tennessee
River, about thirty miles from where Knoxville now
stands. In 1758 the celebrated Colonel Bird erected
another fort. These forts held garrisons of several hun-
dred men, and were mounted with cannon. Despite
the strength of these outposts they were overwhelmed
by the Indians, and their garrisons destroyed or forced
into disgraceful retreat. The influence of the French
made it impossible to effect any permanent agreement
with the savages. Thus the early settlers who moved
into Kentucky were compelled to face the dangers of
combat with warlike tribes, emboldened by success in
their combats with the whites.

The singular feature about all these early wander-
ings in Kentucky is, that although they had been going
on for thirty years or more, many of the explorers
5

G6 KENTUCKY.

returning two or three times to the ground, they wero
moved more by the spirit of adventure than by any dis-
tinct love of gain or idea of permanent settlement. To
make a perilous journey into the dark and bloody bat-
tle-ground of the Indians, and then to return with many
stories of hair -breadth escapes and a scalp or two,
seems to have been the motive an(^ the end of these
numerous expeditions. It is noteworthy that there is
no trace of a search for precious metals in all these ex-
peditions. That greed of gold, which was so prominent
a feature in the early explorations of Virginia, was
wanting in the colonization of Kentucky. This desire,
never so strong in the English as in the Spanish set-
tlers of America, appears to have been quite dead in
the latter part of the seventeenth century in the colo-
nies of the former people. About 1770 the favorable
reports of these explorers began to move the minds of
a more agricultural class, and from that time onward
the idea of colonization and possession became more
common. The system of the Virginia land-office, which
permitted people to " locate " on any unoccupied land,
making their own surveys and marking their own boun-
daries, favored this first stage of settlement.

CHAPTER VII.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS.

THE first distinct effort to found a colony was made
by James Harrod and about forty companions, who
found their way down the Ohio near to where Louis-
ville now stands, and thence by land to what is now
Mercer County, in Central Kentucky, where they estab-
lished, on June 16, 1774, a village which they called, in
honor of their leader, Harrodsburg. Earlier attempts
at settlement were made at Louisville, but the fear of
Indians caused the speedy abandonment of this post.
At other points the explorers occasionally made tempo-
rary habitations, tilled a crop of maize for subsistence,
and then continued their wanderings. But Harrodsburg
was the first deliberate settlement of importance, and
the first that was intended to be permanent.1 In 1775
other and stronger footholds were gained. Boone built
a fort in what is now Madison County, and Logan an-
other at St. Asaphs, in Lincoln County.

The settlement of Kentucky was greatly favored by
the decisive victory gained by Lord Dunmore's troops
over the Indians from the north of the Ohio, at the
mouth of the Kanawha. This battle, known as Point
Pleasant, was the first pitched battle between the Ohio
Indians and the whites, in which the savages had no
aid from the French. Although the Indians fought
1 See Collins, ii. p. 517.

68 KENTUCKY.

with great bravery, prolonging the combat for a whole
day, they were in the end completely routed, with great
loss, and signed a treaty abandoning the whole country
south of the Ohio to the whites. The signal nature of
their defeat, even more than their treaty, caused the
principal Ohio tribes for several years to be wary of
venturing into Kentucky, where they knew they would
encounter men of the same quality. This victory, though
bought with a loss of about one hundred of the colonial
troops, was of priceless value to the Kentucky settle-
ments. It not only diminished the fear of the Ohio
Indians in this colony, but for a time, at least, it opened
the road to Kentucky by way of the Ohio. Moreover,
as many of the heroes of Point Pleasant afterward
settled in Kentucky, it gave confidence to its settlers in
their subsequent combats with the aborigines.

That the process of possessing the land was going
on with speed may be seen from the fact that Hender-
son and Company, land-agents at Boon esboro ugh, issued
from their office in the new-built fort entry certificates
of surveys for five hundred and sixty thousand acres of
land. The process of survey was of the rudest kind,
but it served the purpose of momentary definition of the
areas made it possible to deal with the land as a com-
modity, and left the tribulations concerning boundaries
to the next generation. These land deeds were given
as of the " colony of Transylvania," which was in fact
the first appellation of Kentucky, a name by which it
was known for several years before it received its pres-
ent appellation.

At this time, the last year that the work of settling
Kentucky was done under the authority of his majesty
King George the Third, there were probably about one

EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 69

hundred and fifty men who had placed themselves in
settlements that were intended to be permanent within
the bounds of what is now the Commonwealth of Ken-
tucky. There may have been as many more doing the
endless exploring work which preceded the choice of a
site for their future homes. The men at Boorie's Sta-
tion claimed, and seem to have been awarded, a sort of
hegemony among the settlements. On the 23d of May,
at the call of Colonel Henderson, the land-agent of the
proprietors, delegates from these settlements met at
Boonesborough, and drew up a brief code of nine laws
for the government of the young Commonwealth. This,
the first legislative body ever assembled in the region
west of the Alleghanies, met with all the important
forms of a colonial government. The speech of the act-
ing governor, Colonel Henderson, reads like the address
of a British sovereign from the throne, with a slight
addition of frontier flourishes. The chairman of the
convention answered him in equally formal phrase,
and, after a day or two of preamble, the unhoused par-
liament proceeded to business, passing the following
laws 1 : —

1. An act to establish courts of judicature and regu-
lating the practice therein.

2. An act for regulating the militia.

3. An act for the punishment of criminals.

4. An act to prevent profane swearing and Sabbath-
breaking.

5. An act for writs of attachment.

6. An act for ascertaining clerks' and sheriffs' fees.

7. An act to preserve the range (that is, the right
of public pasture).

1 See Collins's Kentucky, vol. ii. p. 508.

70 KENTUCKY.

8. An act for preserving the breed of horses.

9. An act for preserving game.

The foregoing laws have not come down to us in
detail ; we have only their titles, two of which merit
notice. The Puritanic quality of the fourth of these
commandments is balanced by the livelier quality ol
the eighth.1

The Boonesborough parliament adjourned to meet
in September, but it never reassembled. The venture
which led to its institution fell altogether to ruin, and
the name of Transylvania has been almost entirely for-
gotten. We cannot afford the space to give more than
an outline of this curious fragment of Western history.

The colony of Transylvania rested on a purchase of
about beventeen million acres, or about one half the
present area of Kentucky, which was made by some
people of North Carolina from the Overhill Cherokee
Indians, a part of the great tribe that dwelt on the
Holston River. For this land the unfortunate adven-
turers paid the sum of £10,000 of English money.
This was a form of land-grabbing by purchase from the
Indians peculiar to the eighteenth century ; it not hav,
ing been at that time well affirmed that while States
could cheat Indians out of their possessions the privi-
lege was denied the private citizen. The Cherokees
knew full well that in fact they had no title in this
land to sell ; the land had probably never been in their
possession ; it was more of the nature of unowned land
than any other fertile district in the Mississippi Val-

1 The first race track in Kentucky was laid out about 1775, at
Shallow Ford Station. A man engaged in trying the paces of his
horse upon this track was shot by an Indian secreted in a neighbor-
ing cane-brake. See Collins, ii. p. 521. ,

EARLY SETTLEMENTS.

71

ley ; it was, in fact, a lot of common ground where
there was no lord of the manor.

Immediately after the Boonesborough parliament the
position of the Transylvania company became very in-
secure ; its own people began to doubt the validity of
the titles they had obtained from the company, because,
after a time, they learned from various sources that
the lands of this region of Kentucky had been pre-
viously ceded to the English government by the Six
Nations, and were included in the Virginia charter. In
the latter part of 1775 eighty men of the Transylvania
settlement signed a memorial asking to be taken under
the protection of Virginia ; or, if that colony thought it
best, that their petition might be referred to the Gen-
eral Congress. This protest is a remarkably sober and
well- written document, which gives us a high opinion
of the character of the men who prepared it.1

The proprietors of the colony made their answer to
this rebellion by sending a delegate to the Federal
Congress at Philadelphia, who was to request that the
colony of Transylvania be added to the number of the
American colonies. Their petition set forth that " the
memorialists, having made this purchase from the abo-
rigines and immemorial possessors, the sole and uncon-
tested owners of the country, in a free and open treaty,
and without the violation of any British or American
law whatever, are determined to give it up only with
their lives." 2 Nothing came of this protest. Congress
refused to seat their delegate, Patrick Henry and Jef-
ferson, then representing Virginia, opposing the efforts
of the proprietors. The Governor of North Carolina

J See Hall's Sketches of History in the West, vol. ii. pp. 236-239.
2 Collins, ii. p. 512. '

72 KENTUCKY.

issued a proclamation declaring their purchase illegal.
The colony gradually fell to pieces, though the State
of Virginia took no decided action with reference to it
until in 1778 that Commonwealth declared the acts of
the company void, but, in a generous spirit, offered com-
pensation to Colonel Henderson and the other adven-
turers. The Transylvania company received two hun-
dred thousand acres of valuable lands, and their sales to
actual settlers were confirmed by an act of the Virginia
Assembly.

Thus the strongest, though not the first, colony of
Kentucky, was a misadventure and quickly fell to
pieces, but during its short life it did more to affirm the
position of the whites on this ground than all the other
settlements put together. That at Harrodsburg and
other ventures beyond the Transylvania company's con-
trol were made without any moral support from beyond
the mountains. Although the men who founded them
were doubtless personally brave, they had not the cour-
age to face at once the toils of the wilderness and the
assaults of the savage foe. The Boonesborough settle-
ments were planted by men of peculiar vigor, and were
supported by a set of very resolute people, acting as a
corporation, who had means and courage to meet emer-
gencies. Moreover, they were in a position to exercise
some choice in the character of their colonists ; they saw
to it that only men of character and courage were per-
mitted in the district.

As the Indians did not occupy Kentucky, but only
used it as an occasional hunting-ground, it was not diffi-
cult for the wary explorer to journey all over the land
without encountering their parties ; nor were the sav-
ages likely to become excited by the temporary pres-

EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 73

ence in this country of small bands of the whites,
who sought to exercise no possession. When, how-
ever, these wandering parties began to establish them-
selves on the ground the matter seemed more serious to
them. No sooner had the Harrodsburg settlement
been founded than the Indians assaulted its people. Al-
though the loss from this assault amounted to but one
man killed, his companions were so frightened that for
a time they deserted their home ; some of the panic-
stricken folk escaping through the woods to the Mis-
sissippi, and thence to New Orleans, while the others
returned to Virginia by the way they came. A portion
of these people returned the next year after the vigor-
ous colony of Boonesborough was founded, and re-
founded their village under the shadow of its protection.
It will not do to impute cowardice to these lonely pio-
neers. We can conceive their position in this vast and
unexplored forest land, without even a road to bind
them to their far-off mother country ; where at any
moment an overwhelming force of fierce enemies might
spring from the dark woods. The greatest difficulty
was to bring these little bands to a sense that they
could by determination meet and make an end of these
dangers ; that all alone in the wilderness they could
deal with this savage foe who had so recently beaten
the armies of Braddock and of Washington. This les-
son of patient, enduring courage was taught by the
Transylvania company ; it could not well have been
gained except through such strength as this vigorous
and determined company gave to its settlements.

The history of the assaults on the Boonesborough
station is much like a host of other histories of West-
ern settlements, but it has for us a special interest foi

74 KENTUCKY.

the reason that the attacks took place in the very be-
ginning of the struggle of outlying settlements with the
Indians of the Mississippi Valley, and that they were
met by small parties of isolated men, who could hope
for no aid of state or national government, and who
had no resource except what they found in themselves,
or might obtain from the proprietors of the colony.

The first task of the Transylvania company was to
cut a " trail " or horse-way from the Holston Valley to
Central Kentucky ; this work was done under the com-
mand of Daniel Boone, then a servant of the company.
It was an undertaking of no great difficulty, as the only
aim was to make a way passable to pack-horses, but it
was a work which required some time. The party con-
structing this road was observed by the hunting parties
of the Indians, and their undertaking was seen to be a
more serious matter than the previous desultory inva-
sions of their land.1 The first engagement between the
whites and Indians on Kentucky soil came at the end of
this task of road-making. Boone and his men were
sleeping without guards, when just before day the In-
dians rushed into the camp. A portion of the company
was put to flight, which did not end until they were safe
in Virginia, but the remainder rallied and held their
ground. A negro servant was killed ; Captain Twetty,
one of the leaders of the party, was killed ; and a young
man, Felix Walker, wounded. The success of the
whites in beating off the Indians, their courage in wait-
ing under arms by the side of their wounded man for
twelve days until they could carry him to the site of the
fort which they intended to build, were fortunate for
the future Commonwealth, for they thereby gained a
1 See Collins, ii. p. 497.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 75

confidence which enabled the little band to meet yet
more serious perils. Two days later the same party
of Indians assailed another camp and killed two men.
Boone's letter to Colonel Henderson gives us the first
clear view of that cool, intrepid man, who was to do so
much for the early settlement of Kentucky.1 Collins,
in his History of Kentucky, gives extracts from the
very interesting diary of Colonel Henderson. This man
was one of the heroes of his time. Born in Eastern
Virginia, of poor parents, ignorant of the alphabet until
he came to man's estate, he forced himself by sheer
strength to a high position as a leader of men. After
the dissolution of his colony he settled in the great do-
main which Virginia granted to himself and his asso-
ciates in compensation for their efforts in founding the
Transylvania colony. His diary shows that he was one
of the few frontiersmen who could admire the beauties
of the world about him even amid the cares that beset
the colonist.2

Bringing their wounded man with them, Boone has-
tened to the point on the Kentucky River which he had
chosen for his stronghold. The position was well
taken. It was on the south side of the principal river
of the State, sufficiently advanced to protect a large
tract of country by receiving the blow of invasions, and
not too remote to hope to maintain its connections with
the base of supplies in Virginia and North Carolina.
The settlements in East Tennessee defended this part
of Kentucky from the Southern Indians.

The Virginia experience with Indian warfare had al-
ready shown the best method of making a simple fortifi-
cation that would serve well both for shelter and for de-
1 Collins, ii. p. 498. 2 Collins, ii. p. 500.

76 KENTUCKY.

fense against savage warfare. The Boonesborough fort
is a type of all these early fortifications, and as the first
Kentucky stronghold merits a brief description. The
fort was laid out as a parallelogram, about two hundred
and fifty feet long and one hundred and twenty-five feet
wide ; at the four corners log-houses, each two stories
high, were built ; the part of the walls of those block-
houses that lay beyond the fort were without windows,
but pierced with loopholes, from which a clearing fire
could be delivered along the curtains of the fort. The
sides were formed in part by the outer walls of cabins,
and in part by lines of stockade, made by placing
squared timbers vertically in the ground and binding
them together by a horizontal stringer or stay-piece on
the inside near the top. The steep roofs of the houses
were covered with thick slabs or riven beams, held in
their places by means of horizontal bars of wood laid
upon them and tied by withes to the rafters. Iron was
little used in these early constructions of the wilderness,
and to this day houses are built in the mountain dis-
tricts of Kentucky which do not contain a pound of the
metal. Two gates of stout framed wood in the middle
of the longer side, commanded on the inside by the
small windows on the inside faces of the houses, and on
the outside by the loopholes of the block-houses, com-
pleted the outlines of this primitive castle. As long as
artillery was not used — and in the early fights it usu-
ally had no place — such defenses were all that could be
desired. The central square gave a large space for herd-
ing cattle. Each cabin was separately defensible, and
the tolerably complete separation of the several houses
made them safe from conflagrations ; one cabin could be
burned without involving the destruction of the others.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 77

This system of a defensive village differs in certain
ways from anything known in other countries. I have
been unable to find that it had been used at an earlier
period in other parts of America outside of the Southern
colonies : it probably never was used in Europe. It is
likely that it is a modification of the Indian stockade, al-
ready known to the early settlers. It is an admirable
adaptation of the defensive quality of the log-house to
the modern rifle ; when defended by a score or two of
deliberate and determined men, such a fort cannot be
taken by escalade, for each block-house is a keep that
has to be taken by a special assault. The only risk is
from an enemy being able to fire the houses, but with a
sufficient supply of water a fire can readily be extin-
guished from the inside. Although there was no care
in providing these structures with a moat or ditch, they
proved remarkably successful forts, and were never car-
ried against a reasonably good resistance. This pattern
of stronghold became the type of all stations constructed
in Kentucky and elsewhere.

The weapon of these pioneers, the small-bored, long,
heavy-barreled rifle, was the best gun that has ever
been used by the frontiersman in the forest. Its small
charge made the supply of lead and powder less diffi-
cult than it would otherwise have been, and up to one
hundred and fifty yards (the ordinary limit of forest
ranges) it was an exceedingly accurate weapon. With
one hundred sturdy men for a garrison it would be very
difficult to take such a fortification, even with well-dis-
ciplined troops ; against Indian attacks it never failed
to prove a sufficient defense.

The contest with the Indians went on in a desultory
way while the Boonesborough fort was building ; but it

78 KENTUCKY.

was not until two years after its construction, when the
Revolutionary War had begun and Point Pleasant had
been forgotten, that the Indians assailed it in force.
On the 15th of April, 1777, a fierce assault was made
upon it by a small party of savages ; but the Indians
were beaten off with considerable loss, while that of the
whites was trifling. On the 4th of July of the same
year another attack was made, in which the Indians
again lost so heavily that they hurriedly left the coun-
try.

On the 8th of August, 1778, they returned in much
larger force. The attack which they now made was
not like the others, a mere raid of wandering parties ;
the Revolutionary War was now so far advanced that
the savages were under the lead of British officers, and
uuder their direction acted with far more skill than
they could do alone. In this last great attack the fort
was summoned by a British officer acting under his own
flag, so that this capital little event deserves a place
among the actions of the Revolutionary War. When
summoned to surrender, Boone obtained two days for
deliberation, which appears to have been granted under
singular conditions, for it is stated that he used the
time in getting the cattle into the fort, and in other
preparations for resistance. He then, with the unani-
mous approval of his garrison, resolved to withstand a
siege. After this well-contrived beginning, Boone, who
seems to have had a rather unsuspicious nature, ac-
cepted an invitation to go with eight of his men be-
yond the walls of the fort for further treaty. After
some parleying the enemy attempted to capture the
party, but they escaped to the fort under a fire that
wounded onlv one man. The active sieo-e of several

o

EARLY SETTLEMENTS.

79

days proved fatal to a large number of the assailants.
The British commander then endeavored to drive a tun-
nel from the river bank into the fort ; but this was dis-
covered in time, and effectually countermined by the
defenders. On the next day the siege was raised, the
Indians having sustained a loss, it is said, of thirty-
seven killed, while the loss of the garrison was only
two killed and four wounded.

After this, the last siege of Boonesborough, the forti-
fied posts of Kentucky were rapidly pushed into the
fertile and attractive Blue Grass region of Central Ken-
tucky, and soon became so numerous that Boone's Sta-
tion was no longer of importance, and other posts re-
ceived the blows which the Indians delivered against
the increasing settlements.

In December, 1776, Kentucky County was divided
from the County of Fincastle in Virginia, Harrodsburg
being designated as a county seat. This was the first
legislative recognition on the part of the mother colony
of the individuality of the western settlements. Hith-
erto Kentucky had been legally only the western fringe
of the outermost Virginia county.

The pressure of the Revolutionary War upon the re-
sources of Virginia was so serious that we find no rec-
ognition of the Kentucky settlements during the year
1777. But in 1778, the raids of the Indians in Ken-
tucky having evidently been instigated by the British,
Colonel George Rogers Clark, who was afterward to
play a large part in Western affairs, was sent with an
expedition against the posts in Illinois. With one hun-
dred and thirty-five men, mostly persons who had been
trained in Indian warfare, he made a very remarkable
forced march through the wilderness from the Ohio

80 KENTUCKY.

River to Kaskaskia, and captured the place by surprise.
In swift succession he took Cahokia and Vincennes.
Coming in the same summer with the great failure of
the British and Indians in the third siege of Boories-
borough, these important events did much to affirm the
position of the Kentucky settlements. The pioneers
were yet to endure severe tests, but their achievements
gave them a measure of their strength and a gauge of
valorous actions, so that henceforth they felt strong
enough to maintain their place. Their victories made
the ground seem their own.

At the end of his campaign Clark built a fort at the
falls of the Ohio, the first stronghold on this stream.
By one of his swift movements he repossessed himself
in February, 1779, of Viucennes, which the British
from Detroit, under Governor Hamilton, had recaptured
in December. In the next year, inspired by the suc-
cess of his campaigns, another movement was carried
north from the Ohio against the Indians at Chillicothe.
This expedition was beaten back to Kentucky, but the
Indian town was burned and two chiefs killed.

By the end of this year that part of Kentucky which
lies north of the Kentucky River had been occupied
by several small stations. Notwithstanding the Revo-
lutionary War, perhaps in part on account of the dis-
turbances which it brought about in Eastern Virginia, a
heavy immigration into Kentucky began in 1780. The
annual tide of immigration in this and the following
years must have amounted to at least five thousand
souls per annum. Three hundred boats, containing at
least three thousand people, descended the Ohio to
Louisville this year. Monette estimates that the popu-
lation in 1783 amounted to about 12,000. In 1784 it is

EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 81

estimated that it amounted to 30,000. In this and
many following years the work of war and settlement
went on together. A column of British and Indians
about six hundred strong, with two pieces of artillery,
penetrated Eastern Kentucky and captured two stations
near where Paris now stands. They did not remain to
try conclusions with the settlers, who swiftly gathered
to meet them, but escaped in safety to Detroit, whence
they came. The blow was revenged by a counter
stroke from the ever ready Clark, who first built a
block-house fort at Cincinnati, where the British had
crossed the stream, to guard against future raids up the
Licking Valley, and then went northwards to ravage
the towns of Piqua and Chillicothe.

Settlements now began to spring up all over the area
of good lauds. The Virginia government erected a fort
on the Mississippi, a few miles below the junction of the
Ohio, thus marking the westernmost limits of the col-
ony. The original county of Kentucky was divided
into three : Jefferson, Lincoln, and Fayette, each with a
military commander having the rank of colonel, who
had under him a surveyor-general of lands.

The year 1781 was an uneventful one, the only seri-
ous action being an assault on the garrison of the Mis-
sissippi fort by the Chickasaws and Cherokees, which,
though repulsed, was ominous of trouble to come, for it
brought those tribes, which had previously given little
trouble to the whites, into the list of their numerous
enemies.

The establishment of this fort was the work of Gov-
ernor Jefferson. It was an unnecessary demonstration
of energy, such as is apt to happen when an effort is
made to manage the difficult business of governing a
6

82 KENTUCKY.

colony with a long arm. Against this blunder we may
set the general sagacity and liberality of Virginia's man-
agement of Kentucky affairs. Even in the distress
of the Revolution, she had always something to spare
for her more sorely tried children of the western hills,
and no Virginian ever had a warmer heart towards
Kentucky than Jefferson. He had a keen imagination,
and a singular power of projecting his sympathies afar.
In the preceding year he had secured a large gift of
lands for the work of education in Kentucky. Virginia
had nothing else to give, and the gift was an easy one
to make ; but it deserves to be remembered that in the
time of severest trial the mother colony bethought her-
self of the intellectual interests of these far-away chil-
dren.

In 1782, the struggle with the British and Indians
was even more fierce and sanguinary than in the pre-
ceding years. In March, a party of about seventy-five
Wyandot Indians crossed the Kentucky River above
Boonesborough ; their presence in the country was made
known by the fact that a raft which they had used
in crossing the river, and then turned adrift, floated by
the fort. The commander of the fort, who with the
sagacity of the frontiersman correctly interpreted this
sign, sent runners to warn the neighboring stations.
The men of Estill's Station went in search of the enemy,
but in the chances of the forest did not come upon the
savages until they had been to the station and killed a
young woman within sight of the fort. Near Mount
Sterling the pursuing whites caught up with the enemy
and at once assailed them. At first the Indians were
driven back, but their chief being sorely wounded they
rallied about him. The whites followed their usual

EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 83

tactics, and detached six of their twenty-five men to
turn the Indian flank and deprive them of the protec-
tion that the timber afforded them. These men of the
flanking party were seized with a panic and fled ; the
remaining Indians rushed upon the diminished force of
the whites, and after a fierce hand-to-hand struggle
drove them from the ground. Estill, the commander,
was killed, and six of his men met their death from the
tomahawk. Measured by the forces engaged or the loss
in killed, the affair was a trifling one ; but it showed in
the Indians a quality of determination which indicated
that they were becoming better skilled and steadier in
warfare, and that they were, numbers for numbers, quite
the equal of the whites.

In August of this year, a party of whites, under Cap-
tain Holder, attacked a party of Indians at the upper
Blue Licks, arid was worsted, with a loss of four men.
In the same month a force of six hundred Indians be-
longing to various tribes, and commanded by the famous
Simon Girty, moved unseen across the northern part
of the State and surprised Bryan's Station, situated at
a point about five miles north of Lexington. Fortu-
nately, the fifty men of the station were engaged in night
preparations for an expedition to avenge Holder's de-
feat. This deterred Girty from his purpose of carrying
the neglected and weak fortification by storm, for the
notes of preparation within it satisfied him that his
movement was discovered. But it was not until the
gate was thrown open to permit the marching forth
of the command on their way to the Blue Licks that
a volley from the savages showed the whites that they
had a foe at their doors. They were in no condition
for effective defense ; their palisades needed repair, and

84 KENTUCKY.

the fort was destitute of water, the spring being at a
considerable distance from the gates. This want of
water was a common difficulty in these stations, and in
several sieges led to great suffering. At first sight it
seems a very stupid neglect of the most ordinary pre-
cautions, yet, like the other stupidities of a clear-headed
and generally prudent people, it admits of explanation.
The first necessity of a station was that it should have
a salubrious site, and this is never obtainable at points
where a spring breaks forth. The fact that at almost
any point in Kentucky a well will procure water was
as yet unknown, and was against the prevailing opinion
of the time, which was that the water all ran in special
underground streams. Some notice of invasions was
always hoped for, giving time for water enough to be
stored in the fort to meet the needs of a siege.

The garrison of the station acted quickly and effect-
ually. Two mounted messengers at once broke through
the Indian lines to carry warning to other stations.
Everything depended on these runners getting away,
and many of the most valorous acts of this border war-
fare centre around these sallies. Then the women were
told that the safety of the fort demanded that they un-
dertake to bring a supply of water from the spring, the
leaders judging that the Indians would not fire on them,
as thereby they would unmask their place of assault.
The event showed that they estimated their foe rightly.
These brave creatures went in a body to the spring, and
returned with a supply large enough to meet all needs.
It is probable that the reader will not altogether like
this episode. It seems an ungallant thing for men be-
hind barricades to send women into the open before the
guns of an enemy. Yet as we cannot question th

EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 85

valor of these men, we are forced to believe that it cost
them more to send the women on such au errand than
to have charged upon the hidden foe ; we must, how-
ever unwillingly, admire the clear-sighted craft that
remedied their otherwise fatal deficiency.

As soon as the fort was supplied with water, the
leader, Captain Craig, made another shrewd move. A
detachment of thirteen of the younger men was sent
out to attack the savages, who had made a feint against
the side of the fort away from the spring. They were
to fire as fast as possible and make a great din, in order
that the force presumably in ambush on the spring side,
supposing that the whole garrison was engaged in the
sally, might make their contemplated assault on the
point which they expected to find undefended. The plan
succeeded as it deserved. The principal body of the
enemy believed that the whole garrison had been in-
veigled into a battle beyond the walls. The party of
Indians making the feint rapidly fell back, as they were
instructed to do, and as soon as the sound of firing
showed that their pursuers were far from the fort, the
main body of Indians, several hundred in number,
sprang from their hiding-places and rushed upon the
seemingly unmanned wall. They met the steady fire
of forty well-aimed rifles, and, after a courageous as-
sault, were beaten back with great loss. While the foe
was endeavoring to carry this wall, the party that had
made the sally, informed by the firing that their work
was done, returned through the opposite gateway, before
the foe, baffled in their assault, had closed around the
fort for a regular siege.

The mounted men who broke through the Indian
lines at dawn found the Lexington garrison on its way

86 KENTUCKY.

to Blue Licks. By hard marching, these men, a part
on horseback and a part on foot, hastened to the fort.
Girty, knowing that messengers had broken out, laid an
ambush for the returning forces near the station, where
the narrow road was bordered on one side by high corn
and on the other by a dense wood. The eager rescuers
fell into the trap, but the horsemen knew that to turn
about would be fatal, since it would give the foe time
for aiming ; so they spurred through the fire and won
the fort, their speed and the cloud of dust making the
aim of the excited savages so poor that none of them
were killed. Scurrying horsemen are bad targets, and
the western rifle, on account of its length and weight, is
the worst possible arm for use on moving objects ; more-
over the Indian appears always to have been less steady
under the strain of excitement than the white man.
The footmen who were creeping to the fort through the
maize came to the rescue of the horsemen, to be scat-
tered before the tenfold force of their enemy ; but most
of them, owing to the shelter of the high-growing In-
dian corn, escaped ; only six were killed. When night
came Girty was discouraged. His force had lost heav-
ily, the beleaguered garrison had received a daring re-
enforcement, and he knew that overwhelming forces
would soon be upon him from neighboring stations.
Whatever was to be done must be done at once. There-
fore, sheltering himself in the darkness, he crept to a
place behind a stump, whence he hailed the garrison
and demanded their surrender. The colloquy is so pic-
turesque that we give it as Collins tells it : l —

" He highly commended their courage, but assured
tliem that further resistance would be madness, as he
l See Collins, ii. p. 190.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 87

bad six hundred warriors with him, and was in hourly
expectation of reinforcements with artillery, which
would instantly blow their cabins into the air ; that if
the fort was taken by storm, as it certainly would be
when their cannon arrived, it would be impossible for
him to save their lives ; but if they surrendered at once,
he gave them his word that not a hair of their heads
should be injured. He told them his name, inquired
whether they knew him, and assured them that they
might safely trust to his honor.

" The garrison listened in silence to his speech, and
many of them looked very blank at the mention of the
artillery, as the Indians had, on one occasion, brought
cannon with them and destroyed two stations. But a
young man by the name of Reynolds, highly distin-
guished for courage, energy, and a frolicsome gayety
of temper, perceiving the effect of Girty's speech, took
upon himself to reply to it.

" To Girty's inquiry, ' whether the garrison knew
him,' Reynolds replied, * that he was very well known ;
that he himself had a worthless dog, to which he had
given the name of " Simon Girty," in consequence of
his striking resemblance to the man of that name ; that
if he had either artillery or reinforcements, he might
bring them and be d — d ; that if either himself or any
of the naked rascals with him found their way into the
fort, they would disdain to use their guns against them,
but would drive them out again with switches, of which
they had collected a great number for that purpose
alone ; and finally, he declared that they also expected
reinforcements ; that the whole country was marching
to their assistance, and that if Girty and his gang of
murderers remained twenty -fonr hours longer before

88 KENTUCKY.

the fort, their scalps would be found drying in the sun
upon the roofs of their cabiiis.'

" Girty took great offense at the tone and language
of the young Kentuckian, and retired with an expres-
sion of sorrow for the inevitable destruction which
awaited them on the following morning. He quickly
rejoined the chiefs, and instant preparations were made
for raising the siege. The night passed away in un-
interrupted tranquillity, and at daylight in the morning
the Indian camp was found deserted. Fires were still
burning brightly, and several pieces of meat were left
upon their roasting-sticks, from which it was inferred
that they had retreated a short time before daylight."

Not long after the Indians decamped, forces from
other stations began to arrive ; by noon there was a
party of one hundred and sixty men together. As the
Indian force was estimated at six hundred, and as ex-
perience had proved that this race was as formidable
after defeat as after victory, prudent advisers counseled
waiting until a larger force was gathered. Such a delay
was likely, however, to give the Indians a chance to
escape altogether ; so, although Boone, Todd, Trigg, and
forty-five other commissioned officers were in the coun-
cil of war, immediate pursuit was undertaken. It will
be observed that even in this early day the proportion
of titled men to the untitled was about one in three,
but they deserved their brevets. Late on the morning
of the 19th of August the speedy march brought the
pioneers upon Girty's force. It was evident to Boone
and the other more deliberate soldiers that the Indians
were loitering with the expectation of pursuit ; and to
any men disposed to take counsel of their fears the sit-
uation of the whites was at least a very grave ope.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 89

They were in face of thrice their number, from whom
even to receive an attack would have been extremely
perilous. To give such an overwhelming foe the im-
mense advantage which in forest contests belongs to the
defender is madness to any but these wild spirits thirst-
ing for vengeance. The true military policy would
have been to fall back towards the oncoming force of
three hundred men under Logan of Lincoln. After
that the best thing would have been to fortify them-
selves where they were, and await the attack which the
Indians would probably deliver. Boone was the natural
leader of the force, and though a cool-headed man was
too diffident to assert his opinions.

Todd was actually in command, if any one could
have been deemed in command of such an undisciplined
body. Boone advised either that they await the coming
of Logan, or that if an immediate attack were resolved
upon their party be divided and a portion used for a
flank attack, so as to deprive the savages of the full
measure of protection which the timber would afford
against an assault in front. He knew the country well,
and while a thoroughly brave man, he was disposed to
fight with foresight and an eye to the shifts of the wary
race he had been combating for the previous ten years.
While the deliberation was going on, a certain Major
McGary swung his hat in the air and cried, " Let all
who are not cowards follow me." This was a challenge
that made an end of deliberation. Among the men of
that day a banter to any act of daring was a thing not
to be considered, but to be accepted without debate.

The whole party, horse and foot commingled, rushed
into the Licking River and struggled to the opposite
shore. Before them was a slope, worn bare by the

90 KENTUCKY.

trampling of the buffalo on the way to the salt springs
which lay a little beyond. Pursuing this path of the
wild cattle, they went pell-mell for the distance of a
mile before they encountered the enemy. Wearied and
disordered by their long charge they came at last to a
point where the ridge they were traversing was cut by
bush-clad ravines on either side. Then at once from
the dense, brushy wood there came upon them a with-
ering fire from the Indian rifles, which quickly brought
them to a stand. When the advance of the whites was
arrested, the Indians skillfully began to extend their
lines so as to enfold the thinned ranks of the whites as
in a net. As soon as this object became plain, a panic
as wild as their late confidence seized on these men,
and they rushed back towards the river with the In-
dians in furious pursuit. There was a fierce struggle
at the ford, where the tide of flight and chase plunged
together into the stream. A score or so of the horse-
men succeeded in crossing the stream before the mass
of the fugitives were overwhelmed by their pursuers.
One of their number, by the name of Netherland, who
had previously been regarded as cowardly, succeeded
in rallying some of his comrades, so that he brought a
well-directed fire upon the advancing enemy, arresting
for a moment the pursuit. But for this action few of
the footmen would have escaped. As it was, the respite
was brief. The Indians crossed the river above and
below the ford, and sought to surround the fugitives.
The beaten Kentuckians dispersed through the forest,
finding their way by circuitous routes to their homes.

In this action the loss of the whites was about sixty-
seven killed and seven made prisoners, or near one half
the men engaged. It amounted to about one tenth, of

EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 91

the fighting men in Central Kentucky, and unhappily
included a very large number of the natural leaders of
the settlements. Colonels Todd and Trigg, Majors
Harlan and Bulger, and Captains Gordon, Bulger, Mc-
Bride, and Lindsey, were among the slain. Boone's
son Israel was mortally wounded in the fight ; his fa-
ther succeeded in bearing him from the field and into
the forest, beyond the line of the struggle, where, alone,
he watched him until he died.

This terrible defeat seemed for a moment to cow
the spirit of the settlers. Even Boone, in a letter to
the Governor of Virginia, said that unless five hundred
troops were sent to aid in the defense, the country could
hardly be held. This feeling was, however, but mo-
mentary. When Colonel Clarke called for troops to
avenge this raid of the Indians by a foray into Ohio,
nearly a thousand men answered his summons, and ren-
dezvoused at the mouth of the Licking River, where
Covington now stands. This force ravaged a number
of large Indian settlements on the upper waters of the
Great Miami, destroying a large area of corn-fields and
burning the dwellings.

The principle that appears to have underlaid the
white warfare in these years was to abstain from inva-
sions north of the Ohio, except in retaliation for Indian
raids, and then to make them much more destructive
than the blows they avenged. Thus, in time, the prin-
ciple of profit and loss led the red men to be less will-
ing to rouse a hornet's nest about their ears by their
forays. In fact, the vengeance taken for Girty's raid
was so severe that no other large concerted invasions
of Kentucky were undertaken, though for many years
small bands of Indians in search of plunder often crossed

92 KENTUCKY.

the Ohio. The treaty of peace between Great Britain
and the United States, the news of which came to this
district in the spring of 1783, also did much to end the
large and deliberate contests between the Indians and
whites.

CHAPTER VIII.

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA.

THE years 1783 and 1784 were years of consolida-
tion and growth. The population was still so scattered
that there was no commerce. It is on record that the
second store of the colony was opened in 1783, and the
third in the following year. As the white population,
within the bounds of the present State, was now some-
where about thirty thousand souls, the primitive condi-
tion of supply is indicated by these facts. In these
years the first distilleries were started. From all we
can learn, it appears that the first decade of Kentucky
life must have been lived without any considerable
amount of alcoholic stimulus. The art of brewing,
which the colonists brought from England, was lost in
Virginia, where beer was never a common drink, and
the still was a contrivance too costly to find a place in
the life of a people who had returned to very primitive
ways of living, and had nothing to spare for luxuries.

The rapid gain in confidence which came from the
natural growth of these years and the diminution of In-
dian raids shows itself in the political movements which
now began to stir among the people. The pioneers
having secured the beginnings of the State, desired to
have their future life in their own hands. On every
side arose a demand for a parting from Virginia and
for separate life. There was no clamor or ill-will in the

94 KENTUCKY.

movement, and no suggestion of enmity toward the
beloved mother colony, who had never sought to make
any profit from her western dependency. Virginia was
held in deserved affection ; she had never failed to give
help when it was called for, even in the most trying
years of the Revolution, and had never sought any rec-
ompense for her gifts.

This request for independence was received in tho
best possible spirit by Virginia. In 1786 the General
Assembly of that State passed the first act for the sep-
aration of Kentucky, setting certain conditions on which
the colony might go free. The conditions were as fol-
lows : The free white male inhabitants were to choose
five representatives from each county. These were to
determine whether the people demanded independence.
If so, they were to fix a date later than September 1,
1787, for the separation, the parting to take effect only
on condition that, prior to June 1, 1787, Congress
should assent to the admission of Kentucky into the
Federal Union.

The processes that led to this act of partition have
for us a special interest, inasmuch as they throw some
light on the conditions of society at that time. Tho
difficulties arising from the remote position of Kentucky
and the slowness of communication with Virginia be-
came evident during the struggle with the Indians. The
colony had in effect little more than the sympathy of
Virginia, for the aid in troops, though willingly given,
always came too late for defensive action. The danger
arising from savage invasion was sudden, and had to be
dealt with quite independent of the Virginia govern-
ment. It is likely that the demand for independence
would have originated even earlier than it did, but tfor

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. 95

the doubts and fears that the Revolutionary War brought
upon the country. Whatever may have been the desire
for a more effective government, which could only be
secured by independence, it could not take shape until
that momentous question was settled. The first conven-
tion intended to consider the matter of independence
was held in Danville on December 27, 1784. It was
called by General Logan and some other citizens, who
met in their private capacity in the preceding February.
They advised that each militia company in Kentucky
should elect one delegate to the convention. Thus, the
first general convention rested naturally and fitly on a
military basis. The question of parting from Virginia
was gravely debated. Despite the diversity of opinion,
there was an overwhelming majority in favor of asking
the mother government for an act of separation ; yet,
with a conservative instinct, the convention did not deem
it well to act on its own responsibility, but limited itself
to advising the citizens to choose at their annual elec-
tion a convention of twenty-five delegates, who should
determine the matter in a final way. There was every
sign of an extreme care in the way in which this ques-
tion was approached.

The patience with which the problem of separation
from Virginia was treated, both by the mother State and
by the people of the Kentucky settlements, was prob-
ably in part to be attributed to the unhappy results of
a similar experiment that was then going on in the val-
ley of the Tennessee. In 1784 North Carolina, grow-
ing impatient of the burden that her western settle-
ments imposed upon her treasury, and irritated by the
complaints of the people in those districts, passed an
act conveying to the Federal government all the lands

96 KENTUCKY.

that now constitute the State of Tennessee. The peo-
ple of the country that is now Eastern Tennessee feel-
ing themselves left without a government, made haste
to organize themselves into an independent common-
wealth, which they called, as a tribute of respect to the
illustrious philosopher, the State of Franklin. These
people applied for admission into the Union, but the
Federal government being slow and unwilling to act,
and North Carolina having repealed the act of cession
of her western provinces to the Union, the State of
Franklin came into very troubled waters for some years.
There was a conflict of authority in this region which
led to a premature decadence of the Tennessee settle-
ments, and in time to violent misrule of the country.
Some efforts were made to persuade the Kentuckians
to join themselves to the State of Franklin, a provision
having been made for such cooperation in the constitu-
tion of the experiment, but they came to nothing. The
new State gradually fell to pieces, and in 1787 its bril-
liant and able Governor, John Sevier, was put on trial
for high treason. He was released by a daring rescue,
and subsequently pardoned and restored in name to the
leadership, which he never lost in the affections of his
people. These very picturesque incidents were exceed-
ingly unprofitable to the Tenriessearis. They served,
however, to deter a part of the Kentucky people from
any rash experiments with their government.1

The second convention assembled in May, 1785, and
after deliberation decided that a separation was desira-
ble ; but, continuing their cautious course, they asked
the people to review the circumstances, which the con-

1 For a further history of the State of Franklin, see the excellent
account given by Ramsey, in his Annals of Tennessee, pp. 282 et se$.

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. 97

vention presented in the form of an address, and finally
determine the question of their political future. By the
time the third convention assembled, in the following
August, the threat of a new Indian outbreak and the
evident inefficiency of the Virginia government had in-
creased the desire to make good the independence of
the settlements, so that a rather vigorous petition for
separation was drawn up and forwarded by a committee
to the Virginia Assembly.

The Virginia Assembly promptly agreed to the
proposition, annexing thereto certain reasonable condi-
tions, the most important of which was that a fourth
convention should affirm it to be the will of the people
that they should separate, and that the Federal Con-
gress should, in advance, consent to the admission of
Kentucky into the Federal Union.

Now began a political conflict of a very curious
kind. The Federal Union was a new, and as yet un-
proven, experiment in government; the two years of
its trial had not served to show its usefulness ; on the
contrary, it seemed to be utterly without power to en-
force its authority in the West. The peace between
the United States and the British had enfeebled but
not ended the desultory war between the savages and
British on the one hand, and the Kentuckians on the
other. The British still held their fortified posts within
the American territory : the new-made peace seemed at
most a half-regarded armistice. The provisions of the
treaty which were of most importance to the Ken-
tuckians, namely, the surrender of the British posts in
the Northwest, were not carried into effect for several
years. There was a general fear that a great Indian
invasion was imminent ; small conflicts were of fre-
7

98

KENTUCKY.

quent occurrence. The fault, it must be confessed, was
in good part with the whites. Wandering bands of
whites, rough fellows, who had come to look upon the
Indians as natural enemies, were constantly committing
outrages on the Indians both north and south of Ken-
tucky. It was natural that the savages should avenge
the assaults by raids on the white settlements. The set-
tlers, knowing little of the circumstances that led to
these acts of war, were convinced that nothing but the
extermination of all the neighboring Indian tribes would
bring a permanent peace.

The United States made treaty after treaty with the
Indians, but the Federal government was as a military
power weaker than many of the separate States, and
did nothing to chastise the savages when they broke
their treaties of peace. Therefore it was natural that
the Kentucky people, who knew little about the great
difficulties in the way of the Federal government, and
who as men accustomed to vigorous action were disposed
to despise its inefficiency, should have chafed at the
limitation placed by Virginia on the consent to their
independence, which required them to sue for and gain
the consent of the Federal government before they
could have the freedom of action which seemed to them
so vitally necessary. At this point, General Wilkinson,
of Fayette County, a man well fitted for leadership, but
a conspirer by nature, as was shown by his subsequent
behavior in the Spanish intrigues, undertook to form a
party for the immediate and unconditional separation of
the settlements from Virginia. Wilkinson, for a time a
soldier in the Revolutionary Army, was a trader who
did a good deal to develop the early commerce of the
country. It appears likely that the cultivation of to-

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. 99

bacco, which furnished the first agricultural export of
the State, the first export of any kind except a few pel-
tries, was due to him. We shall have in the sequel to
trace in some detail the career of this singular man.

This scheme of secession found much approval among
the military class of the community. The natural course
of events had led to the creation of a military caste in
the settlements. The only strong organizations were
the military companies, and their commanders held a
position of peculiar honor, and naturally felt their im-
portance. In a separate state that would be sure of a
rapid development, they could expect to retain and
magnify their offices ; while under the United States
government, which had already forbidden their little
wars with the Indians beyond the Ohio, they would of
course sink into insignificance. Thus out of a milita-
rism came the first political danger of this young State.

Wilkinson succeeded by despicable tricks in securing
his election as a member of the convention that it was
hoped would finally determine the political position of
the Commonwealth. By the time the election was over,
a new political notion began to take shape in his schem-
ing brain. The treaty of peace with Great Britain
had left the question of the navigation of the Missis-
sippi in a peculiar position. The Spaniards were now
in possession of all the country on both sides of the
river below the parallel of thirty-one degrees. Holding
the banks of the Mississippi, that power had undoubted
right to control the navigation of the river below that
point to the sea. The Kentuckians, foreseeing that the
right to navigate this stream to its mouth would soon
be of the utmost importance to their development, im-
mediately began to discuss the matter of this right. It

100 KENTUCKY.

was hard for them to believe that the water which flowed
by their door could not freely bear their boats on to the
Gulf of Mexico. From the propriety and commercial
necessity of their being able to pass by it to the high
seas, they quickly proceeded to the assumption that the
right was theirs, and that only the feeble action of the
Federal government deprived them of it. This grudge
against the new central government was intensified by
the fact that, soon after the Virginia Assembly had me-
morialized Congress to the effect that the free naviga-
tion of {he Mississippi should be insisted on, John Jay,
then Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and also commis-
sioner to treat with the Spanish envoy, offered to sus-
pend the claim to this free navigation for a period of
twenty-five years, in consideration of certain other con-
cessions to American commerce that in no way inter-
ested the people of the Ohio Valley. At this time Con-
gress sat in New York ; it was a far cry to Kentucky ;
news came slowly and mostly by rumor. Wilkinson's
party — we must believe with fraudulent intent — spread
the report that it was Congress that was making this
arrangement with the Spaniards ; when in fact it was
only a matter of discussion between Mr. Jay and the
Spanish envoy, and never was presented to Congress.

Since it was evident from the turn taken in the local
debates that the people could not easily be led into a
resolution to try separation from the Federal govern-
ment, Wilkinson's party bethought themselves of an-
other device, which was that the people of the settle-
ments should see what terms could be made directly with
the Spaniards, to insure the future of the State on this
important matter of an outlet to the sea. It is evident
that there was a clear and momentous object in their

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. 101

minds ; for although Wilkinson had been elected at the
cost of many diverse expedients to the exceedingly im-
portant convention in which his- presence was neces-
sary for all the plans of his cabal, he started on a jour-
ney to New Orleans, where he remained several months.
On his return to Kentucky, he brought a curious private
trading treaty, which permitted him to import "free of
duty all the productions of Kentucky." It allowed him
to furnish tobacco to the Spanish government at about
ten cents per pound, or five times the price then paid
for it in Kentucky.

Wilkinson's return was made in great state. It is
said that he came back in a chariot drawn by four
horses, with a retinue of slaves ; but this must apply to
the last part of his journey, as there was at that time
no wagon road to the south. His friends received him
as an ambassador who had won great concessions from a
foreign sovereign, claiming that he had secured by his
personal negotiation that which the Federal government
had offered to barter away. The results of his work
were used as evidence that the Kentucky community
could do very well with its interests if the impotent Fed-
eral government no longer had a hold upon them.
John Brown, an educated gentleman who had repre-
sented Kentucky in the Virginia Assembly, and had
been appointed by that government as one of the dele-
gates to Congress, became convinced that the opposition
on the part of the Northern States to the admission of
Kentucky was very strong; and it is asserted that by
private letters he advised the abandonment of the proj-
ect of union, arid that the Kentucky people set up as an
independent State. He gave it as the result of his con-
ferences with the Spanish minister that the State of

102 KENTUCKY.

Kentucky would, if independent, be able to make terms
with that government which would not be granted to
the United States. It seems most likely that Brown
did not really intend to oppose the entrance of Ken-
tucky into the Union, but only desired to coerce the
Federal government into the admission of Kentucky by
the threat of independent action.

All these circumstances tended to give great strength
to the separatist party. To make matters worse, the
convention, called to meet at Danville, hung fire on ac-
count of the absence of many of its members on the
fruitless expedition of General Clark against the No-
bosh Indians ; and when, after months of waiting, it got
a quorum together, the question of the time of parting
from Virginia and of admission into the Union seemed
so difficult that no advance was made toward the de-
sired end. One convention followed another, each put-
ting forth the call of its successor, or being summoned
to meet by the Virginia Assembly; but it was not until
the third act for separation had been passed by Vir-
ginia, and the seventh convention had met in Kentucky,
that the parting was effected. Six years elapsed during
this period of disordered relations. It would be very
interesting to trace in detail the progress of the nego-
tiations with Virginia and the United States govern-
ment ; but though it forms one of the most important
chapters in the history of the State, it cannot be told
without taking too much of the limited space of this
volume. The matter may be briefly summed up as
follows.

Virginia was from the first willing that Kentucky
should go on the independent path which she had so
valiantly opened while a dependency, but was unwilling

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. 103

that the event should take place until the Federal Con-
gress was ready to accept Kentucky as a new State.
At tliis time Congress was wrestling with the problem
of the new constitution. The success in forming and
affirming this constitution seemed a very doubtful and
certainly was a very difficult problem. The admission
of a new State containing people known to be disaf-
fected toward the Union appeared likely further to com-
plicate the sufficiently estranged relations of the jarring
units of the government. It was perfectly natural that
the old Congress should feel it important for the admis-
sion of Kentucky to follow rather than to precede the
ratification of the new constitution.

Despite the unhapp}r results of the Franklin experi-
ment, which were now becoming evident, these delays
greatly favored the development of the disunion party ;
so that when the citizens of Virginia voted on the ques-
tion of the new constitution, although Virginia as a
whole ratified that instrument by a vote of eighty-eight
to seventy- eight, the Kentucky representatives cast but
three votes for it to eleven against it. This gives a fair
measure of the state of mind of a large part, but proba-
bly not the majority, of the people at that time. The
greater part of the political leaders of Kentucky were
incensed at the refusal of the Federal government to
receive them. They desired that the constitution should
not be adopted, so that they might, by the breaking up
of the confederation, be left free to deal with their
problems in their own way, without any obligation to
the inefficient Federal authority that controlled them
without proper representation. It was a renewal of the
motives of the Revolution of 1776, with the Federal
government in place of the British power. There can

104 KENTUCKY.

be no doubt that au extensive correspondence with the
Spanish authorities was going on in these years, and that
many leading men of the State were concerned in it,
among them Mr. Henry Innis, then attorney-general for
the district of Kentucky. But it seems probable, from
facts that will appear hereafter, that the mass of the
population was far from being in sympathy with them.

In the convention which met on the 3d of November,
1788, Wilkinson and his followers, then Itnown as the
Court party, on account of the official position of its
principal followers, developed their plans and urged im-
mediate separation from Virginia by an act of revolu-
tion and the setting up of a separate government.
They kept the relations that were to be established
with Spain for subsequent consideration, but left it to
be inferred that these were to be by treaty alone.
There is no clear evidence that any of the members of
the party seeking independence desired to effect a union
with Spain on any terms whatever. Marshall and other
writers are of the contrary opinion, but it is likely
that their opinions were colored by prejudices. When
it came to a decisive vote on the scheme of Wilkin-
son's party, it was clear that they had not a majority in
the convention in favor of a violent separation from
Virginia, though it is possible that a majority favored
an independent government after the State had been
separated in a legal way. An address was voted to
the Federal Congress, which renewed the prayer of the
people for sympathy and protection. It is a curious
document, the more curious when we remember that it
was drawn up by Wilkinson himself.1 His enemies
assert that he expected that the Federal Congress
1 Marshall, ii. 331.

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. 105

would be quite unable to grant the requests of the
petition, and that their failure to do so would enable
him to further his original plan.

With this action, the shadowy history of the Spanish
intrigues comes practically to an end. The convention
memorialized the Virginians once again concerning sep-
aration. The convention which considered this measure
found it unsatisfactory, because Virginia named certain
rights concerning lands which seemed to limit the sov-
ereignty of Kentucky. Two years went by in further
debate with the mother State concerning the details of
land administration, division of debt, and other neces-
sary preparations for admission into the Union. Dur-
ing this time the Wilkinson party seems gradually to
have abandoned their scheme for relations with Spain.
While Wilkinson went on with his trading ventures, the
others appear to have lost all interest in the matter.

There is an element of mystery in these Spanish ne-
gotiations which will probably never be cleared away.
In reviewing the evidence, it seems likely that there
were two distinct classes of men in the conspiracy.
Wilkinson and his party probably at one time desired
entire separation, and treaty relations with Spain.
There is evidence enough to make this position clear.
We cannot say the same of Brown and many other
more deliberate men. On their part it was probably a
piece of political manoeuvring that had for its object,
not a union with Spain, but the forcing of action on
the part of Virginia and the Federal government.

There is no doubt that Brown saw a real indisposi-
tion on the part of the more northern States to admit
the partition of Virginia, and also, perhaps, a certain
risk, that as Kentucky grew to be a more valuable pos-

106 KENTUCKY.

session, Virginia might be more unwilling to relinquish
her hold upon its territory. By this feint, — which,
under the circumstances, was justifiable, — Brown and
his associates managed to urge the act of separation to
completion, and so ended a ten-years' struggle for in-
dependence. In no other way can we reconcile the
sudden subsidence of the intrigue with Spain so soon
as it became clear that the separation from Virginia
could be accomplished, that the Federal government was
willing to admit them without further delay, and that
this government was likely to have strength to aid in
their development. The action of their party is not
reconcilable with the supposition that Brown and the
other men of character intended to use the separatist
movement for anything more than a threat.

Granting, however, that the object had been separa-
tion from Virginia and actual independence, there is no
real basis for accusing the Court party of anything like
treasonable intents. We must remember that the Fed-
eral Union hardly existed when the intrigues began.
The confederation of the colonists proved itself too
weak for its purposes. Virginia had given her quali-
fied assent to a separation that was universally desired
by the Kentucky people. There was as yet no place
for a true allegiance to the shadowy Federal Union in
the history of this people.

The spirit of local independence in governmental
affairs had just secured its approval in the separation of
the mother colonies from Great Britain. These colo-
nies had fought their battles with the motive of local
and not national interest. The sense of national inter-
est was a thing yet to be created. If these men desired
to stand in name, as they had stood in fact, amid the

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. 107

greatest trials that can befall a community, alone and
self-reliant, there was no shadow of a moral objection
to their so doing. They as yet owed absolutely nothing
to the nascent Federal government.

History has shown that they would have made a great
mistake if they had succeeded in accomplishing their
apparent aim. For that verdict of time they are not
responsible.

There is a remarkable likeness between the incidents
of the separatists' struggle of 1784-90, and those of the
secession movement in 1860-61. In both cases the
greater part of the leaders were for violent action, and
in both cases they made the fatal error of supposing
that the people were with them. The obstinate unwill-
ingness of the masses to be hurried in their political
action saved this people from the blunder of secession
in the critical moment of both centuries. Twice they
escaped from danger through the exercise of this sin-
gular political caution that has ever characterized their
action. The acumen of their decision in their first trial
deserves more credit than the second; in the former,
the proposition was for a separation from a government
that hardly existed, and against which many valid ob-
jections could be urged. Such a separation would have
violated no pledges whatever.

In February, 1791, Congress passed an act admitting
Kentucky, to date from the 1st of June, 1792, and on
April of the following year a convention assembled at
Danville to form a State* constitution. In these first
steps towards a union with the Federal government there
is no trace of hesitation or repining. There was no
party opposing the union ; at the time it was effected,
Wilkinson's cabal was silent, if not forgotten. The

108 KENTUCKY.

just inference is, that the only strength that this abor-
tive project had among the people was due to the fact
that they believed themselves denied admission to the
Union.

During this time, while Kentucky was pleasantly oc-
cupied with the matter of national politics, an occupation
in which they always have found the keenest interest,
there was a busy local life and a steady inflow of immi-
gration. A rough census showed that in 1790 there
were 61,133 whites, 12,430 slaves, and 114 free blacks,
or a total of 73,677. At the time of separation from
Virginia, the population had probably increased to about
100,000, for with each year there was an increase of
the tide of immigration from Virginia and Central North
Carolina.

At this time, when the settlements along the Ohio
had taken firm root, there came into Kentucky a con-
siderable immigration from the northern States of the
Union. A large number of settlers from Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, and New England found homes here. Es-
pecially was this the case with immigrants from Con-
necticut. Many families from that thrifty State settled
in Mason and the adjoining counties. The effect of
their presence was seen in the rapid development of
education in this section. Mason County became the
best schooled county in the State, and from it came a
remarkably large number of teachers, editors, and other
scholarly men. The distinguished family of Johnston,
from whom descended General Albert Sidney John-
ston and many other talented men of the name ; the
family of Wadsworth, and others are of this blood.
The total immigration of New England people proba-
bly did not amount to over fifty families, but it was an
important contribution to the life of the colony.

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. 109

Although there were no longer large invasions of the
savages from beyond the Ohio, there was still a constant
succession of small Indian raids, to the last degree har-
assing to the settlers. The greater part of the State
was still densely wooded, and through these coverts the
savages crept, searching for unprotected farm-houses
and wayfarers. Every stroke was an act of butchery.
In the early days the Indian warfare was singularly
humane ; they never outraged their women prisoners,
and rarely butchered their captives. They had now
learned a more brutal warfare from the whites. There
can be no question that the Indian customs of war were
debased by the example of their enemies.

For many years the Ohio River had been a favorite
means of transit from Virginia, for it was now the
northern part of Kentucky that was receiving the most
settlers, and the route by the Ohio was the best way to
it. The voyagers were frequently waylaid by piratical
bands of Indians, who assailed them in their canoes.
Volumes could be written about the combats and butch-
eries that took place on the river. The effective way
of remedying this evil would have been to have placed
these boats under some convoy system, but to the Ken-
tuckians the proper means seemed to be to crush the
savage in his lair.

In November, 1791, the Federal government sent a
force of regulars under St. Clair against the Indians on
the Miami. The Kentucky militia refused to volun-
teer under a commander whom they deemed with good
reason an imbecile, but clamored to be allowed to wage
the war in their own way. A thousand men were, how-
ever, drafted into the service, and ordered to march with
St. Clair. The most of these deserted ; so that when

110 KENTUCKY.

on the gray morning of November 4th the Indians as-
saulted St. Clair, he had only about one thousand men
with him, the greater part of whom were regulars. St.
Clair was tied to his tent by a fit of the gout. The In-
dians entirely surprised this force. At first it seemed as
if, despite the confusion arising from the fierce rush of
the enemy, they might hold their ground ; but there was
no reasonable effort made to follow up the temporary
success that came from the valor of certain parts of the
command, so, after some hours of brave fighting, a re-
treat was ordered that soon became a wild rout. Eight
hundred and ninety enlisted men and sixteen officers
were killed and wounded. General Richard Butler, one
of the most valuable officers of the army, was among
the slain. Only two years earlier in the history of these
settlements this catastrophe, much the most serious that
ever befell any expedition in which the Kentucky peo-
ple had been engaged, would have carried consternation
into' the hearts of the Kentuckians, but the State was
now too populous to feel the loss of men as a disas-
trous blow. Despite St. Glair's defeat, the Indian raids
were henceforth reduced to small parties creeping under
the cover of the forests. The defense of the State
was henceforth mainly intrusted to the Federal author-
ities, and the heroic time of Kentucky was ended.

It will be profitable to consider, in a general way,
the progress of events in Kentucky from the beginning
of its settlement to this time of admission into the
Union, which practically ends the pioneer epoch of its
life. The period of wild though noble development is
now to give place to a more orderly life, and to a de-
pendence on a strong Federal authority.

From the settlement of Harrodsburg in June, 1774,

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. HI

to the admission of Kentucky into the Union in June,
1792, was eighteen years. In these crowded years, full
of an incessant battle with the wilderness and its ten-
ants, a struggle in which thousands of brave men fell, a
State had been created. For nearly one half the time
during which this great work was a-doing, the parent
colony of Virginia was engaged in a war that drained
her energies to utter exhaustion.

There is no similar spectacle in history that is so
curious as this swarming of men into the wilderness
during a time when their mother country was engaged
in a life-and-death struggle. We can only explain it
through the intense land hunger that marks the Saxon
people. The thirst for land, which we find so strongly
developed in the Elizabethan English, seems to have
been transmitted to Virginia in an intenser form.
Knowing that free lands were to be won by giving
life for it, the Virginia and North Carolina people were
driven to desert their comfortable dwelling-places in
the colonies for the battle in the West. There is no
other case where this land-winning motive is so clearly
seen as here. All our other western immigration has
been fostered by the protection of the government.
These people could look to no protection but what they
gave themselves.

Twenty years of such life developed a particular sort
of man, — a kind that was never known before or since
in such numbers in any one country. It is the writ-
er's fortune to have spent his early years in a society
that still contained some few of the men who took their
shape from the life that was lived in the first three de-
cades of Kentucky civilization. They had a very pe-
culiar quality of mind. Its most characteristic feature

112 KENTUCKY.

was a certain dauntlessness, a habit of asserting the in-
dependence of all control except that of the written
law. Their speech was rude and often exaggerated.
As a class, they were much like the men of to-day in
the Rocky Mountains, except that they had not the eager
desire for gain that takes away from the charm of that
people. This advantage made the frontiersman of Ken-
tucky a much more agreeable fellow than his money-
seeking modern kinsman of the far West. He was far
more sympathetic, more externalized, than the miner of
Colorado to-day. We may infer some of the peculiar
qualities of this people from certain features in their
history. First we may notice their curious respect for
the written law. Courts of justice were at the outset
established in Kentucky, and the life was at once ad-
justed to the usages of the civil law. There^was far
less government by the mob than in the settlements of
to-day in the far West. The patience of the people
with the obstacles which legislation put to their will is
admirably shown in the long quest of independence of
the Virginia government. Year after year, though suf-
fering from serious and galling evils connected with this
system of control, they patiently petitioned for redress,
keeping not only within the limits of the Virginia law,
but retaining always a courteous, though firm attitude
in their demands. This attitude was even more char-
acteristic of the mass of the people than of the leaders.
Even when the Court party, containing the larger part
of the natural leaders of society, endeavored to lead
the State to illegal, though not altogether unjustifiable,
activities, the sense of obedience to the law led the mass
of men to stick to the true way of government.

The fact is, there was a great solidity to this people.

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. 113

None but people of character could withstand the strain
in which they lived. They were not burdened by the
weak, incompetent men who led other societies into
political debasement. The criminals, the weaklings,
and the other rejecta of society had no place in this
embattled colony. There was a large proportion of
the population composed of what may be fairly called
educated, as distinguished from instructed men. They
had far less learning than fell to the share of the orig-
inal colonies at the time of colonization, but as a rule
they were much more perfect material for citizens in a
pioneer State than fell to the lot of any of the original
settlements. They were bred in a frontier life to hab-
its of independence and self-control.

The early records of Kentucky life are too imper-
fect to afford any clear insight into the condition of
education or the intellectual motives of the pioneers.
Recently, however, Thomas Speed, Esq., of Louisville,
has disinterred a quantity of papers giving the record
of a political club that existed at Danville from 1786
to 1790. This association was composed of about thirty
of the brightest spirits of the time, who were resident
in and about this little town. On its roll we find the
names of many of those who had already or were after-
wards to lead the State in the paths of peace or war.1
The larger part of the members belong to families that

1 The following are the names of the members : Henry Innes,
Christopher Greenup, John Brown, Robert Craddock, Thomas Todd,
John Belli, G. J. Johnson, George Muter, Peyton Short, Stephen
Ormsby, William McDowell, Thomas Allen, Thomas Speed, James
Speed, Abe Buford, Samuel McDowell, Benjamin Sebastian, Baker
Ewing, P. Tardeveau, William Kennedy, Willis Green, Matthew Wal-
ton, William McClung, James Brown, John Overton, Robert Dougher-
ty, Joshua Barbee.

8

114 KENTUCKY.

are still among the leaders of the State, showing, as
many other facts do, that this colony, like the other
strongly individualized States of America, owe their
quality to the influence of strong continuous house-
holds. The notes of this club give a very fair idea of
the intellectual quality of its meetings.1 For several
years, or until the changes of the shifting population
removed its leaders far from their original abodes, this
club industriously debated the questions of polity that
concerned the settlements. The record of the debates
is given in a simple and excellent English, that would
hardly find a parallel in a debating club in any western
settlement of this day.

Among the many questions discussed by the club
were the following : First, we have the great question
as to the propriety of separating from Virginia. This
was decided in the affirmative, after a long and careful
debate. Next in importance was the question " whether
the emission of a paper currency would be an advan-
tage to the inhabitants of this district." Some of the
remarks of this debate are very interesting, showing
that these men had a firm grip on the problem. Chris-
topher Greenup well summed up the main considera-
tions by saying, " Money is the sign of wealth, and
paper the sign of that sign." Mr. Muter claimed that
" to make paper currency a legal tender is fatal to it ;
specie has an intrinsic value." The culture of tobacco
was debated, and it was voted that it was not desirable
that the district should enter on this industry. Another

1 I am indebted to Mr. Speed for an opportunity to examine the
original records. They are mostly on small slips of paper, showing
the value of that article in the early -western days. They give a very
clear idea of all its debates. i.

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. 115

question was, " Is the exclusive right of the Indian
tribes to the territory claimed by them provided in the
laws of nature and of nations, and can they consis-
tently with such laws be divested of such rights with-
out their assent ? " After a debate the first part of this
proposition was affirmed and the second part negatived,
a remarkable decision under the circumstances.

The most considerable task of the club was their
debate on the proposed Constitution of the United
States. Among the recorda is what appears to be a
proclamation of this constitution, in a preliminary form,
bearing date 1787; appended thereto is a letter of
Washington, noting the fact that it is submitted to the
people of the United States. This constitution was
carefully debated by the club. The changes that they
voted are very interesting. They proposed that the
speaker of the Senate should be chosen by that body ;
that the members of that body should be ineligible for
reelection for seven years, and the President ineligible
for four years after the close of his term. After bills
had been passed by the two houses, they were to be
submitted to the Supreme Court, and approved by it,
before receiving the signature of the President. The
clausevwhich provides for the support of the militia in
the execution of the laws was amended so as to read
" to enforce obedience to the laws of the Union." Their
discussion shows a clear perception of the important
difference between executing the laws in the ordinary
sense, and the enforcement of obedience thereto in case
of resistance.

The draft of the constitution provided that Congress
should not prevent the importation of slaves until 1808.
The club voted to strike out this limitation. It will be

116 KENTUCKY.

seen by this action that the same motive of opposition
to the slave-trade, which is embodied in the first con-
stitution of the State, existed in this political club. It
is worth while to dwell to this extent upon the work of
this interesting society, for the reason that it is the only
source of such history that has come down to us.1

Up to the time of their separation from Virginia, the
life of Kentucky's pioneers was in a certain way ex-
ceedingly rude ; the greater part of the population was
packed into the rustic castles, termed stations, of which
there were two or three hundred within the State.
Each of these places contained one or more dwelling-
houses and a " corral," so arranged with stockades and
loopholes as to make a stronghold good against Indian
assaults. There were usually from ten to fifty men at
each station, — enough to make good a defense until
succor could arrive. This rendered a certain crowding
of the population necessary, which endured until it be-
came safe to trust to the separate farm-house, so dear to
the English heart. It is surprising that the fortified sta-
tion did not lead to some desire for village life such as
we find in Europe ; but as soon as the Indian depreda-
tions became even a little slackened, the people isolated
themselves, as it had been their wont in Virginia. A
lonely house in the middle of a great farm was their
ideal, and they attained it even before it could be had
with safety.

In these early settlements there was an immense
amount of physical labor that fell upon men and women
alike. In the first twenty years there were very few

1 I have availed myself, in preparing the foregoing statement, of
the excellent account of the Political Club, given by Mr. Speed in
the Louisville Commercial of September 29, 1878. I

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. 117

slaves. They did not begin to be a considerable ele-
ment in the population until about tho time of the sep-
aration from Virginia, when, the Revolutionary War
having ended, there was a richer class among the im-
migrants. Even in that year there was only one sixth
of the population held in bondage. The lot of men
and women was ceaseless labor, only interrupted by com-
bat with the savages. To create a civilization in the
unbroken forests that occupied all the region which
was settled in the first two decades, called for some-
thing like twice the amount of labor that is necessary to
accomplish the making of a home in a prairie country.
One lightening of the ordinary pioneer's lot these peo-
ple had. The climate was admirable, and there were
no indigenous maladies. They were generally exempt
from the malarial fevers that have cursed the early days
of the other Western States. Their life was almost al-
together in the open air. The unglazed windows of the
houses and their creviced walls made them almost as
free from house-poisoning as the open air.

The people were for some years almost without do-
mesticated animals ; even horses were, at first, but little
used. In consequence of this, the men developed a re-
markable capacity for swift and long marches. They
readily outmarched the Indians, or rather outran them,
for the regular pace when on an Indian trail seems to
have been a jog trot. They were accustomed to make
great distances on scant provision of food. A little
parched corn, munched as they ran, would maintain
their strength. In a few years, however, the settlers
were able to own horses, and very soon tho foot-march-
ing became less common, and the people entered on
the stage of their development in which they used tho

118 KENTUCKY.

horse in all their journeys. Afterwards, in hunting In-
dians or in pursuing lesser game, they generally were
mounted.

We have little concerning education in these early-
days. There were no organized schools, and the mass
of the people received only a little household teaching.
Still it is doubtful if the percentage of illiterates among
the children at this time was as numerous as it is at
present in the mountain counties of the State. It must
be remembered that the excess of adult males in these
early days was very great. Though women and chil-
dren were with the first settlers, they were relatively
much less numerous than in a normal society. This di-
minished the need of the school-master.

The religious condition of the people was, from the
first, tolerably satisfactory. The first ministers of the
gospel were the Baptists, who, with their usual valor,
entered the State with the earliest settlers. The Rev.
John Hickman seems to have been the first to begin
the work in 1776. In 1780 a vigorous immigration of
people of this faith took place. One church — that
headed by the Rev. Lewis Craig — moved en masse
from Spottsylvania County, in Virginia. When the
Revolution was over, and the tide of immigration was
at its flood, it brought a host of Baptist preachers with
it. The Methodists at first made but little headway in
Kentucky. In 1787 they claimed but ninety members
in the State. The first Presbyterian clergyman began
his work in 1783. The Baptists were tho religious
pioneers of Kentucky, and to this day they hold the
first place in its churches.

The Roman Catholics were represented among the
very first settlers in Kentucky. Dr. Hart and WiJ-

SEPARATION FROM VIRGINIA. 119

liam Coomes, who settled at Harrod's Station in 1775,
— the one a physician and the wife of the other a
school-teacher, — were both Maryland Catholics ; so,
as Collins remarks, " the first practicing physician and
the first teacher in Kentucky were Roman Catholics."
They were both valiant and valuable men. They were
followed by many other families, who founded the large
Catholic community that still exists near Bardstown, in
Nelson County. Their first church was founded in
1787. These people were all of the Maryland stock,
and were a most important contribution to the blood of
Kentucky, though they have maintained a peculiar iso-
lation, having had but a small share in the political life
of the State.

The first twenty years of the history of Kentucky
brought about a more considerable gain of the English
population in the interior of the continent than had
been accomplished in all the preceding century. The
barrier of the Alleghanies was crossed, and a great bas-
tion of Anglo-Saxon people built out into the wilder-
ness of the Mississippi Valley, separating the Indians
of the north from those of the southern country. It
is easily seen that the possibility of doing thus much
depended on the temporary withdrawal of the Indian
tribes from residence in Kentucky. If they had been
in force on the ground, it is to be questioned whether
the pioneers could have made their occupation good
until the Virginian or the national government had
broken the Indian power. As it was, they found a gap
in the enemies' lines, of which they took swift advan-
tage, pouring through it like a flood and intrenching
themselves in their new position.

Account for it as we may, this spontaneous, unaided

120 KENTUCKY.

movement of people into Kentucky, and their swift or-
ganization of a State under such appalling difficulties,
must always remain as one of the most surprising
achievements of the English race. We know of no
other series of events that so well exhibits the singular
prepotency of that people as their swift mastering of
this part of the earth.

CHAPTER IX.

THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS PROBLEMS.

THE next chapter in the account of the development
of Kentucky very fairly begins with the adoption of the
first Constitution of the Commonwealth.

In 1792, after more than ten years of patient, lawful
endeavor, this people found themselves free to express
their ideas of government in their own way. Danville,
a town that was from the first the centre of the State
life, was the seat of the convention for adopting the
constitution. The people entered into this work of
framing an organic law with great satisfaction, for it
was a work they had long desired to be about. The
constitution which they framed affords a capital index
of the state of public feeling at the time as to many
important matters. It was adopted by the convention
and promulgated without the test of approval by popu-
lar vote, but the Evidence goes to show that the people
ratified this instrument with a very general approval.

In its general form this constitution is clearly mod-
eled on that of the United States. This has been
properly attributed to the commanding influence of Colo-
nel George Nicholas, who, as delegate from Virginia,
had taken an important part in the formation of that
instrument. Next, we notice that this document shows
throughout an effort rather to adapt the framework of

122 KENTUCKY.

the law to the existing needs of the community than to
seek any ideal perfections. The conservative historian,
Humphrey Marshall, notes the absence of sufficient
checks on the popular will ; in a word, that the scheme
was that of a democracy rather than that of a republic.
It was certainly open to this objection, if indeed it be
an objection. The people were democratic in their po-
litical spirit. Their society was a pure democracy. It
was to be expected that their law should conform to
their motives and conditions.

The following points in this constitution deserve es-
pecial attention : —

First. The suffrage was given to all male citizens of
proper age who had not been disfranchised by convic-
tion of crime. This is probably the first experiment of
manhood suffrage in any modern State. Second. The
whole body of the judiciary was constituted by appoint-
ment without specified term of office. This follows the
universal custom of the time. Third. Ministers of the
gospel were excluded from office as legislators. It is a
curious survival of an English prejudice. It is espe-
cially remarkable from the fact that it is almost the
only trace of the limitation of the citizens' rights that
is not connected with the local needs of the people.
Their Baptist parsons were clearly no element of dan-
ger to the State. Fourth. The article concerning slav-
ery is also important, as it distinctly shows a decided
prejudice against the commerce in slaves. They are
not to be brought into the State as merchandise, and
none are to be brought that were imported into Amer-
ica since 1789.1 It also recommended the legislature to
pass laws permitting the emancipation of slaves under
1 See, also, the debates of the Political Club. '»

THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS PROBLEMS. 123

the limitation that they shall not become a charge on
the county in which they reside. This article shows
that the difficulties of the slavery problem were already
before the minds of this people, busy as they were with
their immediate needs.

The most important omission of this constitution is
the absence of any reference to a public school system.
In this it differs noticeably from most of the constitu-
tions of the Northern States. The neglect of this need
has been from the first, as it now is, a weak feature
in the Kentucky system of society.

There is yet another feature that deserves notice.
The Supreme Court of the State is made the court of
first instance in the determination of all questions con-
cerning the ownership of lands under the Virginia pa-
tent system. This provision was introduced by Colonel
Nicholas. On proposing it, as it had not been an ele-
ment in his canvass, he took the good way of resigning
his seat in the convention and asking for a reelection,
which was immediately given him without contest. This
uncontested return of the proposer was taken as evi-
dence that the people desired the arrangement. The
object of this provision was to prevent the action of
local prejudice in the settlement of legislation concern-
ing land titles. This prejudice is always sure to be
strong in the case of such land titles as were growing
up under the rough system of " location " that the laws
permitted. Boundaries being unfixed, there was already
a disposition to disregard the rights of original patentees
and to use the unoccupied land as common property.
Any jury drawn from the neighborhood in which the
disputed land lay was likely to contain men who had
a sinister interest against the establishment of patent

124 KENTUCKY.

claims. Thus the State at the outset found itself in
danger, through defective titles, of losing a part of the
value of the soil which had inspired the people to its
conquest. The remedy was unusual, but fully warranted
by the needs cf the case, though in experience it was
found impracticable.

Immediately after the adoption of this constitution,
General Isaac Shelby was elected governor. In him
the State secured an admirable chief magistrate. They
could not have chosen better. He was a Marylander,
who became, in his early manhood, a citizen of what is
now North Carolina. He did brilliant service in the
battle of Point Pleasant, in October, 1774, an action
that by its conspicuous success did much to relieve Ken-
tucky from the danger of overwhelming pressure from
the Indian tribes. Afterwards in North Carolina he
played a most gallant part in many small expeditions,
but especially in remedying the ruin that the defeat of
Gates at Camden brought upon the Continental cause.
When others were appalled by the magnitude of this
disaster, Shelby seemed to have awakened to a full
sense of his really great military power. He saved a
little army he then commanded, and secured a large
number of prisoners in his hands by a swift march to
the west into the recesses of the Blue Ridge Moun-
tains. Then, when he had disposed of his captives, he
turned upon the famous Ferguson, and by the well
conceived and admirably executed move on King's
Mountain, destroyed the force of that able commander
at a single blow. Although Shelby was not in name
the chief in this action, there is no reason to doubt that
the conception of the campaign and the vigor of its
execution were his alone. His also was the scheme of.

THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS PROBLEMS. 125

attack which led to the battle of Cowpens. After va-
rious other admirable feats of partisan warfare, he ob-
tained leave to absent himself from the field in order
to take his seat in the General Assembly of North Car-
olina. Thence he went to Kentucky in 1783, where
he married, and afterwards remained, taking a part in
the early struggles for emancipation from Virginias con-
trol. As brave in action as he was wise in council, his
choice as the first governor was an honor and a blessing
to the young Commonwealth.

The people of Kentucky were now again in face of
the two problems which had troubled them from the
beginning. The Indian outrages were still flagrant, for
though no large parties dared make regular expeditions
into the State, small forays made through the byways
of the forests were of constant occurrence. On April
1, 1793, Morgan's Station, on Slate Creek, seven miles
east of Mount Sterling, was captured, and nineteen
women and children taken into captivity. The boats
of immigrants on the Ohio were subjected to constant
assaults. The Federal government refused to authorize
any independent action of Kentucky troops, but in-
sisted that they should act with the regulars and under
regular officers. This concession the Kentucky militia
were unwilling to make after their unhappy experience
with Clark's last expedition and St. Clair's imbecile
effort.' Finally, a draft of men was sent to General
Wayne, but the season being late his expedition was
abandoned. So once more the people had reason to
be disappointed with the Federal system of Indian war-
fare.

At the same time, while the people were irritated by
the neglect of the Federal government, the question

.126 KENTUCKY.

of the navigation of the Mississippi came again into the
public mind. On this occasion it was a French and not
a Spanish party that led to the excitement. The Span-
ish intrigue was a sufficiently curious bit of politics,
but the French scheme was even more singular in its
motives. The beginning of this trouble is first distinctly
seen in the organization of several »so-called Democratic
clubs in Central Kentucky. These clubs were fashioned
on, and in affiliation with, the famous Philadelphia club
which was moulded on the Jacobin clubs of Europe.
There can be no doubt that these Democratic clubs
were designed to resist the increasing encroachments of
the Federal authority on the province of the local gov-
ernments. It is equally clear that they drew their in-
spiration from the great Americo-European movement
we misname the French Revolution. There was little
reason to fear that these affiliated societies which were
springing up all over the country would be more than
a wholesome check upon the Federal power, properly
regarded at the outset as involving an element of dan-
ger to the individual States. But these societies called
Democratic were destined to receive their overthrow
from the source that gave them birth. As is well
known, the colonies, when treating with France for as-
sistance in the extremity of their need during the war
with the mother country, consented to make war on
England whenever the French government did. When
after twenty years we were called on to act in accord-
ance with this dangerous stipulation, the Federal govern-
ment very properly refused to keep the contract which
its predecessor had made. This refusal was clearly an
act of bad faith, but any other action would have been
even more iniquitous. The fathers of the American

THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS PROBLEMS. 127

State had bargained to give more than they had a right
to promise.

That extremely active bit of the French Revolution
known as Citizen Genet, the French ambassador to the
United States, was not disposed to regard the proc-*
lamation of neutrality issued by the Federal authori-
ties, but immediately on his landing at Charleston set
about the process of commissioning cruisers against Eng-
lish ships even before he presented himself at Wash-
ington. At this distance of time there is something
very interesting in the performance of this " infuriated
foreigner," as Marshall well calls him. He seemed to
feel as his countrymen felt in that age, that he owned
the earth, and that there were no rights of other coun-
tries to be respected. In his journey to the seat of
government he was constantly engaged in arraying the
malcontents of the country against the Federal admin-
istration, and in preparing to leyy war on Britain from
the soil of the United States. The Jacobin clubs were,
doubtless, to a certain extent, in sympathy with his mad
course. The French outbreak in 1793 was still in its
nascent state, and had not yet set all decent men against
it by the brutal excesses of its later time.

The Democrats, fearing with what at the time seemed
good reason that the Federal government was working
towards an aristocracy, naturally felt a lively sympathy
with a people in combat with the British, who seemed
to have attained to a livelier sense of the equality of
men than the ruling party in the United States. More-
over, there was a tie of blood, — blood shed on the bat-
tle-fields of the Revolution by French and Americans
together, — that made the appeal of France very strong
to many hearts. At this time Louisiana was still under

1*28 KENTUCKY.

the control of Spain, which government was the ally
of Great Britain.

Foiled by the vigor of Washington's government, in
his effort to levy war from the eastern States, Genet
tind his followers conceived the plan of using the long-
ing of Kentucky for the free navigation of the Mis-
sissippi for the furtherance of his plans. In October,
1793, the Lexington Club resolved, " That the right of
the people on the waters of the Mississippi to the nav-
igation was undeniable, and that it ought to be peremp-
torily demanded of Spain by the government of the
United States." J Genet employed several Frenchmen
• — the principal of whom, a certain Charles Depau, is
said to have been at this time a resident in Kentucky
— to organize an expedition against Louisiana. Gen-
eral George Rogers Clarke, now in his decay, accepted
the commission of "major-general in the armies of
France and commander-in-chief of the revolutionary le-
gions on the Mississippi."

The ultra- Federalists of Kentucky believed that Gov-
ernor Shelby was conniving with the French party, but
it appears to the present writer, after a careful reading
of the evidence, that his action was only the proper
caution of a man who had very limited power to act
under the circumstances of the situation. The matter
was really one that concerned the Federal government
alone. The laws that appeared likely to be violated
were Federal and not State laws ; it would not have
been fit that the Governor of Kentucky should have
strained his limited powers to meddle with the business.
As an individual he doubtless sympathized with the
project of opening the Mississippi to free navigation ;
i Marshall, ii. p. 92.

THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS PROBLEMS. 129

yet he held himself ready not only to enforce the laws
of Kentucky, but " to perform whatever may be consti-
tutionally required of me as Governor by the President
of the United States." His letter to Washington is
admirable in its tone, and exhibits more submission to
the Federal authority than would now be shown by
most governors.

The silencing of Genet and the prompt action of the
Federal government arrested this expedition against
a friendly power. The Genet incident was now ex-
hausted, but it showed that the mind of the people was
still very excited on this question of the Mississippi
navigation. The violent language of the Jacobin clubs
of Kentucky, and the disgrace that came upon all the
sympathizers with France from the excesses into which
that revolution fell, had in time a good effect on the
politics of Kentucky. It was to these incidents that we
owe the first -considerable strengthening of the pro-
nounced Federal party in the State. It is a singular
fact that matters as remote as the revolution in France
should have greatly affected the political motives of this
young Commonwealth.

An important incident in the Indian wars served to
divide the public interest with the French scheme, and
in time to turn their attention away from that fiasco.
General Wayne had projected an invasion into the In-
dian country in the autumn of 1793. A thousand Ken-
tuckians had been drafted for the expedition, and joined
it most unwillingly. They were returned, because the
expedition was abandoned. Their experience with
" Mad Anthony," though brief and only in the camp
and march, for there was no fighting, was such as to
give them confidence in his qualities as a commander.

130 KENTUCKY.

Therefore, in the following spring there was no diffi-
culty in securing sixteen hundred volunteers for the de-
layed expedition. The battle which he won on August
20, 1794, at Fallen Timbers, on the Miami, was bril-
liantly successful.

The fight was almost under the walls of one of the
forts which the British continued to occupy in this re-
gion, and the flushed troops could hardly be kept from
assaulting this stronghold of men whom they still be-
lieved to be their enemies. An attack on the fort would
have been morally justified, for these posts, retained by
the British in contravention of the treaty of peace, were
in fact points of supply for the Indians. The presence
of these foreign stations on their border was in part the
cause of the continued irritation against the Federal
government, which was still felt by the Kerituckians.
This victory, in which the Kentuckians were in com-
mand of a Federal general, and in which they fought
side by side with the regular companies of the United
States army, did more than anything else to quiet this
opposition to the General government. The heretofore
despised regulars opened the battle by a brilliant charge
with the bayonet on the Indian line, — a charge that
scattered the foe. It is quite natural that this should
have entirely changed the feeling of men who rested all
other judgments of their fellows on their behavior in
battle.

This battle practically made an end of the Indian
troubles in Kentucky.

CHAPTER X.

KENTUCKY AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

IN August of this year came the news of the condi-
tional treaty with Great Britain, that finally ended the
hopes of those who looked for a union with France m
the war with the ancient enemy. Although this treaty
made for the time an end of the Indian hostilities, it
was received with great indignation by the partisans of
France, who now numbered far more than a majority
of the Kentucky people. It is difficult to analyze the
motives that caused this outbreak of discontent. The
people were, however, intensely disgusted with the ac-
tion of the authorities in Washington, and turned with
the bitterest hatred against their worthy senator, Hum-
phrey Marshall, who had voted for the treaty. We
cannot determine how numerous was this party, but it
clearly included a majority of the leaders. It should
be noticed, however, that this action in no way involved
a revolt against the government, but only a verbal re-
sistance to the party that was in power.

It was practically nothing more than an intense dis-
gust at the action of the Federal government, such as
people may entertain against a control which they have
no idea of throwing off. The failure of the Federal gov-
ernment to keep a contract to make war in a given
contingency was naturally exasperating to a people
with whom war had long been the principal business,
as well as the only luxury, of life.

132 KENTUCKY.

In the year 1795 the Federal government effected a
treaty with Spain, by which the right of navigation was
accorded to the American settlements on all the waters
of the Mississippi. Just before this treaty was con-
cluded Spain made a last effort to detach Kentucky from
her allegiance. This effort was entirely unavailing. It
was conducted with such secrecy that even the imper-
fect account of it did not become public until ten years
afterwards. Politically it was entirely abortive, but it
serves to throw a clear light on the way in which the
Kentucky people now stood affected to the Federal Gov-
ernment. It is especially important for the light it
throws on the motives of the resolutions of 1798, which
we shall soon have to examine. In July, 1795, a com-
missioner named Thomas Power was sent by the Gov-
ernor of New Orleans to reopen communications with
the leaders of the negotiations of former years. One
of these, Benjamin Sebastian, was now a judge of the
Supreme Court of Kentucky. From Sebastian the com-
missioner went to Innis, Nicholas, and Murray, who
had been in the old intrigue, and then to General Wil-
kinson, once again, after his interlude of trading and
conspiring, a federal officer stationed at Detroit. The
proposal was in effect that his Catholic majesty, the
King of Spain, would give to these gentlemen $100,000
for their services in inciting the people of Kentucky
to revolt against the United States. That when the
revolt was proposed he would furnish abundant muni-
tions of war for their use, and give their rebellion the
military support of the Spanish government ; further-
more, that when independence had been secured, Spain
would give Kentucky and the other western communi-
ties the benefit of her alliance. »,

KENTUCKY AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 133

We cannot determine how far these men felt these
propositions to be attractive, but it is clear that one and
all they deemed them entirely impracticable, and that
they not only absolutely refused the offer, but kept the
proposition from the knowledge of the people. Their
statements make it clear that they did not think that at
this time it would be possible to form any party in Ken-
tucky to advocate secession. There can be no doubt
that the Spanish governor chose his confederates with
discretion, and that his offer of immediate money,
amounting in value to about the equivalent of half a
million dollars in our day, and of place and power be-
yond, was tempting to these men, who were poor and
of an adventurous type of mind. Its unhesitating re-
jection shows clearly that it was not a thing that they
deemed in any way possible. The essentially loose na-
ture of Sebastian is proven by the fact that he had re-
ceived a pension of two thousand dollars per annum
from Spain during the years from 1795 to 1806. This
is perhaps the darkest incident in the history of Ken-
tucky. Sebastian's relation to the Spanish government,
and the whole matter of this last intrigue, was kept so
secret, that nothing was known of it until it was by
chance disclosed in 1806.

Sebastian was then, and had for many years been,
one of the judges of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky.
A committee of the legislature found Sebastian guilty
of receiving a pension from Spain. There was no pro-
vision in the law for his punishment, so he was allowed
to resign and take himself away.1 The conspiracy, if

1 Sebastian's history is very curious. British by birth, it is said
that he began life as an Episcopalian clergyman. Drifting to this
country, he became a lawyer, and finally a jurist of excellent ability.

134 KENTUCKY.

it may receive this name, was then ten years gone.
The other gentlemen who had been concerned in it,
Messrs. Innis, Nicholas, and Murray, appear to have
known nothing of Sebastian's position as a hireling of
the Spanish government. They can only be blamed
for their failure to make this act of hostility to the
United States known to the Federal authorities. This
omission was more serious from the fact that one of
these gentlemen, Judge Innis, was then the circuit
judge of the United States for Kentucky, and bound by
the sacred obligations of his office to guard the govern-
ment from such machinations of a foreign power. To
this criticism of his conduct Judge Innis made a very
lame answer. He says, in the evidence before the com-
mittee of the legislature, " the reasons why himself and
Colonel Nicholas did not communicate the subject to
the executive of the United States were these : 1st. It
was known that neither of us approved of Mr. Adams's
administration, and that we believed that he kept a
watchful eye over our actions ; that the communication
must depend upon his opinion of our veracity, and that
it would have the appearance of courting his favor. 2d.
We both had reason and did believe, that the then ad-
ministration were disposed upon the slightest pretext
to send an army into this State, which we considered
would be a grievance upon the people, and therefore
declined making any communication on the subject, as
we apprehended no trouble from the Spanish govern-
ment."

Despite his great talents, he seems to have been a man always in
straits for money. This led to his fall. It j^hould be remembered,
however, that the position of a foreign pensioner was not regarded
with the same abhorrence in the last century that it is in this, and
that the beginning of his relations with the Spanish governnierit dates
from a time when he was a private citizen.

KENTUCKY AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 135

It is impossible, within the limits of this volume, to
give a careful analysis of these Spanish intrigues, but
a careful study of the circumstances will convince the
student that in the singular character of Wilkinson he
may find a clue to this remarkable chapter of American
history. It will be necessary to trace this character by
a sketch of the life of this remarkable man. Wilkin-
son was born in Eastern Maryland, and was, for the
times, very well educated. He became a physician ; at
the outbreak of the Revolutionary War he entered the
army, and soon developed very considerable capacities
as a soldier. He was in the siege of Boston, having
arrived soon after the battle of Bunker Hill. His ac-
count of the incidents of that siege is very interest-
ing. He was with Arnold as aid-de-camp in Canada ;
was with the army through the campaign that ended
at Saratoga. The incidents of his campaign in the
Revolution are told in the first volume of his Memoirs,
a tediously voluminous work of three volumes, contain-
ing nearly three thousand pages of matter, principally
his defenses before the two courts-martial to which he
was subjected.1

Wilkinson was obscurely involved in the curious diffi-
culty between Generals Washington and Gates. Gates
made him deputy adjutant of his army a few days be-
fore he was removed from his command. In time he
received the rank of brevet brigadier - general. He
quarreled with Gates, whom he accused of treachery
and falsehood, and resigned his brevet rank, retaining
his commission as colonel. Congress, approving his
action in his quarrel with Gates, made him, in 1779,

1 The Memoirs of my own Times, by General James Wilkinson. In
three volumes. Philadelphia, 1816. Printed by Abraham Small.

136 KENTUCKY.

clothier-general of the army. In this capacity he served
to the end of the Revolutionary War. In this period
of trial Wilkinson appears to have been a patriotic and
devoted officer.

At the end of the Revolution he left the army, and
became, in some obscure way, concerned with some
capitalists in a scheme of trade in the Mississippi Val-
ley. From 1793 to 1806 he is singularly silent as to
his occupations. His Memoirs, infinitely detailed for the
other part of his life, do not directly mention any of his
acts from 1779 to 1806. All we know of him is from
the imperfect record of his performances in Kentucky.
His great energy, fertility of resources, and singular
business tact, gave him a large place in the develop-
ment of the commerce between Kentucky and the Span-
ish possessions in Louisiana. He, in fact, created this
traffic by way of the Mississippi to the sea, and was
indeed the pioneer of commerce in this valley. His
facile, cultivated ways, his lavish expenditure of money,
and general largeness of nature, undoubtedly did much
to ingratiate him with the Spanish authorities.

It was natural that the Spaniards, with the thirst for
territory common to the Spanish mind, should desire to
win larger control over the Mississippi Valley than they
then had. It would be a triumph if Kentucky could
be detached from the Federal government and brought
under her control. Wilkinson doubtless seemed to the
Spanish authorities an apt instrument for this work.
It is likely that he in some way engaged himself to abet
this project, and that the extremely liberal concession
of trade which he brought to Kentucky in 1787 was a
compensation for this work. The concession was es-
teemed extremely valuable, and there is no other assign-

KENTUCKY AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 137

able reason for the grant. That there was an element
of treason in his projects is made clear by his subsequent
course. This traffic, which continued for many years,
put him in the power of the Spanish government, by
the fact that they withheld a large part of the money
due him for tobacco furnished to the Louisiana agents.
It seems likely that whatever designs Wilkinson may
have formed, looking to the separation of Kentucky and
its alliance with Spain, they did not long commend
themselves to his judgment. He apparently abandoned
all decided efforts after his first failure to secure action
in this direction. Still, as he had money to the amount
of one hundred thousand dollars in Spanish hands, he
had to keep up the semblance of devotion to their pur-
poses.

In 1801 we find Wilkinson once again in the Federal
army, with the rank of brigadier-general. He gives no
explanation of his reestablishment in the army, and his
reappearance there in high command, after his well
known relations to the previous Spanish intrigues, is
one of the mysterious incidents of American history.
What is still more curious is that he was placed in com-
mand of the very department where he could have the
most to do with the Spaniards. He remained in com-
munication with the Spanish authorities after he entered
on this responsible position.

In the term of President Madison, Wilkinson at last
fell under suspicion. Charges of official misconduct in
many different events were brought against him, and it
appears from the official records that he was ill used by
the Federal authorities, who appeared inclined to pre-
judge his case and not to give him a fair trial. His
first trial was in the National House of Represents-

138 KENTUCKY.

tives, which seems to have been unfair in its methods.
The next was before a court-martial, which appears to
have given his case a most exhaustive consideration.
Although in this trial his judges seemed to have been
prejudiced against him at the outset, the verdict was
distinctly in his favor. It was clearly proven that the
several " mule loads " of silver which he had received
from the Spanish authorities were in payment of debts
due him on account of tobacco furnished before he re-
joined the army, though the charge that he had been
a pensioner of Spain during his period of civil life was
not disproved.

The court-martial reported that in his negotiations
with the Spaniards he was actuated by a desire to re-
ceive the money justly due him, and that any excess
of attention given by him to the Spanish authority was
to be explained by this fact. It was clearly shown that
when Thomas Power came with the last proposition of
the Spaniards, that which afterwards brought trouble
to Messrs. Nicholas, Innis, and Murray, he went from
Kentucky to Detroit, where Wilkinson was then sta-
tioned. The latter received him coldly, and without
heeding his propositions sent him back under guard to
the frontier, with orders not to return under any cir-
cumstances. The last "mule load" of silver had been
received, and it was no longer necessary for him to
keep any communications with the Spaniards.

Although acquitted by a jury of his peers, Wilkinson
was still the subject of constant watchfulness and covert
hostility on the part of Secretary of War Armstrong,
and apparently also on the part of President Madison.
After the War of 1812-1815, in which he evidently
did faithful though hampered service, he was once,more

KENTUCKY AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, 139

court-martialed. Again the prosecution was singularly
vindictive, and again did General Wilkinson receive a
complete exoneration from very grave but evidently un-
supported charges brought against him. It is impossi-
ble to give him too much credit for the signal ability
with which he conducted his defense in both these trials.
His speeches in his own defense, though affected and
stilted, are capital specimens of pleading. In the closing
appeal which he made to the court in his last trial he
rises to the height of true eloquence.

No one can go patiently over the records of these
trials without feeling a keen sympathy with this able
man. Whatever his error of judgment in the Spanish
negotiations may have been, though it was probably
grave, it was atoned for by long and devoted services
in the midst of a constant hostility from his superiors.
Soon after the last trial Wilkinson left the army and
went to Mexico, where he died in 1825. There is no
more enigmatical or more pathetic figure in American
history.

In the following two years the State, relieved of its
anxieties of Indian warfare, and with its desires con-
cerning the navigation of the Mississippi gratified, pur-
sued a course of peaceful development. This period of
repose is naturally marked by an increased interest in
educational matters. The institution known as the Ken-
tucky Academy was established by subscriptions amount-
ing to $10,000, which came in the main from the East-
ern States. The State supplemented this sum by a gift
of six thousand acres of land, while an equal amount
was given to four other academies.

This attention to local affairs must not be taken as
evidence that the State had in any way relaxed its close

140 KENTUCKY.

watch on the behavior of the much suspected Federal
government. It now repaid, with interest, the suspicion
which the Federal government had long given to its
own actions. On the passage by Congress of the famous
alien and sedition laws a storm of protest broke out
against the centralizing tendencies of the Federal gov-
ernment. As is well known, those laws were provoked
by the behavior of Genet and his partisans. They pro-
vided the government with power to expel foreigners
for certain causes, and also made it a felony to libel the
President of the United States or either house of Con-
gress.

To a people disposed to find in each successive step
of the Federalist party an intent of changing the repub-
lic to some form of a monarchy, these additions to the
central power might well seem dangerous. That which
concerned the expulsion of foreigners was of no par-
ticular account, but the sedition clause would even now
be regarded as an intolerable piece of legislation, for
the reason that, however great the evil that comes from
reckless political abuse, it would be a thousand times
worse to grant the central government power to limit
discussion of its acts.

So far from regarding the outbreak of passion that
these laws provoked as an evidence of seditious discon-
tent, we should rather look upon it as evidence of a
proper sensitiveness to the danger of over-government.
We have seen that those who were working in the inter-
est of the Spapish government, and who had a "sinister
interest " in discovering a treasonable party in Ken-
tucky, had failed to see any chance for the creating of
such a party. This must be taken as primd facie evi-
dence that there was no material for rebellion in Ken-

KENTUCKY AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 141

tucky ; indeed, it goes far as an answer to the assertion
that the State was in a seditious mood. But let us now
look at the other evidence of a secession spirit, which
some students think they find in the resolutions of 1798.
These resolutions were adopted in November of that
year. They were offered by John Breckiuridge, one
of a long line of distinguished men, but they undoubt-
edly were approved by Jefferson, if they were not ac-
tually from his hand.1

The greater part of these resolutions is now so well ac-
cepted that even the most federally minded would hardly
be willing to question them. The statement, however,
that " each party has an equal right to judge for itself,
as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of re-
dress," contains the element of political heresy that de-
serves attention. There can be no reasonable question
that this statement expressed the nearly unanimous
opinion of the people of Kentucky. There was but one
dissenting voice in the two houses. This was given by
William Murray, who had been one of the persons se-
lected by the Spanish Governor Carondelet as likely to
favor the secession of the State. It appears possible
that his dissenting vote was given in order to balance
his as yet unpublished relation to that intrigue ; it cer-
tainly was a favorable occasion for him to purge himself
of that iniquity.

At this time the legislature contained a very fair
representation of all the elements in the State, Feder-
alists as well as Separatists. We cannot believe that a
reference to the people would have changed the result.
In considering this vote we must bear in mind the fact
that, less than three years before, bold and well in-
1 See Appendix A.

142 KENTUCKY.

formed men had deemed it chimerical to try to sep-
arate the State from the Federal Union. There had
been nothing in the mean time to change the temper of
the people. On the contrary, everything conspired to
bind them more firmly to the Federal government.

The Indian difficulties were suppressed and the navi-
gation of the Mississippi was in a fairly satisfactory
position. With these matters settled, there was no
longer any basis for rebellion.

The victory of Wayne had certainly done much to
insure the respect for the Federal government, as it
made an end of the charges of incompetency, so often
and with such good reason brought against it.

We must find the explanation of this nullification doc-
trine, however, in the general conditions of the public
mind as to the nature of the Federal relations. At the
outset of this inquiry we should notice that it is difficult
for us to see in this day the way in which people looked
on the Federal government during the tenth decade of
the last century. The several colonies had fought their
war of separation from Britain as separate political
units, each with its own motive, and none with any
distinct idea of what the future government was to be.
Each had fought for its local rights, for its own hand.
These local rights were all that there were to fight for.
The essence of their struggle was for local, as distin-
guished from external, government. The long political
struggle of Kentucky for separation from Virginia is
in itself a capital instance of the feeling of this time.
The better known debates in the convention that adopted
the Constitution of the United States show that at
every point the States fought zealously, even furiously,
for their separate rights. No candid person can read

KENTUCKY AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 143

these debates without rising from his task with the con-
viction that the delegates of this constitutional conven-
tion failed to determine the precise relation between
the States and the Federal government. They were
driven farther than the people had gone, or were then
prepared to go, in the direction of consolidation by the
logic of facts that they only could perceive in their
full meaning. If there had been an effort to put the
sedition act in the constitution, no one can doubt that
it would have been overwhelmingly defeated in the con-
vention. The fate of the Adams party in the next
coming election shows plainly that even in the States
that inclined most strongly to Federalism, these laws
were generally disapproved.

Since the one distinct object of the American Revolu-
tion had been to secure local government, it is not to be
wondered at that a people who more than any other in
the United States were by their history devoted to this
end, should have revolted against the alien and sedition
laws, which clearly were very dangerous advances in the
direction of that consolidation against which they had
effectively protested in the convention. In the extrem-
ity of their conceived need they naturally turned to the
patent omissions in the contract by which they were
bound to the Federal government. The convention had
studiously refrained from providing any means whereby
the States should be coerced into submission to the
Union, — differing in this regard in a very suggestive
fashion from similar constitutions in other countries ; l
and this was no accidental omission, but one that re-
sulted from a careful discussion of the problem. That

1 As, for instance, Switzerland, which provides for a process of
federal execution.

144 KENTUCKY.

patriotic men felt this doubt about the conditions of the
constitution is well shown by the subsequent proceed-
ings in other States, — notably in Virginia and Massa-
chusetts, — where men whose character cannot be im-
pugned without casting a shadow on a whole people,
took the same view of the relation between the several
States and the Federal government.

We must grant that the seeds of nullification and
secession were in these resolutions of '98, but these
germs of trouble were sown in the events that led to
the independence of the colonies, and were nourished
by the intentional omissions of the constitution itself.
The constitution as we know it, an instrument af-
firmed partly by assent of the greater part of the States,
then by the circumstances of the South Carolina nul-
lification in the fourth decade of this century, and finally
by the result of the civil war, did not then exist. All
that was before the minds of men was a new and very
debatable instrument, concerning whose meaning there
was naturally a great difference of opinion. The Ken-
tucky resolutions were the first proclamation of the
great discussion which was destined to continue for two
generations, to be in the end decided, as it could only be
decided, by a third, in the most famous civil struggle
of all time.

That the resolutions were intended only as the ex-
pression of a sentiment, and not as the %basis for any
contemplated action, is shown by the previous and suc-
ceeding course of politics within the State. It would
be a distortion of history to look upon this action as if
it had been taken in 1860. It was, in fact, only a caveat
directed against the course of a party disposed to take
an even more unconstitutional view of the Union than
was held by those who voted for the resolutions.

KENTUCKY AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 145

After having thus relieved its mind on this engross-
ing question of national politics, the Kentucky assembly
turned some of its attention to the difficulties of its own
organic law. During this period, as too often in the
subsequent history of the Commonwealth, the interest
in national politics had overshadowed the local needs.
The first step was to improve the local government by
calling a convention to revise the constitution. This
instrument, like all first instruments of the kind, was
found to be unserviceable in several respects. The peo-
ple did not like the system of choosing the governor
and the members of the upper house by the electoral
college plan, but desired to have a more immediate
power of election. The immediate jurisdiction of the
Supreme Court in land cases was also unsatisfactory to
the people ; the danger of land suits caused by the rude
methods of survey in use was being amply justified.
As the land was still of relatively slight value, and the
means of communication with the seat of the court lim-
ited, this method of procedure was troublesome. With
the action carried on in a local court the owner and
witnesses, even in case of appeal, would have no occa-
sion for resort to the State capital. These matters were
changed by the constitutional convention of 1799 ; other
alterations were also introduced. The governor and
senators were made elective by the popular vote, and
the Supreme Court hereafter had only appellate juris-
diction. The spirit of revision had already led, in the
session of 1797-98, to considerable alterations of the
criminal code. This legislation limited the penalty of
death to the crime of deliberate murder, — thereby show-
ing an advance in the theory of punishments remarkable
in a primitive community.
10

146 KENTUCKY.

The last political act of the century was an effort to
amend or repeal the resolutions of '98. The Common-
wealth had solicited the cooperation of the other States
of the Union ; but, except in the case of Virginia, she
had received no approval, and some of the answers
were bitter in their tone. This bitterness is particu-
larly noticeable in the reply which came from the Legis-
lature of Massachusetts, and was one of the sources of
the dislike that long existed towards that State among
the Kentucky people. The result of this effort was
that the reconsideration was denied and the resolutions
reaffirmed. This reaffirmation of the long debated res-
olutions shows clearly that they were based on the de-
liberate judgment of the people, and were not in any
way the result of hasty or inconsiderate action.

The Federal census of 1800 showed an astonishing
increase in the population of Kentucky. The total had
risen to 221,955 ; 179,873 were whites, 40,343 slaves,
and 737 free colored. Thus the whites had increased
about 200 per cent, and the slaves 224 per cent, in the
preceding decade.1

1 See Collins, i. p. 25.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY.

THE first year of the new century was an eventful
one in Kentucky. The long pause in warfare had given
a chance for the minds of the people to turn into other
more peaceful channels. The first work of this social
change was a great increase in the religious sentiment.
That form of religion known as Methodism, which long
ago had reached its height in the Eastern States, now
began rapidly to develop in Kentucky. The excitement
was very great. One camp-meeting, near Paris, was
said to have been attended by twenty thousand people.
Thousands were thrown into the convulsive state that
was then believed to be a mark of the divine power.
Although such exhibitions are not pleasant to those who
take more sober views of religion, there is no doubt
that these violent revivals of the religious impulse,
which for years marked the history of Kentucky, were
very important elements in determining the quality of
the people. At one time or another, perhaps one half
the population was brought under the influence of an
enthusiasm that for a moment took them quite away
from material things. There are more refined ways of
awaking the altruistic sentiments than were followed
in the old Methodist revivals ; but in these rough-cast
folk, hardened by a life that was necessarily very ma-
terial, and with few influences that were calculated to

148 KENTUCKY.

awaken the sympathies or the deeper thoughts of the
mind, these religious excitements had their value in
mental culture. Thousands who never otherwise would
have been taken from the life of the day obtained some
insight into the depths of the problem of existence,
which could come to them in no other way.

To a large part of the people who came under this
strong influence of religious fervor the result was mo-
mentary, but a larger part yet got from it effects that
lasted all their lives. No one, who remembers the peo-
ple who owed their conversion to this time, can doubt
that on the whole it was a blessed influence, and did
more than anything else to smooth away the rudeness
which the endless combats of thirty years had put upon
the people.

In the train of this " revival " came, naturally enough,
the development of the first distinct anti-slavery move-
ment in Kentucky. Even as early as 1799, Henry
Clay, who had recently settled in Kentucky, was an
advocate of emancipation, but nothing came of his pro-
ject until years afterwards. In 1804 a number of Bap-
tist ministers, six of whom are described as men of
note and others of no fame, started a crusade against
slavery.1

" They called themselves," says Collins, " the friends
of humanity, but we know them in the record of these
times as emancipators." Thero is no mistaking their
object; none of the Abolitionists of later day could
have been stronger of speech. Their church pronounced
against them, saying " that it was improper for minis-

1 The six men of note were Carter Torrant, David Barrow, John
Sutton, Donald Holmes, Jacob Gregg, and George Smith. See Col-
lins, i. 419. I,

THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY. 149

ters, churches, or associations to meddle with the eman-
cipation of slavery, or any other political subject ; " ad-
vising them to " have nothing to do with it in their
religious capacity." These protestants against slavery
unfortunately withdrew to a separate local association
known by the curious name of " the Baptist Licking
Locust Association Friends of Humanity," and in this
narrow field soon ceased to be heard of more. This
society marks the beginning of the outspoken opposi-
tion to slavery which was destined to a slow though a
sure growth in the years to come. We shall have oc-
casion in the sequel to examine into the history of this
opinion.

In 1802 the first banking system of Kentucky and
of the Mississippi Valley grew out of an accident of
legislation. The growing trade with the Lower Missis-
sippi, begun by Wilkinson and his associates, and now
of considerable importance, made some system of in-
surance necessary. This trade was conducted princi-
pally by small merchants, who could not well afford
themselves to take the risks of the little craft which
they floated down and " poled " up the stream. A com-
pany was therefore chartered to give them the protection
they required from total loss by accident. This char-
ter contained a provision which allowed the company to
issue transferable notes, and so the State came by a
banking system that served a good purpose for many
years. It was well it came by chance, for these peo-
ple had much the same objection against invested cap-
ital that marks the Granger movement of the present
day. The charter for a bank, as such, would certainly
have been refused. This fear of paper currency, which
long remained a permanent feature in Kentucky, rested

150 KENTUCKY.

upon an unhappy experience with the Continental money,
through which the country had just passed. The lesson
was severe enough to be well remembered.

In this year the trade by the Mississippi, which now
was the life of the rapid commercial advance that was
going on in the State, was suddenly interrupted, the
treaty conceding it having expired without renewal. At
once the State was again in a flaming excitement over
the navigation question. Before the disturbance could
go far, a fortunate stroke of diplomacy ended the ques-
tion forever. By the treaty of St. Ildefonso, France
regained the territory of Louisiana, which years before
she had lost to Spain. It came back to her with its
bounds essentially unchanged. Bonaparte was then on
the eve of war with England, in which this fair colony
would most likely be wrested from him through the
command of the sea that Britain enjoyed. He there-
fore sold it for the sum of eighty million francs to the
United States. On December 20, 1803, the Americans
took possession. It is worth our notice that General Wil-
kinson received the possession for the Federal govern-
ment. Thus, by the chance of time, this intriguer came
in a legitimate way to enjoy authority in Louisiana.

Wilkinson and his followers reappear in the next
considerable incident in Kentucky history, namely, the
Burr conspiracy, which in its motives and its following
is the natural successor of the French and Spanish
movements.

There is great difficulty in telling the story of this
remarkable conspiracy. Burr, its leader, was a meas-
ureless liar. Several of the men arrested with him
were persons singularly skilled in intrigue, and remark-
ably able in holding their secrets. Burr was a man ,of

THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY. 151

commanding intelligence, of marvelous self-possession,
and great foresight. Unhappily these great abilities
were marred by an instinct for dangerous intrigue and
an infinite untrustworthiness. He was Vice-President
in the first term of Jefferson's administration, and seemed
then in a fair way of promotion to the highest honor.
Failing to achieve this, he conceived a vast but histor-
ically obscure project of a south-western empire, which
was to be won from the territories lying to the south
and west of the United States. This project appears
to have taken shape in his mind while Louisiana was
still in the hands of Spain. His purpose at this time
probably was to use the desire of the people in the Mis-
sissippi Valley to gain a hold upon the outlet of that
stream for the advancement of his fortunes. The ces-
sion of Louisiana cut a portion of his ground away, but
did not altogether destroy his hopes of success. The
Spanish possession of Mexico, then including all of
Texas and the unknown region of the Rocky Moun-
tains, still afforded a wide field for action. It appears
likely, however, that he had some idea of separating
this region of the Mississippi from the control of the
United States, uniting it with the conquests that he
hoped to make in the area still claimed by Spain. The
project was a great and shadowy scheme, but more
captivating to the wild spirits of the time than if it had
been clearly defined.

In the summer of 1805 Burr journeyed through Ken-
tucky, and began the arrangements for the execution
of his project. Again, in the following summer, he
passed through the State on his way from New Orleans
to the island home of Blennerhasset, in the Ohio, where
he had his headquarters. Although his machinations

152 KENTUCKY.

were quietly conducted, enough was known of their
purport to enable Mr. Daviess, the attorney for the
United States, to lay the outlines of the scheme before
the President. It was necessary to construct many
boats for the transportation of the several thousand
men who were to be engaged in the expedition, and
this work -necessarily attracted attention.

In the summer of 1806 a letter from Burr to Gen-
eral Wilkinson, who was then territorial governor of
Missouri, became public. In this Burr made the largest
possible claims of support in his project from the Fed-
eral government as well as from England. He asserted
that the navy of the United States and the British squad-
ron at Jamaica were to cooperate with him, — a state-
ment that should have aroused suspicion of his sanity.
In this letter there is no announcement of a definite
plan, no statement of the end to be attained. There is
questionable testimony as to his conversations at this
time which goes to show that he had some idea of get-
ting control of the Mississippi Valley, and afterward of
changing the whole government of the United States.
If this testimony can be believed, it affords, as the histo-
rian Butler remarks, fair ground for believing that Burr
was insane.1 In November, 1806, Daviess, as attorney
for the United States, made a presentation of the case
to the Federal court, and asked for process against
Burr. Although this application v/as denied by the
court in Burr's absence as " unprecedented and illegal,"
and Burr was under no obligation to answer further,
he chose to present himself before the court and demand
a trial, claiming an absolute innocence of the charges.
Owing to the absence of witnesses Daviess could not
1 Butler, History of Kentucky, p. 312.

THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY. 153

prove his allegations ; the grand jury failed to find a
bill of indictment, and Burr was discharged. The event
was of no particular consequence in the history of this
conspiracy save that it affords complete proof of Burr's
utter untrustworthiness. Henry Clay, who had begun
his great career in Kentucky, was one of Burr's coun-
sel. Before Clay took charge of the case he received
Burr's pledge of honor that he was in no way engaged
in such a project as his enemiesv charged.1 It is only
necessary to say that the letter to Wilkinson, which
afterward came to light, was written in the preceding
July. There can be no doubt that this declaration of
Burr to Clay had much to do with his immediate ac-
quittal. To the singular charm of person and manner
with which this man was blessed, and which overpow-
ered the hearts of men and women, we must attribute
the wild joy with which his acquittal was received.
Still the charm was not all Burr's alone. The people
of this State undoubtedly longed for adventure. The
old avenues of action were closed. The State was full
of men who had lived through the heroic age of the
country, and the rising generation caught from them
the love of conquest. These men inherited the spirit
of the Elizabethan English. For two centuries their
blood had been constantly stimulated by contests, and
was as yet untamed by the commercial life that has in
later days, in part, changed the motives of this people
and inclined them to the ways of peace. We cannot
deny that the mass of the Kentucky people were always
" nllibusterish," though they had at the same time a po-
litical sense which weighed down the natural hunger
for adventure. There is not a decade in which we do
1 See Collins, i. p. 293

154 KENTUCKY.

not find some evidence of this motive, until the civil
war, with its hard fighting, wore out the old humor, —
at least for a time.

Burr's bubble collapsed ; no force was necessary to
make an end of it. His ten thousand men dwindled
down to less than five hundred. Wilkinson, on whom
Burr seems to have relied for material support, imme-
diately divulged his plans to the government. Once
again it is difficult to say whether in this act Wilkinson
played a double part or not. The first court-martial
that tried him acquitted him of the charge of treasona-
ble correspondence with Burr ; but it is hardly to be
believed that Burr would have unfolded his plans to
him without some evidence of sympathy.

The excitement concerning Burr's project led to an
investigation of the malfeasance of Judge Sebastian,
before referred to. This miserable man was found to
have been a hireling of the Spanish government all the
while he had been a member of the highest court of the
Commonwealth. It was in this legislative inquiry that
the history of the last effort of Spain to seduce Ken-
tucky from her allegiance became known. As before
noted, the offer of Spain was rejected by all the parties
to whom it was addressed. Even Sebastian, though in
the pay of Spain, agreed with the others in this judg-
ment. The inquiry resulted in the resignation of Se-
bastian. As there was no violation of statutes in his
conduct, prosecution was impossible. With this incident
the long history of the Spanish intrigues was quite ex-
hausted. The materials for a full account of this curi-
ous effort on the part of Spain are not yet accessible.
There is probably no incident of American history that
would be so profitable a subject for careful study, t,

THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY. 155

After this period of political disturbance there came
a term of years in which the historian finds only ma-
terial growth to be recorded. This process of devel-
opment was going on with extreme rapidity, as will be
seen from the tables at the end of this volume. The
census of 1810 showed that the population had risen
to 406,511, of which the whites were 324,237, slaves
80,561, and free blacks 1,713. By comparing this record
with the census of 1800 it will be seen that the negro
population was now gaining on the white, the increase
of the former being at the rate of eighty-four per cent,
and of the latter ninety-nine per cent. There was also
a noticeable increase of the free colored people, which
now amounted to more than two per cent, of the total
population of African descent. The rate of increase of
the free blacks was about one hundred and fifty per cent.
This rapid increase of the free blacks is fairly to be
taken as an indication of the anti-slavery propaganda
that began with Henry Clay. Althougji there is little
in print about it, there is evidence enough to show that
the minds of the people were strongly directed to the
consideration of this grave question.

The long period of political quiet that marked the
first years of the century was broken first by the In-
dian wars in the northwest, and these campaigns gave
a last chance for many an old Indian fighter to renew
the memories of his youth. The battle of Tippecanoe
ended the struggle. It was a trifling action as regards
the number engaged or the number who fell, but for
the moment it roused a great enthusiasm among the
people. Kentucky lost in this battle two valuable citi-
zens in Colonels Daviess and Owen.

At this time the tide of people that hitherto had set

156 KENTUCKY.

like a flood into Kentucky began to pour from its terri-
tory to the western and northern fields. There were
many who found the wrestle with the Indians and the
wilderness sweeter than all the satisfactions of civilized
life. Among those who went into the then far West
was the now aged Boone. This singular, guileless man
had lost all his " land locations " in Kentucky through a
lack of capacity to care for his affairs. So he removed
to Missouri when near seventy years old, though yet a
vigorous man, hoping to make a new life in that wil-
derness. He there entered ten thousand acres of land,
but again lost it through some informality in the legal
conditions. In his extremity he besought the help of
Kentucky in a simple yet affecting memorial, stating
" that he had no spot he could call his own whereon to
lay his bones." 1

The State begged a gift of ten thousand acres of land
for him, and Congress readily granted the petition ; but
this, too, was spon lost in some lawsuits, so that the
brave old man, who had helped to conquer an empire,
died landless at last. In dismissing this old heroic spirit
it is proper to state that the popular opinion that Boone
the leading pioneer in Kentucky is a mistake. His

1 We may here notice the curious habit of burial on the land of the
deceased to which Boone alludes. As is well known, the English an-
cestors of this people had the usual habit of burying in churchyards.
In the scattered population of Virginia churchyard burial in such
places became impossible. In its place grew up the habit of interring
the dead beside the homestead. This ground, consecrated by the dust
of the family, was the last possession parted with ; indeed, it almost
always remained in the possession of the kindred to the farthest gen-
eration. So it came about that for a decent man to own no acres that
might receive his dust was something that appealed strongly to his
fellows. It is a social instinct peculiar to the Southern States of this
Union.

TEE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY. 157

adventures were singularly picturesque, and at the out-
set his calm heroism was of great value in giving con-
fidence to the settlers ; but he did not have powers of
command. There was a certain silent diffidence in his
temperament, a lack of self-assertion, which hindered his
promotion among men of that time. In later years the
people seized upon him as a type of the pioneer. It
chose well, but his place in Kentucky life was never as
large as it is commonly supposed to have been.

CHAPTER XII.

THE WAR OF 1812.

THE Indian disturbances that led to the Tippecanoe
campaign were stimulated by the controversies that pre-
saged the War of 1812. It was only after some years
of dispute that trouble came to blows, but the British
and Canadians doubtless aroused the spirit of depreda-
tion in their willing allies, the savages, long before war
actually began. The Kentucky people, through their
public meetings and their legislature, expressed their
desire for this struggle some years before it came. The
irritations of the Revolutionary War had never been al-
layed nor the combat entirely quelled.

In the levy of one hundred thousand men for this
war with Great Britain, Kentucky's quota was fixed at
fifty-five hundred. She was required to send at once
fifteen hundred of these to the aid of Hull at Detroit.
This call was answered by the very best men of Ken-
tucky. So eager were they for the service that the com-
mand was swelled by volunteers, who would not be re-
fused, to over two thousand men. As they crossed the
Ohio on their march they learned of the shameful sur-
render of Hull's army and the important forts at De-
troit. Unhappily these raw Kentucky troops were of a
less hardened nature than those of earlier years. The
pioneers were mostly gone. Those who remained were
generally beyond the military age, so the leading offi-
cers alone were war-tried men.

THE WAR OF 1812. 159

Circumstances pointed to General Harrison as the fit-
test man for the command of the army. Hull, who was
still in nominal command, was so universally contemned
that the militia-men refused to serve under him. In this
period it required about twenty days to make the jour-
ney to and from the seat of government. Allowing
time for action at Washington, a month would go by
before the evils of Hull's defeat would be remedied.
There was reason to fear that the elated British army
would push on at once to the Ohio, a movement that
they could easily have then made. In this condition
of affairs the Governor of Kentucky determined to com-
mission General Harrison, then a citizen of Ohio, as
major-general of Kentucky, and set him in command of
an expedition to retake Detroit, if possible, or at least
to stay the tide of invasion by a vigorous move in that
direction. This bold resolution is a capital proof of the
military energy of the Commonwealth. With this force
from Kentucky, together with militia from Cincinnati,
Harrison moved swiftly to the north, his army swelled
by continual additions of volunteers from both sides of
the Ohio River. He was soon upon the waters of the
great lakes. The Indians fled before him, their scouts
carrying the report that " Kentuc was coming as nu-
merous as the trees." He relieved Fort Wayne, on the
Maumee, from its siege without having to fight a battle.
Thus the first object of the movement was accomplished
without difficulty. The southward march of the British
was arrested, and time was given for the Federal gov-
ernment to act.

Further successful advance of Harrison's army was
hindered by many difficulties. The autumn weather was
exceedingly trying ; the men were compelled to march

160 KENTUCKY.

knee deep in miles of swamps that covered this coun-
try in the rainy season. Taken at once from comfort-
able homes to this miserable life, without any of the
hardening experience of camps of training, with no fight-
ing, no excitement, except the work of burning aban-
doned Indian towns, the troops lost heart. One of the
Kentucky regiments revolted, though it was quickly
brought to its duty by the vigorous remonstrances of
its officers. With an army worn by vain marching, un-
provided with artillery, and poorly fed, Harrison's battle
was for a long time fought with the wilderness and
winter for his foes. In January, 1813, the western-
most part of the army found a chance to strike a blow
at the British and Indian force at the rivrer Raisin. Al-
though these events were beyond the limits of Ken-
tucky, they are a part of Kentucky history, for nearly
all the men engaged were from this Commonwealth, and
the consequences of the action were far-reaching.

The immediate aim of the movement that led to the
battle of the Raisin was to overwhelm a body of about
four hundred Indians and British, who were fortified
at Frenchtown, on that river. This post was within
a day's march of the large British garrison at Maiden,
and two days' march from the fort at the rapids of the
Maumee. The opportunity was good, and a successful
attack followed by an immediate retreat upon the Fed-
eral base would have been a brilliant military stroke.

A detachment of about one thousand Kentucky
troops, under the command of Colonel Lewis, was sent
upon this errand. They were, in the main, the regi-
ment of Allen, which had lately been guilty of insub-
ordination. The attack was successful ; the fortifica-
tions were carried by storm, and the garrison pursued

THE WAR OF 1812. 161

a considerable distance. Then, in place of promptly re-
tiring, the captured fort was held and a report of the
success sent to Winchester, the commanding officer of
the brigade. Winchester, instead of ordering a re-
treat, came to the fort with two hundred and fifty
regulars under Colonel Mills. The circumstances de-
manded that these fresh troops should have been placed
within the stockade, but from some stupidity they were
quartered in Uie open ground at some distance from
the fortifications.

On the morning of the 22d the army, which had
slept without pickets, was suddenly assailed by a force
of two thousand British and Indians. The first charge
was directed against the stockade, but this, though
made by regular British troops, was easily repelled by
the Kentucky volunteers with great loss to the assail-
ants. Next the blow fell upon Mills' exposed men.
Overwhelmed by numbers, this force was quickly put to
rout. Colonels Allen and Lewis, with some of their
men, left the entrenchment they had so well defended,
and endeavored "to turn the fugitives into the enclosure,
arid so save them from utter destruction. Allen was
killed in his effort to bring some order out of the con-
fusion, and Lewis was taken prisoner. The militia-
men were now left without their commanders. Several
other of the bravest under officers had fallen beyond
the stockade in their effort to save a portion of the reg-
ilar regiment from massacre. Although this sally of
leaders into the rout they failed to stay, and in
rhich they fell, was ill-judged, it is one of the most
iliant incidents in Kentucky history.
The beleaguered men in the weak fort kept up their
iistance for several hours, but their stockade was
11

162 KENTUCKY.

under fire from a battery of artillery which searched
every part of their slender defenses. Only when their
ammunition was almost exhausted did they surrender,
under promise of honorable conditions. There is no
reason ta doubt that General Proctor, the British com-
mander, intended to keep his promises, but the wounded
men were left on the ground without sufficient guard.
At night the Indians, wild with drink, burst in and
butchered nearly all of them in a most atrocious man-
ner. This grave disaster carried sorrow throughout
Kentucky ; the loss, including the men massacred, was
not greater than had been met in other fields, but the
butchery of the wounded inspired a fury that was
marked in the later events of the war. To this day
the river Raisin is remembered in every old family in
Kentucky as a name of horror.

Occurring in midwinter it was months before there
was any chance to recover from this severe blow ; it
was the more discouraging, since it came at about the
same time as a much more disgraceful campaign that
had been undertaken against the Illinois Indians. A
force of two thousand Kentuckians, under the command
of General Hopkins, went upon this expedition. The
command crossed the Wabash River in October, and
went in search of a Kickapoo Indian village. They
expected to arrive there after a march of eighty-five
miles; this march was prolonged until the provisions
were exhausted without finding any Indians whatever.
The disgusted troops, convinced that they were on a wild
goose chase, refused the request of their commanders
to pursue the march one day longer, and sullenly re-
turned to Vincennes. They judged rightly, as it after-
ward turned out, for the town they were seeking was

THE WAR OF 1812. 163

three or four days' march beyond the point where they
turned back, and it would, with their supply of food,
have been impossible to reach it; but no properly minded
man, certainly no one who has been a soldier, can ac-
quit these men of conduct that was disgraceful.

The behavior of these raw levies in the armies of
Hopkins atid of Harrison, as well as all other experi-
ences with Kentucky troops, shows that they require
a long discipline before they are fit for the routine en-
durance of the soldier. Even when fresh from their
homes they can be trusted to take punishment and to
strike hard blows ; but they have too much individ-
uality to stand the continued trials of the march. They
have been too much accustomed to be a law unto them-
selves to make them patient in the dull round of toil
which makes up the life of the soldier until they have
been well and carefully disciplined. Most officers will
agree, however, that they would rather have material
that was insubordinate at the outset, than men who
went at once with ox-like patience to the yoke that
every private soldier has to bear. This otherwise
minded and impatient population gave, in the next gen-
eration, the material that made such troops as the 1st
Kentucky Brigade in Johnston's Confederate army, and
a host of other commands that showed the perfection
of soldierly qualities.

Harrison's inaction left his army in a shape to be be-
sieged by the British. If they had not been so slow
they might, indeed, have driven him back to the Ohio.
As it was, his adversary, General Proctor, if anything
a worse soldier than old Tippecanoe, gave him ample
time to make for his defense a moderately strong fortifi-
cation at the falls of the Maumee, known in history as

164 KENTUCKY.

Fort Meigs. After he had received some reinforcements
and supplies from Kentucky, on ahout the first of May,
he found himself strongly besieged by the British forces.
He had little artillery, and this was so' scantily provided
with ammunition, that the greater part of his shot was
that which came to him from the enemy's bombard-
ment.

The troops from Kentucky and Southern Ohio, which
had been gathered for the relief of Fort Meigs, suc-
ceeded in getting an understanding with its commander
as to the steps to be taken in the effort to raise the
siege. This plan was too complicated for the class of
troops that were to execute it, for it involved several
delicate mano3uvres that demanded a high degree of
discipline. The immediate .assault succeeded ; the en-
emy's batteries, taken in rear, were carried, but the
militia-men, their blood up, wildly pursued the fugitives
and were, by a judicious movement of the British com-
mander, cut off from the rest of the army and cap-
tured. They would probably all have been butchered
by the Indians but for the timely arrival of the brave
and honorable chief, Tecumseh, who stayed the work
of slaughter. Although the fight of the 5th of May
was a decided defeat for the Americans, General Proc-
tor felt that his position was critical ; and believing
that the Kentucky reinforcements were much larger
than they really were, abandoned the movement, and
took up his position again in his strong fortifications at
Maiden.

Considering the fact that Proctor's force was prob-
ably much larger than the combined American troops,
the operations that ended the siege succeeded better
than they deserved to do, for which our forces had to

THE WAR OF 1812. 165

thank the inefficiency of the British commander, since
their own movements were so badly managed as to in-
vite defeat.

The only brilliant episode in this extremely dull and
ineffective piece of campaigning was the defense of a
stockade called Fort Stephenson. This post was held
by Colonel George Croghan with one hundred and fifty
men ; on his way from the siege of Fort Meigs Gen-
eral Proctor endeavored to carry this post by assault.
Croghan l had been ordered to withdraw from it, but
before he could effect the movement the place was as-
sailed by the half of Proctor's army. When summoned
to surrender, Croghan defied his enemy to an assault ;
they, trusting to their tenfold superiority, tried an esca-
lade, but were easily beaten off with heavy loss.

In Perry's ship fight on Lake Erie a force of Ken-
tuckians served as musketeers, where they did good
service. This victory required Proctor to abandon De-
troit and withdraw his army to the north side of the
lakes. Here he was followed by Harrison. In a short
time, owing to his blundering ways of warfare, he was
forced into an action on the banks of the Thames. He
was considerably outnumbered by the American army,
but he had the choice of position, a fairly strong one,
and he had one regiment of British regulars in his com-
mand. His total force was about two thousand, while
the Americans had over three thousand men. This
action is properly a part of the history of Kentucky, as,
with the exception of a few regulars and some volun-
teers from near Cincinnati, also largely of Kentucky
blood, the whole force was from that State.

The greatest advantage of Proctor's army was that
1 Croghan (pronounced Crawn).

166 KENTUCKY.

he had with him the great Indian chief, Tecumseh, and
the flower of his army, composed of savages who were
fairly disciplined and inured to war. This noble red
man had succeeded in giving the warriors of his race n
steadiness and a soldierly quality which they never pos-
sessed under any other commander, at least in the old
days. He had a great and elevating influence upon
them, restraining their brutalities, and lifting their
minds to a patriotic fury. He was one of the few In-
dians of whom we can say he had a great moral force.

The attack was begun by a simultaneous charge upon
the British and Indian forces ; against the weak British
line the assault was quickly and completely successful.
The force of regulars was broken almost at the first
blow, and pursued from the field. The Indians made
a far more effective resistance. The charge of the
mounted Kentuckians was repulsed, and the attack
quickly degenerated into the old-fashioned skirmish fir-
ing that marks the ordinary Indian fighting of these
days. The defeat and destruction of the British con-
tingent left the Indian antagonist in a position to be
easily enfolded by the superior force of the Kentuck-
ians. The death of Tecumseh, which occurred early in
the action, was an overwhelming blow, so that they
\N^re soon driven from the field.

In this fight we can plainly see the rapid ripening of
the Kentucky troops in the art of civilized warfare. In
a few months they had passed from a rabble, which
could hardly be trusted to bear the fatigues of the
murch, to men who could be relied on to take the heav-
iest burdens of war. Their attack quickly overwhelmed
a line of regular British troops ; this is sufficient evi-
dence of their soldierly quality gained in a few months'

THE WAR OF 1812. 167

experience. The rest of the Canadian war did not in-
volve Kentucky troops, and may therefore be dismissed
from consideration. We therefore turn to the last arid
most brilliant campaign of this war, that of the Lower
Mississippi, including the battle of New Orleans. The
abdication of Bonaparte had released a large British
army that could be used against ' the United States.
Their other campaigns in the northern and eastern coun-
try showed the British that they had little hope of con-
quests in that direction. There remained the chance of
striking a great and heavy blow at the country by occu-
pying the delta of the Mississippi. There is reason for
surprise that the British had not taken this chance at
an earlier stage of the war. The mouth of the Missis-
sippi was practically undefended. It was of slow and
difficult access from the centre of population in the
Northern States, and the native element was not to be
trusted to make much resistance against a vigorous
attack ; a few light ships and a corps of three thousand
men might, if acting quickly and with a little address,
have gained a position from which it would have been
impossible for the American forces to dislodge them.

When Pakenham, with a force of ten thousand men,
was sent on this expedition, although he had the flower
of the British troops with him, and was himself an
officer of excellent ability, he seems to have left all his
witp on the other side of the water. His error seems
to have been that he despised his enemy, and chose
rather the ways of a dress parade than the swift and
vigorous measures of war in dealing with his foe. This
state of mind was probably due to the recent cowardly
behavior of the American army at Bladensburg, when
they abandoned the Federal capital to destruction in

168 KENTUCKY.

a disgraceful way. Pakenham, fresh from successes
over the best troops of Europe, assumed his success as
assured. He expected no serious fighting.

When it became certain that a blow was to fall on
the region about New Orleans, the Federal government
did the little that was possible in the way of making
preparations that had been all too long delayed. Gen-
eral Jackson, of Tennessee, who had made a measure
of fame in conflicts with the Indians of the South, and
whose energy in emergencies was well thought of, was
sent with seven hundred men to the post of New Or-
leans. When the British landed, his whole force con-
sisted of this handful of regulars and about three thou-
sand half armed and wholly undisciplined militia drawn
from the adjacent country. The British were obligingly
slow in their disembarkation and in their initial move-
ments, so that time was allowed for Tennessee militia
under General Coffee, and a brigade of Kentucky troops
under General Thomas, to arrive before the main attack
was prepared. When the Kentuckians arrived they were
without proper arms, and, like their brethren of the
northwest army, entirely without any other discipline
than that which they had received in their worthless
local musters.

Before the arrival of these reinforcements Jackson,
who was as vigorous as his enemy was dilatory, had
already delivered a serious blow to them as they. ad-
vanced from their landing-place. With twenty -five
hundred men and an armed schooner he assaulted them
in the march. The attack was in the night, and led,
as such attacks are apt to do, to utter confusion on both
sides. Jackson's assault, though ineffective in check-
ing the British advance, made it more cautious, >and

THE WAR OF 1812. 169

gave him some days in which to receive further re-
enforcements and to complete his preparations. A por-
tion of his Kentucky troops were at last supplied with
arms, but at best not over one half of those present
were even able to do more than load the muskets of
those who occupied the actual line of battle.

The slowness of the British movements gave Jack-
son twelve days, after the time of his night attack, in
which to complete his preparations. At the end of this
time he had a very strong position on the east, or New
Orleans' side of the river, where the principal action
was evidently to be fought. The British made a feeble
reconnaissance on the 28th, that served only to show
Jackson the danger of having his left turned. After
that the enemy gave him eleven more days in which to
avail himself of this information. At the end of that
time his lines were too strong to be forced, even when
assaulted by the veterans of the Peninsula and defended
by raw militia, without a heavy preliminary treatment
with artillery, which the enemy did not try to apply to
them.

Finally the deliberate Pakenham arranged his plan
of assault. He sent fourteen hundred men to the west
bank of the river. The remainder of his infantry
troops, amounting to about fifty-five hundred men, were
to assail the main lines. Jackson's whole force amounted
to about the same as the British. There were seventeen
hundred men on the west bank and forty-nine hundred
opposed to Pakenham's main column. The Kentucky
troops were disposed as follows : One hundred and
eighty were with Morgan's line on the left or west
bank, and eleven hundred were placed with Adair in
the centre of the main line on the eastern side of the
river.

170 KENTUCKY.

When the assault came it was made with all the pre-
cision of a parade. It fell at once upon the lines on
both sides of the river. On the west side the British
carried the ill-constructed fortifications in one charge.
The resistance was of the feeblest sort. The small force
of Kentuckians behaved like the rest of the outflanked
force. If the battle had depended on Morgan's men it
would have been a sorry day for the Americans. On
the eastern side of the principal attack it was, as we all
know, a very different story. There Jackson had massed
his most trustworthy men in a line several files deep.
Where he expected the heaviest assault, it is said that
the men were packed six ranks deep, — those in the
rear passing their loaded muskets to the front ranks, re-
ceiving from them the discharged guns, thus keeping
up a much more steady fire than was possible with the
ordinary formation of a line of battle.

Against such a fire, steady and coolly delivered, not
even Pakenham's veterans could stand. The British
never came into a position near enough to the fortifica-
tions to do. any real fighting. It was a mere butchery,
such as was never seen before or since in modern war-
fare. The British charge was, like that of Balaklava,
magnificent, but it was not war.

It is small praise to say that the Kentucky troops,
in the centre of the line, stood well. They, like the
rest of the line, never came under a serious fire. But
the furious Jackson, deeming his success qualified by the
defeat of Morgan's men on the west shore, and un-
mindful of the fact that about one fourth of his vic-
torious troops were Kentuckians, dwells in his report on
the flight of the men from Kentucky who were on the
left bank of the river, as if that was the whole share
of its citizens in the battle.

THE WAR OF 1812. 171

This hostility of the American commander to the
good name of Kentucky is easily explained. Jackson
was, by affiliation, a Tennesseean. Between that State
and Kentucky there was always a slight element of
jealousy. Tennesseeans of this time felt that they were
in the position of poor relations in their intercourse
with the somewhat arrogant people from Kentucky.
The disgraceful flight of the Federal troops on the west
bank gave Jackson's rough humor a chance to vent
itself, and although only one eighth of this force was
from Kentucky, he laid all the blame on them.

The campaign of New Orleans ended the important
features in the military history of Kentucky for many
years. The life of the people was mainly to be spent
in their arts and politics for a generation to come. To
those who find an interest in political history, this period
is not without incidents that will well repay attentive
study. A very large number of the citizens of Ken-
tucky— nearly all the more ardent spirits, in fact —
were hereafter to take themselves to the westward mov-
ing frontier. We find them all along the line from the
great lakes to the Gulf. They pass from the limits of
Kentucky history, yet their work should not be forgot-
ten when we are considering the national work of this
Commonwealth. We find them in every important In-
dian fight, in all the battles of the Texan war, as well
as in every legislative assembly of the Western States.
The first fifty years of Kentucky life was a good school
of those arts that serve to construct and maintain a
State, and the whole of the West felt the profit of its
teaching.

CHAPTER XIII.

FROM THE WAR OP 1812 TO THE WAR WITH MEXICO.

AMONG all peoples the intervals between wars afford
a series of natural divisions in their history. These
disturbances are like the critical illnesses of a man,
which mark stages in his history, though they may be
termed unnatural accidents in his development. The
period from 1812 to 1846 was occupied by the Ken-
tuckians in a wrestle with some grave problems, which
gave them even more serious trouble than their Indian
difficulties. The position of this new American State
in the fertile fields of the Mississippi Valley abounded
in difficulties ; rich in natural resources, but poor in the
profits of experience so necessary to the proper control
of communities. The place of- this young Common-
wealth was like that of a young heir of good blood aod
high mettle, who has just come by a great inheritance,
but whose education has not in the least degree fitted
him for such a care as he should give his affairs.

The life of the generation from 1815 to 1845 was
full of grave blunders, but it was full of profit as well.
No State has made more serious mistakes in govern-
mental affairs than Kentucky. We shall see that one
by one they exhausted the follies that it was possible
for a developing community to commit, but we shall
also see that they profited by their painful experiences.

The first difficulty concerned the monetary system of

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 173

the Commonwealth. The whole American experience
shows how well-nigh impossible it is to bring a majority
of the people of a State to a clear understanding of the
principles of exchange. Men in general can compre-
hend the simple barter of goods ; but as soon as barter
is further complicated by a selection of some standard of
exchange, the problem gets quite beyond their compre-
hension. At once these measures of value become the
subject of a curious delusion ; they are looked on as mys-
terious agents of almost superhuman power. Whether
they are cowries or coins, miraculous powers are soon
attached to them. When the real value of the coin be-
comes represented by a bank note, the money problem
escapes entirely from the comprehension of the people.

The first state of mind of the Kentucky people in
reference to the currency was very wholesome. They
had been through the severe experience of the Conti-
nental paper money. They had seen that currency go
down into the pit. For a time, up to about 1785, Ken-
tucky was practically without any form of money what-
ever. The first generation after that experience clung
to barter, or they used rude mediums of exchange, such
as a given weight of furs or of tobacco, in their trade.
The prejudice against paper money continued as long
as there were any to remember the woes of the Conti-
nental period. The first bunk came by accident in the
charter of an insurance company.1 The opening of a
trade with the Spanish at New Orleans brought some
Spanish silver into the State, and this was long the
principal currency. After the War of 1812-15 the com-
mercial growth of Kentucky was rapid ; it became the
main depot or supply station for all the country to the
1 See p. 149.

174 KENTUCKY.

west and northwest. Its industrial and social organ-
ization was then far ahead of the conditions in the
other neighboring States and Territories, so that the
exchangeable supplies of the region were great, and the
force that before had gone towards war and politics
turned towards commerce.

At this time the general resumption of specie pay-
ments in Europe, after the long suspension that attended
the wars with Bonaparte, diminished the metallic cur-
rency of the American world in a way that was very
destructive to its business interests. The conservative
policy that Kentucky had pursued left her in excellent
position at the close of the second war with Great Brit-
ain. She met the direct tax of the Federal government,
amounting to $169,000, promptly. The people, bold in
their prosperity, were eager for new enterprises. The
trade spirit was as high as the war spirit of the preced-
ing generation. The great stream of energy which had
been developed in the battle with the forest and its in-
habitants, now flowed into the pursuits of peaceful life.

The application of steam to navigation early inter-
ested this people. It was natural that it should, for their
experience in navigating against the swift currents of
the streams made it plain to them that they needed the
aid of this power. As early as 1794, Edward West
launched a small trial vessel in an artificial lake, made
by damming the waters of Elkhorn Creek where it
flowed through the town of Lexington. This is one of
the first, though not the very first, successful trials of
a river steamer in the United States.1 The complete

1 Some of the old geographical dictionaries speak of Elkhorn Creek
as a stream navigable to Lexington. This attribution of navigability
to a trifling rivulet of water came from the above experiment. |

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 175

possession of the more important Mississippi waters,
which was secured by the events of 1815, gave a great
impetus to steam navigation. In 1820 and thereabouts,
the greater number of the steamboats in the West were
owned in Kentucky.

The manufactures of the State, which were consider-
able in the last decade of the eighteenth and the first of
the nineteenth centuries, became very much extended.1

1 " Kentucky was the home and burial-place of at least three of the
earliest inventors of steamboats — John Fitch, James Ruinsey, and
Edward \Vest. The latter was born in 1757 in Virginia, and removed
in 1788 (one account says in 1785) to Lexington, where he died Au-
gust 23, 1827. He Avas the first watchmaker there, was a gunsmith by
trade, and a man of great inventive genius. He constructed a steam-
boat on a small scale, which in 1794, in the presence of hundreds of
citizens, he had the proud satisfaction to see move through the water
with great velocity, in an experimental trial on the Town Fork of
F.Ik horn, previously dammed up near the centre of Lexington for the
purpose. This miniature steamboat had no flywheels; but to overcome
the dead point, the piston-rod was made to strike metallic springs at
every return motion given by the steam. The identical engine, or
rather cylinder, piston-rod, framework, supply and escape pipe, were
preserved for more than fifty years in the Ad el phi Society of Tran-
sylvania University, and have since been transferred to the Museum
of the Eastern Lunatic Asylum. On July 6, 1802, Mr. West received
a United States patent for his steamboat invention. Why he delayed
until then obtaining a patent, we have not learned. On the same day
he was awarded three other patents — for a gunlock, for a nail-cutting
machine, and for a nail-cutting and heading machine, the first ever
invented, and which the celebrated English traveler, F. A. Michaux,
in 1805, said cut in twelve hours 5,320 pounds of nails, and the
patent of which 'he sold at once for $10,000.' Lexington shortly
after actually exported nails of her own manufacture to Louisville,
to Cincinnati, and even to Pittsburg — which is now the most exten-
sive nail manufacturing point in the. United States, if not in the
world. April 28, 1816 (only four and a half years after the first
steamboat in the West), a steamboat, made by Bosworth & West, on
Mr. West's model, left the mouth of Hickman Creek, on the Ken-
tucky River, in Jessamine County, for New Orleans. This boat, an
editorial notice in the Kentucky Gazette says, was upon a plan dis-

176 KENTUCKY.

The State at this time developed a considerable amount
of mechanical ingenuity among its people ; many of the
inventions of its mechanics were important contribu-
tions to the arts. As an instance of the manufacturing
development in Kentucky, we may take the business
conditions of Lexington in 1817. There were then
over sixty factories, employing a capital of £467, 225, 1
or about two million dollars of modern money. A
number of other places were important .manufacturing
centres during the second decade of the nineteenth
century. In 1819, Louisville had sixty-four mechan-
ical shops, and about the same number of other stores.

This rapid development of mechanical industry and
the great growth of agriculture required some better
system of currency than was in existence at this time.
There then existed but one banking institution, — the
Bank of Kentucky, with a capital of $1,000,000. After
a long resistance to the project of free banking, the
legislature in 1818 chartered at once forty-six separate
banks, having a total capital of $8,720,000. This ex-
periment was singularly unfortunate, for within the
year the demand for specie which came from the United
States Bank, brought about the suspension of payments
on the part of the only strong banking-house in the
State, — the old Bank of Kentucky, — and wrecked
nearly all the flimsy banks that had been organized
under these charters. They were mostly in the hands

tinct from any other steamboat then in use, and on a trial against
the current of the Kentucky River, at a high stage, more than an-
swered the sanguine expectations of her owners (a company of Lex-
ington gentlemen), and left no doubt that she could stem the current
of the Mississippi with rapidity and ease. She did not return." Col-
lins, ii. p. 174.
i Collins, ii. p. 176. »»

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 177

of weak men, and had begun their operations by loaning
money on worthless securities.

Convinced by dearly bought experience that this
course was perilous, the legislature in 1820 annulled
these charters, and left the problem of banking where
it was before. So grievous was the burden of debt that
was caused by the collapse of speculations undertaken
in the previous years that the legislature was forced to
another wild scheme, which brought about one of the
most singular and instructive political struggles that had
ever been seen in an American State. The act in ques-
tion provided for the organization of the Bank of the
Commonwealth, with a capital stock of $2,000,000.
There was a long and fierce debate before this charter
was granted : on the one side were arrayed the few
who by native insight rather than by reading perceived
the true principles of money, — men like Christopher
Greenup and the other clear-headed members of the
Political Club of Danville ; on the other side was the
host of impetuous men who had been harder tried in
their speculative combats with the impossible in finance
than they ever had been in their struggle with the sav-
ages. They were ruined in pocket : they fancied that in
some way the State could, without injustice to any man,
make them whole again. If there was only a bank that
would advance a little money on securities they deemed
as safe as gold, all might be well.

History repeats itself more often in monetary than
any other matters. It was now the innings of the soft
money men. This Bank of the Commonwealth was al-
lowed to issue notes, for which the holder could not
claim specie payment. It was to have twelve trustees,
and was allowed to put out $3,000,000 of circulating
12

178 KENTUCKY.

paper. This paper was made a legal tender for all debts.
The next step of the mad party that led in the legis-
lature was to get possession of the excellent Bank of
Kentucky, — the only sound banking establishment in
the Commonwealth. The old directors of this institu-
tion were turned out, and their places taken by men
who represented fiat money. The plan was to use the
well earned credit of this bank to float the bills issued
by the new " wild cat " enterprise. The result was to
overthrow the credit of the only sound bank in the
country.1

In the course of the year the paper of the new bank
fell to a fraction of its face value. Creditors properly
objected to payment in notes that represented no real
value, and when their property was seized, appealed to
the courts. Fortunately at that time the judiciary of
the State, still appointed by the governor, and holding
office during good behavior, was composed of able and
trustworthy men. The effort to defeat the " will of the
people '' by process of law aroused an extraordinary ex-
citement throughout the State. The mad-cap element,
deprived of the profits of their majority, threatened the
judges with ejection from their seats, and even personal
violence, if they dared to decide against the constitu-
tionality of the law. The first decision came from the

1 It is worth while to notice that the legislature undertook to com-
mend this ill-advised project to the people by devoting one half the
profits of the Commonwealth Bank to what was known as the " Lit-
erary Fund." This money was to go for the purchase of books and
philosophical apparatus and other betterments of the Transylvania
University, Centre College, and to the Southern College of Kentucky.
This appropriation came to nothing, but it is an interesting evidence
of the desire for the increase of the usefulness of the State colleges,
and the sense of what might best reconcile the conservative people tc
the new monetary scheme which they so stoutly opposed. '

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 179

court of the Clarke County district. The sitting jus-
tice, Judge Clarke, decided that the clause in the act
which gave a retrospective effect to the action of re-
plevin was unconstitutional and void.

It is not worth while to go into the complicated
technicalities of this decision. The essence of it was
that the legislature had no power to take steps that in
any way impaired the obligation of contracts, as it did
by making the notes of the Commonwealth Bank a legal
tender. As is often the case, the decision touched only
a part of the laws that were in controversy, but it
clearly showed how the courts would deal with the
whole problem when it came fairly before them.

The State was already divided into two political par-
ties, known as the relief and anti-relief parties. The
forn:er insisted that the will of the people should pre-
vail in the passage of the laws for the relief of debtors ;
the latter, that these laws were inconsistent with the
Federal Constitution, which forbids the passage of laws
that impair the obligation of contracts. As usual, the
more radical men won at the outset, the conservative
element being slow to array itself in determined op-
position to the overthrow of the organic law. The re-
lief party had an overwhelming majority in the legis-
lature, and the weak-minded Governor Adair was in
sympathy with them. An extra session of the legisla-
ture was called, and the just and fearless judge, who
had decided against the law, was cited before it in order
that steps might be taken summarily to remove him.
Judge Clarke made an able defense of his action, and
there was enough reason left in this legislature to con-
vince some of his antagonists and to make his removal
impossible, at least while the Court of Appeals had the

180 KENTUCKY.

question of his decision under hearing. In 1823 the
Appellate Court consisted of three judges, — Boyle,
chief justice, Mills and Owsley, associates, — all men
of a strong type and unshakable by popular clamor.
Disgraceful efforts were made to frighten them into a
decision in favor of the relief party: It is infinitely to
their credit that the judgment they rendered was a clear
judicial verdict against the constitutionality of the law,
on the ground that it violated the clause in the Con-
stitution of the United States which forbids the States
to impair the obligations of contracts.

Their decision was received by the relief party with
a perfect tempest of rage. Efforts were at once made to
remove the judges by act of the legislature. The elec-
tion of 1824 was decided on this issue, and Governor
Joseph Desha, the relief candidate, received 38,378
votes, and his opponent, Christopher Thompson, 22,499.
This majority carried with it the control of both the
senate and house, but not sufficiently complete power
to enable the legislature to remove the offending jus-
tices by impeachment, which required a two third's
vote. So an indirect means of accomplishing this end
was devised. As soon as the legislature met a bill was
brought in and speedily passed, to break up the Su-
preme Court, by repealing all the laws that gave it ex-
istence. Then another court, under the name of the
Court of Appeals, was organized. The new places were
immediately filled by men who were known and earnest
supporters of the popular party. This revolutionary
act unfortunately had the support of some of the ablest
men in the State. William T. Barry, the chief jus-
tice of the new court, John Rowan, Joseph Desha, and
others who were the leaders in the relief party, were

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR, 181

men of high character and distinguished ability. Their
conduct in this matter is only to be explained by sup-
posing that their judgment was obscured by the political
excitement which the states rights element of the prob-
lem had engendered.1

Fortunately for the State the justices of the old court
were men of calm strength, who felt that when the sub-
ject was fairly presented to the people they would be
supported. They did not accept this dismissal from
their high office. They "made a judicious and complete
answer to the legislature in its effort to legislate them
out of office, and when their offices were vacated by en-
actment they took the strong ground that as their court
was created by the conditions of the Constitution of the
Commonwealth, nothing less than the amendment of that
instrument could remove them from their positions. Al-
though they were deprived of their records, which were
placed under a military guard that allowed only the
new court to have access to them, they continued to sit
and give judgments as before, leaving the final decision
of the matter to the people. The minority of the legis-
lature, though their protests against the illegal action
of their colleagues were refused even a place on the
records of both senate and house, took the question to
the people. Then came a bloodless campaign, which
for energy and bitterness has never been equaled in the
history of the State, if ever among English speaking

1 Space does not allow, nor perhaps would the reader be repaid, for
the careful review of this interesting struggle. Those who are curious
in such matters will find a full record of the debates outside of the
legislature in the two weekly journals which were created as organs
of the two parties, the Patriot and the Spirit of '76, published in
Frankfort, Ky., during the trial of this momentous issue before the
people.

182 KENTUCKY.

peoples. Not even the elections immediately preceding
the Civil War gave anything like the same fury to men's
minds as did the struggle between the old and new
court parties in the election of 1825. In the canvass
of 1860 every one felt that there was a great elemental
storm arising that might sweep the land to destruction.
This subdued the fury of partisanship.

The election of 1825 had, in its principal question,
one well suited to arouse the bitterest passions. On
one side was arrayed the " people's party," — that large
body of people who from the first had held to the notion
that the will of the populace should be the supreme law.
Something of these gross notions concerning the func-
tion of government was shown in the earlier history
of the Commonwealth. We see them in the actions
of the French party. They are marked in the frequent
cases of insubordination among Kentucky troops. But
now was the first time that this socialistic force was
arrayed against the best interests of the State itself.
The debate before the people was long and furious, but
the next election showed that the heart of the Common-
wealth was sound. They gave their hearty approval
to the anti-relief party, electing sixty of old court men
to thirty-five for the new court. Still the senate, which
was only partly renewed by this election, disregarding
the will of their constituents, which they pretended to
take as their guide, refused to concur with the house in
a bill to rescind the laws constituting the new court.
The question was kept open until the next year, when
the voters reaffirmed their decision in an election which
so changed the senate that the two bodies were able to
pass an act to annul this detestable legislation. In De-
cember, 1825, all the laws constituting the new court

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 183

were repealed, thus ending a contest that brought the
Commonwealth in the face of the gravest problems of
public morals.

During this long struggle the Commonwealth was
continually on the verge of a civil war. The whole
machinery of law was out of joint; no legal steps could
be taken with any certainty that the action was properly
brought. The records of the Supreme Court were iny
the possession of the newly constituted Court of Ap-
peals, and were under military guard, and the governor
was in complete sympathy with the new court party.
The good judgment of the people, together with the
dignity and patience of the court, enabled the State to
avoid the worst consequences of this great error, — to
give it no graver name. The act of 1825, repealing the
laws constituting the new court, was passed over the
governor's veto, so that the end was attained against
the resistance of the magistrate, who had sworn to de-
fend the Constitution that gave him his authority.

This struggle between the parties of old and new
courts had certain very important effects upon the po-
litical life of the Commonwealth. For the first time it
brought the motives of the radical element of the popu-
lation clearly into view, and arrayed against them the
conservative and law-abiding element of the people.
The question before the court, and in its legal aspect,
turned upon the clause of the Federal Constitution that
forbade the impairment of contracts, though the imme-
diate victory was gained on other and more special legal
grounds. But there was a nearer and simpler question,
one of honesty in the management of public affairs,
which was the part debated before the people and on
which they gave their decision in an unmistakable way.

184 KENTUCKY.

We may fairly regard this debate as a turning-point
in the politics of the State. The election which gave
the relief party its overwhelming majority in the legis-
lature of 1824, and elected Desha by a vote of thirty-
eight thousand to twenty-two thousand for his opponent,
represents the uninformed and rash state of public opin-
ion. The reversal of this vote in the following year
shows an extraordinary revolution of sentiment. It
shows a moral awakening which was full of promise,
and one that time has justified. From this time onwards
the State has always inclined to conservative ways.
In its end the controversy between the old and new
courts was very wholesome, since it showed the people
the way in which grave dangers lay. That the people
of the Commonwealth met the emergency in a manly
fashion, promptly reconsidering their first hasty steps
when they had a chance to see whereto they led, and
in the end found a position on firm ground, is a matter
of satisfaction to all who hold the name of Kentucky
dear.

When the final overthrow of the new court came it
was acquiesced in by both parties, though with the nat-
ural inertia of politics for some time the party lines
stood near where they had been placed by this conflict.
With apparent satisfaction the people turned their at-
tention from their local affairs to the larger field of na-
tional questions. There was a matter which had been
in abeyance during the old and new court conflict that
was ready for use. In 1825 the election for President
having been thrown into the House of Representatives,
Clay, then a member from the Ashland district, had
cast his vote for Adams. It was fit that he should
have done so, for Adams fairly represented the party

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 185

with which he had acted for many years. The radical
element of Kentucky and elsewhere chose to take this
vote in high dudgeon. There was then, and for a long
time afterwards, a great dislike to New England, and
especially to Massachusetts, among the extremists of
Kentucky. This was, in the beginning, due to the fact
that the New England States opposed the admission of
Kentucky to the Federal Union ; even those who did
not desire to have that union effected were naturally
offended by this resistance. To this original cause of
hatred was added the anti-slavery propaganda which
came from that region, as well as the severe answer
that Massachusetts had made to the invitation sent her
by the young Commonwealth to concur in the resolu-
tions of 1798.

Clay and the cause of Adams, in the approaching
Federal election, were espoused by the old court party,
then known as the National Republican party. Jack-
son was the candidate of the new court party, then
known as the Democratic Republicans. In the State
election of 1825 it was evident that Adams was a bur-
den that even the strength of the old court party could
not carry, for, although this party elected Metcalf, their
candidate as governor, Jackson carried the State in
November by a majority of eight thousand. This vote
for Jackson should not be regarded as representing the
true position of the parties at this time. It is well
known that Adams had incurred a great burden of un-
popularity throughout the United States, as is shown by
his overwhelming defeat in the other States, while Jack-
son represented the greatest victory that had ever been
won by the national troops, an action in which nearly
one third of his men were Keutuckians. The people

186 KENTUCKY.

had forgiven him his unjust criticism of their soldiers,
for which he in a fashion apologized, and only remem-
bered his really noble and soldierly qualities. The won-
der is that, under the circumstances, Jackson's majority
was so small. The vote stood for Jackson, 39,394;
for Adams, 31,460.

The defeat of Adams was a severe blow to Henry
Clay, and for a time promised to make an end of his
political life, but this fascinating and pliant man soon-
recovered his place among his people. Jackson's course
as President, though not to the satisfaction of the more
conservative element, pleased the mass of the people.
For two years this approval was marked by the as-
cendancy of the Democrats. Even in 1832 this party
succeeded in electing their governor by a slender ma-
jority. But the nomination of Clay as a candidate of
the National Republican or Whig party, to contest a
second election with Jackson, finally determined the po-
litical complexion of Kentucky. The people were in a
state of wild enthusiasm for their illustrious citizen, and
in the November election the poll stood: Clay, 43,614;
Jackson, 36,200.

On the national arena Jackson defeated Clay by a
large majority, but the Kentuckian was now master of
his own Commonwealth, and long ruled it wisely. Al-
though his place in national statesmanship may be ques-
tioned, though it may be shown that his advocacy of a
tariff and of the Missouri Compromise were not founded
on sound principles of statesmanship, there can be no
question that within the limits of Kentucky his influence
was beneficial beyond that of any other citizen. With
little academic instruction, he was a man of a really
wide culture. His conservatism was not a narrow k^nd,

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 187

but carne from a keen sense of the value of deliberate-
ness and fidelity in all public actions. We cannot in
this brief sketch trace his influence on Kentucky life,
nor even give the outlines of his work ; but it should
be remembered that whil.e he was never keenly inter-
ested in State politics, and there is no important State
legislation that can be regarded as his work, yet in
founding and strengthening the conservative spirit that
began to come with the greater wealth and culture of
the State, he assuredly did a very great work. From
the time of his local victory over Jackson to the present
day, the conservative element of Kentucky, — the party
that takes the tasks of government deliberately and
philosophically, that debates, before acting and after act-
ing, the questions of public duty as they should be con-
sidered, — has never lost its hold upon the State. Par-
ties have changed names, political issues have come and
gone, but the conservative power that came from the
bank question, and was affirmed by Clay, still holds the
old Commonwealth with a firm hold.1

The course of Jackson in reference to the national
bank soon brought the Kentuckians back again to their
local needs. The winding-up of the Commonwealth
Bank was skillfully managed. The legislature ar-
ranged for the calling in and the cancellation of its
outstanding paper, so that the indecent neglect of the
public rights, shown in its founding, gave place to a
commendable honesty in its finish.

The notes of the United States Bank were now the

1 I shall hereafter discuss the present position of parties in Ken-
tucky, and believe that I shall show that the present so-called Demo-
cratic party of Kentucky is essentially the conservative party much
as it was left by Clay.

188 KENTUCKY.

principal circulating medium of Kentucky. They served
their purpose well until Jackson began his assaults on
the bank. When it fell before the furious campaign
whicn Jackson waged against it, the State legislature
endeavored to replace its paper by creating three banks,
known as the Bank of Kentucky, the Bank of Louis-
ville, and the Northern Bank of Kentucky, the first
being the reconstitution of a bank that had long ex-
isted ; these banks had a total capital of ten million of
dollars.

If Jackson had been defeated at New Orleans, his
ruin could not have done the country as much dam-
age as his repeal of the charter of the United States
Bank, without any provision for its replacement in the
system of American commerce. The immediate result
was a general return to the " wild cat " money of ten
years before ; banks started up at every cross-roads'
town ; every speculative person found banks to lend him
money, for the more of the paper that these institutions
could set afloat the larger would be the measure of their
profits. The Kentucky banks were far more provident
than those of the neighboring States, but they c'ould
not resist the tide of fraudulency that came in the train
of this wild speculation. The commerce of Kentucky
was now involved with that of half a dozen other com-
munities, which were of a much less conservative humor
in the management of the banking question. The bub-
ble of speculation was soon blown up to the bursting
point, and in 1837 all the banks of the United States
were, by the resulting collapse, forced into a suspension
of payments.

Despite the hard lessons of the preceding decade,
Kentucky had been led into the full tide of speculation

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 189

which affected not only individuals but the State itself.
The legislature had undertaken a vast system of pub-
lic improvements on its own credit. It was at work on
a costly system of canalizing the principal rivers, whose
whole water system lies in the State ; the Kentucky,
the Green, and the Licking were to be provided with
locks and dams, so that they might be navigated from
the Ohio to their head-waters. A great series of turn-
pikes also received the aid of the State. These im-
provements were well conceived. The State was suf-
fering under a grievous want of ways of communication.
Its centres of population and of industry were far from
the Ohio, then the only great pathway of commerce.
The clayey character of the soil in all the fertile dis-
tricts made unmacadamized roads impassable to any
heavy traffic during half the year. The State had
shown commendable enterprise in dealing with this car-
dinal difficulty of its civilization. It was a great mis-
fortune that the effort was made in a period of such
monetary uncertainty. But the very stimulus to enter-
prise that led to the undertaking of these improvements
was due to the speculation that caused commercial dis-
aster.

The financial hurricane of 1837 produced a universal
and enduring distress in Kentucky. Nearly every busi-
ness man in the State, and very many of the farmers,
were rendered bankrupt or burdened by debt to the
point of virtual insolvency. In this time of trial the
people showed the profit of the lessons of the preced-
ing ten years. There was a general effort to mitigate
the evils by mutual help rather than by legislation.
The State refused to forfeit the charters of the sus-
pended banks, or to compel them to resume specie pay-

190 KENTUCKY.

ments. The brief breathing time of 1838, when for a
few months the banks tried to resume payment, revived
the hopes of the people ; but the burden of unliquidated
debt rested too heavily on them for an enduring revival
of business, so that the banks were compelled again to
suspend their proper functions. The years 1840, 1841,
and 1842 were the most hopeless that this people have
ever known. Not even the shadowed days of the Civil
War brought such despair to their firesides. War
brings the light of action and expectation, with its
swift movements, that is wanting in a time of universal
bankruptcies.

It is not surprising that this time of trial led to a
revival of the " relief party," which grew rapidly to
formidable dimensions. But the conservative element
was bold, and readily met their schemes. The legisla-
ture refused to take any unreasonable steps. The most
they did was to modify the system of the courts, so as
to give the creditor a little more time in which to meet
the actions brought against him. Gradually, through
infinite suffering that is recorded in the long dockets of
the courts and the cloud of judgments that fell upon all
forms of property, the people won their way back to
commercial prosperity.

This episode closes the remarkable events in the his-
tory of the financial development of the State. From
this time on the Commonwealth's banks were singularly
sound and efficient institutions. They were commonly
domestic in their system ; they trusted for their strength
to a mixture of control exercised by the State through
its ownership of stock and the citizen stockholders.1

1 In many ways these banks were singularly domestic institutions.
Custom required the cashier to reside in the bank building, softhat

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 191

They gave to the people a better currency than ex-
isted in any State west of the mountains. Even in the
trial of the Civil War they stood, as they still stand,
unbroken. Their strength is so great that although
their currency has been destroyed by the laws of the
United States, they remain the mainstays of the busi-
ness of the Kentucky people outside of one or two of
the larger cities.

It will be worth the reader's while to follow this pe-
culiar history of Kentucky banking beyond the limits
of this sketch. I know no other case in the history of
these American States where the problem of an ex-
change system has been so beautifully shown in all its
various workings. In the first period of the State's
history we had a long time in which the industry was
carried on in the main by barter. Then came the period
when the Spanish currency of the dollar was the main-
stay of commerce. It is likely that the singular philo-
Spanish party got some of its influence from the use of
this currency. A sense of kinship comes with a com-
mon money. Relations with Spain that now seem so
impracticable, probably looked more natural to a people
who used Spanish money in the most of their transac-
tions. When the want of small money became great,
as it did about the beginning of the century, the need
was met by cutting the Spanish dollar into four or eight
parts, called " quarters " or " bits." These angular
fragments of " cut money " passed current for thirty
years or so, and were the subject of several legislative

the bank affairs were in a way a part of the household of its execu-
tive arrangements. It may be that this domestication of the bank
aided in part to secure the peculiar honesty that marked their admin-
istration.

192 KENTUCKY.

enactments. This plan of dividing coins into segments
was a singular if not unique device, and long served a
good purpose.

When the commerce of this people came to the point
where a better system of money became necessary, we
find them learning the hard lesson of banking by the
dear way of experience, and profiting by that experience
in a singularly immediate fashion. Moreover, the ad-
vance of the Kentuckians in the methods of govern-
ment can, to a great degree, be attributed to the com-
plete discussion of the principle of public faith that they
had then to decide in the matter of the Commonwealth
Bank and the new court questions. It is impossible
in this place to do more than furnish an outline of this
extremely interesting chapter in commercial history, but
it will be well for some student of political economy to
give especial attention to the instructive series of events.
In no other American State can the money problem be
found in such a good position for study. The careful
student will there find a wonderful catalogue of mone-
tary expedients.

From their trials in business the people more than
once turned, with their usual eagerness, to the questions
of national politics. The wide habit of thought bred in
their early wrestle with national problems, such as the
first forty years of the life of the Commonwealth opened
to them, made such matters always of paramount in-
terest.

The Harrison presidential campaign of 1840 was de-
cided, as was the first Jackson campaign, on the mem-
ories of the War of 1812. Van Buren received 32,616,
while Harrison's vote was 58,489, a majority of nearly
two to one, — and this despite tho fact that Richard iM.

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 193

Johnson, the candidate for Vice-President with Vau
Buren, was a Kentuckian of Kentuckians, the man who,
it was believed, had killed the great Tecumseh in the
battle of the Thames, and who had otherwise deserved
well of his country. The Whig vote was doubtless re-
duced by the popularity of this illustrious citizen.

In 1844 Clay was the Whig candidate for the Pres-
idency. Although he was supported by his party with
a singular ardor, his majority in the State was only about
nine thousand, a great falling off from the majority
given to Harrison four years before. This marks a pe-
culiar set of politics in Kentucky, which we must now
explain.

In this election the Democratic party represented the
project for the annexation of Texas, which now was
becoming a burning question in American politics. The
attempt which Texas was then making for independence
of Mexico claimed and gained the keenest sympathy
from Kentucky. Many of the leaders in that remark-
able conflict were from this Commonwealth, and they
all represented the motives of that western life which,
in time of trial, knows no State bounds.1 There have
been few incidents in American history so calculated to
interest the Kentucky people. The struggle was ro-
mantic in its object and in its details. For years the
Kentucky people had been deprived of all share in the
excitement of war. Wur for political objects has always
had an absorbing interest to a people who have the out-
going type of mind combined with rude vigor. More-
over, the growing interest in the slavery problem led

1 Many hundred of the soldiers of the Texan army were from Ken-
tucky. General Albert Sydney Johnston, General Felix Huston, and
many other distinguished officers were her sons.
13

194 KENTUCKY.

many strong advocates of that institution to desire an
extension of territory in the Southwest, into which the
slave population might find its way. These influences
led many persons temporarily to detach themselves from
the old Whig or conservative party, and to join the side
that advocated aiding Texas in her conflict with Mexico,
or her admission into the United States. The same
influences acted throughout the Union, but with more
energy in Kentucky than elsewhere, because the force
of sympathy with the Texan cause was stronger than in
any other Whig State. Nothing else could show so well
the gain in the conservatism in Kentucky as the fact
that, despite all these natural incentives to sympathy
with Texas, the State was held by a majority of over
nine thousand in resistance to the project of a war with
Mexico. The basis of Clay's opposition to the annexa-
tion of Texas was in the very tendency to the extension
of slavery that this annexation would bring about. A
majority of the people of Kentucky were no longer
friendly to the extension of slavery, though they were
even more heartily opposed to the abolition party.

The defeat of Clay was the final blow to his long de-
ferred hopes of occupying the chair of the President at
Washington. He still remained the foremost figure of
Kentucky politics, but his influence even there ends with
this defeat. This failure of their candidate was the
more exasperating because treachery in New York de-
termined the issue against him. The nation at large
abandoned the cautious policy that strangely enough had
pome' to be the motive of Kentucky, which in the pre-
ceding generation was the most radical State in the
Union. Had it been left to Kentucky, despite her nat-
ural sympathy with Texas and the pro-slavery Soufh,

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 195

there would probably have been no annexation of new
territory for many years, and slavery might have been
hemmed within its old bounds.

We leave the discussion of the events of the Mexican
War to the next chapter, and turn back to consider the
condition of the institution of slavery during this middle
period of the State's history. The tables in the Appen-
dix will give the reader a synopsis of the increase in
the African element of the population in the successive
decades since the first census. It will easily be seen
that the first settlers of Kentucky, though they came
from slave-holding colonies, brought few negroes into
the State. As soon as the pioneer life began to give
place to a commercial activity, and men took to plant-
ing for profit and not for subsistence, the negro popula-
tion rapidly increased. From 1790 to 1840 there was
a rapid gain of the African element of the population
represented in per cents, at the several decades as fol-
lows. The upper line gives the per cent, of increase in
the preceding decade in the black, the lower in the
white, population.

1800. 1810. 1820. 1830. 1840. 1850. 1800. 1870.
Slaves 224 99 57 20 1-3 10 1-3 15 2-3 7 —6
Whites 200 84 36 22 1313 26 17 14

Thus the African race increased more rapidly than
the white up to 1830. In 1840 the white population
shows a notable increase over the black. This gain is
more marked in 1850, it is extended in 1860, and in
1870 the black population shows an absolute decrease.
In a small way this actual decrease in 1870 may be due
to the emigration of the negroes during the war, but it
will be noticed that it very nearly agrees with the series
of changes belonging to the earlier decades. This will

196 KENTUCKY.

be more apparent to the reader from a consultation of
the tables in the Appendix, where also the notable total
increase of the blacks is shown. We may say that this
decrease would have come about in the natural succes-
sion of changes, even if the war had not been fought or
emancipation established. There is great difficulty in
analyzing the history of slavery in Kentucky. There
are no sufficient records on which to base the study of
the problem. In the following statement the writer has
had to rely on his long personal knowledge of the Com-
monwealth and on fair opportunities for insight into its
motives.

In the first place the reader should observe that only
a small part of the Commonwealth is fit for anything
like plantation life. The greater part of the area re-
quires the thrift and personal care of the owner to
make its cultivation remunerative. Even that part of
the land of Kentucky that may be used for tillage in a
large way is decidedly more profitable in the hands of
farmers who cultivate small areas. Next, it should be
noticed that the whole system of Kentucky life fell from
the first into something essentially like the yeomanry
system of England. The land came into the hands of
small landholders, who in the main worked with their
own hands. Each year increased this element of the
State at the expense of the large properties. The prin-
ciple of primogeniture, which in Virginia outlasted the
laws that supported it, never gained a place in Ken-
tucky. The result was that each generation saw the
lauds more completely divided, and the area fit for slave
labor became constantly less occupied by large farmers.
There was also in this yeoman class, as well as among
the more educated men of fortune, a growing discontent

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 197

with the whole system of slave labor. Nor was this dis-
like to slavery based on economic considerations alone.
Already, in the first decades of Kentucky life, there was
a strong protest from many religious people against the
system. When Clay, about 1798, began to be a power
in the land, his plan of emancipation, with or without
colonization, became an article of faith with his party,
and was held by the larger part of the conservative
people. There came to be a prejudice against all forms
of commerce in slaves. This notion came to its height
in the decade between 1830 and 1840, and is probably
responsible for a part of the rapid relative decrease of
slaves within those years. From the local histories the
deliberate student will easily become convinced that if
there had been no external pressure against slavery at
this time there would still have been a progressive elim-
ination of the slave element from the population by
emancipation on the soil, by the sale of the slaves to
the planters of the Southern States, and by their coloni-
zation in foreign parts.

In the decade from 1840 to 1850 the activity of the
abolition party in the North became very great; all
along the Ohio River there were stations for the rescuing
of slaves and conveying them to safe places beyond the
border. The number of negroes who escaped in this way
was small, — it probably did not average more than one
hundred a year, but the effect upon the state of mind
of the people was very great. The truth is, the ne-
groes in Kentucky were not generally suffering from
any bonds that weighed heavily upon them. Slavery in
Kentucky was of the domestic sort ; that is, it was to
the most of their race not a grievous burden to bear.
This is well shown by the fact that thousands of them

198 KENTUCKY.

quietly remained vvitli their masters in the counties
along the Ohio River, when in any night they might
have escaped across the border. Their state was such
that if they had one and all been given six months to
wander, and at the same time a choice of returning to
their old homes, at least three quarters would, at the end
of this time, have been found again under the yoke in
their old places of abode. Still this underground railway
system, although it did not free many slaves, profoundly
irritated the minds of their owners, and even of the
class that did not own slaves.

Accompanied as was this work of rescuing slaves by
a violent abuse of slaveholding, it destroyed in good
part the desire to be rid of the institution which had
grown on the soil, and gave place to a natural though un-
reasonable determination to cling to the system against
all foreign interference. More than all, it roused anew
the hatred of New England, which had well-nigh dis-
appeared in the growing conservatism of the people.
John Quincy Adams's visit to Kentucky, and his noble
defense of Clay, had at one time made an end of this
old rancor, at least among the conservative Kentuck
iane. This visit of ex-President Adams was in 1844.
His speech in Maysville, in answer to the welcome of
General Richard Collins, deserves quotation here. Gen-
eral Collins said that Mr. Adams " has placed Kentucky
under deep and lasting obligations for his noble defense
of her great statesman, Henry Clay, in his letter to the
Whigs of New Jersey," to which Mr. Adams replied :
" I thank you, sir, for the opportunity you have given
me of speaking of the great statesman who was con-
nected with me in the administration of the general
government, at my earnest solicitation — who belongs

FROM WAR OF 1812 TO MEXICAN WAR. 199

not to Kentucky alone, but to the whole Union, and is
not only an honor to his State and the nation, but to
mankind. The charges to which you refer, though after
my term of service had expired and it was proper for
me to speak, I denied before the whole country, and I
here reiterate and reaffirm that denial ; and as I expect
shortly to appear before my God, to answer for the con-
duct of my whole life, should these charges have found
their way to the throne of eternal justice, I will in the.
presence of Omnipotence pronounce them false." 1

From 1840 to 1860 the progress of thought in Ken-
tucky probably increased the number- of actual aboli-
tionists at a rapid rate, but it diminished the number of
those who desired to see some deliberate and legal solu-
tion of the appalling difficulty. This separation of the
two parties was unfortunate but natural. Thus the
election of Polk may be taken as a critical point in the
history of slavery within the State. After that, the
emancipation party lost much ground that was only in
small part gained by the abolitionists.
1 See Collins, i. p. 50.

CHAPTER XIV.

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE MEXICAN WAR TO
THE BEGINNING OF THE REBELLION.

THE Mexican War, with its long prelude in the vary-
ing scenes of the Texas struggle, had a great interest
for the people of Kentucky ; it brought back the mem-
ories of their own long combat in the first forty years
of their State life, much of which was still in the mem-
ory of the older men. The leaders in this Texas strug-
gle were men of heroic mould. Houston, Crockett, and
Johnston still command our sympathy, and in that day
they held a large place in the hearts of the western
people. Nothing so well shows the singular strength
of the conservative party in Kentucky as the fact that
after years of excitement they still held the State by an
overwhelming majority, and cast their votes against the
whole project of southern extension of the national
territory. Though not in direct terms a vote against
the extension of the area of slavery, the election of
1844 was in fact a vote of this nature. This political
position could be made plain did space permit us to
make a careful analysis of the motives of the time.
But the action speaks for itself.

The resolutions for the annexation of Texas were
passed in February, 1845, but it was not until the
Bth of May, 1846, that the battle of Palo Alto brought
about the condition of war between the United States

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 201

and Mexico. Kentucky was called on for a contin-
gent of twenty-four hundred men. Ten thousand men
at once were ready for the war, so that it became a
struggle for the chance of service. The force first sent
out consisted of the Louisville Legion commanded by
Colonel Ovvsley ; an independent company under the
command of John S. Williams, of Clarke County ; the
second regiment of infantry commanded by Colonel
W. R. McKee, of Lexington, with Lieutenant-Colonel
Henry Clay, Jr., second in command; and the first
regiment of cavalry, under command of Colonel Hum-
phrey Marshall.

Three of the leading officers who were to take charge
of the operations of the war were chosen from citizens
of Kentucky. Zachary Taylor, major-general of the
regular army ; William O. Butler, of Carroll County,
major-general of volunteers ; and Thomas Marshall, of
Lewis County, brigadier-general of volunteers.

In this brief story it will only be possible to con-
sider the doings of the Kentucky troops during the
Mexican War, in so far as a history of that war will
throw light on the character of the men of the time, to-
gether with so much of the actions of particular men as
will show the training which in their youth fitted them
for their more important services in the Civil War.
Many of these soldiers of the Mexican War reappear in
the subsequent civil history of the State, and a number
of them remained to take a prominent part in the Fed-
eral and the Confederate armies. Their experience
and reputation acquired in this foreign war did much
to give them leadership. When we come to consider
the steps that led to the Civil War, and the conduct of
its campaigns, we shall constantly have to trace the im-
portant in Hue nee of these men.

202 KENTUCKY.

So long a time had elapsed since the population of
Kentucky hud been engaged in warfare, that there
were few of the volunteers for the war with Mexico,
officers or men, who had ever looked upon a line of bat-
tle. The long peace had brought the militia into the
contempt into which a citizen soldier unfortunately al-
ways falls as soon as the time of need is past. There
was probably no State in the Union where the neglect
of the military art was at this time so complete. The
militia consisted of extensive paper lists, and a few
small, half-drilled companies, unfamiliar with the evolu-
tions of the battalion, and without the discipline that
converts the citizen into the soldier. There remained
from the military life of the old days Ipnt two elements
of great value to the soldier, — an instinctive as well as
a trained ability in the use of fire-arms, and a strong
combative spirit. On these foundations, with such vig-
orous bodies as this soil breeds, the judicious discipli-
narian can soon build the soldier.

The United States troops were to act against a people
who possessed a large share of the qualities of the good
soldier. The Mexicans were hardy, brave, and patient ;
they were well trained in the simpler part of the art of
war, their frequent internal struggles having given them
recent and extensive experience in military affairs.
They furnished an excellent opportunity to test the
quality of the Kentucky militia after their long desue-
tude of arms.

The first noticeable fact brought out by the Mexican
War is that these Kentucky troops showed little of the
rebellious spirit, or the unwillingness to endure hard-
ships and submit to command, that marked their ances-
tors in the War of 1812. The long training in civic life

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 203

had finally subjugated the savage impulse of insubordi-
nation that was the opprobrium of the pioneer soldier.
Except for a little " larking," the troops went through
the trying preliminary work of changing from citizens
to soldiers in a very quiet way. Though abundant time
was afforded for the work, there was no effort to give
these forces a good camp training before they went into
service. Their officers were incompetent for this work.
• The first campaign of the Mexican War was far ad-
vanced before the troops of the Commonwealth came
to the front. The first engagement involving any Ken-
tucky troops was the assault on Monterey. In this
action the Louisville Legion had a subordinate place ;
they garrisoned a mortar battery, where they were put
to the severest trial that can befall new troops, being
exposed for nearly twenty-four hours to an artillery
fire, to which they could make no reply. In this ac-
tion General Butler was severely wounded, and Major
Philipe N. Barbour of the regular army, a native of
Kentucky, was killed. Although there is nothing pic-
turesque in this action of the Louisville Legion, it is
important as showing a willingness to endure fire with-*
out resistance, which is most praiseworthy in new sol-
diers.

The next considerable action, in fact the only one of
the Mexican War tnat was largely shared in by the
Kentucky troops, was the battle of Buena Vista. In
this action General Taylor had 4,759 men, of whom
about 900, or nearly one fifth, were Kentuckians. His
loss in killed and wounded amounted to 723 men, of
whom 162 were Kentuckians. Thus the Kentucky
troops lost considerably more, in proportion to their
numbers, than did the army considered as a whole.

204 KENTUCKY.

The importance of the battle of Buena Vista as a
test of the Kentucky troops warrants us in taking the
space necessary to discuss the more important details
of its history. Next after the battle of New Orleans,
it was to Kentuckians a gauge of valor as a standard
of what men could do under the press of superior num-
bers through a long and desperate fight which often
seemed hopeless to the stoutest hearts ; in this way it
served in later times to affect the military conduct of
Kentuckians in other fields of battle.

The circumstances that led to the battle of Bueua
Vista were peculiar. General Taylor found himself,
after the capture of Monterey, with far too few troops
to venture on the further prosecution of his campaign.
He had parted with the greater portion of his regular
battalions, which were taken by General Scott, the com-
mander-in-chief, for his expedition designed to pene-
trate to the City of Mexico by way of Vera Cruz. It
was necessary for Taylor to hold Monterey and Saltillo,
in order to give any protection whatever to his lines of
communication. His force was deemed sufficient for
*his duty of holding what had been gained by the cap-
ture of these strongholds. By holding these places he
could avert the danger of a sudden invasion of Texas
while the blow to be delivered by Scott was preparing.
It clearly was not expected that Taylor should either
take the offensive, or that he would have to struggle
with any large body of the enemy. This, as it turned
out, was a rash miscalculation of the force and soldierly
sense of the enemy. No sooner had Taylor's troops
been depleted by the removal of his veteran regiments,
than Santa Anna prepared to overwhelm this Federal
army with a force of four or five times their numbers,

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 205

before Scott's column could get into position to assail
him. Leaving garrisons in Monterey and Saltillo, Tay-
lor wisely resolved to gain some* ground to the south on
which to find a suitable place to meet the attack which
he had reason to expect. Once penned within his forts,
he would soon be compelled to surrender.

A few miles south of Saltillo, the only practicable
way of approach to it from the southward is by passes
through the Sierra Nevada Mountains ; the road lies
in a valley two to three miles wide, in which stands the
Hacienda of Buena Vista. At a place called Angostura,
or the straightened pass, which is two or three miles
yet further south, the space between the mountains is
narrowed to a width of about a mile. Observing the
advantages of this excellent position, Taylor pushed his
force a few miles further on, where he could have a
camping ground and a good water supply. He also
shrewdly remarked, that if he should fall back to this
chosen position at Buena Vista, the impetuosity of the
Mexicans in following up his retreat would be more
likely to lead them to attack him there than if they
found him in that position. This acumen was charac-
teristic of that admirable soldier.

While at his more advanced position of Agua Neuva,
diligent effort was made by Taylor to ascertain the
place and strength of Santa Anna's army, but the Mexi-
cans were possessed of an abundant and highly efficient
cavalry, by which they so clouded their main force that
nothing certain was known of the enemy's numbers or in-
tentions. A reconnaissance of the celebrated Ben McCul-
lough, afterwards a famous Confederate general, brought
the news that the enemy were in great force, and not
far away. On the evening of February 21, Taylor de-

206 KENTUCKY.

camped and made ready to take up his position in the
defile of Angostura, on ground that had been carefully
prepared by proper stutly for his action.1 Still he did
not march from his comfortable camp until McCul-
lough himself confirmed the tale that his scouts had
brought in ; only then Taylor marched for the position
where he meant to have his fight. When this position
was taken he sent a detachment of cavalry to recon-
noitre for the enemy to the southward. They were
scarcely out of camp on the morning of the 22d. when
they ran upon the advance of Santa Anna's troops,
already within a mile of the more advanced posts of
the Federal camp.

Santa Anna had taken up his line of march almost
at the moment when McCullough left his post, expect-
ing to make a night attack on Taylor's army in its
position at Agua Neuva. Finding that Taylor had re-
treated, he pushed on, driving before him the mule
teams and the other laggards of the army. These flee-
ing trains should have been a timely warning to Gen-
eral Wool, who commanded the outlying posts of the
little army ; but the stampede, if it was noticed, was not
acted on, and so the army was put in the utmost risk
of an attack before the necessary final preparations for
the combat had been made. In place of pressing on in
their attack, the Mexicans, finding the United States
forces in a strong position, and not knowing how they
had surprised their enemy, halted and gave them
time to form. They, too, had not expected a battle at
this point ; their fair presumption was that Taylor had

1 See articles in Old and New for June and July, 1871, entitled
"Recollections of Mexico and the Battle of Buena Vista," probably
from the pen of the late General H. W. Benham. •

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 207

fallen back to Saltillo, where he had some fortifications
and a considerable garrison. Moreover, the ground on
which they found they had to give battle demanded a
very peculiar disposition of troops, which required time
to make.

The slopes which extended from the flanks of the
parallel mountains to the central part of the pass were
cut up by numerous deep gulches, which were worn out
by torrents in the short rainy season, but were now
quite without water. This made a formation in line of
battle very difficult. The Mexican troops were at the
end of a long and fatiguing march, for, besides the thirty
or more miles which they had made to the point where
they expected to find Taylor, they had rapidly marched
fifteen miles further before they beat up his quarters.
They did well as soldiers to rest before they gave
battle.1

The American troops were in excellent heart ; their
only difficulty was that the great height of the position
(6,000 feet) made them breathless under exertion. The
troops of the enemy were carefully reconnoitred. There
were actually about six thousand cavalry and about
nineteen thousand of the other arms, but the reports of
McCullough led to even higher estimates on the part
of the Federal commanders. The greatest disadvantage
to the United States troops, if it is worth while to count
disadvantages where the numbers were so overwhelming
against the defense, was in the cavalry, for that of Tay-
lor was ill disciplined and generally mounted on mules.
Although the mule is a soldierly beast he does not

1 The following general account of the movements of the troops in
this action is mainly taken from the articles by General Benham in
Old and New, vide supra.

208 KENTUCKY.

make a good war horse. The disposition of the ground
fortunately made the excellent Mexican cavalry of lit-
tle effective value. Their superiority in artillery was
of more importance. In guns they at least twice out-
numbered the Americans, and they were of much heavier
calibre and were well served.

On the first day the only attack of importance came
late in the afternoon, when a division of Mexicans en-
deavored, by climbing the ridges on the left flank of the
Americans, to get a flanking fire on their lines. As is
well known, a down hill fire of infantry is worthless,
while a fire up a slope is singularly effective ; so, after
losing about five hundred men, killed and wounded, to
half a dozen wounded of the Americans, this effort was
abandoned. In the evening Santa Anna summoned
Taylor to surrender ; his answer was, " I have the honor
respectfully to decline your proposition."

On the morning of the 23d a little effort was made
to entrench one of the batteries, but the modern art of
creating fortifications on a line of battle was then un-
known, and these defenses were of little value. The
time was spent in patient expectation of the storm that
the morrow was to bring.

The first event on the second day was an effort of
the infantry columns against the centre of the American
line. This charge was led by the gallant Santa Anna
in person. The accurate fire of Washington's battery
broke it at the distance of five hundred yards of the
line without any aid of musketry. Santa Anna's horse
was killed under him in this charge, and several hun-
dred of his men put hors de combat. This signal re-
pulse gave the battle a pause of some hours.1 At this

1 At this point in the action came the daring reconnaissance of a

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 209

time Taylor came upon the ground, having been prepar-
ing for the defense of Saltillo in case he met defeat in
the pass of Angostura.

The character of the ground was sucli as to make a
continuous line of battle attack from the enemy impos-
sible. The Mexican movements were reduced to a suc-
cession of isolated charges. Short as was the distance
from steep to steep across the valley, it was not possi-
ble, and fortunately not necessary, for Taylor completely
to occupy it with the scant force at his disposition.
Fortunately the ragged ground admitted of another dis-
position than a continuous line of battle, which could
not have been maintained by Taylor's force for an hour.
The several gulches and ridges served as natural lines
of defense, behind which the concealed troops could be
shifted from time to time to meet the successive attacks
without being under the fire of the enemy.

These successive charges at last succeeded in break-
ing the centre of the American line, where the 2d In-
diana gave way. The regiment was brave enough, but
the colonel who was supporting O'Bryan's battery, mis-
taking the order to " limber up " for an advance as
a movement of retreat, ordered his men to fall back.
This movement was at first made in a soldierly way,
but the men being raw and undisciplined, their retreat
soon passed into a rout, and they were not reformed
during the action.

In the afternoon a large force of Mexican cavalry
succeeded in making their way around the flank of the
American line, and threatened an attack on its rear.
Tliis was met by a brilliant charge of the American

solitary Mexican officer, which well shows the valor of their soldiers.
Benham, p. 14.

14

210 KENTUCKY.

horse consisting of a portion of the first Kentucky cav-
alry under Colonel Marshall and a small part of the Ar-
kansas cavalry under Colonel Yell. After a short hand
to hand combat, the Mexican cavalry, though by far the
more numerous, were driven from the field with much
loss. The American horse lost two of its leading offi-
cers, Colonel Yell and Adjutant Vaughan, as well as a
number of non-commissioned officers and men. As by
far the larger part of the troops engaged in this combat
were from the Kentucky cavalry, they may fairly claim
the credit of its brilliant success. It is the more credit-
able to them inasmuch as they were poorly armed and
worse horsed, and had, moreover, the reputation of be-
ing ill disciplined. The famous Confederate general,
John H. Morgan, was a subaltern in this regiment.

At noon the action was interrupted by a severe storm
of rain and hail. After it had ceased Taylor made an
effort to break, by a charge, the Mexican line, which
seemed to him open to assault. Wood's and Burnett's
Illinois regiments and McKee's Kentucky regiment, in
all about fifteen hundred men, or nearly half his avail-
able force, were sent forward.

In their advance in open echelon order, this force
came suddenly upon a deep ravine, from which an un-
perceived force of about six thousand of the enemy
emerged in a counter charge. The American line was
rapidly broken and forced back. In this fierce action
Colonel McKeeand Lieutenant-Colonel Clay were both
killed. Their men made a gallant effort to bear them"
off the field, but the rescuing parties were all slain.
O'Bryan's pieces, which had advanced to support the
charge, were all taken. At this critical moment the
pieces under the command of Sherman and Bragg

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 211

opened an admirable cross-fire on the advancing columns
of the enemy, which were compelled to move in close
order by the shape of the ground, and drove them back
with great slaughter. The loss of Taylor's army in this
disastrous movement was the most serious of the day.
If it had been followed up with vigor the Mexicans
could have overwhelmed the shattered remnants of the
American army. But the enemy were in no shape to
take further action. None of their movements were
sufficiently successful to give them heart; their commis-
sariat was bad, and their men in dire want of food and
rest. Therefore, though they had won a substantial vic-
tory if they could have made avail of their successes,
they abandoned the field during the night, and hastened
with the shattered remnants of their army to reenforce
the troops that were gathering to resist the impending
advance of Scott by way of Vera Cruz. Santa Anna
judged correctly that Taylor's force was not likely to be
of further trouble to him, and did the best that could
have been done under the circumstances that surrounded
him.

With the exception of Colonel Marshall, none of the
Kentuckians have been criticised.1 Their loss was
proportionately considerably greater than that of the
whole command, and they remained in as good heart as

1 Benham's criticism on Marshall's conduct is very severe. He
states that Marshall refused to obey the orders of General Taylor, and
kept himself out of the tight. The testimon}' of his commanding offi-
cer as well as of other observers, who had a chance to know the facts,
is, that Marshall did his duty with perfect willingness and great gal-
lantry. General Benham had among his brother soldiers the reputa-
tion of being a bitter' and careless critic. A careful examination of
his charges has shown them to be entirely untrue.

212 KENTUCKY.

any part of Taylor's shattered army. They have an
even share in the credit that this actio'n gave to the
American volunteer. This battle proved that Amer-
ican militia, properly commanded, could sustain a long
series of attacks from overwhelming numbers without
becoming demoralized by the many well delivered blows,
each of which struck their lines. Every credit should,
however, be given to the admirable regular artillery of
the army, the batteries of Bragg, O'Bryan, Washington,
and Sherman, which repeatedly served to turn the tide
of defeat when it seemed to be fatally strong.

The only other Kentucky troops that were engaged
in any severe action during the Mexican War was the
independent company of Captain Williams, — in later
days a general in the Confederate army, and now a sen-
ator from Kentucky. This company was with Scott's
army, and took a very meritorious part in the actions of
his campaign. With its valiant leader it was engaged
in the assault of Cerro Gordo. Under the general com-
mand of Colonel Haskell it there took part in the most
brilliant charge of the war. Nothing could have been
better than its behavior. Some other regiments of Ken-
tucky troops were raised for this war, but its unex-
pected termination deprived them of a chance to show
their qualities.

The interest of the Kentucky people in the Mexican
War was intense. The affection for the memory of
its dead is marked by a peculiar circumstance. Some
time before the Commonwealth had instituted a State
burial place on the hills above the capitol at Frank-
fort, and honored some of its dead heroes with inter-
ment there. This tribute was extended to the dead of
the Mexican War. Their remains were brought fijom

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 213

the distant battle-fields and committed to this garner of
heroic dust. Since that day it has been the custom of
the State to beg from the kindred of those who have
died in the service of their country the privilege of giv-
ing this distinction to their bodies. Thus in the pro-
cess of time there have been gathered into this cemetery
the remains of a multitude of distinguished men who
have served the State, not only on battle-fields but in
every walk of life in which men could gain honorable
fame.

The sympathy with the heroic aspects of the Mex-
ican War did not in the least change the political con-
ditions of the Commonwealth. In August, 1847, the
elections for the State legislature resulted in the choice
of twenty-seven Whigs to eleven Democrats for the sen-
ate, and of fifty-nine Whigs to forty-one Democrats in
the house. In the next year General Taylor, the Whig
candidate for the Presidency, had a majority of 17,524.
Thus even the excitement of a popular war was not
sufficient to diminish the strength of the conservative
party. It should be noticed that the Mexican War
first arrayed the national parties on the question of
slavery. The strong Whig attitude of Kentucky is a
fair index of the public mind at this time in regard to
the extension of the slave power.

After the close of the Mexican War the attention of
the people was again strongly directed to their State
constitution. This instrument was, by its own condi-
tions, so arranged as to make amendment difficult to
accomplish. After a number of efforts to secure a suf-
ficient vote of the people to bring the constitutional
convention together in August, 1848, 101,828, out of
141,620 suffrages in the State, were cast for a conven-

214 KENTUCKY.

tion. There were two principal features in the con-
stitution of 1799 which were unsatisfactory to the peo-
ple. In the first placo, there was a general objection
to the principle of the appointment of the judiciary by
the governor. Under the constitution of 1799 all the
judges, the clerks of the courts, justices of the peace,
all attorneys for the Commonwealth, were appointed by
the governor or by the courts. It seems impossible to
resist the conviction that this system of appointing the
judiciary machinery is, on the whole, the best that can
be contrived, yet it is perfectly clear that it does not
recommend itself to the mass of American citizens.
One by one the States have fallen away from it, until
at present there are but two that retain this feature
which they inherited from their British ancestors. The
complaints against it are that it separates the people too
much from a control of that part of the administration
with which they have the most to do ; that it gives the
governor, in times of political excitement, too much
power to express his views in the appointment of judges
and other officers. Something of this was certainly seen
in the old and new court controversy, and on other oc-
casions. We may doubt the wisdom or the conserva-
tism of this step, but it should be remembered that Ken-
tucky was not the first to take it. Their action came
after it had been adopted in the greater part of the ex-
isting States.

In an agricultural community, in the ordinary con-
dition of State affairs, the system of an elective judi-
ciary works moderately well. The result in Kentucky
has been more felt in the appellate court than in the
lower halls of the judiciary. This highest court has
lost in part its reputation as a law-giving body. T^ie

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 215

ablest jurists in the Commonwealth have felt unwilling
to take the scant pay and onerous duties of this position.
When this bench has been so fortunate as to secure able
men under the new system, they have generally been
unwilling to retain their offices for any length of time,
preferring the chances of active practice of their profes-
sion to the clamor and difficulties of repeated elections.
The circuit judges have, on the whole, been as satisfac-
tory as under the old system.

Another evil of considerable moment was the power
of the legislature to raise money on the credit of the
State. This had led to the imposition of a consider-
able burden upon the Commonwealth. The funded
debt amounted, in 1849, to four and a half millions of
dollars. The greater part of this had been incurred in
the various public improvements made in the specula-
tive years of the preceding decade. The people desired
to see this debt extinguished, and to have the constitu-
tion so arranged that it would not be possible to repeat
the process of giving drafts on the future to meet tem-
porary needs. From the beginning of their history, be
it said, the people of Kentucky have been slow to con-
tract and quick to pay their debts.

These two objects were accomplished by the amend-
ments to the constitution. The whole body of the ju-
diciary was made elective by the people, and the State
was practically secured against debt by some very pe-
culiar features in its constitution, the like of which
probably do not exist in any other State. This curious
protection against debt has proved of great value to
the best interests of the Commonwealth. Moreover,
the provisions for changing the constitution, before dif-
ficult, were now made so complicated that it has been

216 KENTUCKY.

found practically impossible to secure any further changes
of that instrument, despite the considerable need that
now exists for substantial changes. The main aims of
the defenses that are about the constitution are com-
mendable. Experience in the old and new court con-
troversy hud shown that party conflict might run very
high in the State, and for a moment an overwhelming
majority might be enabled to effect hasty changes in the
organic law. By shaping this law in such a way that
it would be necessary for the people to continue in one
mind about the necessity of a change for a decade or
more, they avoided the risk of hasty action. By requir-
ing a two thirds vote of all those holding suffrage in the
Commonwealth to call the revising convention into ex-
istence, they secured the instrument from the meddling
of a less considerable majority. The result is, as the
reader will perceive, that this constitution is one of the
most archaic in the world. It contains untouched, and
may retain for a generation to come, extensive provi-
sions for the maintenance of slavery. Along with these
evils, arising from excessive caution, there have been
very great advantages arising from the security against
the accumulation of debt. The considerable burden
which existed at the time the constitution was amended
has been gradually cleared away, until at present there
is no actual State debt.

With the change in the constitution the State en-
tered on a short decade of prosperity. From 1848 to
1857 the State saw its richest, and on the whole its
most quiet, years. The State debt was slowly disap-
pearing; the people had apparently abandoned the old
frenzy for speculation, nnd were given to conservatism
in their business operations.

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 217

With all these elements of natural prosperity there
was a restless humor in the matter of slavery, a forebod-
ing sense that there was trouble to come on that ques-
tion. From 1850 to 1860 the anti-slavery party became
rapidly extended in Kentucky. In 1851 the party fa-
voring the abolition of slavery made their first political
campaign in the State. Their candidate for governor
had a vote of 3,621, being somewhat more than three
per cent, of the whole vote of the State. This vote
by no means represents the numbers of the anti-slavery
party at this time in the State. It was a well-known
fact that the Whig party was, as a whole, inclined to
some action that would limit the soil of slavery, and
bring about emancipation along with the deportation of
the blacks. This belief, along with the growing ex-
citement on the slavery question, gradually reduced the
majority of the Whig party, and sent many of its natural
supporters into the ranks of the Democrats. By a grad-
ual change of sentiments the Democratic, once the rad-
ical party of the State, became the advocate of things
as they were, opposing the notion of change in the sys-
tem oT: Southern society. This change first marks itself
distinctly in the elections of 1851, that which gave Cas-
sius M. Clay, the abolition candidate for governor, his
vote above referred to. In this election Lazarus W.
Powell, the Democratic candidate, had a plurality of
about one thousand votes, a portion of the more ad-
vanced Whigs having deserted Archibald Dixon, their
nominee, for the abolition candidate, while another frag-
ment of the party was inclined to support slavery, hav-
ing voted with the Democrats. The Whigs were now
in that attitude of indecision on the slavery question
which eventually made an end of their party.

218 KENTUCKY.

Cassius M. Clay was the leader of the abolition
movement ; for a number of years he had been the
most prominent member of that party in the Common-
wealth. This gentleman was long and almost alone
the advanced guard of abolitionism in the State, and
did more than all others to win from the Kentuckians
a respect for that valorous political faith. Of good
birth, excellent education, and endowed with the daunt-
less aggressive courage which everywhere captivates
men, he defied the pro-slavery extremists, at the same
time so winning their admiration that he never incurred
their hatred.

In 1845 Mr. Clay established an anti-slavery paper
in Lexington. A meeting of citizens ordered him to
discontinue its publication. At a time when he was
prostrated by a severe illness a number of citizens of
Lexington packed the contents of his printing-office
and sent it to Cincinnati. Shortly afterwards he re-
turned with it and quietly resumed the publication of
his paper.1 He then went to the Mexican War, where
he was captured and was long a prisoner. On his re-
turn his fellow-citizens presented him with a sword.
His intrepidity and eloquence gained him the respect
of his antagonists, and did much to take away the con-
tempt with which his party was first regarded by the
pro-slavery people.

All through the decade from 1850 to 1860 the ex-
citement concerning slavery steadfastly increased. It
is impossible to catalogue the small conflicts that arose
from the stampeding of negroes and the disturbances
at political meetings that gave fuel to the fire. The
progress of the debate served to divide the pro-slavery
1 See Collins, i. 51. >,

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 219

from the anti-slavery parties with constantly increasing
distinction. Still, in 1852, the vote for Scott showed
that the Whig candidate for the Presidency was the
choice of Kentucky by a vote of 57,068 to 53,806 for
Pierce.

The singular outbreak of anti-Catholic and foreign
feeling which marked American politics in 1853 to
1856 was very violent in Kentucky. This conflict was
the more curious from the fact that Kentucky had
hardly any foreign population, and the native Catholics
were excellent and respected citizens. The old parties
were much changed by this revolution, still the greater
part of the Whig party went with the Know Nothings,
and the Democrats generally sided with the party that
opposed them. For a while this curious excitement,
which in the hereafter will puzzle the student of politics
even more than it does those of our own day, completely
overwhelmed the interest in the slavery question. In
the election of 1855 the Know Nothing candidate for
governor received 4,400 majority over his competitor.
This election led to a very disgraceful riot in Louisville,
in which the roughs of the native American party at-
tacked the Catholic people. This riot led to the loss of
twenty-two lives, and to the destruction of a large
amount of property. This disgraceful affair brought the
Know Nothing party into much discredit, still the Whig
element was so strong that in the presidential election
for 1856 the Democratic ticket, though its candidate for
Vice-President was John C. Breckin ridge, the most pop-
ular citizen of Kentucky, only received a majority of
6,118 over Millard Fillmore, the American party candi-
date; the vote standing, Buchanan and Breckinridge,
69,509, Fillmore and Donelson, 63,391.

220 KENTUCKY.

The speculative era from 1854 to 1857, which was
general throughout the United States, had led to a con-
siderable but hardly reprehensible enlargement of the
Kentucky banking system. When the crisis of 1857
came upon the country, the circulation of these banks
was very much extended, and several newly chartered
institutions went to the ground, but the old, well estab-
lished banking houses of the Commonwealth, on which
the business of the community depended for support,
weathered the storm. In a few months they called in
one half of their paper, and the remainder of their notes
became the standard for the circulation of the Ohio
Valley. They maintained specie payments through the
whole of this severe financial, storm. The good credit
thus secured by these banks was of great profit to them.
It made their notes so popular that in 1859 their cir-
culation amounted to over $14,000,000, being an in-
crease of five millions of dollars within a year.

Thus we see that this population had at last acquired
that portion of the financial art which more than any
other measures the sagacity and fidelity of a people in
business affairs. When we remember that these bank-
ing establishments were, in the main, in the control of
men bred on the soil who were separated from the busi-
ness traditions of the world, who had developed their
methods out of their own experience, it gives Kentucky
merchants a good claim for eminent capacity in this dif-
ficult task of dealing with the monetary problems of
society. This claim was yet further established, as we
shall afterwards see, by the management of these banks
in the serious difficulties that beset them at the outset
of the Civil War.

As we must shortly pass to the consideration of ^he

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 221

events that immediately preceded the Civil War which
made a new era in Kentucky history, it will be well to
make a brief survey of the political and social coiidi-
tious of the Commonwealth in the decade of 1850-60.
So far the life of Kentucky had been an indigenous
growth, a development from its own conditions sin^u-
larly uninfluenced by any external forces. With only
the germs of a society sown on this ground, there had
sprung into existence a powerful Commonwealth, that
now, at the end of eighty years of time, felt strong
enough to stand alone in the struggles that were soon to
rage about her. No other State in the Mississippi Val-
ley — hardly any of the original Southern States — had
pursued its course with so little influence from exter-
nal conditions. There had been relatively little con-
tributions of population from other States, except from
Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Maryland,
and but a small immigration from European countries
since 1800. This made an indigenous development not
only possible, but necessary.

From 1774 to 1860, eighty-five years had elapsed.
This period measures the whole course of Kentucky
history, from the first settlement at Harrodsburg to the
beginning of the great tragedy of the Civil War. As
before recounted, the original settlement and the subse-
quent increase of the Kentucky population were almost
entirely drawn from the Virginia, North Carolina, and
Maryland colonies ; at least ninety-five per cent, of the
population was from these districts. Probably more
than half of this blood was of Scotch and North Eng-
lish extraction, practically the whole of it was of British
stock. The larger part of it was from the frontier
region of Virginia, where the people had never had
much to do with slavery.

222 KENTUCKY.

The total number of these white settlers who entered
Kentucky in the first eighty-five years cannot be deter-
mined with any approach to accuracy, but from a care-
ful consideration of the imperfect statistics that are
available, it seems reasonable to estimate the whole
number of white immigrants at not more than one hun-
dred and twenty thousand (it was probably somewhat
less), while the slave population that was brought into
the State probably did not amount to one third this
number. In 1860 the white population amounted to
919,484, and the slave population to 225,483. The
free black population to 10,684. Of the white popula-
tion at this census 59,799 were born beyond the limits
of the United States. This element of foreign folk was
in the main a very recent addition to the State ; it was
mainly due to the sudden development of manufactur-
ing interests along the Ohio border, principally in the
towns of Louisville, Covington, and Newport, and to
certain new settlements of agriculturist Germans in the
counties forming the northern border of the State.1
The foreign born people had not yet become to any
degree mingled with the native people either in the
industries or in blood.

Before we can estimate the fecundity of this popula-
tion we must note the fact that from 1820 or thereabouts
down to 1860 and later, there was a very great tide of
emigration from Kentucky to the States that were
settled in the other portions of the Mississippi Valley.

1 The region immediately along the Ohio River seems to have an
especial attraction for German settlers. They began to be an element
of some importance in the population of this region about 1850. The
attractions of this region above other parts of the State seem to have
been in the facts that the negroes were few in number, and the land
cheap and suitable for the growth of the grape. I

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 223

The southern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois re-
ceived a large part of their blood from Kentucky. Mis*
souri was so far a Kentucky settlement that it may
be claimed as a child of the Commonwealth. Tennes-
see, Arkansas, Mississippi, arid Texas also received a
large share of the Kentucky emigrants. The imperfect
nature of the earlier statistics of the United States cen-
sus makes it impossible to determine with any accuracy
the number of persons of Kentucky blood who were in
1860 resident in other States, but the data given in the
Appendix make it tolerably clear that the total contri-
bution of Kentucky to the white population of the other
States amounted in 1860 to at least one million souls.
The increase in the black population was probably
rather less than that of the white, but there is no data
for its computation.

If this estimate is correct the fecundity of the Ken-
tucky population in the first eighty years of its life
exceeds that which is recorded for any other region in
the world. There are several reasons which may ac-
count for this rapid multiplication of this people. In
the first place the original settlers of Kentucky were of
vigorous constitution ; they were not brought upon the
soil by any solicitations whatever, nor were they forced
into immigration by the need of subsistence. Access
to the country was difficult, and for some decades the
region was exposed to dangers from which all weak-
bodied men would shrink. The employment of the
early population was principally in agriculture, upon a
soil that gave very free returns. There was plenty of
unoccupied land for the rising generations, so there were
no considerations of a prudential nature to restrain the
increase of population. For a long time children were

224 KENTUCKY.

a source of advantage to the land-tiller, and apart from
pecuniary gain there was a curious patriarchal pride in a
plenteous offspring. The climate proved exceedingly
healthy. There were no low grade malarial fevers to
enfeeble the body, and the principal disease of the early
days, a high grade bilious fever, though rather deadly,
did not impoverish the life as the malarial troubles of
other regions in the Mississippi Valley have done. The
syphilitic poison does not seem to have been common
among the people, and its attendant, consumption, was
less prevalent than in most other countries. Thus the
first population of Kentucky was from the purest spring
that ever fertilized a country, and there was little to
defile its waters. The principal evils that beset the pop-
ulation were two : first, the excessive use of tobacco
and alcohol, which doubtless did something to lower the
vitality of the population ; second, the extremely defec-
tive system of education, which left the people essen-
tially without the means of getting a training propor-
tionate to their natural abilities.

The institution of slavery tended to keep the indus-
trial and the related social development confined within
narrow lines. At the beginning of the century the
State had an industrial spirit that was fit to compare
with that of New England and the other northern free
States. Many of the arts that were exercised by the
whites took on a rapid advance, but the negro is not
by nature a good general citizen, nor could he be ex-
pected to develop his capacities in the state of slavery.
Gradually manual labor, except in agriculture, became
in a way discreditable and distasteful to the mastering
race. The mechanical industries, except those of the
simpler domestic sort, were generally abandoned even

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 225

before northern and eastern competition came in, or
were transferred to the northern border of the State,
where they were carried on by foreign white labor, and
were no important part of the life of the State. Grad-
ually the occupation of men became more and more
limited to agriculture. The^ census returns show a con-
siderable list of factories, but they were principally of
the domestic sort, the manufacture of whiskey, of home-
spun cloth, tobacco, etc., employing relatively little cap-
ital, and not giving much diversity of employment to
the whites. This want of manufacturing life was by no
means an unmitigated evil, for it kept the people in
more wholesome occupation ; but it served to restrain
the growth of wealth, on which the progress of educa-
tion and the development of capital much depends.

The development of slavery was also marked by the
progressive separation of society into a richer and a
poorer class, though, from the failure of the slave ele-
ment to increase with the rapidity normal in the more
Southern States, the effect was not as great as in these
custricts. The middle class of farmers in Kentucky, —
those who though fairly well to do were not slave-own-
ers,— always remained a very strong, in fact a con-
trolling, element in the Kentucky population. Still,
men who were hand-laborers even on their own soil al-
ways felt that they occupied another caste than those
who owned slaves. Short of a great difference of race,
there is no basis of social distinction that man has in-
vented which is so trenchant as that which separates
the slave-owner from the non slave-owner. However
uniform the laws, social prejudices are sure to be en-
gendered by such a difference in estate. The greater
parfc of the tide of strong life that went from Kentucky
15

226 KENTUCKY.

to other States in the four decades that preceded the
Civil War was from this yeoman class, — the reddest, if
not the bluest, blood of the State.

Despite these hindrances to social development, the
commercial advance of Kentucky in the first eighty
years of her history was marvelously great, especially
as it was accomplished practically without thd aid of
any foreign capital whatever. This absence of immi-
grant capital in Kentucky in the first sixty or eighty
years of its history is something that well deserves to
be considered in measuring the development of the
State. Until the close of the Civil War there was
scarcely an improvement in the Commonwealth that was
not the result of the capital won by the people. The
extracts from the United States census, given in the
Appendix, show some of the more important features
of this growth. An area of at least eighteen thousand
square miles had been cleared of its forests and brought
under plough tillage ; every portion of the more fertile
districts had been penetrated by turnpike roads, by rail-
ways, or made approachable by artificial navigation in
the rivers. In connection with this it should be remem-
bered that the expenditure of labor required to bring an
acre of Kentucky land under tillage is many times as
great as that required to subjugate prairie land. The
mere felling of the forest and grubbing of the roots re-
quire at least twenty days' labor to the acre of ground.

It requires a vivid imagination, or some personal ex-
perience, to conceive of the enormous amount of phys-
ical labor involved in the bringing of forest land into a
shape for the use of civilized man. In all the Northern
States the work of subjugation and construction, which
is necessary on new ground, was in good part acco^n-

TEE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION. 227

plished by the aid of capital that was brought into the
country in its settlement. The first settlers in the North-
west generally brought a considerable amount of wealth
with them, and they were followed quickly by capital-
ists glad to take advantage of the new opportunities that
are offered for the investment of money in a new State.
This hastened the new States past the frontier, or pio-
neer, condition with extreme rapidity. None of these
outside aids were offered to Kentucky. The first set-
tlers had little capital beyond the price of their lands
and the few household effects that could be packed on
horses or wagoned over the mountains. All their wealth
they had to win from the soil and from their little fac-
tories.

Two circumstances greatly helped this people to es-
tablish the foundation of their wealth. The settlements
at the mouth of the Mississippi afforded, in a very early
day, a considerable market for certain products of the
soil, especially for tobacco. This plant, which had given
a basis for the early commerce of Virginia, helped in
turn the development of Kentucky. As early as 1790
there was a considerable shipment of this article. Gen-
eral Wilkinson, whose last shipments were in 1790, re-
ceived, as was found in his court-martial, as much as
$80,000 for a small part of his tobacco alone from the
Spanish agents, and he was only the pioneer in this
business, which afterwards grew to be a great commerce
even before the cession of the Louisiana Territory to
the United States.

This source of traffic was rapidly supplemented by
the use of Kentucky as a basis from which the settle-
ment and supply of the other Western States went on.

228 KENTUCKY.

First the Virginian government, and afterwards, on a
far larger scale, the United States government, were
purchasers of the products of this region to be used in
their campaigns. When, after the War of 1812, the
valley of the Mississippi began rapidly to be settled,
Kentucky was the natural depot whence came for a time
not only the greater part of the settlers, but a large part
of the materials, necessary for the starting of new set-
tlements. This stimulus to trade made it easy to make
money from agriculture, especially when that agricul-
ture rested on a soil of admirable fertility and fair en-
durance as to tillage. Unfortunately it led to the rapid
wasting of the soil, especially in the tobacco husbandry.
This crop is a very rapid exhauster of the fields where
it is cultivated, and with a husbandry made reckless by
large profits and cheap land, a considerable part of the
soil was impoverished and left in a deplorable condition.
Fortunately the Kentucky soils are easily restored to
fertility by fallow and skillful tillage ; excepting some
hundred thousand acres where the earth was actually
washed away, it is already renewed or easily recovera-
ble to its primitive fertility.

In 1860 Kentuckians had already won nearly one half
of the State's surface to the plough. The remainder was
still in forests. At no time had there been any pressure
for means of subsistence upon the people. The soils of
the first quality were now actively under tillage or in
grass. Nearly one third of the State was still covered
with original forests, rich in the best timbers, and the
mineral wealth of the State was essentially untouched.
The preliminary geological survey of Dr. David Dale
Owen had shown, in its four volumes of reports, that

THE MEXICAN WAR TO THE REBELLION.

this country was extraordinarily rich in coal beds and
iron ore deposits, but the State in the main drew its sup-
ply of timber, coal, and iron from beyond its borders.
All its principal industries were agricultural, and its ex-
ports were raw products and men, — exports, as has
been well remarked, that naturally go out together.

Its growth of population was now, in the ninth dec-
ade of its existence, relatively slow, not that the people
were less fecund than of old, but the trifling incoming
of settlers along its northern borders did not in any de-
gree replace the constant westward setting tide of emi-
gration. Slavery no longer profitable, already in fact
on its wane, condemned by its more intelligent people
as a source of serious evils, still served to deter immi-
gration and to stimulate the exodus of the yeoman
class.

Unhappy as the Civil War was in its immediate effects,
it undoubtedly made an end of conditions that were
sapping the strength of the Commonwealth. Another
twenty years of wrangle over the slavery question, and
of consequent emigration of the yeoman class, would
have brought about a total arrest of its development
and still further reduction of its manly strength. It
had to pay heavily for the change of conditions, but
dear as was the price, the new life was absolutely neces-
sary to the best future of its people. The State was,
by its conditions, unfit to profit by the presence of slav-
ery. That institution, no longer of economic value, was
dying apace, still its presence in name was enough to
keep down growth. Kentucky was about to fall be-
tween the two forms of life, when the war, and the de-
struction of slavery which it entailed, opened a new
future to its people. Although the separation from its

230 KENTUCKY.

old conditions was only secured by a tremendous con-
flict that gave its whole manly strength to the work of
war, and sent the best life of a generation to the grave,
it was a less evil than the decay that now was bear-
ing her down.

CHAPTER XV.

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR.

FOR ten years before the actual outbreak of the Civil
War the possibility of its coming was ever in the minds
of the people. Their long training in the most practi-
cal politics, that which comes with the making of a
Commonwealth, had served to bring out their sense of
political dangers, to give them a good degree of fore-
sight in matters that concern the State. There was a
general desire to do something with slavery, but an
equally general sense of the enormous difficulties of the
problem. Nothing was done, but it is something to
have a whole people thinking of a problem.

In 1850 the State Emancipation Convention at Frank-
fort demanded that the new constitution should give the
legislature complete power to perfect a system of grad-
ual emancipation of slaves. In the same year the legis-
lature provided for the placing of a block of Kentucky
marble in the Washington monument, bearing the in-
scription that " Under the auspices of Heaven and the
precepts of Washington Kentucky will be the last to
give up the Union." These two selected incidents will
serve to mark the beginning of the conflict and the mo-
tives of the people in reference to it.

The elections of 1859, following on the great intensi-
fication of the debate between the abolitionists and the
pro-slavery party, gave the State to the Democrats by

232 KENTUCKY.

a majority of 8,904. It should not, however, be con-
cluded that this by any means represented a majority
for the " Southern Rights " party. A large, perhaps
even the greater part of the Democrats represented
men who were very strongly opposed to the idea of
separation, but were desirous of resisting, by all con-
stitutional ways, the motives of those who desired to
abolish slavery by any action coming from beyond the
State. They were State rights people, and often enough
hostile to slavery in their sober judgment ; but as a
class they were not willing to go to the point of sepa-
rating from the Union to advance their State rights
politics.

In a certain sense the Democratic party was now the
conservative party of the Commonwealth. It was the
party that desired to maintain the existing state of in-
stitutions against a faction that was decidedly, though
in a conservative way, revolutionary in its tendencies,
in that it was willing to take some active measures con-
cerning slavery. We may also notice that in this elec-
tion of 1859 the same number of congressmen were
chosen by each party. This indicates an equal division
in the politics of the Commonwealth that deserves espe-
cial notice. The Democratic majority came mainly
from the Blue Grass or wealthier districts of Kentucky ;
the counties on the poorer soil, where the slave interest
was small or non-existing, retained their resolutely hos-
tile attitude to the leadership of the slave power. This,
the first definite decision on the slavery question, shows
in a remarkable way an influence of the soil on politics.
The dwellers on the limestone formations, where the
soil was rich, gave heavy pro-slavery majorities, while
those living on the poorer sandstone soils were gen-

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 233

erally anti-slavery ill their position. This geological
distribution of politics was by no means peculiar to
Kentucky : it was common throughout the South.

In the selection of Beriah Magoffin for governor, the
Democratic party gave the executive office of the State
into the hands of a man who, though an honorable citi-
zen and one desirous of doing his whole duty, was not
by nature or training well fitted to manage a govern-
ment in the grave trouble that was coming upon it.
Neither in politics, nor in any other line of activity,
had he received the education which his difficult posi-
tion required. Under ordinary circumstances he would
have made a good, faithful, and efficient governor, but
in the terrible trials that were in store for him he broke
down altogether.

This election gave the Democratic party a large ma-
jority in both houses of the legislature. The assembly
elected John C. Breckinridge, then Vice-President of
the United States, as senator, by a vote of eighty-one to
fifty-two for the opposition candidate. This is a fair
measure of their majority. It will thus be seen that the
Democratic or Southern Rights party had the fortune
of the State given in their hands by the last election
preceding the outbreak of the Civil War. Men of their
choice had the future destinies of the State in their
keeping. They had all the advantage of position in
the struggle that was to come. There can be no doubt
that already the greater part of the leaders of that
party were latently inclined to secession in the event of
Lincoln's election, though their motives only became
gradually known to the people, or even to themselves.
Their designs became manifest, not by any proclama-
tion of their views, for it seems certain that as yet there

234 KENTUCKY.

was no distinct design of separation, but from the gen-
eral course of their speech and action. But the fact
that their cause was not approved by the people was
at once plainly shown.

In the August election of 1860, the fact that the peo-
ple were drifting away from the leaders who held the
State government was marked by the election of the
Union candidate for clerk of the appellate court by a
plurality of about twenty -four thousand over the Breck-
inridge or secession candidate. The vote stood : Leslie
Combs, Unconditional Union, 68,165 ; Clinton McCarty,
Breckin ridge Democrat, 44,942 ; and R. R. Boiling,
Union Democrat, 10,971, — making the anti-Breckin-
ridge vote nearly two to one that which his party polled.1
In the presidential election of the following November,
Bell and Everett (Compromise Union) received 66,016;
Breckinridge and Lane, 52,836 ; Douglas and Johnson,
24,644 ; Lincoln and Hamlin, 1,366. Counting the votes
opposed to Breckinridge as for the Union, we have a
majority of 39,184 against secession in a total vote of
145,862.2 Comparing this vote with that of the elec-
tions of the preceding year, when Magoffin, the Dem-
ocratic candidate for governor, had a majority of 8,9(f4,
we see clearly how rapidly the people of Kentucky
were arraying themselves against secession as the na-
ture of that project began to be unfolded. It would,
however, not be proper to represent this feeling of
the conservative party as an unqualified approval of
the project of remaining in the Union come what
would. The state of mind of the masses of the people
at this time is hard to make clear to those who, by
geographical position, were so fortunate as to have their
i See Collins, i. 84. 2 Collins, i. 84. ,

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 235

minds carried into a perfectly defiuite position in this
difficult question of national politics. The citizen of
Massachusetts or the citizen of South Carolina, sur-
rounded by institutions and brought up in associations
which entirely committed him to a course of action that
was unquestionably the will of his people, had only to
go with the tide that bore him smoothly along. What-
ever the issue might be, unity within his sphere of action
was easily attained. Not so with the citizen of Ken-
tucky ; the Commonwealth was pledged by a generation
of conservatism to her line of conduct set forth in the
inscription she had placed in the monument to Wash-
ington.1 Her people, almost without exception, shrank
from any dissolution of the Union with a real horror.
At the same time, if the Union should go utterly to
pieces, if this fine fleet of sister ships was to be cast
away in the great storm that was rising, what should
she do to save her own staunch ship from the general
peril ? The ties of blood and of institutions bound the
Commonwealth with the Southern States, every one of
which was drifting away from the Union. The pledge
of political faith tied her to the fragment of the Union
with which she had little social sympathy, and in which
she could not expect much comfort. Surely never was
a people so unhappily placed.

All the days and nights for the dismal year that pre-
ceded the war the harrowing question of their action
was upon men's minds ; by every fireside and in endless
meetings the conflict of opposed minds went on. Men,
women, and children thought and talked of nothing
else. The whole life of the citizens went into the mat-
ter as never before among any people. In all the other
i Vide supra, p. 231.

236 KENTUCKY.

stages of our race conflicts there has been a lower por-
tion of the populace which gave little thought to polit-
ical questions. They have acted, when the time came,
in the way their leaders led them ; but in 1860 no white
man's cabin in Kentucky was so remote in the wilder-
ness that grave care did not sit by its fireside during all
this year.

The intellectual and political leadership of the Com-
monwealth was mainly in the hands of men who, though
often unconsciously, were steadily acting in a way to
lead the people toward secession. Still there was in the
crisis a host of strong, clear-headed men whose voices
were heard in every gathering, who urged that political
faith could not be abandoned for sympathies, and that
the State must stand by her deliberate pledges to the
Union. Gradually, out of the endless praying and de-
bating, there came a curious state of mind, which soon
took shape in action.

This general opinion of Kentuckians was that the war
was an unnatural strife which would necessarily result
in the certain, though, as they hoped, temporary disrup-
tion of the Union they all loved so well. They did not
believe that the States had a moral right to secede ; on
the other hand, they did not believe that the Federal
government had either the constitutional right or the
power and energy to coerce them back into the Union.
The undoubted preference of the Kentucky people was
that the Southern States should be allowed to go in
peace. She herself would stay where her pledges kept
her, and, after a sorrowful experience, she believed that
her erring sisters would sue for readmission to the
Union. If the Federal government resolved to take
what seemed to these States the unconstitutional

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 237

cess of arms to compel them to return into the Union,
Kentucky would have no part in the process. She
would stand alone, while North and South both left the
paths of duty under the constitution, bidding them to
keep their battles away from her soil. The position
was a logical one, and has a certain grandeur in its con-
ception. The people clearly believed that both sides
had left the paths of the constitution, that the war was
essentially unconstitutional, and that in time they would
have to return to their old positions. They thought that
Kentucky, by well-timed mediation, could soon persuade
the warring States to peace.

In the wild talk of the time this- neutrality project of
the Kentucky people was denounced as cowardly. There
are States in the world which it would be proper to de-
fend from this accusation. With Kentucky this atti-
tude was a sorrowful and noble, though it must be con-
fessed in the after light of events a somewhat Quixotic,
position. But in 1860 and the beginning of 1861, it
seemed to be a very rational standing ground. If war
came into Kentucky it would be internecine and frat-
ricidal. The people did not so much fear war for the
dangers and losses it would bring, but they did look
with terror on the fight between friends and brothers.
They were justified in their own minds, and will be
justified in the opinions of reasonable people, in doing
anything that honorable men could do that promised to
avert this evil.

At this time the State was rich in men and means of
war. With fifty thousand soldiers of its own and forty
thousand square miles of territory that lay between
North and South, and with a willingness to take every
means of conciliation to make an end of the conflict,

238 KENTUCKY.

they could soon hope to still the sea of troubles. Look-
ing at it from half a lifetime of distance, it appears as
a very remarkable resolution for a people to make,
though it will be seen to be in many ways the logical
result of the history of the people. The Kentuckians
were, from the beginning of their history, in many ways
a singularly separate State. The ancestors of the peo-
ple won their right to life and property by their own
hands. For two generations they stood almost entirely
apart in their life and their politics, keeping always a
keen interest in American affairs, but not wedded by
interests very closely to the American system of States.

Gradually Clay, Crittenden, and other great leaders,
brought them to a sense of pride in, and devotion to, the
Union. But the sense of their place as Kentuckians
was always stronger than their sense of the Federal re-
lation. It would require a separate chapter to explain
the peculiar Southern sense of State rights and to ac-
count for its development. We have, in a previous
chapter, looked at the outlines of this history; as we
are now to deal with a problem in which this -motive is
again to be in the lead in the State life, we should bring
it once more before us, — as clearly as it can be done
in a few words.

From the colonization of this country until the end
of the Revolutionary War the motives of political life
were limited. Within the colony the adhesion to the
mother country grew steadily less and less strong, until
it was too weak to bear even trifling strains such as
gave birth to the Revolution. No theory of the Amer-
ican Revolution can be made reasonable that does not
take as its essential basis the singular and hardly to be
explained sense of local independence which was de-

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 239

veloped in the colonies. As separate States the original
thirteen colonies fought the Revolutionary War, and
whatever interpretations may be given to the constitu-
tion, it was as separate States that they dealt iu making
the final Federal compact. This separatist impulse they
took with them into their life as united States. What-
ever motives of love for the Federal Union have since
come into existence are new compared with the local
loyalty of early days. In the Northern States, — mostly
communities occupying smaller areas, which soon be-
came united one to another by the strong bonds of com-
merce, — this beloved sense of isolation and indepen-
dence, perhaps in the beginning less strong than in the
Southern States, became gradually weaker, and was re-
placed by a strong national sense. In the South, where
the social conditions favored a mediaeval isolation of
communities, and when the interstate commerce, and,
indeed, commerce of any kind, was always a small ele-
ment in the life, State rights never lost their original
strength. It is a great misfortune that the excellent
political motive embodied in the "State Rights" im-
pulse became the tool of the slave power, and the means
of protection of that institution from the natural forces
that menaced it. There is a common notion that State
rights was a device of that power for the maintenance
of its conflict with the rest of the country. The mo-
tive was a deeper and nobler one than this theory would
make it. Its connection with slavery was a mere acci-
dent. It arose from that sense of domestic strength,
that admirable power of trusting to and loving a com-
munity that is the best quality of the race, — that on
which alone a great nation of freemen can firmly stand.
When Kentuckians declared for neutrality they acted

240 KENTUCKY.

out the motives of their history. Futile as the expe-
dient proved to be, it was singularly spontaneous and
acceptable at the time it was devised. The decided
Union men who desired to join in arms with the Fed-
eral government, and the secessionists who wished the
State to go with its southern kindred States, each wel-
comed the movement as giving them possibilities of ac-
tion that were denied them at the moment. In the
chances of the combat each party could hope to win
the result it wished to obtain.

There is reason to believe that this course was the
only one that could have kept Kentucky from seces-
sion. If what had been unhappily named a sovereignty
convention had been called in 1861, if the State had
been compelled to accept the decision of a body of men
who were acting under the control 'of no constitutional
limitations, the sense of sympathy and of kinship with
the Southern States, such as would easily grow up under
popular oratory in a mob, would probably have precipi-
tated action. Virginia, the mother State, was as decid-
edly Union in its sentiments as Kentucky; yet it proved
easy, as soon as it had departed from constitutional
ways, so to turn the sentiment of sympathy that it
overwhelmed the respect for the organic law of the
Commonwealth, and led the State out of the Union.
The Legislature of Kentucky caught this universal will
of the citizens for neutrality, and proceeded to shape its
action accordingly.

Even after this resolution of neutrality had been so
generally expressed as the will of the Kentucky people,
there were various schemes for the solution of the dif-
ferences between the Northern and Southern States.
All of these efforts to stay a moral cyclone with a little

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 241

political oil are interesting, especially those known as
the Border State, or Crittenden, compromises ; they are
interesting as a part of the political history of the times,
but it would carry us too far from the account of the
local affairs to give them more than mention here.
They were all approved by the people, who were will-
ing to take any road to peace, and were warmly sec-
onded by the legislature, but they never got'beyond the
state of resolutions ; they never had a chance of becom-
ing a part of the Constitution of the United States,
where alone they could have been of any service. In
this time of storm the border people, on whom the blow
of the war was to fall, caught like drowning men at
every straw that promised safety.

On May 6, 1861, the legislature met under a call of
Governor Magoffin, and remained in session until the
24th. It should be remembered that it was a Demo-
cratic legislature, and that when elected it was supposed
to be favorable to secession. Brief as was this session
— it lasted less than a month — it was long enough to
determine the future history of Kentucky, perhaps of
the Union, for if Kentucky had cast her lot with the
rebellion, it may well be doubted if the Union would
have been preserved.

In the rapidly changing conditions of the time, these
legislators who assembled in Frankfort on the 6th of
May were, for a time, in much confusion of mind.
There was a distinct division between the decided Union
men and the decided secessionists ; but between them
there was a floating body which was awed by the re-
solve of the people for neutrality, yet desired to obey
their impulses and to act with the Southern States.
Some men elected as Union had drifted to the other
16

242 KENTUCKY.

side. At least four of those who were originally " Breck-
inridge men," or classed as " Southern Rights," had
abandoned their leader after finding whereto he led
them.1 In this state of the parties the Confederate
element was more hopeful than the Union party. The
most that the latter dared try to obtain in a legislature
so Southern in its sympathies was the accomplishment
of the neutrality project. The secession party desired
to defeat this measure, as the alternative would be, they
had every reason to expect, what it had been in the
other States, namely, secession.

The legislation of this session began with resolutions
intended to define the, position of the Commonwealth.
The first of these referred to the answer that Governor
Magoffin had made to the call of the Federal govern-
ment for " four regiments of militia for immediate ser-
vice." His answer was that " emphatically Kentucky
will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of sub-
duing her sister Southern States." 2

The first resolution proposed was as follows : 8 —

" Resolved, That we most cordially approve and in-
dorse the course of Governor Magoffin in refusing to
comply with the recent requisition of the Federal gov-
ernment for troops to invade the Southern States."

On this resolution a vote was offered to postpone,
which was lost by a tie of forty-five to forty-five. This
vote was .never passed. On May 16th the Committee
on Federal Relations reported a resolution which read
as follows : —

1 These men were R. T. Jacob and R. A. Burton, of the house ; F.
Marshall and J. A. Prall, of the senate.

2 Collins, i. 87.

8 See speech of Colonel Jacob, Louisville Commercial, January &
1882.

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 243

" Considering the deplorable condition of the coun-
try, for which Kentucky is in no way responsible, and
looking to the best means of preserving the national
peace and securing the laws, liberty, and property of the
citizens of the State ; therefore

" Resolved by the House of Representatives, That this
State and the citizens thereof should take no part in
the Civil War now being waged, except as mediators
and friends of the belligerent parties ; and that Ken-
tucky should during the contest occupy the position of
strict neutrality.

" And your committee recommend the adoption of
the following resolution : —

" Resolved, That the act of the governor in refusing
to furnish troops or military force upon the call of the
executive authority of the United States, under existing
circumstances, is approved."

The first resolution was carried by sixty-nine to twen-
ty-six, the second by eighty-nine to four votes.

These declarations the secessionist members took to
be in the line for which they were acting. They, there-
fore, in the main joined the neutrality men in voting
for them. The next and third step was away from the
path they ch*ose to tread, for if taken it certainly made
immediate action in favor of their party impossible, and
they well saw that they would not be so strong when
they had submitted their cause to the election impend-
ing in the August following. A motion was made to
substitute for the preamble of the preceding resolution
the following words : —

" Whereas, the General Assembly of the Common-
wealth of Kentucky have asserted strict neutrality to
be the position desirable for the State to occupy in the

244 KENTUCKY.

present contest between the Federal government and
the seceding States, therefore the General Assembly of
the Commonwealth of Kentucky asserts that their po-
sition will be maintained with sincerity and honor by
the State ; that the parties engaged in the present frat-
ricidal war should respect the neutrality, and know that
Kentucky cannot with honor to herself submit to armed
forces hostile to this neutrality invading her soil ; that
Kentucky asks and will defend her rights of friendly
intercourse and trade with both sections, thereby de-
nying and intending to deny to the Federal government
and the Confederate States the right or authority, by
force or otherwise, to take possession of and hold the
property of private corporations on any territory within
her borders for any purpose or on any pretense what-
ever.

" That a copy of the resolutions passed by the gen-
eral assembly, and approved by Governor Magoffin,
in refusing troops to participate in this conflict, together
with a copy of these resolutions, be forwarded to the
executives of the Federal government and the Confed-
erate States, respectfully requesting the proper author-
ities in this unfortunate conflict to respect the neutrality
of Kentucky."

The previous question was moved by the advocates
of neutrality. The leader of the secessionists moved
to lay the motion on the table. The motives that led
the secessionist party to vote for the milder resolution
of neutrality, while they resisted this clear statement of
the proposed amendment, were about as follows. The
first proposition was so general in its terms that they
would be left perfectly free to give active support to
their cause ; some form of neutrality was called for by

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 245

the people, and this to the secessionists the least offen-
sive shape of that action might serve to meet the popu-
lar demand. The substitute meant that the neutrality
was to be very definite in its provisions, and that if it
were to become the basis of action of the executive they
could not hope to go farther with their projects within
the State.

Now began the most dramatic incident in this re-
markable session. It was decided that the main ques-
tion should be put. Then the motion to lay the pream-
ble and resolution on the table was put and rejected by
forty-eight to forty-seven. In this complicated game
of political fencing, the details of which are not inter-
esting, this was hailed by the secessionists as a victory ;
it appeared that one of the Union men had gone over
to their side.

The remainder of the incident can best be told in
the words of Colonel Jacob, himself one of the Union
men of that legislature. "The secessionists, exultant
with the prospect and certainty of triumph, were un-
bounded in their expression of delight. The Union
men, pale, despondent, and apprehensive that all was
lost, were for a moment overcome arid staggered with
dismay. Mr. William Brown, I think, of Christian
County, one of the staunchest and best Union men,
had apparently gone over to the Democrats, and given
them the majority. Having every confidence in Mr.
Brown's integrity, I determined to know the worst. I
crossed over to his seat, and said, ' Brown, have you
deserted us ? ' He replied, < No.' Then I said, * Why
did you give that vote ? You have scared us nearly to
death.' And I shall never forget his reply; it was
this : < I wanted to give them a high fall.' And I tell

246 KENTUCKY.

you he did it on the next question, which was taken on
the adoption of the substitute for the preamble, and it
was decided in the negative, forty-seven to forty-eight,
Mr. Brown renewing his connection with the Union
party, and giving them one majority. The house then
adopted the original preamble and resolution."

This seems like a trifling incident, but it did much to
determine the fate of the Commonwealth. The seces-
sionists had seen victory in their grasp, they had ex-
ulted in their majority, and found that they had been
played with by their antagonists. They lost heart from
that vote. Some of them at once left their places for
the Confederate army, convinced that nothing but the
invasion of Kentucky by an army from the Southern
States would give them mastery. In this they judged
well. The minds of the people were daily becoming
more decided against the secession movement. The
fury and haste with which their sister Southern States
were leaving the Union did much to turn the Kentucky
people against them.

The State was now in a very precarious condition on
account of the known animus of the militia organization
called the State Guard. x There were fifty-four com-
mands' of these troops, amounting in all to about fifteen
thousand men. They were the only military force in
the Commonwealth, and were generally under officers
of disunion sentiments. About all the serviceable arms
owned by the State were in their possession. The
legislature gave the control of these troops into the
hands of a military board, composed of trusted citizens,
and presided over by the governor. They provided the
sum of $1,000,000 for the expense of arming and dis-
ciplining the militia, $750,000 to be expended for arms,

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 247

one half to be issued to the State Guard, the other half
to the Home Guards. The State Guard was to be at
once placed in camp ; the Home Guards were to be held
in reserve. It was provided that " neither the arms nor
the militia were to be used against the government of
the United States nor the Confederate States, unless in
the sole defense of the State of Kentucky." On the day
of the passage of this act the governor appointed Gen-
eral Simon Bolivar Buckner Inspector- General of the
State forces.1 As will be seen in the sequel these ap-
prehensions concerning the State Guard were entirely
justified.

At a special election for congressmen to fill vacan-
cies, held in June, the Union majority was 54,670, the
anti-secession candidates being elected in nine out of the
ten districts. On the 24th of June six companies of
the State Guard, under the command of Colonel Lloyd
Tilghman, were ordered to Hickman to secure that
quarter against the threatened invasion of the Confed-
erate troops. Colonel Tilghman at once resigned his
command to take a place in the Confederate army, thus
showing the first clear evidence of the entire untrust-
worthiness of this force.

The regular election on the first Monday in August
gave the first distinct expression of the will of the neu-
trality party; it gave 76 Union to 24 States rights or
secession votes in the house, and 27 Union to 11 States
rights in the senate. The Union majority in the sen-
ate would have been larger but for the fact that one
half that body held over from the preceding election.2

3 Collins, i. 91.

2 In the Kentucky senate the members are elected for four }'ears ;
one half the number is replaced each two years.

248 KENTUCKY.

Although the neutrality party had now obtained full
control of the State legislature, the impossibility of their
project was already beginning to be apparent. Thou-
sands of the Confederate sympathizers slipped away
over the border to Tennessee and Virginia. In some
cases they were organized into companies on the soil of
Kentucky. Humphrey Marshall had a recruiting camp,
and organized troops in Owen County, within thirty
miles of the State capital ; a camp of out-and-out Union
men was established under the command of General
William Nelson, at Camp Dick Robinson, in Garrard
County. The extreme men of either party, dissatisfied
with the position of the State, yet respecting its pro-
claimed position, were pouring in a constant stream to
take service in the regiments of other States.

In this period of rapid change President Lincoln
showed his remarkable discretion in avoiding all acts
of invasion of the Commonwealth. The small United
States garrison at Newport, the only government mili-
tary station in Kentucky, was retained, but neither re-
enforced nor fortified. The force gathered at Camp Dick
Robinson, in Garrard County, was composed solely of
Kentuckians, who claimed that they were organized for
their own protection, and though they were recognized
by the Federal authorities as Union soldiers, their ac-
tion did not in strict terms constitute an invasion of the
State. They went no farther against the attitude of
neutrality than Marshall's action did. Several regi-
ments of Kentuckians were, however, enrolled by the
Federal government in camps in Indiana and Ohio,
from among the citizens who crossed the border to
enlist. This, too, was no transgression of the neutrality
chosen by the Kentuckians. It was fast becoming eVi-

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 249

dent that the greater part of the able-bodied citizens of
the State would soon drift away into the opposing
armies, leaving the Commonwealth an empty shell, an
object of contempt to both sides. There was no chance
to guard the frontier, and so to retain the citizens in
the State ; the able-bodied whites, if all were mustered
on the border, could not suffice to guard the possible
lines of escape to the North and South. Moreover,
there was no law that could have been used to retain
citizens within the State. The periphery of the State
is about fifteen hundred miles in length, and all its
adult white males would, if constantly on watch, hardly
make a single line of sentries along its extent.

While it thus became evident that the position of
neutrality would have to be abandoned, a number of
circumstances now served to turn the temper of the
people more and more towards a union with the North.
A remark attributed to Ho well Cobb, of Georgia, that
the Southern men would only have " to go home, raise
cotton, and make money," leaving the war to the border
States, was one of the many stings that turned the peo-
ple from the once cherished idea of neutrality. More-
over, the unanimity and apparent heedlessness of the
Southern States iii rushing into rebellion were irritating
to the Kentuckians, who had planned a course which
they expected would bring the disturbance to some
happy end. They felt they had a right, in this endeavor,
to the sympathy and cooperation of the Southern States,
especially of their cousins in Tennessee and their broth-
ers in the mother State of Virginia. It was the belief
of the neutrality men that these States had been forced
from their position in the Union by the secession ele-
ment without a proper appeal to the people of those

250 KENTUCKY.

States, and that by their action Kentucky had been
deprived of her natural allies in its effort to stem the
tide of war. It was felt that the Federal government,
which had a real claim to Kentucky's allegiance, had
acted liberally in respecting the neutrality, in form at
least ; while the message of Davis, that he would respect
the neutrality of Kentucky "so long as the people of
Kentucky maintain it themselves," was a discourteous
piece of arrogance to those who were struggling for
peace. The tone of the Southern States in assuming
that Kentucky belonged to them, but was kept in her
relation to the Union by fear, was deeply offensive to
the State pride.

In this position of affairs the Confederates made the
first distinct trespass on the neutrality proclamation.
Major-General Leonidas Polk, a nephew of President
Polk, a graduate of West Point, then a bishop of the
Episcopal Church, was commander of the Confederate
forces of Tennessee. Desiring to strengthen his hold
on the Mississippi, he invaded Kentucky, and took up a
strong position on the bluffs that command the stream
at Columbus and Hickman, near the Tennessee line,
This important step was taken on September 3d. At
the same time General Zollicoffer invaded the south-
eastern corner of the State, establishing his lines near
Cumberland Gap.

The first action of the State, in view of these inva-
sions, an ominous act indeed, was a vote passed in the
legislature that the United States flag be hoisted on the
capitol at Frankfort. This step was taken by the house
of representatives by a vote of 77 to 20. On the 10th
a State rights convention for Kentucky was held at
Frankfort ; they passed a resolution in favor of the dls-

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 251

persion of the Federal camps in Kentucky, promising,
when that was done, to assist in driving the Tennessee
troops from the State.1

It is maintained by many Confederate sympathizers
that the violation of the State's neutrality came first
from the Federal authorities. They cite the recruiting
at Camp Dick Robinson as evidence in proof of their
assertion. It is hardly worth while to debate this ques-
tion of precedence, when the action of both sides was
so nearly simultaneous, and only accomplished the in-
evitable overthrow of the neutrality of the Common-
wealth ; still, after a careful review of all the records,
the present writer has been driven to the conclusion
that the actual infringement of the neutrality proclama-
tion was due to the action of Polk and Zollicoffer, and
that this simultaneous invasion of the State at points
some hundred miles apart, shows that the rupture of
Kentucky neutrality was deliberately planned by the
Confederate authorities. Ill as it turned out for their
cause, it gave them their last chance of getting political
possession of the State.

On the llth, after much private deliberation, the leg-
islature, by a vote of 71 to 26 in the house, and by 25
to 8 in the senate, resolved " That Governor Magoffin
be instructed to inform those concerned that Kentucky
expects the Confederate or Tennessee troops to be with-
drawn from her soil unconditionally." This resolution
•was vetoed by the governor, but immediately passed
over the veto by an overwhelming majority.

Immediately after General Folk's invasion Grant's
army moved across the Ohio and took up a position at
Paducah. It was moved in the house that the gov-
1 Collins, i. 93.

252 KENTUCKY.

ernor demand the removal of the Federal as well as
the Confederate troops. This was refused by a vote of
29 to 68.

This vote may be regarded as a final commitment of
the State to a policy of complete allegiance to the Fed-
eral government. On September 18th, the Committee
on Federal Relations brought in the following resolu-
tions : J —

" Whereas, Kentucky has been invaded by the forces
of the so-called Confederate States, and the commanders
of the forces so invading the State have insolently pre-
scribed the conditions upon which they will withdraw,
thus insulting the dignity of the State by demanding
terms to which Kentucky cannot listen without dis-
honor, therefore :

1. "Be- it Resolved by the General Assembly of the Com"
monweaUh of Kentucky, That the invaders must be ex-
pelled. Inasmuch as there are now in Kentucky Federal
troops assembled for the purpose of preserving the tran-
quillity of the State, and of defending and protecting
the people of Kentucky in the peaceful enjoyment of
their lives and property, it is,

2. " Further Resolved, That General Robert Ander-
son, a native Kentuckian, who has been appointed to
command the department of the Cumberland, be re-
quested to take instant command, with authority and
power from this Commonwealth to call out a volunteer
force in Kentucky, for the purpose of expelling the in-
vaders from our soil.

3. " Resolved, That in using the means which duty
and honor require shall be used to expel the invaders
from the soil of Kentucky, no citizen shall be molested

i See Collins, i. 93.

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 253

on account of his political opinions ; and that no citi-
zen's property shall be taken or confiscated because of
such opinions, nor shall any slave be set free by any
military commander, and all peaceable citizens and their
families are entitled to and shall receive the fullest pro-
tection of the government in the enjoyment of their
lives, their liberties, and their property.

4. "Resolved, That his excellency the Governor of
the Commonwealth of Kentucky be requested to give
all the aid in his power to accomplish the end desired
by these resolutions ; and that he call out so much of
the military force of the State under his command as
may be necessary therefor, and that he place the same
under the command of General Thomas L. Crittenden.

5. " Resolved, That the patriotism of every Kentuck-
ian is invoked and is confidently relied upon to give ac-
tive aid in the defense of the Commonwealth."

These resolutions amount in fact to a declaration of
war on the Southern Confederacy. They were vetoed by
the governor, who remained in sympathy with the se-
cessionist movement, and were at once passed by ail
overwhelming majority. This vote definitely closes the
effort to maintain the State in a neutral attitude.

Before passing to the consideration of the next act of
this political drama, it will not be amiss to consider cer-
tain features of the rapidly changing politics of the
time.

The curious feature in the behavior of Kentucky at
this time is the simple, indeed artless, exhibition of hu-
man nature in the whole transaction. It was a singu-
larly popular movement. Generally in the action of
large communities in time of such trial the course of
a State is dictated by certain leaders, — deliberative

254 KENTUCKY.

statesmen who direct the course of events in highly
artificial channels, so that there is a cold, disciplined
quality in the results ; or, if this is wanting, it is be-
cause some fierce outburst of passion has carried the
people onward into headlong ruin. I do not know
where else to find the likeness of these political move-
ments of Kentucky, so deliberate, so dignified, and self-
respecting as they were.

The most singular thing about the movement was
that the feeling, though intense, was at this time re-
markably free from the commonplace bitterness that
marks the earlier stages of most civil wars. While the
people were falling asunder, going each to their places
of arms, there were no outrages, no combats between
the passing parties of men who were to be foes. On
the contrary, it is doubtful if in years the State had
been as free from all forms of disturbance as in this
time of parting. A great sorrow fell upon the land.
It was common enough to see strong men weeping for
the woe that was to come upon their beloved State.

One of the most painful features was the sundering
of households that now took place. When the division
came, very often the father went one way, the sons an-
other. Usually the parting lines in civil wars are
drawn by neighborhoods and clans, but in this battle
the line of separation- went through all associations
whatsoever. Families, churches, friendships, seemed to
have no influence whatever on the way men went. It
was the most singular evidence of independent minded-
ness that is recorded in history.

To the considerate observer, the most interesting
feature in this period was the absolute forgetfulness of
the moneyed value of the slave. Nearly one fourth the

THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 255

estimated value of the State was in slaves, yet this in-
terest never seemed to enter into the minds of men ;
we never hear of it in the public debates, and it was
equally absent from the private talk of the times. There
was no movement to remove1 the slaves southwards
where they still had their price. There was the same
absence of desire to secure other property. There was
no drifting out of capital or population from the State,
no effort to convert real estate or chattels into money,
such as has so often in other countries marked the be-
ginning of perilous times. This, more than anything
else, shows the intensity of the moral shock that was
brought upon the people by the swift and appalling
changes of the times.

There have been many who have from afar flippantly
criticised the behavior of the Kentuckians in the outset
of the Civil War, who have attributed their slowness
of action to the calculation of self-interest, or their un-
willingness to enter upon the combat which was before
them. The truth is the Kentucky people had a clearer
prescience of what this war would mean than the other
parts of the Union. The traditions of their firesides
were full of war memories ; there was scarcely a family
where there was not some one who could remember the
kindred who had fallen on the numberless fields where
the children of Kentucky had bled. There were men
still living who remembered the days of St. Glair's de-
feat, and the Raisin massacre. There is nothing more
pathetic than the appeal that the women of Kentucky
made in 1861 to the legislature of the Commonwealth,
to guard them from the calamity of Civil War by main-
taining neutrality. If the people of the other States
had been as well able to perceive the awful seriousness

256 KENTUCKY.

of this crisis as were those of Kentucky, there would
have been no war.

When a historian arises who can treat this part of
American history with the calm philosophy it deserves,
we may be sure that the>effort of Kentucky to stay the
tide of civil conflict, and to decide the difficulty by
statemanship rather than by arms, will not be set down
to her discredit, but will appear as the most remarkable,
as well as the most creditable, spontaneous political ac-
tion in the history of that great struggle. It is not too
much to say that it will be regarded as one of the best
evidences of a general political capacity that this coun-
try has yet afforded.

CHAPTER XVI.

FROM THE ABANDONMENT OF NEUTRALITY TO THE
FALL OF FORT DONELSON.

THE suddenness of the final determination in the
matter of neutrality was at once fortunate and unfortu-
nate for the State. It made it impossible for the Con-
federacy immediately to seize upon its strong points,
and thus forced the war back so far south, that for the
time the territory of the Commonwealth was safe from
invasion by those who were now the enemies of the
State. At the same time it left the State in a very de-
fenseless condition ; the greater part of the arms that
had been purchased by the legislature went into the
hands of the State Guard. This organization contained
at this time ten thousand men, and was an admirably
selected and tolerably efficient body of troops, under
the command of well trained officers, some of them
from the "West Point Academy, others from the State
military school. Many of them had seen service in
Mexico. It had long been known that the greater part
of this body of troops was in hearty sympathy with the
disunion element, yet it was hoped that their States
rights motives would keep them true to the Common-
wealth.

No sooner had Kentucky cast in her lot with the
Federal government than almost all of the companies
of the State Guard marched from the State and joined
17

258 KENTUCKY.

the Confederate army. Its commander-m-chief, Buck-
ner, resigned his position and repaired at once to Camp
Boone, Tennessee, where he was joined by the regiment
of Colonel Roger Hanson, by the battalion of Lloyd
Tighlman, and by many separate companies of the same
force. They then became the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th
Kentucky regiments of the Confederate army. These
men of the State Guard were not the first Kentucky
troops that entered the service of the Confederacy. In
June, 1861, Colonel Withers began to recruit a regi-
ment for that service, selecting Camp Boone for his
rendezvous. The stimulus given to the Confederate
hopes by the victory of Bull Run sent a large number
of recruits to this camp, so that even before the State
had determined against the South the 2d Regiment of
Kentucky Confederate Lifantry was organized, as early
as July 17th.1

John H. Morgan's company and other organizations
passed from the State on other lines of march. Thus
a force which was designed to protect the State, which
was armed at its expense and sworn into its service,
abandoned its flag as soon as the Commonwealth finally
determined to respect its Federal obligations. Noth-
ing shows better the intensity of the sympathy with
the Southern movement that animated the secessionist
minority of Kentucky. Nothing shows so well that the
essential motive of the rebellion had not come from
the States rights motive. The men and officers of
this State Guard were as honorable men as the Com-
monwealth ever had ; yet in this moment of excitement
they cast aside ail the bonds of allegiance to the soil

1 See Thompson's History of the 1st Kentucky Brigade, p. 51 et
seq. |

FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR. 259

that bred them, and with the training and in part with
the weapons that the State had just given them for
her defense, repaired to the camp of those who were
now her declared enemies.1 This was the only inci-
dent in the days of parting on which we can look
with grave regret. Knowing as the present writer does
the soldierly spirit that animated so many of the mem-
bers of the State Guard, he believes that they, too,
must share in the feeling that they then did what they
should not have done. A few officers and some men of
the State Guard did not take part in this movement.
Thomas L. Crittenden, the brigadier-general of the
Guard, remained, and afterward took service in the
Federal army, but the State Guard as a whole went
over to the Confederacy. The Home Guards remained,
and took a brave but not always admirable part in the
subsequent history of the war ; they were not well or-
ganized ; their commanders were less able soldiers than
those of the seceding State Guard.

Although the secession of the State Guard cannot be
defended by those who dispassionately examine it, much
can be said in its favor. In the first place, it was in
the power of the governor and the commanding officer
of the Guard to have precipitated the State into seces-
sion in the spring of 1861. Some of the hot-heads of
the party desired to have this Guard, or the most de-
cidedly secession of its commands, assembled in Frank-
fort at the time of the meeting of the legislature during
the month of May. The presence in the capital of this
force at that time would probably have driven the State

1 Only a portion (how large cannot be determined) of the State
Guard took their arms with them when they left the State. Probably
the larger part went out unarmed.

260 KENTUCKY.

into a nominal secession, which would have been as
effective for the Southern cause as was the action of
Tennessee. To General Buckner, the commander of
the forces, to John C. Breckinridge, who still clung to
the hope of some accommodation, and to Governor Ma-
goffin, who, be it remembered, in all cases opposed a
severance of the State from the Union without what
seemed to him due forms of law, we owe the fact that
this well trained Guard was not made an instrument
of great danger to the State.

It would require many pages to give even a list of
the prominent citizens of the State who passed its bor-
ders on their way to the Southern army. In the month
following the abandonment of neutrality the roads were
filled with the hurrying throng of horsemen and of
wagons conveying munitions, on their way to the Con-
federate camps that had been pitched beyond the south-
ern and eastern borders of the State for their recep-
tion. The Federal government pressed what troops
were available for service into the State, but for a
month or more the central part of the Commonwealth
was held by the recruits that had been gathering at
Camp Dick Robinson and by the companies of Home
Guards. The process of enlistment of the Federal reg-
iments went rapidly forward, but the material fit for
immediate service had left the State to return as in-
vaders.

If the Confederate army that had gathered around
the seceded State Guard had believed that the people
were with them and had been tolerably determined in
their resolution to possess the Commonwealth, they
might have at this time seized Louisville, and perhaps
occupied the line of the Ohio. It is a valuable com-

FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR. 261

mentary on the assertion that Kentucky was at heart
with the Confederacy, that with a force of several thou-
sand men, whose discipline was much above that of any
force that could oppose them, and which certainly
equaled the Federal troops that could at this time have
been brought to arrest their advance to the northward,
General Buckner's return to Kentucky, he knew so
well, was made with extreme caution.1

This advance of Kentucky troops against their own
State was begun even before the position of neutrality
was overthrown. But this movement was extremely
slow and circumspect. On the 20th Buckner was in
possession of the line of the Green River, a strong
strategic position defending Nashville. His scouts came
as far north as Rolling Fork Station, about forty miles
south of Louisville, breaking up the line of the Louis-
ville and Nashville Railway, so that it could not be used
by the Union forces. On the 21st of September he
destroyed the locks and dams on the Green River, so
as to prevent a movement on his flank by Grant's army,
then in Western Kentucky, which he feared might
come upon him by boats by way of that river. At the
same time a Confederate army, under General Zolli-

1 On September 10th General Albert Sydney Johnston, lately in com-
mand of the United States forces on the Pacific, by birth a Kentuckian
and well acquainted with the State, commanded the Confederate de-
partment which included Kentucky. On the 17th of September, the
day before the State abandoned its policy of neutrality, General John-
ston ordered General Buckner to enter the State under the following
instructions, namely : —

" You will, in order to cover the northern line occupied by the Con-
federate army in this department, and threatened by the army of the
United States, concentrate your command at Bowling Green, Ken-
tucky, and secure and hold this important point in our line of de-
fense." See The Life of General A. S. Johnston, by W. P. John-
ston, New York. 1880.

262 KENTUCKY.

coffer, was moving on Central Kentucky by way of Bar-
bourville, in the eastern part of the State.

The first recorded combat of the war in Kentucky
was between the advanced guard of this force and a
body of Home Guards. It was termed a " spirited en-
gagement," with no great loss, but it served to show
the Confederate armies, if indeed they needed the in-
formation, that the armed populace of the State would
make a stubborn resistance to their projected invasion.
The departure of the State Guard, and the hegira of
secessionists that accompanied it, had left the people
substantially united in their determination to combat the
Confederacy. This united resistance did much to give
the Confederate northward movement a pause, which
made it afterward impossible for them to secure posses-
sion of the State. Kentucky was now foreign and hos-
tile ground to them. Their movements in it were re-
ceived much as they would have been in Ohio or In-
diana.

When General Johnston made his well-considered
movement upon Bowling Green it was with the hope
that his presence within the State would bring great
numbers of recruits to his banners. Despite stirring
proclamations the people received him sullenly ; and with
a force that on October 28th was, according to General
Johnston's own memoranda, twelve thousand strong,
quite equaling the Federal force which could have been
brought to resist him, he did not venture to move be-
yond his fortifications. General Johnston was a brave
and enterprising soldier, and if it had not been for his
conviction that the Kentucky people were not as much
in sympathy with the South as had been supposed, he
would have moved forward with more decision. In a

FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR. 263

letter to the Confederate War Department, dated Oc-
tober 22, 1861, he says: —

" We have received but little accession to our ranks
since the Confederate forces crossed the line (i. e., the
line dividing Tennessee and Kentucky) ; in fact no such
demonstrations of enthusiasm as to justify any move-
ments not warranted by our ability to maintain our own
communications. It is true that I am writing from a
Union county, and it is said to be different in other
counties. They appear to me to be passive, if not apa-
thetic. There are hundreds of ardent friends of the
South in the State, but there is apparently among them
no concert of action. I shall, however, still hope that
the love and spirit of liberty are not yet extinct in Ken-
tucky." l

It is evident that the calm, intelligent mind of Gen-
eral Johnston, already saw through the errors concern-
ing the real attitude of Kentucky which the imagina-
tions of the Confederate sympathizers had created.

On the 23d of September the military board was
given power to demand the return of arms from all
associations that were suspected of disloyalty. This
was a provision to destroy the suspected remnants of
the State Guard, which were still within the State. The
military board was now provided with a large amount of
money. In addition to the appropriation of $1,000,000
previously made, the legislature, on the 23d of Sep-
tember, gave the board authority to borrow another
$1,000,000, and on October 1st $2,000,000 more were
put at their disposal for raising and arming troops. By
a call of September 25th, the Commonwealth demanded

i See Life of General A. 8. Johnston, by Win. Preston Johnston,
p. 351.

264 KENTUCKY.

of its people forty-two thousand troops, or one man for
each twenty-one of the whole white population, — nearly
one half of those remaining in the State who were fit to
bear arms. The legislature also provided that the ex-
ecutive departments might remove their offices beyond
the reach of the enemy ; and that no liquor should be
sold within five miles of any military camp. These
resolute steps mark the earnestness and decision with
which the Commonwealth entered on the war.

These appropriations of money and of men were far
ahead of the preparation that the State was called on
to make. The appropriation of four millions of dollars
from her slender means, and forty thousand from the
possible eighty thousand able-bodied white men left in
the State, show that she alone of all the American
Commonwealths saw the magnitude of the struggle on
which she had entered. It should be noticed that these
steps were taken in the dark and gloomy days that fol-
lowed the battle of Bull Run, when the chances seemed
all against the success of the Federal arms. Nowhere
in the Commonwealth did that disastrous and dispirit-
ing reverse, and the subsequent trying inaction of the
Northern armies, lead to any hesitation or temporizing.
The State government went forward with an admirable
courage in the path they had chosen.

A most interesting and instructive feature of the time
is the singular determination with which the people
clung to their constitution and the laws, even when com-
pelled by the needs of self-preservation to disregard them.
A capital instance of this is seen in their action with ref-
erence to their governor. Although Governor Magoflin
was known to be in sympathy with the rebellion, and
desirous of leading the State out of the Union ; although)

FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR. 265

he vetoed nearly every measure of protection that was
passed by the legislature, no effort was made to displace
him by impeachment, or in other ways to drive him from
his post. He was closely watched, and in fact was
guilty of no act of disloyalty. His vetoes were within
his constitutional right. They were in succession over-
borne by a large majority, and in each instance, be it
said to his great credit, he at once did his duty as an ex-
ecutive officer in giving effect to the laws which he had
conscientiously vetoed. For eighteen months the legis-
lature bore with this extraordinary relation to the chief
executive officer of the Commonwealth because it was
not in their power legally to dismiss him. Throughout
they gave him the formal respect that his station de-
manded, and when his own slow won conviction of his
false position led to his resignation, they accomplished
the change of officers in a legal and dignified manner.
This commendable course should be borne in mind
until we have considered the critical attitude which the
legislature was in the end compelled to take to the Fed-
eral usurpations of authority. This determined and
instinctive clinging to the letter of the law is the key
to many important actions in the subsequent years of
the war.

This regard for the laws was shown in many other
ways, but only one other instance need be given. In
order to afford every facility to the Federal commanders
the legislature passed, on October 1st, a bill which " re-
quired information, surveys, maps, and drawings to be
given to officers of the army upon application therefor
without delay." This bill was vetoed by the governor
on the ground that private property was guaranteed
from seizure without the process of law. The legisla-

266 KENTUCKY.

ture instantly receded from its action, there being but
one vote in favor of passing the bill over the governor's
veto. This was the only veto of the governor that re-
ceived this treatment.

It was a great good fortune for the Commonwealth
in this critical period, that the Federal command was,
at the request of the legislature, given to General Rob-
ert Anderson, well known for his defense of Fort
Sumter. General Anderson was born in the State,
and his extensive family connections gave him a better
understanding of the motives of the people than any
other commander could have had. He was in perfect
sympathy with the determination of the leaders of that
party to maintain the civil law as far as it was possible
to do so. On September 24th, he issued the following
proclamation : " The commanding general, understand-
ing that apprehension is entertained by citizens of this
State who have hitherto been in opposition to the
policy now adopted by this State, hereby gives notice
that no Kentuckian shall be arrested who remains at
home attending to his business, and does not take part,
either by action or speech, against the authority of the
general or State government, or does not hold corre-
spondence with or give aid or assistance to those who
have arrayed themselves against us as our enemies." 1
At the same time the legislature refused to pass a bill
making all those who joined the Confederate army or
acted with the Confederacy incapable of taking any es-
tate in Kentucky by bequest, descent, or distribution.
The basis of their refusal was that this was contrary to
the spirit of the constitution.

The difficulty of maintaining the activity of the civil
i Collins, i. 94. >,

FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR. 267

law in this period of conflict was made the greater by
the action of the Home Guards, a force that could not
be kept in proper control. These partisan troops made
many raids upon persons known to be in sympathy
with the South. The whole experience of the Civil
War with these detached localized troops served to
show that they were an element of great danger to the
civil government of the State. The rapid organization
of the regular troops of Kentucky fortunately made it
possible in time partly to do away with this mediaeval
type of soldiery, but the local disturbances that they
bred were of more permanent damage to the State than
all the large operations of war that were ever carried
on within her borders. Their deeds of violence bred a
crop of hatreds and blood feuds in which hundreds of
lives were sacrified, and certain counties made almost
desolate for years after the close of the war. Perhaps
the best military lesson taught by the rebellion is that
the middle age system of partisan commands is utterly
unfit for the warfare of the day, and a source of great
danger to any State which is trying to preserve the
precious elements of its social system in a time of civil
war.

The organization of the State troops for service in
the Federal army now became a matter of the first im-
portance and of extreme difficulty. The governor and
his cabinet were committed to an opposition to this pro-
cess. Although the recruiting camps were overflowing
with men, they were not organized and mustered as
rapidly as they should have been. Fortunately the
resignation of the adjutant-general, Scott Brown, was
brought about, and in his place the governor consented
to appoint General John W. Finnell. This gentleman

268 KENTUCKY.

was extremely well fitted for the arduous duties of his
place ; of untiring energy, strongly devoted to the cause
of the Union, and skillful in his dealings with men, he
soon proved of incalculable value to the State. Before
the end of the month nearly twenty thousand Ken-
tuckians were enlisted arid fairly ready for the field.
The newly organized regiments from Ohio, Indiana, and
the other Northern States, brought up the Federal force
in the State to about forty thousand men.

This support came none too soon. Heavy columns
of Confederate troops were endeavoring to make their
way into the State before the Federal government could
fix itself in advantageous positions. 'Their armies held
nearly all the district south of the Green River, and
were pushing their detachments towards the central and
northern parts of the State. On the 21st of October,
General Zollicoffer, a trained soldier, of a distinguished
Swiss family, though of American birth, in command
of seven thousand troops, endeavored to push his way
along the " wilderness turnpike " to Central Kentucky.
He was met at the Wild Cat Mountain, near London,
by the 7th Kentucky Regiment under Colonel Garrard.
Colonel Garrard's force acted well in its first action ;
they resisted the Confederate advance until they were
reinforced by General Schoepff in command of six reg-
iments of Ohio, Indiana, and Tennessee troops, as well
as by Wolford's cavalry. The Confederates, finding
themselves in face of an equal force occupying a very
strong position, retired after a loss of thirty killed and
about one hundred wounded ; the Federal loss was less.

This action, though it did not deserve the name of a
battle, was worth a good deal as a source of inspiration
to the raw levies of the State. There was at this time

FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR. 269

a common notion that the emigration of some forty
thousand of the natural leaders and fighting population
of the State had left it with little material that could
be made into good soldiers. Even General Sherman,
who had recently replaced General Anderson, took at
first a hopeless view of the military situation. He re-
ported to Washington that the young men of Kentucky
had generally joined the Confederate army, and that the
Union men were aged and conservative, and would not
enlist to fight against their Southern kindred. He as-
sured the government that few Union regiments could be
raised in Kentucky. How easy it is to misjudge a peo-
ple is shown by the fact that Kentucky's quota of troops
was always full, and that despite the fact that over forty
thousand of her young men did go into the rebellion,
she raised all the men that fell to her share almost
without bounties, and practically without a draft, a pa-
triotic record that was not exceeded, if it was equaled,
by any State in the Union.

The remainder of the year 1862 was spent in prepa-
ration for movements that were to drive the Confederates
from Kentucky. There were many small actions be-
tween the outposts of the two armies, only two of which
deserve particular mention. On November 8th a Con-
federate force of about one thousand men, under com-
mand of Colonel John S. Williams, well known for his
gallant service during the Mexican War, encountered a
Federal force of nearly thrice their number under Gen-
eral Nelson at Ivy Mountain, on the head waters of the
Kentucky River, near the Virginia line. Unhappily
for their plans, the Confederates had chosen a position
where their fire was downwards, and therefore entirely
ineffective ; so, after a stubborn forest fight of over an

270 KENTUCKY.

hour, they were driven from the field. On December
17th the Confederates were defeated in an action of
a considerable nature near Munfordsville, where the
Louisville and Nashville Railway crosses the Green
River. These, and numerous other slight engagements,
were useful for the training of the Federal troops,
though they had no strategic value.

Mingled with such endless skirmishes and cross-roads
battles we find a singular incident which throws some
light on the political projects of the Confederate gov-
ernment. It shows very clearly how important the
possession of Kentucky, even in name, appeared to it,
and how much they were willing to ignore the facts of
the political position of Kentucky in order to have some
apparent claim upon the soil. It should be premised
that the secession element had convinced themselves
that the State was in some obscure way held under Fed-
eral domination, and that if they could have a plebiscit
for or against secession they could win the State to their
side. At this time the Confederate armies held about
one tenth the area of the Commonwealth, a region lying
south of the Green River and east of the Cumberland;
within this region they were closely hemmed ; their
forays beyond their lines having been in all cases easily
beaten back. Yet on the 18th of November they called
what they were pleased to term a " sovereignty conven-
tion," which sat for three days, and claimed to have rep-
resentatives from sixty-five of the counties of the State.
These representatives were self-appointed, or chosen
by the troops from Kentucky then in the Confederate
army. In this singular assembly a declaration of inde-
pendence and an ordinance of secession were passed ; !
1 See Collins, i. 97. »

FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR. 271

a full list of State officers was elected. At the head
of this list was Colonel George W. Johnson, of Scott
County, as provisional governor, and at the foot, W. N.
Haldeman, of Oldham, was chosen to be State printer.
Three commissioners were sent from the convention to
Richmond, Va., to ask the admission of the State into
the Confederacy, and on the 9th of December that body
went through the process of admitting Kentucky into
the Southern Union. When we recall the year of skill-
ful, devoted labor these gentlemen who managed the
convention had just given to carry the State into re-
bellion, an effort in which they were favored by the
possession of the State government and a large share
of the sympathies of the people, it seems incredible that
they should of their own will have undertaken this pre-
tense of legislation. It has been conjectured that the
Confederate government needed the appearance, if they
could not get the substance, of Kentucky support, and
that this performance was gone through with under in-
structions from the Richmond government.

This, however, is not the case. The writer has been
assured that the project came from the brilliant and
fertile mind of Mr. G. W. Johnson, who was elected
the provisional governor. It is said that to his great
powers of persuasion was due the final consent of Gen-
erals Johnston, Preston, and Breckinridge, who at the
outset vigorously opposed the project. The arguments
of Mr. Johnson have not been published ; it is likely,
however, that he saw the need of satisfying the Ken-
tucky Confederate troops that they were acting with,
and not against, their State government, and that he
deemed this semblance of such government, the best
at the moment attainable, better than nothing at all.

272 KENTUCKY.

There was much reason in this judgment. It, however,
proceeded on the assumption that the Confederates were
to continue their advance into Kentucky.

In a few weeks this " provisional government " gave
evidence of its eminently temporary character by leav-
ing the State in company with General Johnston's
army. For nearly two years they waited over the bor-
der, like exiled Stuarts, for the time of coming to their
own. Their gallant leader, Mr. Johnson, governor, met
a soldier's death as a private, in the ranks of the 4th
Kentucky Confederate regiment, at Pittsburg Landing.
The other officers watched for a chance that came, but
for one hour, when they might take their places in the
capitol of the State ; 1 still, during the whole war, the
pretense that Kentucky was a Confederate State was
steadfastly maintained. There were senators and rep-
resentatives from the State in the Confederate Congress
elected by the soldiers in the field. Few more curious
instances of a political pretense can be found in history.
It is impossible to see where was the profit of this ac-
tion ; so far from gaining sympathy for the rebellion in
Kentucky, it tended rather to discredit the Confederacy
among its people.

During the whole of the year 1861 the Legislature of
Kentucky was in intermittent session, the adjournments
being for only a few weeks at a time ; their attention
was given to the work of watching their governor, who,
be it said, acted in a perfectly honorable manner in the
discharge of the duties committed to him, and to a so-
licitous care that the machinery of the civil law was
kept in motion as well as it could be in a time of war.
Their anxious efforts to preserve the people from the
l Vide infra, p. 303.

FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR. 273

exactions of military commanders is worthy of great
commendation. The Federal government, out of grati-
tude for the allegiance of the State, was naturally dis-
posed to give way to their suggestions, and for a long
time, indeed, until the war became much embittered,
there was little severity or lawlessness in the action of
the Federal commanders. The only considerable diffi-
culty was with General Nelson, himself a Kentuckian,
but a man of a singularly furious nature, who persisted
in the summary arrest and deportation from the State
of many citizens whom he suspected of sympathy with
the Confederacy. General W. T. Sherman, who for a
while commanded the forces in the State, and all others
in command in the first year of the war in Kentucky,
except General Nelson, who, though Sherman's subordi-
nate, seems never to have been in any proper sense
under his command, seconded the protests of the legis-
lature against arbitrary arrest. General Sherman stated
that the removal of prisoners beyond the State, except
those held as spies and prisoners of war, " without giv-
ing them an opportunity for trial by the legal tribunals
of the country, does not meet my approval."

Long after the legislature had demanded the resigna-
tions of their senators at Washington, the United States
senate expelled John C. Breckinridge, who had been
for some months with the Confederate army. The leg-
islature chose as his successor Garrett Davis, an able
and loyal man, who had previously held a seat in the
lower house of Congress.

In January the Confederate army, under General
Johnston, which closely pressed srnd gravely threatened
Western Kentucky and Tennessee, sought to create a

i See Collins, i. 97.
18

274 KENTUCKY.

diversion by a movement on the Federal lines in the
eastern part of the State. General George B. Critten-
den, the Confederate commander, held an entrenched
camp at Beech Grove, on the north bank of the Cum-
berland, in Pulaski County. A considerable force,
under General George H. Thomas, was marching upon
his position, but had not concentrated for an attack.
General Crittenden sought to beat his enemy in detail
before the impending concentration was effected. Leav-
ing his camp with a force of about five thousand men,
on Sunday, January 19th, before day, General Zol-
licoffer, who commanded under Crittenden, struck the
advanced part of this Federal force under the command
of General George H. Thomas. Thomas had with him
the 4th Kentucky Infantry, a portion of the 1st Ken-
tucky Cavalry, and a regiment each from the States of
Ohio, Indiana, and Minnesota, a force but little less than
General Zollicoffer's attacking column. Then began the
most hotly contested battle that had yet taken place in
the Mississippi Valley. For some hours the fight went
on with varying fortune, but with no clear indication
of the result, when the overwhelming reinforcements
received by the Federal army and the death of Zolli-
coffer by a pistol shot from Colonel Speed Fry, who
commanded the 4th Kentucky Infantry, decided the ac-
tion. The Confederates were forced to their intrenched
camp, from which they managed to escape across the
Cumberland River during the night, by boats which
they burned behind them, with a total loss of about
five hundred men. The evacuated camp was found to
contain a large amour>t of artillery, munitions, and many
stores.

This blow removed for a moment the danger of ii^-

FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR. 275

vasion in Eastern Kentucky. It was several months
before the Confederate army again gathered force and
courage to make another attack upon the State by this
eastern line. This battle of Mill Spring, or Logan's
Cross Roads, though the total of killed and wounded
did not exceed six hundred, was a remarkably well con-
tested fight. The men on both sides were entirely un-
used to war, yet they showed the endurance of veterans.
In the winter of 1861-62 the success of General
Grant's movement against the fortifications by which
the Confederates expected to secure control of the Ten-
nessee and the Cumberland rivers had an important in-
fluence on the Confederate plan of campaign. The
organization of the "provisional government" at Rus-
sellville, and the rapid accumulation of troops and mu-
nitions at Bowling Green, showed pretty clearly that
the Confederates had the military capacity to foresee
that the possession of Kentucky was absolutely neces-
sary to the prosecution of any successful campaign in
the valley of the Mississippi. A glance at a map of the
United States will show that this State cuts deeply into
the area of the South. If the Confederacy could but
once seize upon it and hold the borders of the Ohio
River, they would have the only strongly defensible line
of the West. They could then hope to transfer the war
to the very frontier of the South, or even bring its bur-
den upon the Northern soil. The Ohio River line is
very defensible. There are very few fords practicable
for an army even in the lowest water ; there were
then no bridges. With the shipping on that river de-
stroyed, and with strongholds at a few points on the
line of the river, they would have had a position even
more secure than that they held in Virginia. Their

276 KENTUCKY.

plan evidently was to make a strong push for the pos-
session of this Ohio line. They would then have at
their back the fertile lands of Kentucky, richer in grain
and horses and mules than any other part of the South,
— the best fitted to maintain an army of any State in
the Union. — together with a population of a million
people, from which they could hope to draw a large
force of men. The neutrality attitude of Kentucky had
deprived them of their chance to capture this ground
with the sudden enthusiastic rush that secured them
Virginia ; the obstinate resistance that they had met in
their first efforts to push flying columns into the north-
ern part of the State during the autumn of 1861 made
it evident that they would have to accumulate a large
force of men before this campaign could be undertaken
with any prospect of success ; so it was midwinter be-
fore they were ready to act.

In the mean time they were threatened by the way
of the Tennessee and the Cumberland rivers, which
streams made their position open to a turning move-
ment from the west. They appear to have neglected
to strengthen the fortifications on these waters in any
effective way. The little that was known of the Fed-
eral gunboats led the Confederate soldiers to underesti-
mate their ability to develop any formidable attacking
qualities ; so the fortifications on these rivers, though
strong enough to resist any assault from the Federal
armies, fell easily before a combined naval and military
force. The Confederate commanders do not seem to
have apprehended the very great importance of these
positions, though this should have been clear to them.

The first great misfortune to the Confederate arms
was in the loss of Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River,

FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR. 277

just south of the Kentucky line. This fort was com-
manded by General Lloyd Tilghman, who was an offi-
cer of the Kentucky State Guard, and had hastened
into the army of the Confederacy as soon as the State
called upon him for the service he had engaged to give.
He surrendered his post after a few hours' bombard-
ment, without receiving any assault. This placed Gen-
eral Grant's force well on the flank of the column at
Bowling Green, but as the Cumberland River was still
held by the Confederates, that force was not yet in
serious danger. There was still a chance for its able
leader, General Albert Sidney Johnston, to make his
proposed dash for Louisville and the line of the Ohio,
provided the Cumberland River was firmly held ; but
before this movement could be undertaken, Grant's
fleet and army were thundering at the defenses of the
Cumberland. General Johnston was not without a clear
discernment of his position ; he knew that this critical
point should have been held at all hazards, yet it was
inefficiently defended. Only a week after the fall of
Fort Henry Grant's forces were before the lines of Fort
Donelson. The action began on the 12th of February,
and lasted five days. The Confederates in this fort
were under the command of Generals Floyd and Pil-
low. General Buckner, lately in charge of the Ken-
tucky Guard, was the third in command. The total
Confederate force available for the defense of Donelson
amounted to about fifteen thousand men, who occupied
an exceedingly strong natural position, which had been
made stronger by an abundant expenditure of engineer-
ing skill.1 Grant's force was nearly twice as numerous
as that of the Confederates, but the strength of the
1 See Life of Albert Sidney Johnston, p. 443.

278 KENTUCKY.

Confederate lines made the conditions of the struggle
not unequal. The Confederate artillery succeeded, in
the end, in crippling all the gunboats before they had
destroyed the defenses of the stronghold. It then re-
mained for the Federal army to carry the position by
assault.

The Federal forces essayed several assaults, but were
easily beaten back with severe loss. This, in connec-
tion with the successful combat with the gunboats, would
have encouraged a well trained soldier to hold his
ground with the hope that at the right moment he
might take the offensive against his enfeebled antago-
nist. But Floyd, though brave enough, was not made
of war-proof material. He had been charged by Gen-
eral Johnston under any circumstances to save his army,
so he determined to cut his way out, and escape with his
force to Nashville while it was possible. A sortie was
determined on and abandoned, and finally replanned and
successfully executed with great gallantry. The Fed-
eral line gave way, was thrown back like a door on its
hinges, and the way of escape for the Confederates lay
wide open. An unfounded alarm concerning Federal
reinforcements caused Floyd to return to his intrench-
ments after he had practically attained the object of his
sortie. His troops had been worn out in winning their
profitless victory, and were benumbed by a fierce win-
ter's storm. Still they had not lost more than one in ten
of their numbers. It was determined to surrender after
a portion of the army had been passed over the river to
the uninvested side of the fortress, and another part es-
caped up the stream on a steamer. General Buckner,
to whom the command had been turned over, capitu-
lated to General Grant. Soldiers of the Commonwealth,

FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR. 279

both Confederate and Federal, were engaged in this
battle, — two regiments on each side, — and did their
share of the fighting. The Confederate loss in killed
and wounded was 1,338 men, or about one tenth their
force, and 8,000 prisoners. The Federal loss by wounds
was about the same.

It is the general opinion of military men that the de-
fense of Fort Donelson, though obstinate, was not as
desperate as the exigencies of the Confederate cause de-
manded. The chance of ultimate Confederate success
in Kentucky depended on the issue of this defense
more than it ever depended on any other battle in the
Mississippi Valley. On it hung also the power of the
Confederacy to control the State of Tennessee, and its
chance of getting possession of Kentucky. It was for
the Southern cause the most serious action of the war.
The commander should have sacrificed everything for
the reasonable hope that he might in the end have
worn out the force of his enemy. If there ever was a
position in which a desperate defense was called for, it
was at Fort Donelson. But there was a singular lack
of determination in the resistance that the Confederacy
made at this stage of that western campaign. On the
14th of February, even before the fate of Donelson was
fully decided by the issue of battle, General Johnston,
accepting defeat as inevitable, began the evacuation of
Bowling Green. The Confederate army was compelled
to destroy the stores accumulated for the Kentucky cam-
paign, necessarily abandoned on the fall of Donelson.
On the 27th of the month the Confederate position at
Columbus, the occupation of which by General Polk
had ended the neutrality of Kentucky, was evacuated.

These movements cleared away the first invasion of

280 KENTUCKY.

Kentucky. There were now no organized bodies of the
enemy within its limits, nor for months was its peace
disturbed except by raids of the Confederates.

This failure of the Confederates to obtain possession
of Kentucky at the outset of the war was in good part
due to their own extreme caution. This caution is very
instructive. It will be noticed that the Confederate
army consisted in large part of Kentuckians, including
the most enthusiastic and soldierly part of the popula-
tion ; it was commanded by men like Johnston, Buck-
ner, Crittenden, and Tilghman, who were intimately ac-
quainted with the State and with the temper of the
people. In their public utterances, the Confederates
always claimed that Kentucky was in thorough sym-
pathy with their cause. Why, then, we may ask, did
they not at once push north and rescue their State from
Federal domination ? When Buckner moved from Nash-
ville to Bowling Green, there were few troops in Ken-
tucky except those native to the State ; if he could
have counted on the sympathy of the population, he
would have had no difficulty in overrunning the State,
for the men whom he received as recruits would have
been as fit for service as the raw Federal levies. Their
action makes it evident that the Confederate leaders
did not believe that Kentucky would receive them with
open arms. If they had any doubts on the subject, the
spirited battles between their scouting parties and the
citizens cleared their minds, and showed them that it
would require about the same force to invade Kentucky
as it would to march into the States north of the Ohio.
It is likely that this view of Kentucky's position did
much to hinder the movement from Bowling Green to
the northward. '»

FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR. 281

The belief that Kentucky was with them in spirit,
though not held by those who knew most of the matter,
grew to be a mania with Confederate authorities at
Richmond. It resembled the Northern idea of the im-
mense Union interest in the South, or the longing of the
Degrees to take active measures to secure their free-
dom. Such delusions, born of desire, are an accompani-
ment of all civil wars ; these wars are always fought in
a glamour, a sort of moonshine of sentiments and prej-
udices, that change the facts out of their semblance of
reality. It is necessary to wait until all these delusions
have cleared away before the truth can be seen.

The Confederates while at Bowling Green had
learned a part of their lesson concerning the attitude of
Kentucky. They were even better advised by the re-
sults of Bragg's subsequent campaign ; but with many
the delusion that Kentucky was at heart a Southern
State still remained alive.

CHAPTER XVII.

FROM THE EVACUATION OP KENTUCKY IN FEBRUARY,
1862, TO THE BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE.

THE process of organizing Kentucky troops in the
first few months of the period following the overthrow
of neutrality went on with very great rapidity. Al-
though the Commonwealth lost the first flower of her
military material by the secession of the greater part of
the State Guard, for with them went those young men
who had been selected to form the first levy of the
State, such was the energy of the work of organization,
that on February 18th, five months from the time she
cast in her lot with the North, the State already had in
the Federal army 24,026 infantry, 4,979 cavalry, and
198 artillery men, — a total of 29,203 men. This does
not include a large force of Home Guards, — men who
were under a certain discipline, and in a way doing
valuable work in resisting the small cavalry forays
which the Confederates were constantly making into
the State. In this five months, despite the depletion
of the population from the going south of a force that
may be estimated at 35,000 men, the State had propor-
tionately more soldiers in the field than any other State
within the Federal Union.

In its repeated sessions the legislators gave little at-
tention to anything but the war; still some of the legis-
lation is interesting, as showing that they found time

FROM DONELSON TO PERRY VILLE. 283

for other considerations. In February, during the time
when the battles of Forts Henry and Donelson were
being fought, they passed an important bill concerning
the organization of Transylvania University, — an insti-
tution in which the State had long been deeply inter-
ested. They also provided that the school terms inter-
rupted by the crisis of 1861 should be completed during
the year 1862. At this time the war seemed to act as
a needed stimulus to the energies of the people.

Now for the first time we find severe legislation di-
rected against those who had passed from the State
into the Confederate army. Such persons were de-
clared to have expatriated themselves, and were not to
be restored to citizenship except by permission of the
legislature. The governor vetoed this bill, but it was
quickly passed over his veto. Legal proceedings were
authorized to secure from the so-called provisional gov-
ernment a portion of the State taxes that it had laid
hands on while the Confederate army held the country
south of Green River.1 A suit for money against citi-
zens in rebellion is a novelty in civil warfare.

In April came the great battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg
Landing, — a battle in which nearly every State of the
Mississippi Valley had a melancholy interest.

After the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson the
Federal army showed something of the -same lack of
energy in their action that the Confederates had done
in the defense of these posts. A Federal force of about
twenty thousand men was left on the west bank of the
Tennessee in a poor position, exposed to an unknown
forte of the enemy under the command of General Al-
bert Sidney Johnston. This Federal force knew so lit-
i Collins, i. 101.

284 KENTUCKY.

tie of the enemy, that on the morning of April 6th they
were driven from their very tents by an attack of the
whole Confederate army of the Tennessee. After a day
of overwhelming disasters, that even the persistent valor
of his best men could in no way stay, General Grant's
army was driven back upon the river in nearly utter
rout, with the loss of nearly one fifth of the force as
prisoners. By great good fortune, while his army was
scarcely more than the debris of the command, and was
exposed to utter destruction, he was reinforced by Gen-
eral Buell, who, by a hurried march of twenty-five miles,
one of the finest feats of American military history, suc-
ceeded in interposing his army of twenty thousand men
between the wreck of Grant's army and the victorious
Confederates.

Thus what promised to be an overwhelming victory
for the rebel army was turned into a disastrous defeat,
through the action of General Buell, whom we are here-
after to see treated with most unmerited severity, and
left in his time of trial without a friendly word from the
man whom he had saved from utter ruin. If Grant's
army had fallen a prey to the Confederates, as it would
certainly have done if Buell, acting on his own sense of
the emergency, had not hastened with great celerity to
its rescue, all that had been gained by the victories at
Donelson and Henry would have been quickly lost. The
subsequent movement of the Confederates into Ken-
tucky would have been a triumphal march instead of
the disastrous series of blunders which it came to be.

The victory at Pittsburg Lauding was dearly bought ;
no other battle in which Kentucky troops had ever be-
fore been engaged was so bloody. The Federal loss in
killed and wounded was about ten thousand, the Con-,

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 285

federates about the same, so that the action deserves to
rank with the greater battles of history. The loss of
the Kentucky troops was particularly severe. It is not
possible to determine the precise number of men from
this Commonwealth engaged in the action. There were
twelve regiments from the Commonwealth in the Fed-
eral army,1 amounting probably to a total of about six
thousand men. Eight of these regiments showed a loss
of five hundred men ; the loss in the other regiments is
not traceable. On the Confederate side the loss of Ken-
tucky commands amounted to six hundred and eighty.
It is likely that the total loss in the Kentucky com-
mands amounted to about thirteen hundred men, or
nearly two per cent, of the men of military age and fit-
ness for service, a dreadfully heavy tax.

This battle, so dear in men, was practically without
consequences; the Confederate army was not followed
up ; its beaten but undismayed forces made their way to
other fields of action. In the months of waiting, while
the Federal commanders were trying to find what they
wanted to do with their victories on the Tennessee and
Cumberland, the Confederate government essayed a most
important campaign, which had again for its .aim the
possession of Kentucky.

In the early part of the war President Lincoln, who
seems to have had an excellent natural capacity for mili-
tary affairs, saw the supreme importance of that point
of the Appalachian Mountains which lies about Cum-
berland Gap. It is easily seen that by way of this
region, through which lies the high road by which the
settlement of Kentucky was in the main effected, the

1 Collins gives the total as sixteen regiments, and sets the loss at
five hundred in eight regiments. See i. 102.

286 KENTUCKY.

Confederate armies could quickly and easily force them-
selves on to Central Kentucky. Besides this mountain
pass, known as Cumberland Gap, there are several other
roads, all passing near this gap, by which troops could
make their way from Central and Eastern Tennessee.

President Lincoln's plan was to have a railway con-
structed to Cumberland Gap, and that point strongly
fortified, so that an army there might give an element
of security to Central Kentucky, and threaten the rebel
lines of communication in Eastern Tennessee. His pro-
ject, though excellent in its conception, was never car-
ried out. This part of the State was never provided
with any adequate defenses. It was always as easy for
the Confederate forces to turn the Federal position on
its east flank as it was for the Federals to make their
way by the Tennessee and Cumberland to the west
of any force they had in Tennessee. The Confederate
armies had been subjected to incessant defeat in the
region adjacent to these rivers. As long as they were
navigable to the Federal gunboats and transports the
Confederates were at a hopeless disadvantage. They
were at first slow to perceive this. In fact, the use
of light draft gunboats extemporized from Mississippi
steamers, convoying a fleet of admirably constructed
transports, such as that type of vessels afforded, was
an altogether new feature in warfare. Railways could
easily be broken by raiding parties, and at best the
transporting power of a poorly constructed single track
railway was small. A stream like the Tennessee or
the Mississippi, once in the control of gunboats, could
not be wrested from an enemy's hands without defeating
their fleet, — an impossible task for the Southern Con-
federacy.

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 287

After the defeat of their army at Shiloh, the Con-
federates were compelled for a time to abandon any
further effort to approach Kentucky by way of Nash-
ville, and laid their plans for an invasion on lines far
enough to the east to avoid the danger of being attacked
on their left wing from the Federal forces in control of
the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. The Confed-
erate lines had been pushed south and east, to near
Chattanooga, by the advance of Buell's forces. The
tide was setting so strongly against them, that if their
hold upon the Mississippi Valley was to be preserved
they must make another push for Kentucky. Their
extreme need at this time developed a man who was
one of the most extraordinary characters of the war,
— a man of whom it is hardly too much to say that he
created and developed a new branch of the military
art. John Hunt Morgan was one of the most notable
soldiers that the war developed. A native of Alabama,
he became in his youth a citizen of Kentucky ; he was
a lieutenant in Humphrey Marshall's regiment in the
Mexican War, and took a part in the battle of Buena
Vista, but in no way did he give any promise of his
subsequent career, nor was his purely commercial life
from 1847 to 1861 in the least degree likely to arouse
his dormant powers ; it was spent in inaction. He was
a captain in the State Guard, and escaped with his
command to the Confederate army. Early in the war
he showed his singular capacity for swift and effective
action.

To Morgan may be attributed the invention of the
raid in the rear of the enemy, which became such a
peculiar feature in the Civil War. Used skillfully, this
form of operations showed itself to be a most valuable

288 KENTUCKY.

means for relieving the pressure brought about by a
vigorous advance of an enemy, when that advance has
led him far from his base. It may fairly be said that
Morgan's successes compelled the Federal army to use
one fourth of its force for rear-guards that would not
otherwise have been required for this service.

But for its accomplishment this method of action de-
manded very peculiar qualities in commander and men.
To be successful the leader must take no counsel of his
fears ; have very quick wits, a great power of inven-
tion, and a great tactical capacity. His subordinates
must share his qualities, for both in advance and retreat
the movements of the force must be often by numer-
ous detachments, so as to blind the enemy to his plans.
His men, too, must have the power of acting individ-
ually, and have an absolute confidence in their chief.
With these conditions it is possible for a horsed force
of three thousand men to keep ten times their number
occupied in the defense of depots and communications ;
they can destroy communications, capture weak posts,
and in a critical moment break up the enemy's plan of
campaign by requiring the detachment of so many
troops that the striking power is gone from his army.
Morgan's subordinate officers were nearly all Kentuck-
ians, as were by far the greater part of his men. Their
wonderful work is perhaps the best evidence of the
military capacity of this people. More than any other
Tt shows the people to possess fertility of invention, en-
durance, and the vigor in action demanded in success-
ful war.

Colonel Morgan, after being engaged in many expe-
ditions and seeing much service in the more southern
States, made his first raid into Kentucky in June, 1862,

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 289

on the lines of the Louisville and Nashville Railway in
Kentucky ; he captured some trains and a few soldiers,
but the result was inconsiderable. This with his previ-
ous partisan work in Tennessee was, however, enough
to show the possibility of such cutting out tactics. Early
in June, with a force of a little less than one thousand
men, he again entered Kentucky. Leaving Knoxville
on the 4th of July, on the 8th he defeated a force of
250 men at Tompkinsville, Monroe County; getting
possession of the telegraph wires, he sent false dis-
patches to the Federal commanders so as to open his
way to the North. This use of the telegraph to deceive
the enemy was a novelty in the art of war, and a re-
source that often served Morgan in his movements.
On the llth, he was checked by a Federal force at
New Hope, in Nelson County, but on the 12th he cap-
tured Lebanon with a small force stationed there.

Morgan quickly adopted the plan of rarely giving bat-
tle if he could possibly help it. More clearly than any
other commander he recognized the limitations of his
activities. In a running fight with the Home Guards,
he passed on to Harrodsburg, burning bridges and de-
stroying the railway as he went. Masked by a cloud
of skirmishers which he threw about him, it was im-
possible for the Federal commanders to determine his
force, which was commonly believed to be several times
as large as it really was, or to determine the direction
of his movements. He constantly used the telegraph
lines to magnify his forces in the eyes of the Federal
commanders, and to change the disposition of their
troops to suit his purpose. Cincinnati and Louisville
were almost without troops, and were greatly alarmed
by the invasion. Moving toward Cincinnati so as to
19

290 KENTUCKY.

compel a Federal concentration there, Morgan on the
17th captured Cynthiana, a town about sixty-five miles
south of Cincinnati, despite the sturdy resistance of the
Home Guards and a part of a newly organized regiment
under Colonel Landrum ; the loss was about sixty men
on each side in killed and wounded. At this point he
destroyed a large amount of government stores. He
was now pressed by a superior force of Kentucky cav-
alry under General Green Clay Smith and Colonel
Wolford, and by them was forced into a rapid retreat to
East Tennessee, on which, however, he was able to de-
stroy a large amount of government property. His re-
port shows that in twenty-four days' campaign he trav-
eled over 1000 miles, "captured" 17 towns, paroled
about 1,200 regular troops, and lost in the raid only 90
of his men.1 The destruction of Federal stores proba-
bly amounted to over a million dollars in value, and at
least nearly twenty thousand men were for the time
tied to the government posts they were guarding, or
occupied in pursuing him.

From this success came many similar though less
spirited raids into Kentucky under the lead of inferior
commanders. There were in the next few months many
small actions all over the State, principally between
these raiders and the Home Guards. These move-
ments were but the precursors of the last great effort
the Confederacy was about to make to gain possession
of Kentucky. Under the cover of this cloud of raid-
ing parties that forced back the Federal scouts, and
thoroughly masked their movements, the Confederate
tirmy, which had been gathered in East Tennessee under

1 Collins, i. p. 104; also, Dukes' History of Morgan's Cavalry, p.
182 et seq.

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 291

command of Generals Bragg and Kirby Smith, ad-
vanced into Central Kentucky. At this time the Fed-
eral forces in this section of the State consisted of
about ten thousand men, all except two regiments be-
ing raw troops recently brought into the State from
Ohio and Indiana.

This force was under the general command of the able
but erratic General William Nelson. General Nelson
was an excellent division commander, as was well proven
at Shiloh, where he won distinguished credit. He was,
however, unfitted by his furious nature for indepen-
dent command. Nelson expected the attack, but was
surprised by the amazing swiftness of the Confederate
advance, for in three days they had marched nearly
ninety miles. Nelson himself was at Lexington, when he
should have been with his army. About all his force,
consisting of Hanson's and Cruft's brigades, amounting
to about seven thousand men, were posted in Richmond
when the Federal pickets gave a brief warning of the
enemy's approach. There were only these two inex-
perienced brigadiers with their raw troops to meet the
Confederate force. The senior and commanding officer,
Manson, believing that he had only to deal with one of
the numerous raiding parties of the enemy, moved out
with his own brigade, leaving Cruft in Richmond.

At Rogersville, a few miles beyond Richmond, he re-
pulsed the vanguard of the Confederate army. After
the night came, he, still thinking that he had to deal
with a small body which he had easily beaten, ad-
vanced still further away from his supports in Rich-
mond. In this more advanced position he became on
the following day engaged with the whole of Kirby
Smith's army, more than double his force. For the mo-

292 KENTUCKY.

ment it went well with him, for Kirby Smith detached
half his force under General Churchill to execute a
flank movement. This body missed its way and did not
at first take part in the action. Manson's force, although
it was their first action, did gallant duty. Cleburne, the
ablest of the Confederate generals, was wounded, and the
Confederate advance stayed. Then at last Churchill
found the right wing of Manson's brigade, broke it,
and although General Cruft came up with a regiment
and two batteries of the force that had been left in Rich-
mond, the exhaustion of the Federal ammunition in the
regiments most hotly engaged, and the disorder of the
troops on the right, made it impossible to resist the re-
peated assaults of the veteran enemy. Mauson ordered
a retreat to Rogers ville, hoping to reform there under
the protection of the remainder of Cruft's force that was
marching towards him. Retreating to this point, the
Federal commands reformed in good shape, but after an
hour's fighting their right was again turned, and the de-
moralized force driven back into Richmond. There
they met General Nelson, who, raging like a wounded
lion, tried to restore a line of battle. A small part of
the force again gallantly rallied, but only for a brief re-
sistance ; they were quickly broken by the Confederates,
and almost all of the men captured. Nelson was an
hour too late ; the tide of fugitives swept back towards
the bridge over the Kentucky River. For a little while
it seemed as if they were safe ; the Confederate infantry
was too much exhausted by the long and fierce fighting
for further pursuit.

But even this chance of safety for the broken army
was to be lost. Colonel Scott, commanding Kirby
Smith's cavalry, who had been marching on a detour

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 293

to the west to secure the infantry column against any
movement on its flank, struck the road in front of the
rout of the utterly broken but not dismayed army.
General Manson, with a hundred men, tried to beat
them off, but was soon overcome. All the artillery and
trains and three thousand prisoners fell into the Con-
federate hands. The remainder scattered through the
woods and by-paths in utter rout and confusion. The
debris of the defeated army came out to the Ohio River,
all the way from the Little Sandy River to Louisville,
a line three hundred miles in length.

In no other case during the war was an army so
completely annihilated in a single day's battle. Gen-
eral Nelson, himself wounded, escaped, but the greater
part of his officers fell into the hands of the enemy.
The Federal loss is not known with certainty ; it was
probably about 300 killed, 600 wounded, and about
3,500 prisoners. The Confederates lost 250 killed and
700 wounded. It is manifest that the Federal troops,
though raw, on the whole behaved with remarkable
steadiness in the face of the larger and veteran force
that they resisted so long. The battle does not deserve
the opprobrious names that have been given to it. A
raw force of 7,000, under inexperienced commanders,
hud held its own for hours against twice its number of
the best Confederate troops. But for Scott's luck in
striking the road of their retreat, their disorder would
have been by no means overwhelming, and on the fine
of the Kentucky River they might have fought again.

Although the Confederates had suffered heavily, their
victory was full of promise. They had beaten the only
organized troops in Kentucky. General Buell, the de-
partment commander, still holding to the notion that

294 KENTUCKY.

Bragg, with his army of 40,000 men, intended to strike
him in Central Tennessee, had made no preparations
to meet this unexpected movement of his enemy into
Kentucky. Kirby Smith now had command of about
10,000 men, who in their triumph forgot the fatigues of
their forced march. The redoubtable Morgan's force
was hastening to his support. There was a wide field
of action before him.

While Buell was awaiting the Confederate attack
in Eastern Tennessee, Bragg, encouraged by Kirby
Smith's successes, and well informed as to the exposed
position of Kentucky, began his march across the Ten-
nessee table-land to enter Kentucky. It was desirable
for him to threaten Nashville in order to delay Buell's
movement towards Kentucky. This he accomplished
by moving westward on the Knoxville and Nashville
turnpike to the village of Carthage, from which point
he turned northward into Kentucky. Moreover, by
this route he gained new and richer foraging ground by
which to supply his army on the march, Eastern Ken-
tucky not offering supplies for so large an army.

When Bragg entered Kentucky, Buell's force was
massed between Murfreesboro and Nashville. By this
movement Bragg placed himself so near the line of
Buell's communications with Central Kentucky that he
might hinder, by his raiding parties, his enemy's effort
to^et north on the Louisville and Nashville Railway.
It was not until Bragg actually turned north into Ken-
tucky that Buell had a right to feel sure that his ob-
ject was not to fight in Tennessee. So far Bragg's
movement was skillfully contrived, and it is hard to see
how it could have been met by Buell in any more sat-
isfactory way, though if Bragg's object had been to seizp

FKOJf DON ELS ON TO PERRYVILLE. 295

Louisville or Cincinnati, he had wasted time in march-
ing so far westward, for he could have hastened Buell's
retrograde movement equally well by means of powerful
detachments of cavalry, of which he had a large force.
As we shall see, the eight days that Bragg spent in
this movement, which was intended to threaten Nash-
ville, was probably the cause of his failure in his main
object, which we may presume to have been the capture
of Louisville and Cincinnati and the gaining a good
position in Kentucky.1

Even after he had made his westward march, Bragg's
advance was exceedingly dilatory. On September 12th
his infantry advance force was only at Glasgow, having
marched very easily all the preceding week. Veteran
men could not have been worn down by their slow
marching and in need of the rest he gave them. Bragg
had now lost at least ten precious days. Though sin-
gularly well placed for giving quick blows, he was pur-

1 The Comte cle Paris thinks that Bragg moved west in order to
have the advantage of a turnpike. This was not at all necessary for
his movement. He could easily have gone into Kentucky by way of
Big Creek Gap, the route pursued by Kirby Smith, and he would
thereby have saved a week of precious time. It is likely that in part
his aim was to secure a way through •» region that would forage his
army. But the principal reason for this movement was doubtless the
hope that he might be able to capture Nashville by a sudden assault.
Bragg had with him the Confederate government of Tennessee. If by
any chance he could regain Nashville and reestablish the Confederate
State authority in that place, he would be in a much stronger posi-
tion for his Kentucky campaign. At this time Bragg had upon his
staff as aid Colonel J. Stoddard Johnston, a nephew of General Albert
Sidney Johnston. Colonel Johnston was, in the main, the originator
of the plan of this campaign. He urged upon his chief the necessity
of vigor in its prosecution, but Bragg seems to have been paralyzed
by the magnitude of the undertaking he had set about. A com-
mander of vigor in lesser operations of war, he now moved like a man
in a dream.

296 KENTUCKY.

sued by a powerful enemy under the command of an
able general, who though slow to move was extremely
careful of his steps and never blundered into danger.
Bragg's project was, in its motive, a raid in force re-
sembling, in a way, Morgan's. exploits, and controlled
by the same need of swiftness in action. If his whole
army could not be carried rapidly forward it should
have been divided, — a rear-guard left to resist Buell's
northward movement, and the remainder hurried for-
ward for a junction with Kirby Smith's victorious troops,
who only needed a little help to secure both Louisville
and Cincinnati.

At the crossing of the Green River, Bragg found
himself opposed by a force of 3,500 men, under the
command of General Wilder. This officer was in-
trenched in a position that commanded the crossing of
the railway and turnpike road. An effort was made to
carry this position by assault, but failed. Bragg was
then three days in investing and reducing this work,
and forcing it to surrender. He won it on the 16th.
This position could have been left with its garrison
without delaying the Confederate march more than
a few hours. When Bragg should have been the mas-
ter of Louisville, he was occupying himself in captur-
ing this petty stronghold.

Kirby Smith, whose army had now been increased
by a force of several thousand under General Heth,
was now well up to the line of the Ohio before Louis-
ville and Cincinnati. He had a force near each of
these points strong enough to tempt him to an assault,
but was restrained by the orders of Bragg. Two
courses were now open to General Bragg ; despite his
delays he was still a good four days ahead of the north-

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 297

ward moving army under Buell. He could have turned
sharply to the south, struck the Federal force, fatigued
with its long marches, and drawn out of battle order by
the need of movement over several parallel roads ; or
he could have still pushed northward, captured Louis-
ville or Cincinnati, and gathering support from Kirby
Smith and Heth, have given battle to Buell with su-
perior numbers. But General Bragg, though an excel-
lent artillery officer, found the position he now occupied
too complicated for his powers. In his place Stonewall
Jackson would have beaten the army of Buell in detail,
and thus won the possession of Kentucky for the Con-
federacy ; as it was, he fell between two lines of bril-
liant and promising action ; he turned to the eastward
on the road to Lexington, gathering ponderous trains of
supplies from the rich country as he went, and allowed
Buell to move on to Louisville, which he entered on
September 29th. So slow was Bragg's movement that
he took sixteen days to march the one hundred and
twenty miles between the Green River, at the point
where he crossed it, and Lexington, a march that could
easily have been made in nine days.

In order to see the imminent peril of Kentucky at
this time, it will be necessary to consider the conditions
at Cincinnati and Louisville while they were threatened
by the armies of Generals Bragg, Heth, and Kirby
Smith. Bragg's possession of the latter point would
have placed Buell's army in a hopeless position ; he
would have been compelled to find his way to the Ohio,
at some point where he could have opened new commu-
nications. This would have been, in the face of a vic-
torious and vigilant enemy, a serious difficulty even for
a commander of Buell's great ability.

298 KENTUCKY.

As before noted, the army of General Kirby Smith
had the roads to the Ohio wide open to where the force
under General Nelson was scattered at Richmond. Af-
ter that signal victory he was reinforced by Heth and
Morgan ; with these added forces General Smith imme-
diately closed down on Cincinnati and Louisville. At
the moment when the Confederate forces appeared be-
fore these cities they could easily have been taken by
assault, and thereby the base of supplies of the army
of the Tennessee would have fallen into the Confed-
erate hands. Heth's force threatening Cincinnati,
amounting to not over nine thousand men, occupied a
commanding position within five miles of Cincinnati,
which was practically undefended. When he first set
down before that city there were no troops that were
likely to be useful in action to oppose him. The de-
fenses consisted of a few weak unconnected redoubts,
mounting about a dozen pieces of siege artillery, along
a line nearly ten miles in length. This line was pene-
trable at many points where it could not be swept by
the fire of these guns. The surface of the country con-
sists of sharp ridges and deep, interlaced valleys, re-
quiring a very extensive system of fortifications to make
it secure. Moreover, there were no gunners trained to
the use of such pieces of artillery as were available,
which require especial skill to make them effective
against a well managed assault. There was, at the
moment, hardly a single regiment on the ground that
could have been trusted to be steady in the open field.
The force there was altogether of newly enlisted troops,
with no confidence in their officers, and with a great
and well founded fear of the rebel prowess.

On the report of Kirby Smith's northward march,

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYV1LLE. 299

from Lexington the States north of the Ohio were pro-
foundly stirred. Thousands of volunteers, with domes-
tic arms, but without organization or discipline, flocked
to Cincinnati and Louisville. At Cincinnati the com-
mand fell to General Lew Wallace, an officer of singu-
lar energy in the work of organization. By him the
city was at once placed under martial law, and nearly
every man in it set to work upon the fortifications ; in
about thirty-six hours the detached redoubts were con-
nected by rifle pits, behind which the " squirrel hun-
ters,'' as the volunteers were termed, found a position
where it was hoped they could make some resistance.
It is doubtful if ever before a line of fortifications of
such length was constructed with such rapidity. Still,
when, on September 6th, Kirby Smith's force arrived
within sight of the fortifications, the defenses were in-
complete, arid the horde of unformed citizens in the
trenches, mingled with the half-armed, undisciplined, uu-
commanded militia, would have given way before such
a charge as the men who won the battle of Richmond
could easily have made.

Until the morning of September 8th, General Kirby
Smith could have broken this line with the loss of a
few score of men. Once within the defenses the very
numbers of the mob engaged in the defense would have
made his victory the more certain. There was no sec-
ond line of defense, and the only line of retreat was by
way of the single pontoon bridge over the Ohio. It
was quite possible for the Confederates to capture the
whole force. But the lethargy that had come with
Bragg's assumption of the command paralyzed Kirby
Smith and his able lieutenant, Heth.

While these scenes of confusion, so tempting to the

300 KENTUCKY.

vigorous spirits of dashing commanders, were going on
at Cincinnati, similar conditions prevailed at Louisville.
A throng of willing but unorganized citizens was all
that intervened between Bragg's force and the immense
stores that had been gathered for the supply of Buell's
army. After remaining six days in front of Cincinnati,
restrained from action by the orders of the slow moving
Bragg, General Heth was ordered back to Lexington
to effect a junction with Bragg. About the same time
Kirby Smith also fell back from his advanced positions
towards Bragg's army. Although the Confederates
thus lost the golden opportunity of doing great things
for their cause, the Federal inaction was almost equally
blundering. When, on September 9th, Kirby Smith,
with not more than nine thousand men, was within sight
of Cincinnati, the Federal force behind the fortifications
amounted to over thirty thousand men. At least one
third of these were veteran soldiers belonging to com-
mands which had been hastily sent from the West.
Heth's position was in the apex of a triangle, two
sides of which were formed by the sharp northward
bend of the Ohio River. The fortifications were now
in such shape that they could have been safely trusted
to one third of this force. With the remainder, or say
twenty thousand men, the Federal commander could
have easily overwhelmed and captured the little Con-
federate army.

While these vacillating and abortive movements were
under way, Buell was steadily and certainly creeping
along lines a few miles to the west of Bragg's army,
towards Louisville. He had to subsist, in the main,
from the country, and therefore was compelled to move
with divided forces in several roads. A quick move-

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 301

ment of Bragg's forces, after they had united with
Smith, would have enabled him to strike Buell with
superior numbers, while he was drawn out in this dan-
gerous way by the needs of his march. There is rea-
son to believe that he could have beaten him in detail,
and forced the remnants of his army into the forests of
Western Kentucky, where there would have been no
subsistence for it.

When Buell got to Louisville on the 2oth of Septem-
ber, Bragg had lost his last opportunity of effective
action in this momentous campaign.

As soon as Buell's army was within the strong de-
fenses of Louisville, Bragg's position changed from one
that gave unbounded opportunities of attack to a purely
defensive attitude. Buell's force was increased by a
valuable reinforcement sent by river from Corinth,
Miss., and by new and willing recruits from the North,
until it amounted to one hundred thousand men, about
one half being raw troops, the remainder seasoned vet-
erans of that capital material which formed the early
regiments of the Western States. Taking four days to
reorganize and recruit his troops, none too much for the
needed repair of his army before it set out on another
long campaign, Buell prepared to take the offensive.

On the day appointed for his marching, an order
came for him to turn over his command to General
George H. Thomas, one of his corps commanders. At
Thomas's own earnest intercession this order was re-
voked, but the discussion caused a delay of a day in
the movements of the army, and the incident did much
to diminish the effective control of Buell over his troops.
The Washington authorities seemed to have a genius
for removals at the most critical moments of campaigns.

302 KENTUCKY.

If Buell was to be removed, the action should have
come as soon as he reached Louisville.

At this time Bragg, having wasted the last opportu-
nities of fortune, seeins to have abandoned all expecta-
tion of doing more than effecting a retreat which should
be slow enough to give time for his enormous trains,
full of the booty, of war material and provisions that
he had gorged himself with, to creep into East Tennes-
see. To do this effectively he had determined, as far
as he was capable of determination, to hold against
Buell's advance the rectangular line formed by the Ken-
tucky River and Dick's River, a steep-banked tributary
of the Kentucky, that falls into it not far from Lex-
ington. This was a naturally strong position, and was
the stronger by the fact that an extraordinary drought
had made it nearly impossible for Buell's army to find
water away from the main streams. For nearly a month
every military movement was hampered by this diffi-
culty. There was hardly a march of Bragg's or Buell's
army that was not in part determined by this unprece-
dented drought.

In his retreat Bragg proved by his movements that
he was nearly as incompetent in defense as in attack.
In the first place, he assumed that the Federal force
would march by way of Frankfort, a path that would
have placed Buell's army in great difficulties because
of the rugged nature of the country caused by the
deeply incised streams that enter the Kentucky River
in that district. In this he reckoned without his host.
Buell took the simpler and more effective plan of mov-
ing towards Dick's River by way of Bardstown and
Lebanon, where he had a plain country to traverse, —
one not affording strong positions to an enemy, an/3

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 303

affording ground for a well-developed battle ; moreover,
he secured by his route possession of a reasonably good
railway, that needed but little repair to serve for the
transportation of his supplies. This movement had also
the advantage that it brought his army well on the
flank of Bragg's coarse in his intended retreat.

While Bragg, assuming that Buell would advance by
way of Frankfort, was effecting a concentration near
Lexington, Buell was slowly moving upon his flank.
It is likely that Bragg's desire to remain north of the
Kentucky River was in part due to his anxiety to carry
out a political manoeuvre that was then under way. As
soon as the Confederates obtained possession of Frank-
fort they had a long-desired opportunity of giving some
semblance of fact to the provisional government in Ken-
tucky, by installing their officers in the State capital.
It took some time to gather this ghost of a government
at the capital, and to go through the form of electing
and inaugurating a successor as governor to Colonel
Johnson, who had met a soldier's death at Shiloh.

Buell was in motion before the preliminaries to the
induction ceremonies were under way. Just as the
new governor was making his speech Sill's division,
sent out as a flanking party of Buell's march, began to
fire on the town. The flowing periods of Governor
Hawes were interrupted, and with his staff he was driven
through the tunnel near the capital on his way to Lex-
ington. It was probably to complete this political farce
that Bragg had loitered with a large part of his army
about Lexington and Frankfort, as he for a similar
purpose had loitered near Nashville, when he should
have been concentrating his forces to meet the mena-
cing flank movement of the Federal army. This he

304 KENTUCKY.

endeavored to effect when it was too late to get the
profit of it. Buell's forces were now in a tolerably
compact series of columns near Lebanon, marching by
parallel roads towards Dick's River. If his army had
not contained a large portion of raw troops, who had
not yet been trained in marching, and who were worn
out by the heat and dust, he would have been able to
interpose his army between Bragg and his line of re-
treat.

On October 8th the Federal columns were all within
easy supporting distance of each other, a few miles west
of Perry ville. The advance was at Doctor's Fork, a
small stream now reduced by the drought to a few
pools of stagnant water. The line of this stream was
occupied by Sheridan's division, whose outposts were
posted only a little distance beyond the stream. The
wooded nature of the country prevented any distant
view, and the men were too much exhausted for a vig-
orous reconnaissance ; still it was a mistake to rest over
night in the face of dangers that even a trifling scout
would have revealed. The failure to make this recon-
naissance was the only serious mistake that can be
charged against the Federal commander. It was a mis-
take, but one more visible in the retrospect than at the
time when it was made.

When the Federal force camped in the order of bat-
tle, the low heights near Perryville, only two miles
away, were occupied by a large part of Bragg's force,
perhaps one third of his army, amounting to about fif-
teen thousand men under Hardee, which was then about
receiving reinforcement from Cheatham's division,
which gave him about thirty-three thousand men. The
Federal force, within attacking distance, amounted to

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 305

about fifty-eight thousand men. If a reconnaissance
had been made, the weakness of the Confederate force
could probably have been ascertained, and it would have
been possible on the following day to have over-
whelmed their force with numbers. As it was, Buell
acted on the supposition that he had the whole Confed-
erate army before him, and took time to close his col-
umns well together that he might be ready for the
struggle of the morrow.

This concentration was difficult on account of want
of water and the forest-clad surface of the country. A
similar error was made by the Confederates. They
supposed that they were dealing with an inferior de-
tached force which they hoped to overwhelm before its
supports arrived. They probably supposed that the
main Federal army had gone to drive the Hawes gov-
ernment out of Frankfort. It is evident that they re-
garded Hawes' presence at the Kentucky capital as a
very important matter, — one well deserving General
Buell's entire attention.

Buell's order of battle was necessarily controlled by
the generally wooded condition of the country, which
greatly impeded the formation of his lines. Critten-
den's force was on the extreme south, cut off by a wide
interval from the other forces; Gilbert's corps, which
included Sheridan's division in the centre and Mitchell's
division, farther to the north or left ; on the extreme
left was Me Cook's admirable corps.

Tli ere was no expectation of a battle on that day al-
though the line was formed for it. In the budget of
misconceptions, the Federal commander doubtless sup-
posed that the Confederates knew that the force before
them was the main army of the Cumberland, and that
20

306 KENTUCKY.

they would take all the time he would give them for
concentration and defense.

The battle began about noon of October 8th by a
cannonade, which did not seem to presage any serious
action. Such artillery engagements were in those days
common enough between forces which lay over against
each other. The Federal commanders prepared not for
immediate action, but for an attack they meant to de-
liver on the following day after their troops had much
needed rest. The force was in good shape for an ad-
vance, and an attack at the moment would have brought
the whole of Buell's army against less than one half of
Bragg's. On the other hand, the Confederates, equally
ill advised concerning the force of the enemy, had de-
termined on an attack, which they delivered suddenly
and with crushing force. At two o'clock in the after-
noon they began their assault on the right of the Fed-
eral line, composed of the brigades of Lytle and Harris ;
on this force they made no impression, but yet farther
to the right, where Buckner's attack was masked by a
wood, it struck Tirrill's brigade with such overwhelming
force that the Federal line immediately gave way. The
Federal troops on this part of the line were all raw, and
though Generals Jackson and Tirrill were both killed
in their efforts to maintain their lines, this part of the
Federal force was utterly routed with a loss of eleven
pieces of artillery. Webster's brigade of Jackson's di-
vision succeeded for a moment in checking the utter
rout of the broken line. Here General Webster fell,
and his troops were driven back.

Unfortunately for the Confederates they had not
shaken Sheridan's force, which lay on the left or the
south of their attack. His well posted and well secured

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 307

artillery enfiladed their advancing lines, and compelled
them to settle with him before they followed up their
advantage. Sheridan's position gave his men the shelter
of some woods, while the Confederates, advancing to
the attack had to cross open fields ; though the Con-
federate attack was heavily reinforced by two brigades
of Cheatham's division, their gallant and repeated
charges failed to shake Sheridan's veteran regiments.
The other end of the broken Federal line was rein-
forced by a brigade of Mitchell's division, which was
sent to aid McCook, whose position the Confederates
were endeavoring to turn. Despite the loss of its com-
mander, General Gooding and one third of its force, it
materially aided McCook to retain his position until
night fell, and this furious action came to an end.

Although the Federal force lost a dozen pieces of
artillery, and for a time was beaten, it in the end gained
on the enemy. They were driven beyond Chaplin
Creek and through Perry ville. If the repulse had been
followed up by the Federal force, some important re-
sults might have been obtained.

By some blunder of the staff officers, General Buell,
who was some distance from the front, was not informed
of this action until two hours after the Confederate at-
tack began, nor did Crittenden know that there was
anything of importance going on ; the thick forests be-
tween the roads prevented the sound of musketry reach-
ing any distance, and both the Federal commander and
his lieutenant, Crittenden, supposed that the artillery
firing was but a meaningless skirmish between batteries
that did not mark an action of any moment. But for
this unaccountable failure of the intelligence of the ac-
tion to come at once to Buell, he could easily have by

308 KENTUCKY.

a counter-attack pushed Hardee to the wall before the
darkness had fallen. As it was, the chapter of blunders
that marks this battle had its completion in the failure
of the Federal commander to know of it until it was
half over.

The retirement of the enemy, and the coining of the
night made it ill advised for Buell, at the late hour when
he learned of the action, to make any movement until
the following day. Had he known that Bragg, though
present himself, had but half his army with him, it would
have been possible to have pushed forward his unshaken
troops, and, taking advantage of the few hours of day,
he might have carried the Confederate position. But
the heavy blow he had received made him more than
ever convinced that he had to reckon with the whole of
his adversary's army. He therefore postponed his ad-
vance until the following day. Bragg, who had now
arrived on the ground, at once saw that he was con-
fronted by Buell's whole force, and acted accordingly.
It was not his purpose to fight a general battle, least
of all did he desire to fight with half his army ; he
therefore prepared to retreat in a northeasterly direc-
tion, which would give him time to concentrate his
scattered forces.

Brief as this battle had been, lasting but for four
hours, it was the bloodiest that was ever fought on Ken-
tucky soil ; for the numbers engaged, and the duration
of the action, it was one of the most destructive in
modern military history. The Federal force actually
engaged numbered rather less than twenty-five thousand
men. Of these they lost in killed and wounded about
four thousand ; McCook's corps lost three thousand
killed and wounded, out of twelve thousand five hun-

FROM DONKLSON TO PERRYVILLE. 309

dred men engaged. The Confederates lost from the
fifteen thousand men whom they brought into action
over three thousand in killed and wounded. At least
seven thousand men fell in that fierce storm between
2.30 and 6 P. M.

In the night Bragg, satisfied that he had to deal with
the whole of Buell's army, fell back toward Harrods-
burg, that he might hasten his conjunction with Kirby
Smith's corps, which was moving toward him from
Frankfort and Lexington, as well as with several other
detached bodies of troops which were in various parts
of Central Kentucky. This, though a necessary, was
a very dangerous move, for it carried him farther from
his line of retreat, and exposed him to attack from
Buell, while in a position where orderly retreat would,
in case of defeat, have been quite impossible. But
Buell could hardly hope to strike him another blow be-
fore this concentration was effected, even if he knew, as
he probably did, the object of Bragg's northward move-
ment. He therefore waited before forcing another ac-
tion for the junction of Sill's division, detached to drive
out the Confederate force in Frankfort, meanwhile war-
-ily pushing forward his line to Danville.

Hardee's blow, though in a way a blunder, served a
good purpose for his cause, as it made Buell even more
cautious than he was wont to be. After his junction
with Kirby Smith's and the other detached forces, Bragg
moved eastward to beyond Dick's River, making his
centre at Bryantsville. Buell has been blamed for not
attacking him here ; and at first sight there seems to
have been a good chance lost in not forcing the game
at this point.

As will be seen from the map, Buell had what sailors

310 KENTUCKY.

would call the weather gauge of Bragg's position. To
make good his retreat, Bragg had to march at least one
third farther than Buell to attack him. But whoever
will go over the ground, or even examine good maps of
the country, will see that while a victory of the Federal
arms at this point would have been overwhelming, the
chance of winning it from an enemy of nearly equal
strength, all of whose forces were veterans, was not so
good that a discreet commander should have risked the
venture ; a defeat would have been utter ruin to the
Federal cause. Had Buell pushed forward the enemy
could easily have forced the fight at Dick's River, or,
beaten from that point, he would have the extensive
defenses of Camp Dick Robinson at his disposal as a
point d'appui. Moreover, the long drought had broken
the very day of the Perryville fight, and the difficulties
of the Sahara were exchanged for those of wet roads
and swollen streams. Before Buell was prepared to
strike a blow, Bragg, who was better in managing a
retreat than an advance, slipped from his dangerous po-
sition, and made for the ford of Rockcastle River at
Livingston.

Crittenden's corps marched parallel with Bragg's army
through Stamford, but was unable to gain upon him far
enough to force anything but trifling actions with his
rear-guard. The battle at Perryville had given the
Confederate trains a long start for Cumberland Gap, so
that Bragg had open ways and well-arranged supply
stations for his light marching army. By obstructing
the roads which, in this region, frequently run through
forests, with felled trees, he was able to so hinder the
Federal chase that it became hopeless, especially as the
country had been absolutely denuded of all provisions

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYV1LLE. 311

for man or beast by the armies which had passed
through it, and the pursuing column was necessarily
dependent on its trains for all supplies. The pursuit
was kept up to London and Manchester, but became
daily more unavailing, and the Confederate army finally
escaped with a vast amount of plunder to its strong-
holds beyond the Cumberland Mountain, amid the ex-
ecrations of all Southern sympathizers who deemed
Bragg's enforced retreat a disgraceful act.

As soon as it was evident that Bragg had abandoned
all hope of further action in Kentucky, it became nec-
essary for Buell to make all due haste for Nashville,
lest the half beaten enemy should overpower the garri-
son that Buell had wisely left in that place. But it
was not to return under Buell's command ; on October
30th he was displaced by Rosecrans, who had just won a
considerable victory near Corinth, Miss., and whose star
was on that account now in the ascendant. Early in
December the Federal army was out of the State, except
large garrisons that were left to guard against such suc-
cesses as had been won by Morgan and Kirby Smith.

There has been much criticism of this Kentucky cam-
paign of the Federal army under Buell, the most of
which seems quite undeserved. Buell's retreat to Louis-
ville was clearly one of the best executed pieces of
strategy of the war ; it was well planned and admirably
executed, and though much of its success is to be at-
tributed to the dilatory action of his enemy, it is fair to
assume that its leader could have met all opposition in
a soldierly way. The readvance from Louisville was
swift, and extremely well suited to the needs of the
position. It showed a remarkably clear grip on the
whole problem before him. But for the singular series

312 KENTUCKY.

of accidents at Perryville, due to the blunder of Har-
dee as to the force he was striking, and the mistake of
Buell as to the force with which the blow was struck,
to which was added the strange negligence of his sub-
ordinates in not giving him due notice of the action, it
is likely that he would have been able to deliver an
overwhelming blow against Bragg's army.

It must be remembered, however, that Bragg's posi-
tion was exceedingly strong. As soon as he abandoned
all his plans for holding Kentucky, and limited himself
to the defense of his booty trains, he confessed his es-
sential defeat, but was in a position to secure his retreat
from the State. His army of forty-eight to fifty thou-
sand veterans was so nearly a match for the fifty-five
or sixty thousand men that Buell could hope to bring
against it, that with the choice of position it could well
afford to risk a battle. If defeated, it could expect to
make good its retreat ; if victorious, it might again find
Kentucky in its grasp.

Buell's supreme duty was to drive Bragg from Ken-
tucky ; he should have endeavored to destroy him if
the chance of doing so was extremely good, but merely
expelling him was a victory. He could not afford to
risk the chance of the misfortunes that might come with
any doubtful battle. If we justify Meade in permitting
the broken Confederate army to escape after Gettys-
burg, without further attack, as almost all good military
authorities do, we must deem Buell's caution, in the
face of a stronger and much better conditioned army,
well within the limits of his duty, if not his supreme
duty, under the circumstances. His sagacious action
turned back the strongest wave of war that ever rolled
over Kentucky without the risks of a hazardous battle. •

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 313

In following the movements of those great armies we
have necessarily omitted all mention of several discon-
nected incidents that are a part of the history of the
campaign, which led to important consequences. The
most notable of these was the admirably conducted re-
treat of General George W. Morgan from Cumberland
Gap to the Ohio River. On June 17th, General Mor-
gan, with four brigades of troops, by threat of siege
drove the Confederate General Stephenson from his un-
assailable position, and occupied this magnificent natural
stronghold. When the Confederates under Kirby Smith
entered Kentucky by way of Big Creek Gap, a pass con-
siderably to the west of Cumberland Gap, which the Fed-
eral forces, in their ignorance of the topography, failed
to fortify, Morgan was left to shift for himself without
any instructions as to his course. He appears indeed
to have been quite forgotten by his superior officers.

If, on the threat of Kirby Smith's invasion, he had
been promptly withdrawn to Central Kentucky, his force
of about eight thousand men, all well seasoned soldiers,
under the command of a man of decided military capac-
ity, would doubtless have avoided the defeat of Nelson.
Nothing shows the confusion of the Federal operations
in the West so well as this capital blunder. When the
interior of Kentucky was in the hands of the Confeder-
ates, General Morgan found himself without provisions,
and his old enemy, Stephenson, so placed that foraging
was impossible. His only resort for supplies was in the
rich valleys of Eastern Tennessee, now fully controlled
by the Confederates. The mountain district of Ken-
tucky furnished little for him. The small farms of the
country were scantily tilled, and at best afforded little
provision for an army.

314 KENTUCKY.

Many another commander would have surrendered
his abandoned brigades to the enemy, but Morgan, de-
stroying his stores, leaving nothing of profit to his pur-
suers, plunged into the wilderness of Eastern Kentucky,
and through a mountainous forest, where he had often
to create his roads as he went, he made his way for
about two hundred miles to the Ohio at Greenupsburg.
He brought off all his field cannon, despite the ener-
getic efforts of the Confederate General Morgan to
cripple his march or at least to capture his trains.

The Confederate resistance to this retreat was skill-
fully planned, and might have been successful but for
the failure of certain movements of his cavalry which
were ordered by General Bragg. As it was, the march
of the Federal army was a long, running, starving
fight, from which the force came out looking like an
army of spectres, shoeless, their clothing in tatters, and
their bodies wasted by scant food. This retreat de-
serves to be remembered as one of the great exploits of
the war, and one of the most successful movements of
the kind in military history. Morgan's retreat never
received the credit it deserved. The public was clam-
orous for battle, and was too little pleased with the mas-
terly retrograde march of Buell to praise this equally
capital exploit.

There were many small actions between the de-
tached parties of Confederate cavalry and the Home
Guards of the several counties during the period of
Bragg's great movement. We can only describe one
or two of these by way of example, to show how strong
was the spirit of resistance among the people.

On September 27th Colonel Basil Duke, of the Con-
federate General John Morgan's command, with abou^

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 315

four hundred men, undertook to cross the Ohio at
Augusta, in Bracken County, about forty miles above
Cincinnati, in order to threaten that city with the ex-
pectation that a portion of the Federal troops on the
south side of the town might be compelled to with-
draw. This was apparently undertaken with the hope
that the fortifications about Covington might thus be
laid open ko a sudden dash of the Confederate forces,
which still lay within convenient distance for attack.
Duke's move was resisted at the point where they un-
dertook to cross the Ohio by a force of about one hun-
dred Home Guards, citizens of Augusta, under the com-
mand of a Dr. Joshua Taylor Bradford. A part of
this force consisted of Southern sympathizers, who had
been pressed into service by the Union men. Two ex-
temporized Federal gunboats fled at the outset of the
fight, as soon as they found themselves exposed to the
fire of some light field-guns in the Confederate hands.
The Home Guards, though outnumbered four to one by
their veteran assailants, fought for several hours from
house to house, killing and wounding about fifty of
Duke's men, and compelling him to expend the am-
munition he had provided for his raid. Duke lost a
large part of his officers from the accurate fire of these
extemporized soldiers. Three of the captains of the
Confederate force and six of the lieutenants were
killed.

It is doubtful if even in the old Indian warfare there
had ever been a fight of such terrible ferocity. The
town was stormed, and the fighting was kept up from
house to house, the inmates continuing the struggle until
they were burned out or killed. General Duke says, in
his account of the battle : " Details of men were posted

316 KENTUCKY.

ill the middle of the street in front of every house, to
fire on the inmates as they showed themselves, and pre-
vent them from maintaining an accurate and effective
fire. Other details were made to break in the doors of
the houses and enter them. The artillery was brought
into the town, and turned upon the houses in which the
most stubborn resistance was kept up. Planted about
ten paces from a house, aimed to strike about a yard
below the sills of the windows, beneath which the de-
fenders were crouched (except when taking aim), and
double - shotted with grape and canister, the howitzers
tore great gaps in the walls. . . . Flags of truce about
this time were hung out from several windows, and,
believing that a general surrender was meant, I ordered
the fires to be extinguished. But only those who shook
the white flags meant to give up ; the others continued
to fight. One or two men putting out the fires were
shot. I immediately ordered that every house from
which shots came should be burned. A good many
were soon in flames, and even then the fighting con-
tinued in some of them. My men were infuriated by
what they esteemed bad faith in a continuance of the
fight after the flags of truce were displayed, and by the
loss of their comrades and of some favorite officers. I
never saw them fight with such ferocity. Few lives
were spared in the houses into which they forced their
way."

The Home Guards, having finally expended their
ammunition, and the houses in which they were posted
being burned over their heads or battered to pieces
by the artillery, were compelled to surrender. But
the expedition into Ohio was foiled. Duke returned to
Morgan with his force decimated by this battle and with

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 317

one more experience in the fighting power of the citizen
Kentuckian.

On September 28th, eleven Home Guards at Fal-
mouth had an encounter with twenty-eight Texan cav-
alry, in which they defeated their assailants, inflicting a
loss of six men. In a score of other engagements these
little detached commands, fighting by their thresholds,
showed their willingness to combat against hopeless
odds and to endure a degree of punishment which it is
hard to obtain from regular troops. Though often over-
come, they showed the Confederate troops that the State
would not be readily subjugated, and dissipated all the
fondly-cherished ideas that Kentucky was actually in
sympathy with the Confederacy, though she was held in
bondage by the Federal power.

This Confederate movement into Kentucky marks
the high tide of the Civil War, and the retreat of Bragg
was a part of the great reflux of that wave. The crush-
ing defeat of Nelson's forces by Kirby Smith came on
the same day as the second Confederate victory at Ma-
nassas. The battle of Perryville, which made the re-
treat of Bragg's army an imperative necessity, came
three weeks after the defeat of Lee at Antietam. It
was necessary that the Confederates should win both
these hazards in order that their cause should succeed.
In both cases the result was the sullen retreat of the
Confederate forces into their strongholds. Their ar-
mies were checked, but not broken, and the Federal
forces were not able to give a crushing pursuit to the
forces that they had beaten back, — far better than the
northern armies the troops of the Confederacy with-
stood the trials of defeat.

The enforced retirement of General Buell, and his

318 KENTUCKY.

subsequent court-martial, are painful incidents of this
campaign. He was blamed for permitting the escape
of the Confederate forces into Kentucky. It is difficult
to see how he could have prevented Bragg from mak-
ing this movement. He was endeavoring to possess
himself of Chattanooga, and had barely force enough for
this appointed task. It was impossible in such a coun-
try for him to keep an effective grip upon his enemy.
There should have been an army in Kentucky compe-
tent to restrain a Confederate advance. The whole
available force left in the State, except the entirely iso-
lated and apparently forgotten garrison at Cumberland
Gap, consisted of not over ten thousand raw troops, and
these were scattered. The blame for this rests upon
the Federal government, which was given to much lock-
ing of the stable whenever the horse was stolen.

One other incident of the war deserves notice here.
This was the killing of Nelson by the Federal general,
Jefferson C. Davis.1 Nelson was one of the remarkable
soldiers that Kentucky produced during the war. At
its outbreak he was an officer of the United States navy.
He was sent by President Lincoln to Kentucky to aid
in the organization of new levies. He commanded a di-
vision at Shiloh, where he won great credit. Always a
man of passionate nature, the defeat of his forces by
Kirby Smith made him furious, though he was respon-

1 The numerous coincidence of names in the Federal and Confeder-
ate armies in Kentucky will be apt to puzzle the reader. Nothing
else shows so well the near kinship of the combatants. Jefferson C.
Davis, Federal, and Jefferson Davis, Confederate ; George W. Mor-
gan, Federal, and John H. Morgan, Confederate ; Thomas L. Critten-
den, Federal, and George B. Crittenden, Confederate, are but a few
cases of this correspondence of names among important men of the
time.

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 319

sible for the conditions that brought it about, for to him
more than to any one else must be attributed the leav-
ing of Morgan's forces at Cumberland Gap. When
organizing the forces in Louisville under Buell, his
rage broke forth against General J. C. Davis. Dur-
ing a trifling dispute concerning some unimportant mat-
ter, he insulted his opponent, and, on his dignified re-
monstrance, struck him with his hand. Davis instantly
killed him. Davis's act was generally approved by his
brother soldiers.1

It is a well-known fact that in the conflict of arms
the laws are commonly silent, but all the while these
momentous movements were going on in Kentucky, the
law-making power of the Commonwealth was by no
means stilled. The vitality of the Kentucky legislature
defied the shock of armies. From March 17th to August
24th the legislature stood adjourned ; on the latter date
it met on the summons of Governor Magoffiu. In his
message he set forth the fact that the State laws con-
cerning the security of citizens had been violated ; that
many civilians had been arrested for asserted sympathy
with the rebellion, and that these were detained by the
Federal government, many of them having been taken
from the State without due form of trial, and were de-
tained in prison by process of military law. At the
elections that had taken place a few days before the

1 It was the present writer's chance to serve for a while under Gen-
eral Davis. It is impossible for him to believe (hat a man so mild in
nature would have slain a brother officer without the bitterest provo-
cation. In the French army even a common soldier is justified by
military law in killing instantly his commander if he receives the in-
sult of a blow with the hand. In war the personal dignity of officers
and men must be preserved. It cannot be kept without maintaining
such cruel customs.

320 KENTUCKY.

legislature met men who were believed to be secession-
ists were not allowed to vote or to be voted for.

There is no doubt that the facts were as alleged, and
that, without formal proclamation of martial law, the
Federal commanders had undertaken to regulate a great
many matters that did not properly concern them. The
principal offender was Brigadier - General Boyle, of
Louisville, commanding the provost guard forces in
Kentucky. This man was much more vigorous in his
dealings with citizens than was necessary. With him
began the provost marshal rule which afterwards be-
came so great an evil.

There was no doubt a serious difficulty arising from
the presence of many Confederate sympathizers in Ken-
tucky, but while the civil law was allowed to perform
its functions it was an insult to the State to have such
intermeddling from its subject, the military arm. At
certain points martial law was proclaimed, and the civil
courts suspended in times of emergency ; but as a whole
the Federal government long endeavored to abide by
the strong desire of the people for civil control. The
action of men like Boyle did a -great deal to turn many
men against the Federal authority. They had entered
on the war to preserve the laws that these cheap briga-
diers treated with contempt.

When Bragg came into the State he recruited about
two thousand five hundred men in Central Kentucky,
from the class of persons who had suffered in person
or in their sympathies from the often brutal tyranny
of the provost marshal system.1 Many of them were

1 It has been asserted that a much larger number joined the Con-
federate army during this invasion. The estimate given is that of
Colonel J. Stoddard Johnston, confirmed by other authorities. .

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 321

men of conservative Union proclivities who had been
turned into rebels by the outrages of the military au-
thorities.

At the time of its reassembly the legislature had lost
all hope of maintaining the machinery of the civil law
in its perfect integrity amid the shock of arms ; Gov-
ernor M.-igoffin's message received not much sympathy,
and that officer was at length persuaded to resign. He
insisted, however, that his successor should be a man
that should suit him, else he would not yet abandon his
very uncomfortable chair.1 Finally a treaty was made
between the legislature and the executive, by which
both the governor and acting lieutenant-governor were
to resign. Mr. James F. Robinson was then elected
.speaker of the senate, and thereby became ex-officio
governor. Then the speaker of the senate who had re-
signed for the nonce, in order to make way for Robin-
son, was reflected to that office. Thus after two years
of patient endurance of their difficult chief magistrate,
by due form of law the legislature succeeded in clear-
ing itself of a very unhappy connection.

As before remarked, this patience of the Union men
under circumstances calculated to inspire rage in a time
of such peril is a very creditable incident in the history
of Kentucky ; none but a people devoted to the prin-
ciple of legality would have borne for two years with
a chief magistrate, when rightly or wrongly they fully
believed him to be at least an enemy to the cause they
were battling for, if not in actual alliance with their
foes.

The earnest protest that went up from all good citi-
zens against the action of the provost marshal of Ken-

i See Collins, i. 108.
21

322 KENTUCKY.

tucky, and the evident danger of an armed conflict with
the legislature on the question, led to the momentary
mitigation of its evils. General Boyle was ordered to
execute his office under the governor, an arrangement
which, loyally maintained, would have removed the worst
sting from the system. This interlude of peace was,
however, destined to be but brief.

This session of the legislature marks by its acts the
deepening rage of the people against those who were
giving aid and comfort to its enemies. A number of
severe acts were passed designed to make it uncomfort-
able for persons who had taken part in the rebellion to
remain within the State. All jurors were compelled to
swear to their present and future loyalty. A similar
oath was required of all " common school commission-
ers, examiners of teachers, teachers, and college profes-
sors." l Even ministers of the gospel were required to
swear allegiance before they could legally perform the
marriage rite. In fact it came about that even loyal
people could hardly get through the activities of a day
without at least once or twice swearing allegiance to
the State and Federal government.

This utter degradation of the solemnity of an oath
was a serious and lamentable feature in our Civil War.
It was by no means peculiar to Kentucky, though, from
the fact that both State and Federal authorities were
engaged in the miserable business, it was worse there
than anywhere else. In his ordinary contacts with the
people, an officer was constantly engaged in swearing
men and women as to what they had done in the past
or would do in the future.

The origin of this distressing mistake is to be found
l See Collins, i. 109. »

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 323

in the very high value given to a judicial oath among
all classes of rural Americans. Before the war and
since, perjury was among the rarest of crimes in Ken-
tucky. Thus the legislature, in casting about for a safe-
guard against the numerous sympathizers with the re-
bellion, bethought itself of this bond of the oath. It
goes without saying that the bond sat lightly on most
minds, and even came to be utterly meaningless, al-
though the parole of honor retained its moral value to
the last. This miscellaneous oath taking was a degra-
dation of a most sacred relation, that brought no profit
to those who prostituted it to political ends.

On the 31st of August, two days after the overthrow
of Nelson's army, the legislature abandoned Frankfort,
and removed with the State records to Louisville, hav-
ing previously passed an act that warranted the change
of the capital in case invasion maJe it necessary.

The session held in Louisville did no important legis-
lation. The war had now drawn away the greater part
of the abler men from the legislative halls. The Con-
federate or the Federal army held those to whom the
people naturally looked for the control of their laws.
The civil law had done all that it could to affect the
immediate destinies of the people, the rest had to be
left to the stern arbitrament of war. The efficient gov-
ernor, in perfect sympathy with the Union cause, gave
the people a sense of security that they never had while
the chief executive was a man whose sympathies were
with the Confederates, even though his honor kept him
true to his oath of office. Governor Robinson had the
qualities of an admirable executive, and earnestly sec-
onded the energetic action of General Finnell, the adju-
tant-general of the State, who had already done a won-

324 KENTUCKY.

derful work in pushing forward the recruiting of the
State forces.

On August 16, 1862, on the day of Robinson's in-
auguration, General Finnell reported that the State had
already furnished to the United States army 41,703
men. Much talk has been made of the recruits that
Bragg and Morgan received during their occupation of
the State. It is doubtful if in all, with the prestige
of their brilliant successes to aid them, the Confeder-
ates obtained more than two thousand five hundred re-
cruits ; while during the period when the prospects of
the Federal party seemed the gloomiest, when for a
time it appeared as if the Commonwealth had fallen
before the rebel arms, and much of its area was in their
possession, the State received more men than it could
secure acceptance for under the Federal calls for troops.
There were now, including the Home Guard forces, about
fifty thousand Kentucky troops at the command of the
Federal authorities. This total included much more
than one half the able-bodied men, of all ages, in the
State, after deducting those who joined the Confederate
army.

After the escape of the Confederate forces from Ken-
tucky a period of relative inaction set in. There was
still an incessant series of small raids, which were
neither of political meaning nor military importance, yet
were exceedingly harassing to the people. This was
the beginning of a new form of evil that endured for
a long time, and was more intolerable than the larger
operations of legitimate warfare, which were generally
conducted on both sides with a singular respect for non-
combatarits. Such marches and combats as had recently
taken place in Kentucky always leave in their train a

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 325

mass of unsoldierly rubbish that is hard to clear away.
Deserters from both armies formed bands of outlaws
called guerrillas. These wretches, without commanders
from either army, sheltered in the great forests that
abound in nearly all parts of the State, were often
strong enough to overcome the domestic forces, and
were guilty of many outrages. They brought back to
Kentucky the evils of its struggle with the Indians.
Men again tilled their fields with their muskets by their
sides, and slept in expectation of combat. During the
whole of this and the following year these parties were
hunted down, and when captured hanged without mercy.
Still their numbers, their daring, and their swift move-
ments, made the struggle as difficult and as bloody as
in any year during the last century.

The only military operation of any moment during
the remainder of the year 1862 was another of Mor-
gan's remarkable raids. After the battle of Perry ville
and the retreat of Bragg's army, Morgan, with a curi-
ous confidence in his own resources, remained for near-
ly a fortnight in Central Kentucky, making occasional
attacks on exposed positions ; then, dividing his force,
he made a retreat from the State, in part by the way of
Williamsburg, and in part by Waynesboro, on the Green
River. In Tennessee he performed many brilliant feats
by hampering the movements of Rosecrans in his efforts
to repossess Tennessee. It would require the remainder
of this volume to give an account of the swift and tell-
ing strokes which he gave his enemy. As his men were
Kentuckians the story would be germain to the history
of the Commonwealth, and it is in many ways the best
part of its military history. Unfortunately, we must
limit the mention of Morgan's exploits to the more im-

826 KENTUCKY.

portant incidents of his campaigns in Kentucky, which
were but a small part of the work effected by his com-
mand.

In the latter part of December it was evident that
Morgan's cavalry, with their untiring exertions and
singular successes in cutting off detached forces, could
not greatly hinder the excellent plans of Rosecrans.
The only remaining chance was for Morgan to try once
more the task of breaking up the Federal lines of com-
munications with the North, and the creation of a divi-
sion in Kentucky.

On the 22d of December Morgan started on this ad-
venture with about three thousand men. The lessons
of experience had taught the Federal commanders to
leave large garrisons at the important points on this line
from Louisville to Nashville. There were more than
thrice Morgan's numbers guarding the weak points of
this line, but they were principally infantry troops, an
arm that is worthless in dealing with such raids.

Slipping adroitly by the larger garrisons of the Fed-
eral forces, Morgan managed to capture first Glasgow
and then Elizabethtown, the garrison at the latter place
surrendering without any serious struggle ; next, though
closely pursued, he captured the block-houses protecting
the bridges at Muldraugh's Hill, where he burned the
trestle work and destroyed the track. In this district he
destroyed two thousand two hundred and fifty feet of
bridges.1 Thence he turned towards Bardstown, but
finding strong bodies of troops at every important point
he made a swift retreat into Tennessee without being
brought to a battle.

While crossing the Rolling Fork of Salt River, Mor-
1 Hi-story of Morgan's Cavalry, Basil \V. Duke, p. 335. V

FROM DON ELS ON TO PERRYVILLE. 327

gan's rear-guard and some detachments, amounting to
about eight hundred men, were attacked by about seven
thousand Federal troops. They should have been cap-
tured, but by a brilliant attack on the advancing force,
followed by a swift retreat, they were enabled to rejoiu
their commands on the other side of the river.

This blow of Morgan was answered by a similar raid
from the Federal forces, whose commanders had at
length caught the spirit of this swift partisan warfare.
General Carter, a brilliant cavalry officer, with eleven
hundred picked men, set out from Winchester, Kentucky,
on December 25th. Through bitter winter weather,
and exceedingly difficult ways, he pushed on without
encountering any body of the enemy until he struck the
Tennessee and Virginia Railway, in the valley of the
Holston. His first object was to burn the great railway
bridge at Bluntsville; this was guarded by a Confed-
erate force of three hundred men under a Major Mc-
Dowell. Carter hud marched with such rapidity that
he was his own herald ; he captured McDowell's force
without firing a shot. Burning this bridge over the
Holston he marched westward, until he captured the
bridge over the Watauga, some twelve miles away.
The destruction of these bridges, and the burning of
the ties of the road between, broke the railway in such
a complete fashion that it would require months to
effect its repair. After this considerable work, which
was entirely undisputed, he made a swift and practically
unopposed retreat into Kentucky.1 This was the first
semblance of retaliation for the numerous cavalry raids
to which the Federal army had been subjected. It had
not the brilliancy of Morgan's and Forrest's work, which
1 See Comte de Paris, Civil War in America, vol. ii.'p.' '496.

328 KENTUCKY.

indeed was never attained by the Federal cavalry, but
it did away with the notion that this sort of warfare
was the peculiar property of the Confederates, though
to the end they remained the best masters of the art
which they had so well devised.

It is a reasonable estimate that Morgan's force, which
at the highest never exceeded four thousand men, and
probably did not average over two thousand, which
was horsed, foraged, and fed from its enemies, served
to neutralize in the time of action at least ten times
its numbers of less active troops. In no modern war-
fare has the quality of commander and men served to
give a force anything like this power. It should not
be supposed that Morgan's success was due to any pe-
culiar circumstances of American warfare. There can
be no doubt that the same audacity, swiftness, and fer-
tility of resources would have been equally successful
on European fields. Such a force as Morgan's, oper-
ating in the rear of the German armies during the war
of 1870, would doubtless have attained something like
the same measures of success as Morgan won.

There was only one peculiar feature of America that
especially favored such partisan warfare ; it was the
wide distribution of saddle horses in the country where
these operations were carried on. This made it possible
for his men to obtain remounts as rapidly as their horses
became exhausted, while their pursuers soon found their
steeds worn out, while they were without means of re-
placing them. None of the continental countries of Eu-
rope could furnish anything like the number of horses
fit for the saddle as may be found in the Southern Amer-
ican States. This might somewhat limit the success of
such movements in other lands, still it should be rememT

FROM DONELSON TO PERRYVILLE. 329

bered that Morgan's men were not properly cavalry, but
mounted infantry. They were armed with muskets, and
in almost all cases fought as foot soldiers in single open
ranks, so the horse was practically used to save the legs
of the men in marching, and rarely served the more
picturesque purpose of a charger.

While considering this use of mounted infantry in
flying columns, which was essentially an invention of
Morgan, it may be worth while to call attention to
another peculiar military project of his that marks his
fertile mind. His men being essentially horsed infan-
try, Morgan found that they were weak in a mounted
charge ; he desired to have a small portion of his force
with which he could strike a quick, telling blow, that
might leave the enemy in a bad shape to resist the
slower movement of his dismounted horsemen. He
therefore chose, by competition, fifty men for their skill
in shooting with the pistol while they were riding
swiftly, mounted them on his swiftest horses, providing
each man with four revolvers, or a total of twenty-four
shots, giving them no other weapon.

His general plan was to watch for a chance to hurl
this force against the flank of men in line of battle, or
marching in column, or perhaps in the momentary con-
fusion of action. This project was matured only a short
time before his death. The writer was told that it was
twice tried with singularly good results, but his notes
of the actions where it was essayed have been lost. It
is easy to imagine that in such warfare as he waged, this
picked body of swift riders and accurate marksmen
might be a most valuable resource in the hands of a
clear headed commander. It could convert momentary

330 KENTUCKY.

confusion into rout, and even in favorable cases it might
be made to break an enemy's lines sufficiently to give
its assailant a. great advantage in his main attack.1

1 It is proper to say that General Duke makes no mention of this
device in his history of Morgan's command.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE CLOSING STAGES OP THE CIVIL WAR.

THE failure of Bragg's campaign removed the seat of
all grand movements of the war from Kentucky ; the
following years are no longer to be divided by great
events, but fall into something like the order of ordi-
nary times.

The most interesting incident of this comparatively
barren period was the fierce discussion concerning the
emancipation proclamation. It was not to be expected
that this momentous event would be allowed to pass
without a fierce battle of words among a people so long
accustomed to dispute the actions of the Federal gov-
ernment.

When the Federal government entered on the war it
took up an attitude of neutrality on the question of
slavery. This neutrality, like that which Kentucky es-
sayed with reference to the whole conflict, proved in a
short time to be impracticable. The logic of events,
which were unforeseen at the outset of the rebellion,
compelled the overthrow of slavery, thus recognizing
the essentially revolutionary character of the war in
which the nation was engaged.

There is no doubt that this overthrow of slavery was
in violation of repeated and solemn assurances that the
Federal government would not meddle with the insti-
tution of slavery, but would prosecute the war without

332 KENTUCKY.

disturbing its legal status ; but it is the verdict of his-
tory that this attitude had, at the time of the procla-
mation, become utterly untenable. To have kept these
words of promise would have been an act of treason to
the country. Slavery had been practically destroyed ;
all that the emancipation proclamation of January 1,
1863, did, was to relieve the administration of its nec-
essary difficulties arising from the effort to tear down
slavery with one hand and hold it up with the other.

Although this proclamation did not nominally affect
the institution of slavery in Kentucky, for the action
applied in its terms to the States in rebellion alone;
although the institution at which it struck was a dere-
lict, a mere wreck in the sea of war, this proclamation
was felt as a blow by a large part of the Union people
in Kentucky. They had taken sides with the Federal
government to support the Constitution of the United
States. In their view the essential difference between
the combatants was that the rebels were breaking the
constitution, while the armies to which they were giv-
ing their support were endeavoring to maintain that
contract. The proclamation of Lincoln was to their
minds an act that put them as well as their enemies in
an extra constitutional attitude. They felt that if both
sides were to fight outside of the constitution their posi-
tion lost the moral and historic value it had at the
outset.

A considerable number of the sympathizers with the
Confederates were made more decidedly rebellious by
this action. The deliberative minds were puzzled, and
generally disgusted, by the turn the war had taken, yet
the motives of the people, as a whole, were not changed
by the action, as the elections in August clearly showed.

THE CLOSING STAGES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 333

Their blood was up, they felt that they were in for the
war where they stood, so they contented themselves with
abundant and often noisy protest against the proclama-
tion.

These difficulties brought about by the proclamation
were, however, naturally increased by the constant in-
terference of the military with unoffending citizens who
were suspected of rebel sympathies. The Union party
and its legislature, instinctively and determinedly cling-
ing to the civil law, deprecated this action, and by fre-
quent remonstrances with the Federal authorities from
time to time broke up the evil. The difficulty would
have been easy to overcome if the Federal govern-
ment had taken a sensible course in the matter. If
the military officers in the State, or at least the pro-
vost marshals, had been left in the control of some dis-
creet officer who could have had the time to compass the
problem before him, it would have been easy to devise
n system that would have sufficiently controlled the small
number of Confederate sympathizers in the State with-
out estranging the feelings of the Union population.
But these provost commanders were coming and going
with the movements of troops ; no sooner had one been
educated to his difficult task than he made way for an-
other who had his blunders to make.

These interferences with the civil law took two fla-
grantly unjust forms. One of these was the taxing of
so-called rebel sympathizers for the damage done by the
guerrillas or by the raiding parties of the enemy. It is
impossible to devise any system under the pretense of
law that brings about more irritating injustice than this
often tried but ever failing measure. General La Mar-
mora made it effective in the temporary suppression of

334 KENTUCKY.

brigandage in Sicily, but tbis was a case where the evil
to be corrected was due to the inaction of a society
which had abundant means of making its government
effective against the evil-doers. But the outrages which
the so-called Confederate sympathizers were forced to
make good were utterly beyond their control. They
were the work of a public enemy that the whole military
force of the nation was endeavoring to overthrow. The
only hope of the people whose property was confiscated
was that the raiders would cease their work out of pity
for their misfortunes. Moreover, the evidence on which
the people were denounced as rebels was generally of
a worthless nature, — a few words of criticism of some
Federal officer, the reported presence of a son or brother
in the Confederate army, or the mere fabrications of
some one who had a grudge to pay, were often enough
to sweep away the property of citizens who had at most
given nothing but their sympathy to the rebel cause.
No American people have ever been subjected to as
iniquitous oppression as this system brought about.

The other form of the evil arose from the interfer-
ence of the military power with elections. This was
even more unnecessary and more irritating to the lawful
Union men than the confiscation of property. For cen-
turies they and their fathers had guarded the freedom
of elections as a sacred heritage. The sight of a sol-
dier at the poll has always been like a red rag to a bull
among all English people. There was never a time
since the overthrow of neutrality that the "out and
out " Union men did not have a majority of two thirds
of the voters of the Commonwealth. Even when fifty
thousand of the Union voters were absent in the field,
the old men of the Union party had absolute control of

THE CLOSING STAGES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 335

the State. It would have been more reasonable and
certainly safer to let the discontented element of the
people, who were not as a class in favor of the rebel-
lion, but who were critical of the measures taken by
the government, have their ineffectual protest than to
still their voices by military force.

One of the most flagrant cases of interference with
purely political action, but only one of very many, was
that which took place in Frankfort on February 18,
1863. A convention of the so-called Democratic party,
composed of two hundred delegates, representing only
one third of the counties in the State, met to nominate
a State ticket. They represented that portion of the
people who were most in sympathy with the rebellion,
though they strenuously and honestly denied all thought
of secession. They were refused the use of the legis-
lative hall for their meetings by the then sitting Union
legislature, and were denounced by the Union papers
as secessionists. Acting on this public opinion, Colonel
Gilbert, commanding the forces at that point, proceeded
to break up the convention by military force, ordering
the members to go to their homes and to refrain from
all " seditious and noisy conversation." In this out-
rage on the civil law Colonel Gilbert appears to have
acted on his own responsibility, but his action was jus-
tified by his superiors.

This high-handed outrage had a great effect upon
public opinion in Kentucky. Even the legislature,
now composed almost altogether of violent Union men,
passed in the senate a series of resolutions to the effect
that such interference was not desired by the Union
men, and that it " was dangerous in its tendencies, and
should not pass unrebuked." 1 In the August election
1 Collins, i. p. 120.

336 KENTUCKY.

there was the same interference on the part of the mil-
itary with the election. This last outrage had not even
the palliation of effectiveness ; it exasperated the Union
men without restraining the Confederate sympathizers.
Only a few polling places were under the control of the
troops. Jf the election had been perfectly free, it is
doubtful if the result would have been materially varied.
Its only effect was to arouse a very strong hostility to
the action of the Federal government, which in an ear-
lier* stage of the war might have had disastrous conse-
quences. As it was, thousands of Union men, who had
given their property and their blood to the cause of
the constitution, feeling that the laws and privileges
for which they were fighting were in danger by the ac-
tion of the Federal officers, lost heart and their inter-
est in the struggle. They had supposed that they were
fighting not for the victory of armies, but for the main-
tenance of laws; for the welfare of the country, and not
for the supremacy of a political party that appeared to
be willing to destroy the Commonwealth if it stood in
the way of its purposes.

So far from condemning this defection of spirit, which
undoubtedly came upon the people from the overthrow
of their election laws and the subordination of their
courts to the military arm, we should rather praise the
independence of mind of men who, in the midst of bat-
tle, could keep in their hearts this reverence for the
foundations of their political life. Although many who
retain the memories of the great conflict will doubtless
dispute this opinion, it will certainly be the verdict of
the time to come, when these events are dispassionately
considered.

This growing tide of antagonism to the methods of

TEE CLOSING STAGES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 337

the Federal government led to no serious resistance to
the Federal action. The people felt they were com-
mitted to their course, and continued upon it ; they sep-
arated their devotion to the constitution from their
intense and growing hatred to the Federal executive
that permitted these acts.

In the election of August General Thomas E. Bram-
lette, a gallant Union officer, was elected governor by a
vote of 67,586 to 17,344 for Charles E. Wickliffe, him-
self a proclaimed Union man, but of the ultra States
rights stamp. Despite the interference of the military
at the polls, the greater part of the secessionist vote was
given to Wickliffe. It is not likely that the vote of the
States rights candidate would have exceeded twenty
thousand if the election had been absolutely free, for as
it was the State polled nearly 84,000 votes, and this
with the number of the soldiers beyond the State in the
two armies made a vote greater than that of 1859, the
last before the war, which was 143,000. Quite sixty
thousand of the citizens were now beyond its limits or
dead on the many battle-fields.

We shall have to follow this growing hatred to the
interference of the military with the civil force in the
next chapter. For the moment we must turn to the
interesting military incidents of the year. Though
Kentucky was not in 1863 the pathway of great armies,
some of the greatest events of the war took place near
her borders, and the petit guerre with the raiding par-
ties went incessantly on.

On the 1st of January, 1863, General Rosecrans, who
was still endeavoring to regain the ground lost in Ten-
nessee during the preceding summer, had a four days'
engagement with General Bragg, known as the battle
22

338 KENTUCKY.

of Stone River, or Murfreesboro. This long and com-
plicated action is beyond the field of this histor}^ but
it is of especial interest to us for the reason that it
brought a larger loss to Kentucky than any other battle
of the war, except, perhaps, that at Shiloh. Of the
seventy-eight thousand men of the two armies engaged
in this long and terrible struggle, about sixteen thou-
sand were killed or wounded. The Kentucky troops
engaged probably amounted in all to about twelve
thousand men. The loss in Breckinridge's division of
the Confederate army, composed largely of Kentucky
troops, was over two thousand. The total lo*ss of Ken-
tucky regiments on both sides was over twelve hundred
men, of which nine hundred and eleven were lost from
ten regiments in the Federal army. Like so many
other of these greater battles of the rebellion it was
nobody's victory, for while the Federals retained the
ground they were in no shape to profit by their success.
The American ground and the American nature are
both unfavorable for decisive battles.

Morgan's raids make the principal feature in the war
in Kentucky during this year. They had now become
as successive as a tertian ague ; men counted time from
one raid to another. His brigade for this raid was
under command of his able subordinate Colonel Cluke,
returned to Kentucky in the latter part of February,
after an absence of a month or so. As usual it marched
in separate columns in various directions, striking several
points, but meeting with such resistance that the suc-
cesses were very small, except the permanent gain the
Confederate cause received from the many thousand men
who had to be kept ready to meet the invasion. Cluke
thrice took Mount Sterling, each time capturing many

THE CLOSING STAGES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 339

prisoners and some army stores, and destroyed a num-
ber of trains on the railways, but found the preparation
for his reception so good that he soon abandoned the
State. Cluke's management was very skillful, showing
him to be an apt pupil of his great master.

On the 24th of March the Confederate General Pe-
gram, with twenty-six hundred men, essayed the same
role of a raider. Advancing toward Richmond, he oc-
cupied Danville. His advance was disputed by Wol-
f Orel's Kentucky cavalry, — a singularly irregular but
often effective body of troops, — and he soon made a
hasty retreat. On the 30th he was forced to give battle
at Dutton Hill, in Pulaski County, where he was de-
feated by a force of half his number under the command
of General Q. A. Gilmore. It was evident that Pegram
was not fitted for the difficult work that he essayed, and
lie was not afterwards troublesome to the State. The
inevitable failure of all the Bother Confederate cavalry
commanders when they tried raids in Kentucky shows
the singular genius of Morgan's command.

Morgan returned again to Kentucky in June, this
time bound on a distant and important errand. The
Confederate army was then upon its advance into Penn-
sylvania. It was necessary to make some diversion in
the West. If possible, this diversion was to persuade
the Federal leaders that the experiment tried in the
preceding year by Bragg was to be repeated. The
condition of the Confederate forces in the valley of the
Mississippi did not make it practicable for them to un-
dertake any effective large movements- in Kentucky;
but this dauntless rider felt that if he could effect a
lodgment north of the Ohio he might be able to detain
a large number of troops in the West, who would other-

340 KENTUCKY.

wise be employed against Lee,1 and bring the burden
of war upon States that had never felt the infliction.
Moreover, his movement in force would lead to an anx-
iety concerning the invasion of Kentucky.

Morgan started on his important errand with about
three thousand four hundred men. He did not at once
make a straight way to his objective point, but spent
some time in various operations in the State, which were
probably designed to foster the idea that he was prepar-
ing the way for an invasion in force. On the 4th of July
he undertook to capture a force of four hundred men,2
under Colonel O. H. Moore, of the 25th Michigan, in-
trenched on a bluff in a bend of the Green River. On
his summons to surrender, the gallant Colonel Moore
answered that the " 4th of July was a bad day for sur-
renders, and that he would rather not." Several times
Morgan hurled his force against this little band, and in
the end withdrew with a loss of nearly one hundred,
including half a dozen valuable officers,8 among whom
were Colonel Chenault and Major Brent, who had been
extremely valuable to him.

After this defeat, hungering for the success that he
was so much accustomed to, he essayed the taking of
Lebanon, where after a stubborn fight he captured the
garrison of three hundred men of the 20th Kentucky,
losing in this action about fifty of his men. Again his
loss in officers was very heavy, among them his brother,
Lieutenant Thomas Morgan. He then struck Bards-
town, near by, where a force of twenty-six men, in-

1 Morgan's crossing of the Ohio seems to have been contrary to the
express orders of Bragg. See History of Morgan's Cavalry, p. 410.

2 This is the force as given by Duke. Collins gives Moore's force
as two hundred men.

« See Collins, i. 125.

THE CLOSING STAGES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 341

trenched in a barn, held a detachment of his force for
a day, until he brought artillery to bear upon them.1
After these unprofitable experiments lie set about his
more important errand. On the 8th he arrived at
Brandenburg, on the Ohio, about forty miles below
Louisville, where his artillery soon captured two steam-
ers, which he used to ferry his troops across the river.
Despite the resistance offered by the Indiana militia and
a small gunboat, his loss in crossing was very trifling.
A small scouting party under Captain Hines had pre-
viously explored the country in the neighboring parts of
Indiana, and found no Federal force to oppose him ex-
cept the militia.

Once upon the northern soil he began the most sin-
gular raid of the war. Moving a little north of the
Ohio River he turned to the east and began his accus-
tomed work of destroying all the railways that his
march intersected. At Corydon he captured five hun-
dred militia, after a short and slight resistance. He
had another skirmish at Salem, but so far there was no
vigorous opposition to his march. It became evident to
him, however, that his task was one of unusual hazard.
The telegraph dispatches, intercepted by his skillful
operators, showed that the country was rising, and that
he would therefore have to beat away large gather-
ings of militia, reinforced by regular troops from Ken-
tucky. There was no doubt of his ability to maintain
himself against any one such gathering, but in the suc-
cession of combats his force would be frittered away.
He therefore sought to return to the southern side of
the Ohio at the earliest possible opportunity.

The retreat of Lee from Pennsylvania had taken
i Collins, i. p. 125.

342 KENTUCKY.

away the object of his raid, and the rapid rising of the
country made his task more perilous than it promised
at first to be. His determination to retire seems to
have been taken soon after he passed north of Louis-
ville. He tried the passage of the Ohio at Twelve Mile
Island with a detached force, but lost the men he sent
upon the scout. He next sought to cross five miles be-
low Cincinnati where the river was fordable, but his
scouts found this passage guarded by a force of artillery
and infantry which made the effort inadvisable.

There was now a capital stroke open to him, one that
could have easily been accomplished; he could have
occupied Cincinnati, destroyed the government stores at
that point, and demanded a free passage for his force
into Kentucky as the price of the safety of the city.
The available force guarding the city did not equal the
numbers of his own command ; they were all infantry,
except two or three hundred mounted men. These
scanty troops were distributed over an area of at least
forty square miles of territory. He could have beaten
a part of this scattered force, or gone between its de-
tached positions, and in an hour he would have been
in a position to dictate his terms for crossing into Ken-
tucky. In place of this, although he knew that a sud-
den rise of the river gave passage to the Federal gun-
boats, he continued his ride to the east. His only
chance now was to ride so far up the Ohio that he could
get beyond the freshet that opened the way to the gun-
boats.

Each hour his danger increased ; six regiments of
Kentucky cavalry were now on his trail, and though he
swept the country of the fresh horses he could not keep
more than twelve hours' march ahead of them. The

THE CLOSING STAGES OF THE CIVIL WAR. 343

rapidity of his movement was marvelous. On one of his
marches, from Sunman to Williamsburg, his weary men
and horses made ninety miles in thirty-five hours, — a
speed in an enemy's country that it would be hard to
parallel in military history. Each time his scouts came
to the Ohio they found the Federal gunboats, and trans-
ports with troops, watching the crossings, giving him no
chance of escape.

Finally, on July 18th, at Buffington Island, near the
mouth of the Kanawha, he turned at bay, and tried to
force a passage of the river. His men were exhausted
from their ride of over eleven hundred miles, and the
necessary wear of mind that attends such expeditions.
After a brief resistance some companies of them sur-
rendered. A large part of his command tried to swim
the river, but the greater part of these were captured
by the 1st Kentucky regiment of Federal troops, and
many were killed in the water. Four companies only
escaped into Virginia. A portion of the command, in-
cluding their leader, deterred from crossing by the fate
of the others, continued their eastward march. Finally,
on the 26th, the remnant of this force was surrounded,
and forced to surrender. Morgan himself was taken,
and of all those who crossed the Ohio less than five
hundred escaped to the Confederacy.1

Greatly to the disgrace of the Union arms the Fed-
eral commander refused to observe the cartel made by
Morgan with the officer who received their surrender.

O

The surrender was made to a Captain Burbeck, of the
Ohio militia, who doubtless exceeded his powers in ven-
turing to determine the conditions of capitulation ; still,
by all the usages of war, the Federal army was bound to
i See Collins, i. p. 127.

344 KENTUCKY.

observe the conditions made with the enemy by any
officer commanding a detachment of troops. Morgan
and his officers were imprisoned in the Ohio peniten-
tiary, and treated as convicts, a debasement of the cus-
toms of war for which General Burnside must be held
accountable. It is a satisfaction to all who have the
honorable spirit of soldiers, that goes so far to redeem
war, that these adroit fellows soon dug their way under
the walls of their prison and were again free.1

Captain Hines, who planned the escape, was one of
the most remarkable characters in Morgan's command,
rich as that body was in gifted men.2 The party of
fugitives entered a railway train, rode to near Cincin-
nati, where they crossed to Kentucky.

1 They left their respects for their jailer, and a brief account of
their escape, giving in their note an account of the time and labor
spent in their mining operations. See Collins, i. 129.

2 Few would imagine that the present able and dignified head of the
Kentucky Court of Appeals, the chief justice of the Commonwealth,
was once the dauntless partisan commander, Captain Hines. For
years he was the head of any desperate enterprise that Morgan un-
dertook. After Morgan's final overthrow, he was engaged in other
enterprises of peril. He had charge of the projected, and nearly suc-
cessful, attempt at releasing the Confederates confined in Camp Doug-
las, near Chicago, arming them, and with them creating an army that
should be strong enough to force its way to the Confederacy.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE END OF THE WAR.

THE desperation to which the people were brought
by the system of guerrilla raids can hardly be described.
In the year 1864, there was not a county in the State
that was exempt from their ravages. The condition of
the Commonwealth reminds the historical student of
that which came with the Thirty Years' War in Ger-
many, and with the latter stages of the war between
king and parliament in England. It is the normal con-
dition when a country is harried by the discords of a
civil war, and especially when there are no longer large
armies in the field.

On the 4th of January, 1864, Governor Bramlette,
late a Federal officer, who at the outset of his political
life was opposed to such summary and unwarranted
action, took the singular responsibility of ordering the
arrest of the Confederate sympathizers, to be held as
hostages for the return of all persons captured and de-
tained by guerrillas. Great as was the need of protec-
tion from these freebooters, this proclamation was a
serious transgression of the laws which the governor
was sworn to maintain, and as such met the condem-
nation of a great part of the Union men. Afterwards
the legislature endeavored to secure the suppression of
this evil by providing more numerous and more effective
troops to be used for State defense. This legislature

346 KENTUCKY.

voted the large sum of $5,000,000, for the purpose of
paying for the adequate internal defense of the State.1

On July 16th, General Burbridge, then commanding
in the State, issued a sanguinary order of reprisals, re-
quiring that whenever a citizen was killed by guerrillas
four prisoners chosen from this class of marauders were
to be taken to the place where the deed was done, and
in retaliation shot to death. Theoretically this princi-
ple of retaliation is, though severe, within the usages of
war. The difficulty was that it was never easy to de-
termine among a lot of prisoners who belonged to a
properly commissioned command, and who were simple
brigands. Under the order many executions took place,
some of men who probably were to be classed as Con-
federate soldiers. The brutal violence of this plan
made it extremely distasteful to all fair-minded people.
It was carried out without even the semblance of law
given by the proceedings of a court-martial. Nor had
it the sorry merit of success. It merely gave an addi-
tional bitterness to a contest that was becoming a re-
proach to the name of the race.

In the August election tire interference of the mili-
tary with the polling was even more serious than in the
previous year. In the election period an extensive sys-
tem of military arrests was begun, designed to overawe
those who were disposed to criticise the action of the
military commanders. This system of provost marshal
government so disgusted the people that a majority of
them, though retaining their loyalty, could no longer
be trusted to vote for the candidates approved and al-
most nominated by the Federal commanders. Fortu-
nately, the election of the year was not of a general
i Collins, i. 130.

THE END OF THE WAR. 347

character, or the result would have given encourage-
ment to the rebellion, by showing that the Union men
were now divided into two distinct divisions : the smaller
part made up of those who were willing to go to any
extremity in their toleration of the arbitrary acts of a
provost marshal system that gave effect to the oppres-
sive and often brutal humor of the courts of war ; and
another larger part who, believing that the immediate
danger from the armed enemy was over, were disposed
to give their principal attention to the men who were
undermining the foundations of civil government within
the Commonwealth.

The only office of importance that was to be filled at
the August election of 1864 was that of judge of the
Court of Appeals for the Third District. Alvin Duvall
was a candidate for reelection ; his course as a jurist
was satisfactory to a large part of the people, and he
was renominated for the office. Although he had in no
public way indicated any sympathy with the rebellion,
he was not regarded as a strong Union man. If the
matter had been left to the people, it is likely that he
would have been defeated at the polls. But the mili-
tary authorities resolved to arrest him just before the
election, but he escaped from the State, and went be-
yond their control. They then ordered that he should
not be allowed to stand as a candidate, and put troops
at the polls to enforce this order, their aim being to
secure the election pf M. M. Benton, whom the Fed-
eral officers had adopted as their candidate. To defeat
this ' end the conservative Union men nominated Judge
Robertson, telegraphing his nomination on the morning
of the election to the polling places. As the military
guards had no orders to refuse the tender of votes for

348 KENTUCKY.

Judge Robertson, he was elected as a protest against
the arbitrary action of the military arm ; a large num-
ber of citizens testified their disgust by remaining away
from the polls.

This iniquitous system of interference with the civil
law had now pretty thoroughly separated the better
class of the Union men from all sympathies with the
Federal government. But worse was yet to come. In
all the campaigns and battles in Kentucky, there had
always been shown the utmost consideration for women
and children. The soldiers of both armies, be it said
to their great honor, were singularly considerate of them.
Even when the battles raged through the towns, as
they often did, the non-combatant class was tenderly
cared for.

But in 1864 the provost marshals of the State, mostly
men who were not soldiers in any proper sense, who
had none of the better traditions of war, began to arrest
and imprison women on charges of sympathy with the
rebellion, correspondence with the enemy, and the like.
Women with their children were banished from the
State to Canada under a guard of negro soldiers, or sent
to prison. Women whose children, brothers, and hus-
bands were in the Confederate army, or dead on its
battle-fields, were naturally given to uttering much trea-
son in their speech ; but it was a pitiable sight to see
the power of the Federal government turned against
these helpless sufferers.

While this treatment of non-combatants, old men,
women, and children, and the interference of the Fed-
eral troops with elections, was the principal grievance
of the conservative Union men, there was another source
of trouble of a more truly political nature, which served

THE END OF THE WAR. 349

to increase the disaffection of the Kentuckians with the
ways of the Federal government.

The Federal government had engaged to leave slavery
as it found it in Kentucky and elsewhere. Although
there was a certain amount of disgust when the emanci-
pation proclamation came out, it did not in itself make
an enduring impression on the minds of the Union men ;
but when, in 1864, the government began to enlist
negro troops in Kentucky the people became greatly
excited over the matter. Up to this date the Common-
wealth had met the requisitions for troops to carry on
the war with a promptness and loyalty unsurpassed by
any other State. They naturally considered it as an
insult that their slaves, even though such in name only,
should be taken from them and put into the army with
their own volunteer soldiers. Although this state of
feeling will probably not commend itself as reasonable
to those who were born in non-slaveholding communi-
ties, it was very natural in the Kentuckians. To them
military service had always been an honorable occupa-
tion, open only to those of the masterful race. They
had refused to take into their service any 'recruits from
the free negroes of the State. This blow at their mili-
tary pride was keenly felt.

The action of the Federal government in this matter
of enlisting slaves was singularly vacillating; again and
again the process was begun and abandoned on account
of remonstrances of the State authorities. It was an.
unprofitable experiment; the enlistment of white troops
was made difficult ; a few thousand blacks were se-
cured, but they never proved of much service to the
Federal army. The pure negro, though a fairly brave
fellow, wants the essential qualities that make a soldier.

350 KENTUCKY.

His valor is of the passive sort, while the soldier needs
an active pugnacity. Negro troops will stand a fire
that they cannot return as well or better than whites ;
they will do well in distant firing, except that they are
almost invariably bad marksmen ; but they cannot make
a charge, and a small body of rebels coming swiftly
upon them with that ugly yell, which rings in the ears
of those who heard it at the distance of half a lifetime,
would break any line of them, however unshaken be-
fore. These remarks do not apply to mulattoes, or to
negroes bred iu freedom ; such men seem to make fairly
good soldiers.

This bitterness between the conservative Union men
and the Federal commander grew to such height that
in September, 1864, there was grave danger of an ac-
tual revolt of the Kentuckians against their oppressors.
The State authorities were now fairly arrayed against
the Federal provost marshals and their following. Gen-
eral Hugh Ewing, commanding the district, had ordered
the county courts to levy a tax sufficient to arm and pay
fifty men in each county. His order was answered by
Governor BrUmlette, who, in a proclamation, forbade
the county courts giving effect to the order. Although
Governor Bramlette represented the ultra Union men,
there can be no doubt that he would have striven to
maintain his position by the use of force.1 Lincoln re-
voked Ewing's order, and so this critical point was
passed. At the same time an examination was ordered
into the conduct of certain knaves, who had for months
ruled Western Kentucky in a fashion that had not had

1 It is reported to the writer that Governor Bramlette was at this
time on the point of issuing a proclamation recalling the Kentucky
troops from the field.

THE END OF THE WAR. 351

its parallel since the tyrannies of the Austrian Haynau.
A commission, composed of General Speed Fry and
Colonel John Mason Brown, checked the iniquities, and
made such- a showing that General E. A. Paine, Colonel

t II. W. Barry, of the 8th United States Negro Artillery,
and Colonel McChesney, of Illinois, and a number of
subordinate officers, were removed. It was charged
that they had been guilty of extreme cruelty and extor-

'tion.1

These blows at the system of inflictions were not suffi-
cient to do more than subdue, for a moment, the worst
forms of the evil. This was too deep seated for easy
remedy. General Burbridge had an overbearing spirit.
He gathered around him a set of advisers who, it was
asserted, acting as a secret inquisition, sent many Union
men into prison .or banishment, simply because they
protested against the Federal outrages. A sort of fury
seemed to possess many men hitherto of good qualities
as citizens or soldiers.2

So fur from these brutal reprisals diminishing the
evils of the guerrilla warfare it grew each day to be a
more crying evil. The Home Guards, which before had
carried on a tolerably effective defense against these
bands, became disgusted with the inefficiency and oppo-
sition of the Federal commanders. A vast number of

1 See Collins, i. 141.

2 The partisan newspapers of the day inflamed the public mind by
reckless charges against the leaders of both parties. The Rev. Dr.
Robert J. Breckinriclge, a devoted Union man, who did much to de-
termine the destiny of the Commonwealth in these trying days, was
especially selected for assault. Certain newspapers, which were ani-
mated by strong pro-southern sentiments, accuse Dr. Breckinridge of
brutal language in reference to the Confederate sympathizers. (See
Collins, vol. i. p. 142.) A careful inquiry has convinced the writer
that this charge is entirely unfounded.

352 KENTUCKY.

bandit gangs, nominally in the Confederate army, but
really without any control from commissioned officers,
roamed over the State in all directions, robbing, mur-
dering, and burning as they went. It seemed for a
time as if civil government would be broken to pieces
by these two mortal foes to order, the guerrillas and
the provost marshals. Even the small bands of Federal
soldiers pursuing the guerrillas learned so far to imitate
their ways that Burbridge himself was compelled to
issue aa order providing severe punishments for out-
rages by the Union troops. All these accumulating
evils showed how true was the instinct of the people
of Kentucky who strove to keep the machinery of their
civil system intact. There is a government by armies,
and a government by citizens, but the two can never
be blended without the utmost danger to the State.

It is the painful duty of the historian to go yet fur-
ther in the history of this pernicious system that was
developed by General Burbridge's agents. All that he
did in the effort to suppress the guerrillas and to clear
the State of treason may be set down as grave blunders
of a brave, well-meaning, though most misguided sol-
dier. The next series of acts had, it was generally be-
lieved, the purpose of improperly taking money from,
the farmers of the State.

The first step, in this new class of inflictions, was to
order the farmers to sell their pigs to designated agents
at ^ fair price ; next Burbridge commanded that no pigs
should be sent out of the State without a special permit,
but should be sold to the aforesaid specified agents.
These agents offered a price considerably below that
paid in the Cincinnati market. The ostensible reason
of this action was that the Federal government had

THE END OF THE WAR. 353

given a contract to certain parties in Louisville to fur-
nish one hundred thousand head of swine, and that if
the farmers were allowed to sell in their natural mar-
kets the contractors would not be able to obtain a suffi-
cient supply.1

General Bnrbridge's agents supported this demand by
many threats of confiscation and other penalties. Nat-
urally the beginning of a system of confiscation of pri-
vate property aroused an even more general and furious
indignation than the mere political acts of oppression.
Here again the protests of the State government were
heard by Lincoln, and after about a mouth of wrestle
with the evil, Bui-bridge's famous '• hog order " was re-
voked by the Federal government. Notwithstanding
the revocation of this order, General Burbridge was re-
tained in command for some months afterwards, but
the citizens were yet to suffer for some months under
this man more exasperating inflictions than came to
them from the honorable war of other years. There
can be no doubt that the people of Kentucky endured
far more outrage from the acts of the Federal provost
marshals than they did from all the acts of legitimate
war put together.

The military events of 1864, apart from the incessant
though trifling encounters with guerrillas, were limited.
The hard-pressed armies of the Confederacy could not
spare men to threaten Kentucky with invasion in force.
On the 25th of March Forrest attacked Paducah, on
the Ohio, at the mouth of the Tennessee. It was de-
fended by Colonel Hicks, with a part of the 16th Cav-
alry, a portion of the 122d Illinois, and a small body of
negro troops. Forrest exhibited his usual courage and

1 Collins, i. 145.
23

354 KENTUCKY.

his usual ill-judgment in some fierce assaults on Fort
Anderson, which was held by the intrepid Hicks, with
the aid of the gunboats Peosta and Paw-paw. For-
rest, after two days' battle, was finally beaten off with
great loss. The Federal loss was one hundred men.

The only other operation of importance was the last
raid of Morgan into the Commonwealth. He came with
a force of two thousand three hundred men. This time
he came by way of the eastern line of the State. He
slipped by Burbridge, who-was watching for him in Pike
County, and quickly made his way to Mount Stirling,
which he captured, after a vigorous resistance,^ from
Captain Barlow, of the 40th Kentucky, who had but
seventy men. He next, with a part of his force, tried
to take Lexington, but, after some successes, was beaten
off by the 4th Kentucky cavalry.

While engaged in foraging and burning bridges on
his old " stamping ground," his force was surprised in
the night by three brigades of Federal cavalry, under
the command of the gallant Colonel John Mason Brown,
which by a forced march of ninety miles in thirty hours
came up with a part of the Confederate force, though
Morgan was himself then near Lexington. In the con-
fusion and the darkness the Confederates escaped, after
losing about two hundred men. Burbridge's men, ex-
hausted by their long march, were in no condition for
pursuit. Morgan with his men, refreshed by his rest
near Lexington, pushed on to Cynthiana, where, with
his usual fortune, he was successful in capturing a train
with several hundred troops, who were looking for him.
The town was defended by a force of Home Guards,
who made a very obstinate resistance, fighting from
building to building until a large part of the town was
burned and severe punishment inflicted on the enemy.

THE END OF THE WAR. 355

While one part of Morgan's force was engaged in the
battle at Cynthiana, another part was trying to get
possession of Frankfort. The latter place is strong by
nature of its environing hills, and had a few small forts
defending the approaches. The governor, the citizens,
and about two hundred and fifty troops made a brilliant
defense against two assaults, and repulsed the enemy.
On the 12th, Burbridge,- who was as effective as a sol-
dier as he was incompetent in civil affairs, made another
forced march from Mount Sterling, and struck Mor-
gan's force with a superior number of cavalry. After an
hour's fight the whole of Morgan's force was broken,
with a heavy loss in killed and wounded and several
hundred prisoners.

Gathering the remnants of his command, shorn of
half of its original strength, Morgan fell swiftly back
through Eastern Kentucky into Southwestern Virginia.
Three months afterward, on September 4th, this valiant
soldier was shot while endeavoring to escape from a
force that had surrounded the house, in East Tennessee,
in which he had lodged, at some distance from his com-
mand. Thus ended the life of a brilliant soldier and
one of the most successful commanders that this country
has ever produced.

The other military operations of importance were two
extensive raids by Burbridge and his mounted men into
Southwestern Virginia. These movements were in-
tended to break up the important salt works of that
country, which supplied the Confederacy with that nec-
essary element of their rations, and to destroy the lines
of communication that connected Richmond with the
Southwest. The forces engaged were principally com-
posed of mounted Kentucky troops. Their movements

356 KENTUCKY.

had nothing of the brilliancy and dash of Morgan's
movements, yet they- served to show how penetrable
was the once strong wall of the Confederacy. The work
was accomplished with no great loss of life on either
side, but the Confederacy received a telling blow upon
its resources of war.

Outside the State the successive great battles in Geor-
gia and Tennessee took a heavy toll of the life of Ken-
tucky that was in the armies of either side. The hun-
dreds of skirmishes with guerrillas and raiding parties
within the State were even more fatal than the regular
warfare. It is possible that 1864 was the most de-
structive year of the war to the citizens of Kentucky,
whether fighting in the armies or skirmishing by their
firesides. It is not possible to compute the loss of men
from these various forms of fighting, but it seems prob-
able that not less than five thousand were killed or
disabled bv gunshot wounds within the year.

Strong as was this draft on the manhood of the State
the supply of troops continued. For a time, in the
worst fury of the wordy combat between the State and
the Federal authorities, the enlistments fell off and the
Federal government ordered a draft.

An effort was made to carry out this selection by lot
in certain counties, but it utterly failed to furnish men.
The conscripts to a great extent went into the guer-
rilla bands, and many hundreds joined the Confederate
army. A very large part of those chosen were found
to be suffering from disabilities unfitting them for sol-
diers' work. At this time, at least four fifths of the
men fit for military life were in either army. Still the
effort at conscription stung the pride of the Kentucky
people, who could not bear the idea that it should go

THE END OF THE WAR. 357

into history that in a war the people of the Common-
wealth were driven to the lines of battle. Many men
who had been in the Confederate army, and had on one
ground and another returned to the State, enlisted in
order to relieve their State of this reproach. On Jan-
uary 1, 1865, the quota of the State was full. Out of
a total enrollment of 133,493, of military age, eighteen
to forty-five, the State had furnished and mustered into
the United States service 76,335. About 7,000 more
enlisted, but were not mustered in, making a total of
about 83,000 men. Besides these there was a force
that may be counted as 10,000 men, who were engaged
as Home Guards, or, altogether, nearly one tenth of tho
total population of the State. Add to this at least
40,000 men of military age out of the State in the mil-
itary service of the Confederacy, and we have a larger
per cent, of the population given to war than has ever
been furnished by any modern State in the term of
three years.

These estimates are given on the authority of Gen-
eral Finnell, Adjutant-General of Kentucky during tho
last three years of the war. During these years of trial
the State furnished almost as many men to military
service as had ever voted in any election. It should
be remembered that these men were volunteers from
the citizens of the State, and that they were in no part
composed of the substitutes who formed so large a part
of the forces from the most of the Northern States. It
should also be borne in mind that at this time in her
history Kentucky had for years been sending a large
part of her youth as colonists to the other States of
the Mississippi Valley. Thousands of them were in the
regiments of the other Western States.

CHAPTER XX.

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

JANUARY, 1865, brought some lightening of the
clouds that had hung over the State for the previous
four years. President Lincoln annulled the iniquitous
orders concerning the limitations of trade in Kentucky,
and the Confederate government at last, and hardly
soon enough for their honor, took steps finally to disa-
vow the action of the guerrillas in the State. For many
months the regular troops of the Confederacy had re-
pudiated all connection with these outlaws, and even in
some cases had joined with the Home Guards in hunt-
ing them down.

The legislature met under circumstances of a very
exasperating nature. The lieutenant-governor and pres-
ident of the senate, Colonel Richard T. Jacob, a gal-
lant soldier in the Federal army, had been arrested and
sent into the Confederacy by General Burbridge, be-
cause he dared to criticise in a public manner the con-
duct of the Federal authorities in their management of
affairs in Kentucky. There is no sort of question that
this gallant officer and devoted Union man was abso-
lutely loyal to the national government ; to it he had
given all that a devoted soldier can give, save his life.
At the same time Colonel Wolford, a partisan com-
mander, who had done excellent service with his regi-
ment of irregular cavalry, was subjected to the sam^e

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 359

treatment. Even in his criticisms of the government ho
mude it always clear that his resistance was to the
illegal action of the Federal authorities and not to tho
government which they disgraced.

Early in February, Lieutenant- Governor Jacob es-
caped from the Confederate lines and returned to his
place in the senate. This banishment of Jacob and
Wolford was followed by an order from General Bur-
bridge to his subordinates to resist the State govern-
ment, which was at that time trying to raise a sufficient
force of State troops to hunt down and crush out the
guerrilla bands. Burbridge not only sought to nullify
this action of the Commonwealth in raising new troops,
but ordered the muster-out of all the State troops now
in service.

Soon after the assembly of the legislature a commit-
tee was appointed to visit Washington and lay before
the President the deplorable condition of the Common-
wealth due to the conduct of Burbridge and his party.
The remonstrances of these ambassadors, and the atten-
tion which Burbridge's acts had begun to attract in the
whole country, led to his removal from command, thus
relieving the State from the rule of a man who has been
well named the " military Jeffreys " of the war. He
was replaced by General Palmer, a man of much better
temper, who, though he fell under the same evil influ-
ences which had guided Burbridge in his course, never
disgraced his calling.

The people now began to act with more energy in
the suppression of the guerrilla warfare. The small
Confederate bands, from time to time within the State,
did not hesitate to treat them as public enemies. A
large part of the motive that led even decent citizens

360 KENTUCKY.

to take up with these marauding bands, or to give them
aid and comfort, came from a spirit of protest against
the arbitrary acts of the Federal officers. As soon as
there seemed a chance that these evils were about to be
mitigated, the people felt like regaining for themselves
a better public security, and took efficient steps for their
protection.

In February the thirteenth amendment to the Fed-
eral Constitution was presented to the legislature for ac-
tion. This amendment provided for the unconditional
abolition of slavery within the United States, but did
not secure any compensation for the value of the slaves
within the loyal States. .The subject was referred to
the judiciary committee of the State senate. Two re-
ports were made : one, the majority, favoring the rejec-
tion of the amendment ; the other its acceptance, with
the request that Congress give compensation for the
value of slaves held by owners who were loyal to the
government during the rebellion. The majority re-
port was accepted, both in the senate and house : in the
former by a vote of twenty-one to thirteen ; in the latter
by fifty-six to twenty-eight. The thirteenth amendment
was soon after adopted by the requisite number of
States, and in this way slavery quietly lost its legal po-
sition, though its life had been practically extinguished
by the events of the war.

There was among Kentuckians a certain sense of dis-
gust that this amendment should have been adopted
through the vote of " reconstructed " Southern States,
with governments essentially fictitious. Still, despite,
the evident injustice arising from this appropriation of
their property without process of law, not much at-
tention was paid to the matter. The evil that came

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 361

from the overthrowing of their labor system and the
disappearance of property valued for taxation at over
$100,000,000 in I860, and at that time worth at least
double this amount, was forgotten in the anticipation of
a happy end of greater ills. As at the outbreak of the
war slavery had a small place in the public mind, so this
last step in its overthrow found the people with only a
languid interest in its pecuniary importance.

When, on April 26th, Johnston's army surrendered
to Sherman, an almost universal cry of joy went up
from the people of Kentucky. The past losses and
trials were forgotten. Although the better part of its
population was dead, wounded, or worn out by the fa-
tigues of hard campaigns, which generally leave chronic
troubles that are often more destructive to vitality than
those of sword or ball, a wonderful uplift of hope came
upon the people. At the moment, they thought all
their trials over. None imagined that the war was to
draw consequences in its train that would keep them
disturbed for many years to come.

This sense of strength and new life manifested itself
in many ways. Even before the war was finished, but
when the movement of Sherman to Savannah showed
that the end was at hand, the legislature passed an act
accepting the gift of the Federal government to found
an agricultural school, and arranged at the same time
to add to it the other departments necessary to make
a school that would have some of the qualities of a
university. Some intelligent citizens, led by Colonel
J. B. Bowman, arranged for the consolidation of the
old Transylvania University with a college then at
Harrodsburg, known as the Kentucky University, which,
with the agricultural college, were to be placed at Lex-

362 KENTUCKY.

ington, in the old Transylvania buildings, and in the
neighboring county. The whole was added to by sub-
scriptions among the people, amounting to $200,000,
made while the State was still struggling with the guer-
rilla bands, and trying to save its social order from the
peril these disturbances brought upon it. Provision
was made for an increase of the school taxes in the
local districts. In many other ways the Commonwealth
now showed its recuperative power.

It was some time before the old troubles with ma-
rauding bands were quieted, but the State forces indus-
triously hunted them down, and the more decent mem-
bers of these gangs at once crept back to civil life.

By the 1st of July the State was so secured in its
position that with perfect safety the Federal troops
could have been withdrawn from the State, and the civil
government left to go its appointed way. This was,
unhappily, not to be. The appetite for military methods
had gained a very strong hold in the United States.
The armies came home, and went again to their fields
and firesides, or, where these were no more, began again
to create for themselves places in the world. There
were no better and more peaceful citizens than the vet-
erans of the two armies, and no relations were ever
more friendly than those between the men who learned
to respect each other's manliness in a war that tried
them well. Yet it suited the purpose of a political body
that had fattened on the system of passes and permits
and the other profitable complications of the Civil War,
to maintain in time of peace a system that had its only
justification in the hard conditions of war, if it can find
justification at all.

If Lincoln had survived we may well believe that his

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 363

admirable good sense, which enabled him to help his
native State whenever he could see her trouble, would
have removed these barriers to the tide of peace and
good will that came like a flood upon the people. His
death and his replacement by a cheap and small-minded
man brought on the last and most painful stage of the
struggle, that in which a disarmed and war-worn peo-
ple were driven to fight for the elementary rights of
good government against the tyrannous exactions of a
political junta which was insensible to the nobility of
the victory.

Fortunately for Kentucky it was not possible for the
party in power to sink the State to the depths of po-
litical degradation into which all the rebellious States
were at once plunged. There was no valid pretense a,t
hand for overthrowing the machinery of the State gov-
ernment, though there was every evidence of a desiro
to do so. Her sufferings were trifling compared with
those of the States in that hell on earth, the recon-
structed South ; still, as we shall see, even Kentucky
had a time of purgatorial existence, which delayed the
period of quiet and left a mass of painful memories
that will hardly ever be forgotten.

The first evidence that the Federal authorities were
unwilling to accept the end of the war as the begin-
ning of peace came in the August election of 18G5.
The expatriation laws passed in former years being still
in force, the returned Confederates were not, in the
terms of the law, citizens of Kentucky, and were not
allowed to vote. Governor Bramlette suitably warned
the officers of election within the State to this effect by
means of a proclamation. This act of expatriation had
been declared unconstitutional by two judges of the

364 KENTUCKY.

State courts, and there was a general feeling that as
the war was over the legislation on which this exclu-
sion rested was revoked by the issue of the war.1 This
was properly a State question, and the impropriety of
Federal interference was clear ; yet in this election many
polling places were surrounded by Federal soldiers, who
undertook to purge the poll. In some cases negro sol-
diers were used for this exasperating work, apparently
with the intention of making the act as offensive as pos-
sible.

The result of this interference with the polls was to
still further widen the breach between the Radical and
Conservative parties. There was only one State officer,
a treasurer, to be elected, and for this office the Conser-
vative candidate had 42,187, and his opponent, a more
radical Union man, 42,082. The size of the vote in a
contested election shows that the ex-rebel element did
not take part in it. Two Conservative congressmen
were elected to four Radical members, and the com-
plexion of the State legislature was utterly changed.
The senate now stood twenty Conservatives to eighteen
Radicals, a majority of the latter holding over from the
last election, while the house stood sixty Conservatives
to forty Radicals. In this remarkable political revolu-
tion we behold the work of Burbridge and his like.
In two years they did what neither the Confederate
solicitations nor arms could do ; they had driven the
people not out of their affection for the cause of the
national constitution, but out of all sympathy with the
ways of its representatives then in power.

A more complete or more wholesome political dis-
content never affected the Kentucky people. A con~
i See Collins, i. p. 163.

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 365

test into which they had entered with really noble emo-
tions had degenerated into a petty political game. They
felt that their vast sacrifices had brought them sore evils
for reward.

The good humor arising from the end of the ^r
was still further disturbed by innumerable interferences
with every form of civil life. These cases are far too
numerous for separate noting. This may serve as a
sample : A preacher of the Methodist Church was im-
prisoned because he opposed a union between the North
and South wings of his church, and was detained in
confinement without trial until October, 1865 ; for al-
though the war was over, martial law was maintained
in Kentucky. Every petty officer commanding a post
had summary jurisdiction over the persons of the peo-
ple, which he could exercise to gratify private malice
or to increase his sense of personal importance.

When, on November 30th, the other border States
were relieved from the suspension of the right of habeas
corpus, this writ was not restored to Kentucky.1 Two

1 The long continuance of the suspension of the habeas corpus act
in Kentucky, after it had been restored to the other border States, is
to be explained by the fact that the Republican party secured sub-
stantial control of the other States, while Kentucky, though she had
been the only one of the slave-holding States that had shown a very
decided loyalty to the Federal cause, had eluded all the efforts of the
Republican leaders to cajole or coerce her into its fold. They chose
to assume that Kentucky was at this time disloyal, hostility to their
party and disloyalty being then to their minds synonymous terms. At
this time the Republican party was principally in the control of men
who had no knowledge of the war, no sympathy with its sufferings or
its nobler emotions. They had received great political, and often great
pecuniar}', profit from its events. Unhesitatingly they stigmatized as
di.-loyal the Commonwealth which had given as large a share of its
life and treasure to maintain the Union as any other State, which had
borne patiently and unflinchingly the most grievous burdens of the
struggle, and had in fact clung more closely to the traditions of the
Union than any other part of the country.

366 KENTUCKY.

years had now elapsed since this writ was suspended ;
the people had borne with the loss of this, the dearest
right of a free people, during the trials of actual war
impatiently at times, but on the whole with becoming
calmness ; now, when the State was free from disturb-
ances which ihe civil law could not control, this vassal-
age to the military arm became intolerable.

At this stage of their troubles new evils developed in.
the conduct of the Freedman's Bureau. This organiza-
tion was probably necessary in the States that had been
in the rebellion, but there was nothing in the relations
between the negro and the white races in Kentucky that
made it necessary to extend its operations to that State.

The first work of the bureau was well calculated to
breed difficulty. An act of Congress, passed after the
emancipation proclamation, which, as is well known, did
not affect slavery in Kentucky, provided that the wives
and children of negroes enlisted in the United States
army should be free. This act was clearly unconstitu-
tional, as it deprived people of property without due
process of law. There were many thousand women
and children in Kentucky belonging in the families of
black soldiers. The Freedman's Bureau undertook to
compel the owners of these people to pay them wages
for all the time that had elapsed since the enlistment of
their fathers and husbands. The first suit was brought
against the distinguished Garrett Davis, senator from
Kentucky, one of the most resolute Union men in the
State, one who may be ranked with those who had done
the most for the Union cause. These prosecutions were
entirely fruitless, save in the further irritation of the
people, which seems to have been their whole purpose.

When the legislature met iu December, 1865, it wps

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 367

found to be more reactionary than it was supposed to
be at the time of the election. It at once proceeded to
clear away the whole of the legislation that alienated
and disfranchised those lately in the Confederate army.
By twenty-one to fifteen in the senate, and sixty-two
to thirty-three in the house, it repealed the law that
consigned to the penitentiary those Confederate soldiers
who invaded the State. It repealed the expatriation
act by a vote of twenty-two to twelve in the senate, and
sixty-two to thirty-three in the house.1 All the other
laws passed to disqualify or punish persons for sympa-
thy with the rebellion were swept away. There can be
no question of the wisdom of this action ; the returned
Confederates included a very valuable portion of the
State life, and their restoration to citizenship dictated by
a sound statesmanship had only good consequences. The
dangers arising from the animosities of the war were at
once done away with, and the breaches that were made
in the society of the rebellious States by the continued
disfranchisement of its citizens were avoided. It was
an absolutely safe measure, considered even from the
point of view of Federal politics. The experience of
the Confederate soldiers in the years gone by had de-
stroyed all desire of resistance to the Federal authority.
It is doubtful if these men had been polled after their
return to Kentucky whether they would have voted for
a peaceable secession of the Confederate States. The
problem of secession had been worked out to the end ;
the result was generally accepted by the soldiers of
the Confederacy as final.

To have maintained the isolation of these returned
Confederates would have been an act of political mad-

1 Collins, i. 166.

368 KENTUCKY.

ness, and in receiving them in friendliness, the State of
Kentucky did an act that unfortunately was not imi-
tated by the Federal government. When in the centu-
ries to come the historian looks over the graves of all
those who took part in the Civil War, and sees their
acts cleared of all the cloud of prejudice that even now
envelops them, we must believe that these acts of rec-
onciliation will stand forth as the noblest features in
the history of this Commonwealth. He will see in them
the best possible evidence of the civil strength, of the
State making and State preserving power, of this peo-
ple. He will certainly note the fact that the Union
party in a border State, when passions were infuriated
in the presence of immediate war, had a higher element
of reason in their action than was found in the whole
Federal Union, the greater and dominant part of which
saw nothing of war except in the mind's eye.

The last important problem left by the war was the
question of negro testimony in the courts. The old
slavery laws in Kentucky limited the testimony of the
negro in many ways ; white men could not be convicted
of grave crime by their evidence. These laws should
have been at once repealed, and it is clearly to the dis-
credit of the State that they remained upon the statute
books until 1872, though negro testimony was admitted
by the courts in 1871. l There is, however, some ex-
cuse for this delay. The Freedman's Bureau had con-
stituted itself the keepers of the whole negro popula-
tion, and had in an unfortunate way removed them
from the control of the ordinary civil law of the State.
To the appeal for the abrogation of the statute the peo-
ple answered, Do away with this interference with the
i Collins, i. 214. *t

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 369

negroes and we will give them equal position before the
law. When in 1872 the end of this system of super-
vision of the negro population by the Freedmau's Bu-
reau was abandoned, the resistance to the complete as-
similation of the negro with the white in all matters of
the law came about. The negro has been found to be
a very trustworthy witness, and none regret his full
admission to the courts.

The frictions between the provost marshals and the
Freedman's Bureau on the one side, and the irritated
and resisting people on the other, bred a spirit of law-
lessness that came up after the first trouble with the
guerrillas had nearly passed away. This series of dis-
turbances is commonly known as the Ku Klux out-
rages: as is well known these troubles were common
to the whole South. They were less serious in Ken-
tucky than elsewhere.

It is difficult to ascertain the precise motive of this
outbreak of violence, but as nearly as it can be deter-
mined it was as follows : The sudden closing of the war
left a considerable amount of social rubbish within the
State, both white and black. The negroes, as a rule,
behaved exceedingly well in their unaccustomed condi-
tion, accepting their new lot of citizenship in an excel-
lent spirit ; but a portion of them, especially those who
had been employed in the army as teamsters and as
camp servants, proved very troublesome. Nearly the
whole of this part of the negro people had gathered
into small separate settlements away from their orig-
inal homes, and were under the influence of a bad class
of white leaders. This demoralized condition of the
lower classes of blacks led to a large amount of steal-
ing ; no farmer could keep his sheep or pigs from their
24

370 KENTUCKY.

furtive hands ; usually the thieving was not accompanied
by violence, but in some cases the trouble was more se-
rious. In many counties the negroes organized them-
selves into marauding bands ; there were a number of
outrages upon women, an offense that had always been
particularly abhorrent to the people of Kentucky, and
which they have always visited with condign punish-
ment.

In its beginning, at least in Kentucky, the Ku Klux
Klun was probably designed to restrain and punish these
transgressions. It doubtless in the outset did certain
rude and effective justice. Its cheap mystic accompani-
ments were certainly well designed to strike terror to
the superstitious blacks. When it had accomplished the
little good that was possible to a system so fundamen-
tally evil, it fell into the hands of the most wretched
class of the population, the very element it was designed
to overthrow, and became a great curse to society.

For a time the Ku Klux organization defied the
power of the civil law ; the secrecy of the action and
the terrorism exercised on witnesses, made it impossible
to apply adequate punishment through the courts.

Beginning in 1866, this evil system continued in in-
termittent action until 1873. Like most social evils in
a vigorous state, this system finally brought about its
own remedy. For years the country folk tolerated the
outrages for the profit that they brought to them ; their
pigs were safer, even if the common people of the
realm did suffer a bit. The old dislike of lawlessness,
common to well organized societies, was lessened by the
long time of strife. For several years the Ku Klux
vented its outrages upon the essentially criminal class,
the rough justice of many of their actions made the

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 371

mass of the people pardon their worst crimes. Finally,
there came a general sense that they were going too
far, and that they should no longer be tolerated. When
this feeling became general they were speedily crushed
out. With the Ku Klux disappeared the last remnant
of the greater ills that came in the train of the war.

Regarding the Ku Klux system and the Freedman's
Bureau as the closing evils of the war, we may accept
1873 as the last year of that great revolution, which
began in 1860, moved swiftly to the state of war, raged
for four years with a fury of thought, words, and ac-
tions unequaled in any struggle of the race, and then
for eight years left its wreckage to trouble men weary
with the nobler part of their great labor.

That part of the development of Kentucky which
can be in any proper sense termed historic ended in
1873, with the sweeping away of the last cloud left by
the war ; all the rest of its life is still in the process of
evolution. Before we turn to consider the present con-
dition of the State let us bring before our minds the
outline of these years of rapid change through which
this people had just passed. In 1860, when after in-
finite debate Kentucky slowly came to the remarkable
resolution that she would bar her doors to the great
storm that was about to move heaven and earth about
her, the Commonwealth was still a mediaeval society in
all its essential qualities ; the institution of slavery had
acted like a pickle to preserve unchanged much of the
notions that belonged in other centuries of the race's
life. Her very resolution to stand aloof in a war in
which the nineteenth century fought against the sev-
enteenth, shows that the people, despite an intense in-
terest in politics, had not come to a point of view

372 KENTUCKY.

whence they could see where their social life stood in
the world. They were as much out of the world of
their day as if they had been shut in on every side by
mountain heights ; a clean-blooded, land-loving, fairly
thrifty lot, they had, through their activities, not suf-
fered any of the degradation that comes to other races
from their connection with slaves. They had escaped
the poverty of their beginnings, and had attained to an
almost ideal abundance of the primal needs of civili-
zation. Their physical condition was probably better
than that of any other population in the world. This
is shown by the statistics of the Sanitary Commission.

This beneficent society not only did an admirable
work of charity during the war, but it left a valuable
body of fact in its carefully made measurements of two
hundred and fifty thousand men. These measurements
were so tabulated as to separate men from different
parts of the country. The results were carefully col-
lated and classed by the distinguished mathematician,
Dr. B. A Gould, now well known as the astronomer
of the Argentine Republic. From this excellent digest
of results of the measurements made by the commission
the extracts given in the accompanying table are taken.
Dr. Gould's results give the measurements of troops
from Tennessee and from Kentucky, but as those from
Kentucky were doubtless far more numerous than those
from Tennessee, for the reason that the Federal re-
cruits from Tennessee were relatively few in number,
we may safely regard these tables as representing the
physical conditions of the Kentucky people. (See table
on page 373.)

Moreover, the general physical status of the popula-
tion in Kentucky and Tennessee is much alike, though

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 373

A Table of Measurements of American White Men compiled from Re-
port of the Sanitary Commission, made from Measurements of the
United States Volunteers during the Civil War. By B. A. Gould.

MEAN HEIGHT.

.a

to

1 M

§1

MEAN CIR-
CUMFERENCE
OF CHEST.

an circumfer-
ce around fore-
id and occiput.

xirtion of tall
in each 100,000] j

Nativity.

No. of
men.

ll

Jjj

- ss-g

b

a> '2. a

»2 g

S a

ill

31$!* si

fa

New England . . .

152,370

67.&S4

139.39

36.71

34.11 1 22.02

995

N. Y., N. J., Penn. .
Ohio, Indiana . .

273,02.;: 67.529; 140.83
220,796)68169 145.37

3,. 06
37.53

34.38
34.95

22.10
22.11

237
486

Mich., Mo., Illinois

71,193 67.822 141.78 37.29

3404

22.19

4<>r>

Seaboard Slave States

I4o/jy

36.64

34.2-3

21.93

1600

Kentucky, Tenn.
Free States westftf Miss. R.

50,334 68.605 149.85
3,811 67.419

37.83
37.53

35.30
34.84

22.32
21.97

848
184

British Maritime Provinces

6,320 j 67.510, 143.50

3 .13

3481

22.13

327

31 698' R~ n*"' 1^.1 ^

3 14

34 35 i 92 11

177

England

80,"37

66.741; 137.61

3 .91

34.30 22'. 16

103

Scotland

7 313

R7 Or.8 157 8.=i

3 57

34 69

22 23

178

83*128 fifi-ft&l! laft'lH

3 54

35 27

84.

89021

66 660 140 37

3 20

34 74 i 99 09

106

Scandinavia

6,782

67.337j 148.14

39.39

35.37

22.37

221

1 Slave States, not including Kentucky and Tennessee.

all who know the two States will doubtless agree with
the assertion that the Kentucky people are physically
the more vigorous of the two.1 It should also be 110-

1 Tennessee has been so unfortunate as to receive a large amount of
blood derived from the settlements made in the seventeenth century
on the waters of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds. These people were
imported from various parts of Europe by a land company. A por-
tion of the population was excellent, but the mass of it was by far the
worst of any brought to America under English auspices.

From these settlements has come the greater part of the "sand
hillers," "crackers," "dirt eaters," "red necks," and other oppro-
briously named varieties of poor whites in the South. Kentucky has
been so fortunate as to escape any large share of this population.
Still, any one, whose eye is trained to recognize this streak of blood,
can occasionally identify families derived from it, especially along
the southern border of the State. The western march of this unhappy
mongrel people passed south of Kentucky. They may be traced
across the country from the Carolina coast to Central Arkansas and
Southern Missouri.

374 KENTUCKY.

ticed that the Confederacy received the youth and
strength from the richest part of the Kentucky soil.
The so-called Blue Grass soil sent the greater part of its
men of the richer families into the Confederate army,
while the Union troops, though from all parts of the
State, came in greatest abundance from those who dwelt
on thinner soils, where the people were of a less ex-
uberant type of body. It is most likely that the aver-
ages given in the tables would have been distinctly
greater if they had included the thirty or forty thousand
men who went into the rebel army. Even without
these corrections the form of the men, as determined by
the measurement of fifty thousand troops, is surprising.
Their average height is nearly an inch greater than that
of the New England troops, they exceed them equally
in girth of chest, and the circumference of head is also
very much larger. In size they come up to the level
of the picked regiments of the northern armies of Eu-
rope. Yet these results are obtained from what was a
levy en masse, for such in effect is a call to arms that
takes more than one in ten of the total population.

Although of fighting ancestry, this people had not
been generally inured to war for more than a genera-
tion. They proved, however, to be excellent material
for the varied work of soldiers. Of the hundred and
thirty thousand or more Kentucky men who bore arms
during the Civil War a very good report can be given.
Both as infantry and cavalry they did exceedingly effec-
tive service in both armies. The Kentucky troops in
the Confederate army being fewer in number, and from
the richer and more educated part of the State, were as
a whole a finer body of men than the Federal troops
from the Commonwealth. The rebel exiles were ,the

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 375

first running from the press, and naturally had the pe-
culiar quality of their vintage more clearly marked than
the later product. We find in this remarkable body
of men a great capacity at once for dash and for en-
durance. The force under Morgan, which owed its pe-
culiar excellence more to the quality of the men and
subordinate commanders than to the distinguished leader,
developed a new feature in the art of war; vigilance,
daring, fertility of resource, a race-horse power of hurl-
ing all the husbanded force of body and mind into a
period of ceaseless activity, were necessary for these
wonderful raids. It is commonly supposed that the
French are the masters of light cavalry operations, but
all the history of its famous cavalry does not afford such
a record as may be found in one of Morgan's many
raids.1 The reader, unless perchance his experience aid
him, will not be able to imagine the native force and
endurance that is required for such work. To break
through the lines of the enemy, to live for weeks in an
atmosphere of battle, fighting and destroying by day
and marching by night, makes a life that only men of
very tough fibre can endure. If we desire evidence that
the men of Kentucky were of good condition, we can
perhaps find the best proof of it in the history of the
light cavalry brigades that they furnished to the Con-
federate army.

The history of the Federal brigades of mounted
troops makes almost as good a showing for these quali-
ties. They lacked subordinate officers of Morgan's type.

i The reader will find himself repaid by a reading of the excellent
History of Morgan's Cavalry, by General Basil W. Duke, a soldier
not second to his chief in ability, and to whom a large part of the
efficiency of that command was due.

376 KENTUCKY.

There were many excellent men among her officers,
but no one brigade had such lieutenants as Basil Duke,
Hines, Howard Smith, Grigsby, and a host of other ex-
traordinary men that led his forces.1 A curious feature
in the history of Morgan's command was that it was
officered and controlled almost entirely by persons of no
military education, — Grigsby, who came into it late in
the service, being the only West Pointer in the force.
The nearly uniform failure of civilian commanders in
the larger operations of the war is in striking contrast
with the admirable success of untrained men in this pe-
culiar field of action.

The success of the Kentucky troops in the infantry
service was as marked as that of the mounted arm. Of
their soldierly quality and endurance a part of the his-
tory of the First Kentucky Confederate Brigade, given
in outline in the foot-note, must serve as a sample.2

1 That these men who made Morgan's brigade so able were not mere
madcap soldiers is proven by the subsequent history of those who
survived their perilous and weary service. Basil Duke is now a dis-
tinguished lawyer; Hines, the chief justice of Kentucky; Howard
Smith was long the auditor of Kentucky, and is now its railway
commissioner; Grigsby, now dead, worn out by his wounds, was a
prominent legislator and a most valuable citizen; a host of other
names could be added to these.

2 The following statement concerning the history of this brigade
during the campaign of 1864 was given me by my friend, General
Fayette Hewett, now auditor of the Commonwealth, who was adjutant
of the command : —

"On the 7th of May, 1864, the Kentucky Brigade marched out of
Dalton, 1,140 strong. The hospital reports show that, up to Septem-
ber 1, 1,860 wounds were taken by the command. This includes the
killed; but man}' were struck several times in one engagement, in
which case the wounds were counted as one. In two battles over
fifty-one per cent, of all engaged were killed or wrounded. During
the whole campaign there were not more than ten desertions. The
campaign ended with 240 men able to do duty; less than fifty were
without wounds."

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERN)fp:NT. 377

It will be seen from this record, that in the "long
fighting retreat of Johnston's army this command did
a work unparalleled in the history of retreats in the
face of continued defeat. In one hundred days this
little war-worn band, all that was left from the wreck
of a score of battles, numbering at the outset of the
retreat only 1,140 men, took 1,860 mortal or serious
wounds ; in two actions they lost over fifty per cent, of
all engaged, and at the end, with but two hundred and
forty fit for duty, there were but ten men who could be
reckoned as deserters. The reader should remember
that this campaign came at a time when the hope of
the Confederate armies was well-nigh gone, and that
they were fighting amid despair. The custom in the
Federal army of making composite brigades, each con-
taining regiments from several States, makes it impos-
sible to cite any instances of endurance among these
troops that can be compared with that of the First
Confederate Kentucky Brigade. Still, the history of
individual regiments will show that practically the same
qualities belonged in many of the commands. It could
be made clear, if space allowed the showing, that the
best fighting material came from the richest and most
elevated population of the Commonwealth, — those dis-
tricts where education was the most general, and where
the commands contained a large proportion of men who,
by family and training, were the most natural leaders of
action.

The destruction of life that took place during the
war is not easily traceable. The returns of the adju-
tant-general show only the deaths reported to him.
They do not include the loss from death or wounds, the
hundreds of small fights between the Home Guards

378 KENTUCKY.

and other irregular troops, and the raiding parties of the
enemy. It is likely that the deaths by wounds in the
two Kentucky armies amounted to at least ten thou-
sand, and, as in all modern warfare, the loss on the bat-
tle-field was small compared with that which came from
disease. This loss by disease was particularly heavy in
the Kentucky troops, for the reason that the medical
inspection of the troops was very slight ; a vast number
of boys and old men were taken into service, and among
these the death rate is always large. In the cemetery
at Andersonville alone there are the bodies of four hun-
dred and ninety - two Federal soldiers from Kentucky
regiments, not counting those who enlisted in the regi-
ments of other States. It is probable that in the two
armies the State lost not less than twenty thousand by
unreported disease ; to these must be added a vast army
of men who, though living, stood beside their graves,
shorn of their limbs, afflicted with internal disease bred
by camp and march, or prematurely aged by the swift
expenditure of force that such war demands. We will
not be amiss in estimating that one half the manhood
of the generation that had its centre of life in the sixth
decade of this century was swept away or rendered un-
serviceable to the Commonwealth by the events of the
war. A large part of the loss of life took place in small
engagements that have no place in our histories. From
a manuscript summary of the history of the war, from
the pen of my friend Captain L. R. Hawthorne, it ap-
pears that there were one hundred and thirty-eight com-
bats within the borders of the State.

The loss of property was proportionately as great as
the loss of life. In 1862, despite the inflation of the
currency, the auditor's report showed a falling ofj: of

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 379

over fifty million dollars, a large part of the total value
at the preceding census. In 1865 the whole valuation
of the slave property, which, in 1860, was estimated
at over a hundred million dollars, had entirely disap-
peared. The other elements of wealth, though measured
in a currency that was inflated to the amount of fifty
per cent., had greatly diminished. Although the war as
carried on in Kentucky had been on the whole a sin-
gularly decent struggle, the actual destruction of prop-
erty was very large. Nearly all the live stock was swept
away. A considerable part of the houses had been
burned ; cattle and other stock had disappeared without
compensation ; fences were gone, and the forest, quick
to recover its grasp on the rich soil, had changed vast
districts of fertile fields into thickets that had to be re-
won to the plough. Nor did the vast expenditure of
money that took place in the rear of the Federal army
prove of much advantage to Kentucky. At the time
when the farmers might have profited by high prices,
the able-bodied men were in the armies, and the greater
part of their fields were tilled, only for scanty bread, by
the hands of women, children, and the aged men. Al-
though Kentucky suffered less than her rebellious sisters
of the South, the shock to the Commonwealth arising
from the conjoined loss of life and property defies ex-
pression in words, nor do the ordinary accidents of so-
ciety supply any analogy. When a city is burned its
men remain ; a commercial crisis destroys neither the
men nor the productive power of a State ; a pestilence
leaves the real property untouched ; but the destruction
of a long continued civil war is a thing hy itself com-
bining all the evils which an ordinary society can suffer,
and adds to those a new element of ruin in the over-
throw of the precious trust in civil government.

380 KENTUCKY.

There was a pause of exhaustion after this time of
trial that lasted for years, but it was not deep or long
compared with the periods of inaction that in other
countries have followed destructive civil wars. Still,
when the reader asks why Kentucky and the other
Southern States have remained so relatively inactive
for the twenty years that have elapsed since the sur-
render of the Confederate armies, he may find his an-
swer in the physical trials, the destruction of life, en-
ergy, and property, that the catastrophe of the Civil
War brought upon the States that bore the real burden
of the disaster ; not the burden of taxation and of death
alone, but added to these all the burdens of actual war.

The political history of Kentucky, which has been
treated in connection with the history of the Civil War,
is evidently the most curious chapter. The other really
Southern States, with the exception of Missouri, show
in their speedy secession the influence of the mob spirit
which at once separates a community from the tradi-
tions of order upon which the development of a society
depends. The most important point in the history of
Kentucky is the fact that she alone escaped the con-
tagion of excitement that swept her sister States into a
hasty rebellion. The reasons for this happy deliverance
are, as we have found, hard to describe. They may,
however, be summed up in the following propositions.

First, the Kentucky population had been brought
into a spirit of conservatism by their unhappy expe-
rience with the results of rash political action. The
episode of the old and new courts, and the financial dif-
ficulties out of which that trouble grew, was a very val-
uable education of the public mind. It was the good
fortune of Kentucky to be led out of this wilderness of

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 381

evil politics by men of strong conservative instincts,
who had the power of imparting their motives to a very
sympathetic people ; chief among these conservators was
Henry Clay.

The influence of this interesting man in national poli-
tics has turned out to be smaller than it seemed at the
time of his death to be, but his generous, though com-
promising, spirit had a singularly wholesome effect
upon a people overmuch inclined to rash political ac-
tion. If we could accurately determine the origin of
the singular deliberativeness that marked the Ken-
tucky people during the Civil War, we should doubtless
find that Clay's influence was of great moment in the
determination of their attitude.

Next we should note the fact that Kentucky at this
time was singularly rich in men of decided political
capacity, and of fair training, if not in the science, at
least in the art, of politics. The curious independence
of the early stations and settlements led to the develop-
ment of the political habit in many hundreds of fami-
lies. While in the more Southern States the tendency
of the life was to give the leadership into the hands
of a few dominant families, in Kentucky the influences
combined widely to diffuse the qualities of leadership.
When many of the most distinguished families in Ken-
tucky pronounced for secession, there still remained an
ample supply of natural leaders to take charge of the
resistance to that project which actuated the masses of
the people.

In this problem of 1860, as in all other forms of polit-
ical action, there was the utmost diversity of opinion.
It is hardly too much to say that each thinking man
was in his thoughts a party by himself, and only in his

382 KENTUCKY.

actions a member of one of the two great political divis-
ions that mark American politics.

This singular diversity of judgment was of much
profit in the great trial, for it served to make a stam-
pede into secession impossible. The secession party
beat itself to pieces against this mass of diversified opin-
ion ; its small, but singularly compact and able force,
that in other States drove the passive body of the peo-
ple before it, made no real impression on the critical
and contentious army of independent minded men who
could neither be frightened into obedience, nor excited
to premature violence. The first Confederate assault
upon the State constitution was fairly broken by the
steadfast disputation that it encountered. Against that
babel of tongues its vigorous onset went to pieces.

The project of neutrality also grew out of this ex-
ceeding diversity of opinion. It is likely that when
neutrality was determined on not more than one tenth
of the white people could have been classed as seces-
sionists, probably not more than that number as unqual-
ified Union men, — that is, men who were willing to
take the ground the Union men occupied after the eman-
cipation proclamation. By far the larger part of the
population were of a mind to do their duty by the Union
as long as the constitution was respected. There was
ever a strong love of the Federal government, but it
was not the blind devotion of the followers of the Stu-
arts for their king, but a sober affection for the magnifi-
cent ideal of the American Union. The strongest sense
of instinctive loyalty which existed in this eminently
practical people was given to the State, where it histor-
ically and naturally belonged.

The intensity of the loyalty to the State differs ve^ry

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 383

much in the various American Commonwealths. In
some of these communities where there has been little
local history, the national idea is predominant. In
others, where the population is coherent and homoge-
neous, and circumstances have given a large sphere of
action to the State, the sense of devotion to the Common-
wealth is very strong. This was the case in Kentucky,
as is shown by the previous brief account. This State
had worked out its history in a singularly separate and
independent way. The fathers and grandfathers of the
generation that was active in 1860 had built the struct-
ure of the Commonwealth through great trials, and with
deeds of which their descendants were justly and hon-
orably proud. In the prospective wreck of the Federal
Union, which filled the people with the deepest regret,
their first and proper care was to save their own com-
munity from overwhelming calamity. Out of this feel-
ing came the neutrality project. It gave a period for
observation during the swiftly developing, but at first
obscure, motives of the more Southern States.

As soon as it became evident that there was cohe-
sion enough in the Northern States of the broken Union
to give a chance of holding the frame-work of the nation
together, so that its total wreck could be avoided, the
Kentucky people steadily inclined more and more away
from the cause of the Confederacy. The very unanimity
and want of deliberation of the action of the seceding
Southern States destroyed day by day the sympathy
born of the kinship of the people. When the provoca-
tion to resistance was given by Folk's action in seizing
Columbus and Zollicoffer's invasion, it was welcomed as
a reason for casting their lot with the Northern States.

As soon as this momentous step was taken, the people

384 KENTUCKY.

of Kentucky were as a whole as decided as they here-
tofore had been considerate. The speed with which they
filled their quota of troops, arid the rapidity with which
they provided money for the Federal needs, despite the
fact that their State was the seat of war and had sent
an army of over forty thousand men to the Confederacy,
is remarkable. No other State in the Union gave pro-
portionately so much or so freely to the contribution of
men and money to the cause of the Union. Besides
this inestimable contribution to the needs of the Union,
the State had at all times a local force that was pro-
vided for domestic needs. The total contribution of
Kentucky to the Federal army amounted to over eighty-
six thousand men, exclusive of eleven thousand negroes
enlisted into the United States army within the State.

The State Guard and Home Guard forces not counted
in this estimate amounted in the average to not less than
ten thousand men. Adding to it the men in the Con-
federate army, the whole contribution to the conflict
amounted to a levy en masse on the population, and
gives the State a just claim to having furnished to the
Civil War more men, in proportion to its population
and the duration of the struggle, than were ever fur-
nished by any Commonwealth in any modern war.

No sooner had the war fairly begun than the people
became aware that there were grave dangers menacing
their civil law from the rash and tyrannical conduct of
the military commanders of the Federal army. With-
out abating the energy of their efforts to second the
military work of the Federal government, they, with
equal determination and judgment, fought against this
evil. They made little evident headway in this battle,
— they were stemming an overwhelming flood of govern-

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 385

mental ills, — but they had the profit of their opposi-
tion in the conscientious and determined protest against
the iniquitous system that strove to govern them by
military juntas. They at least preserved their rever-
ence for the system of civil government, and when the
war ended they had the social order for which they
struggled essentially unimpaired by the nefarious acts
of those who should have been their friends.

The result of this strenuous though orderly struggle
with the excesses of the military spirit and the wild
legislation of the Republican Congress was to drive the
State into intense political antagonism to the party that
had the control of the government. This has unjustly
been assumed to prove the essential sympathy of the
Kentucky people with the Southern cause. No one who
is at all conversant with the inner history of Kentucky
can fail to see the error of this idea. The best sol-
diers of the Federal party, those who struck the hard-
est blows at the Confederacy, were the leaders in the
antagonism to the militarism that was forced upon them.
General Bramlette, one of the boldest and most effective
of the original Union men, was a radical Republican
in his humor when he came to the governorship, yet
we find him driven into the fiercest antagonism against
these methods. Colonels Jacob and Wolford, and a
host of other good soldiers, were ready to do battle with
one hand against the rebellion, and with the other to
combat for the life of the civil law. While the Re-
publican party in Congress was led by men who knew
nothing of war, and was mostly supported by those to
whom the war brought no immediate ills, this people,
with the battle about their firesides, had a double com-

KENTUCKY.

bat to wage. That they did not falter in either duty
is much to their credit.

When the war ended, the parties in Kentucky were
reorganized on new lines. The conduct of the Repub-
licans in regard to the civil rights of the State during
the active period of the struggle, the disgust arising
from the emancipation of the slaves without compensa-
tion to loyal owners, the acts of the Freedman's Bureau,
and other proceedings hostile to the governmental in-
tegrity of the State, arrayed an overwhelming majority
of the people on the Democratic, which was then the
Conservative, side.

Perhaps the most satisfactory feature in the close of
the Civil War was the really quick restoration of the
civil order in the State and the perfect reunion of the
divided people. The prompt and complete abrogation
of the severe penalties laid upon the Confederate sol-
diers and sympathizers greatly contributed to this speedy
return to the conditions of peace. In this course the
people of Kentucky set an excellent but unheeded ex-
ample to the Federal government. By this action they
avoided all risks of having a large part of their citizens
parted in spirit from the life and work of the Common-
wealth. This reconciliation was helped by the fact that
both Federals and Confederates had played a manly
part in the struggle. Not only had the soldiers in both
parties shown themselves to be brave and manly men in
the field, but the Kentucky troops on both sides had
done all in their power to make war decent and hon-
orable, and to lighten its burdens on non-combatants.
They could wear their laurels and live their lives to-
gether without shame.

What was left of the forty thousand who went awafy

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 387

into the Southern service came back to their place in the
State sadder and wiser men, yet the better citizens for
their dearly bought experience. We search in vain for
any evidence of hatred or even dislike among these men
who were so lately in arms against each other. In all
the walks of life, in the courts and iii the legislature,
as well as in the relations of kindred, we find these old
enemies going together to their work of repairing the
ruin that war had brought on the State. Fighting at
times their battles over again in good-natured talk, but
each dearer to the other for the fearful parting of the
war.

The historian will always admire this episode of rec-
onciliation. Something of it is now seen in the wiping
out of enmity that came to the whole country after the
deplorable reconstruction troubles of the South. In
Kentucky, however, it came at once ; there was no period
of doubt, no hesitation in the return of peace. The
spring of 1865 did not quicken the seed in the fields
more speedily than it did the affection of these once
parted children of Kentucky.

The financial management of the Commonwealth dur-
ing the war next demands consideration. We have
given this part of the history of Kentucky some atten-
tion up to the time of the outbreak of the rebellion.
We have seen that the conservative education of the
people had been in good part due to their early expe-
riences in matters of finance, and that this training had
led them to a singularly careful course in the matter of
financial legislation and State expenditure. At the out-
set of the war the State owed $4,729,234.03 ; of this
$1,381,832.03 was the "school bond," a debt only in
name. In 1884 the nominal debt is $1,879,110.19, of

388 KENTUCKY.

which $1,698,716.19 is the "school bond," or the sum
on which the State agrees to pay interest to the com-
mon schools.

At various times during the war the Commonwealth
was forced to borrow large sums of money to defray
the expenses of placing the Federal troops in the field
and maintaining her local forces ; in this work she ad-
vanced to the Federal government over three million
eight hundred thousand dollars. During and at the
close of the war, there was received from the sale of the
State's share in the assets of certain banks that closed
their business, a large sum of specie, which was promptly
sold at high prices and applied to the liquidation of her
debt. The Federal government slowly repaid the three
millions which had been advanced by Kentucky for war
purposes. Thus, though the debt increased rapidly dur-
ing the war, so carefully was it provided for by sinking
funds and a strict economy in public expenditures, that
in 1873 the State was in effect entirely out of debt.
The only qualifications of this statement are as follows :
The constitution provides that the State permanently
owes to the school fund a debt of about two million of
dollars in one bond. This was an ingenious way of
securing the receipt of a school revenue from any chance
of reckless legislation, and is not properly to be regarded
as a debt. Besides this the Commonwealth owed, arid
in part still owes, the sum of $331,000 for bonds not
due or payable. In order to have the sense of freedom
from debt dear to the bucolic mind of Kentucky, a de-
posit of $350,000 in United States bonds was made in
the New York bank where the State bonds were paya-
ble, This extraordinary precaution to clear away even
the shadow of obligation to creditors is a singular prqof

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 389

of the financial conscience of this people, as well as of
their rather original methods in finance.

At no time during the Civil War, nor at any other
time, have the bonds of Kentucky been defaulted in in-
terest or in principal. At no time during the war was
the State sorely pressed for money; the State banks and
the citizens, principally the former, readily took the loans
which were issued by the Commonwealth at their face
value, trusting for their repayment to the sagacity and
honesty with which her State treasury had always been
managed, and apparently with no fear that the State
itself would be imperiled by the struggle. Even when
the government of the State was driven from the capital
the people never for a moment lost their confidence in
its promises to pay. This absolute trust of the people
in their Commonwealth, even in the midst of war, is by
no means the least important feature in the history of
the time. It is in striking contrast with the lack of
confidence in the ultimate Federal success, shown by the
people of this country in their unwillingness to take
the United States loans except at an extreme deprecia-
tion of their face value.

It may be remarked that this low price of the United
States bonds is a clear evidence of the general doubt in
the eventual result of the war ; it shows that the judg-
ment that the Union had gone to pieces, which was the
basis of the Kentucky effort for neutrality, was the
opinion of the business world, that best of all judges
in such matters, as well as of the Union men of this
country.

The business condition of Kentucky during the Civil
War was better than it would have been if the State
had been the seat of large manufacturing industries.

390 KENTUCKY.

No country can withstand the shock of war so well as
those that rely mainly on the soil for their support. A
little tilling will give bread, and if left fallow the soil
often has a profit from it.

This was the strength of the whole South. The
negroes were generally indisposed to change their hab-
its of labor, and they, with the old men and women,
were sufficient to keep up the little tillage of the fertile
soil necessary for food supply. With an average of
fifty thousand men in the Federal service under pay,
there was enough money to replace deficiencies arising
from the neglect of the larger part of the fields. The
result was that all suffering from famine, all impairment
of the native strength of the people arising from de-
ficient food, were avoided.

Great as was the destruction of the material basis of
civilization, immeasurable as was the loss from the bat-
tle-fields and hospitals, the war left untouched the foun-
dations of the State, its vigor of blood and its fertility
of soil. It is doubtful if any Commonwealth ever es-
caped from such perils with so little in the way of vital,
irremediable injury.

This glance at the history of Kentucky during the
Civil War may lead us to a better understanding of the
strength that inheres in the American State, when it
has learned to live its individual life and to trust in its
native institutions. In a period of national disaster,
when the organization of the Federal government was
for a while shaken to pieces, this unit of that structure
holding firmly to its local government, even more firmly
for the sense that the higher state had fallen to pieces,
formed a bulwark to the cause of good government.

But for the sense of devotion to the State consti,tu-

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 891

tion and government that belonged in this people, the
pro-slavery excitement would doubtless have enabled
the secession element to sweep it into association with
the seceding section. Undoubtedly the sense of States
rights somewhat facilitated the action of the secession
party in the Southern Commonwealths, and made it
possible for them to be forced on the wave of the
slavery agitation out of their allegiance to the Union.
But its influence in this work has been exaggerated.
In that contest the real battle was between antago-
nistic civilizations. States rights was only the nominal
ground of the struggle, though to many it seemed the
real ground.

Kentucky was the only Southern State where the
principles of States rights found a due expression in
this political excitement. She alone resolved to debate
the question as a State, and to keep her action within
the limits of her constitutional provisions. It was this
sense of duty, by their own State laws, that gave time
for the deliberate thought that ended in keeping the
Commonwealth out of the rebellion. But for this sense
of duty of the people of Kentucky by their Common-
wealth, it seems pretty certain that the war would have
come upon the North with much more difficult condi-
tions, and the issue might have been very different from
its happy end. AVith the Confederate battle line on the
Ohio, and a hundred thousand more men behind it, who
can say that the North would have won ?

CHAPTER XXI.

THE NEW COMMONWEALTH.

WE have in the preceding chapters disposed of all
the trains of action that have worked out their prin-
cipal effects in Kentucky ; we must now pass from the
historical to the present life of the Commonwealth.
On this subject it will not be possible to say much
without going beyond the narrow limits of this sketch
of the State's history. But as the existing life is the
child of that which is historical, we must not leave it
untouched.

After the period of the Civil War there came a time
of stagnation which is hardly yet passed away. Thus
while the Northern States were moving forward on the
way of wealth, profiting by the expansion that the war
had given to their trade, while they were secured from
the material losses of actual war, this Commonwealth
has been relatively dormant, resting from the exhaus-
tion of the great struggle, separating itself from the
wreck of the olden time, and trying to find the clews to
the new life before it. It was to shake off the theories
of life proper to the seventeenth century and take on
the ideas of the nineteenth.

Despite this natural torpor, after four years of tre-
mendous struggle that used up the material and vital
resources of a generation, there has been a good share
of recuperative activity exhibited by the Commonwealth.

THE NEW COMMONWEALTH. 393

In 1873 the State set about the task of studying its re-
sources by reconstituting its geological survey. An in-
quiry into its mineral wealth was begun in 1854 and
continued until 1860, when the premonitions of war
caused the State to set about the most rigid economy,
and to discontinue all enterprises except those that had
reference to immediate needs. This new survey has
been maintained for twelve years at a very considerable
cost. In the same period no other State except Penn-
sylvania, which has many times the wealth of Ken-
tucky, has expended so much in this class of inquiries.
Not only has the work been directed to the economic
inquiries into the resources of the State, but the legis-
lature has willingly approved a large amount of purely
scientific work, which has no other end than the exten-
sion of those branches of learning which have an intel-
lectual profit alone. Since the war, over two hundred
thousand dollars has been spent in this important work
of studying the nature and resources of the Common-
wealth.

The question of immigration has received a very care-
ful consideration both from the people at large and
from their representatives. The quickest form of profit
attainable by a State is gained by the immigration of
well-trained and laborious people from other lands.
Each adult man is. on the average, worth to society
not less than three thousand dollars, and a part of his
value goes at once into the property of every land-
owner in the place where he settles.

For a generation this tide of foreign life, frightened
from those inviting fields by slavery, has drifted by the
northern border of Kentucky, going to the west and
north to fertilize and enrich the States of the North-

394 KENTUCKY.

west. Many Kentuckians have earnestly desired to
take the means of soliciting this immigration to the
Siate ; still, the majority has always been against any
effort in the way of direct persuasion to induce the set-
tlement of these people within the Commonwealth.
Within the last five years the legislature has instituted
a bureau of immigration, charged with the work of dis-
seminating intelligence concerning the resources of the
Commonwealth. It has refused to use a system of
agents to solicit the coming of immigrants, in the way
that a number of the newer States of the Northwest
have done ; some results are now coming from this ac-
tion. A good many colonies of English and German
and Swiss people have been founded in the State
within the last five years, and their uniform prosperity
has shown that the State affords very large opportuni-
ties for agricultural immigrants.

There is much to say for this qualified attitude of
Kentucky towards immigrants. There is something
undignified in the battle for the newly-landed immi-
grants at Castle Garden, and the solicitation of immi-
grants in Europe which is carried on by some of the
Northwestern States. There is much that is perilous
to a new American State in the accumulation of such
aliens within its bounds. Kentucky has had the good
fortune to inherit a nearly pure English blood. Aside
from the diminishing negro population, the blood of the
people is of a singularly unmixed origin. Her success
in meeting the strains of the Civil War could not have
been secured if its people had not had this singular
unity of race and the solidarity of motive that it brought
with it. While there are doubtless evils ihat come from
this predominance of English stock and the consequent

THE NEW COMMONWEALTH. 395

uniformity of the motive of the people, leading as it
does to a certain acceptance of existing conditions, there
are other dangers, and graver, which come from the
confusion of motives in the States that have a large
foreign population, that are much more menacing to
society.

While Kentucky is lagging behind in mere physical
growth as compared with the other States, there is a
rationality in the motive that leads to this slow going.
It may fairly be asked that the verdict as to the policy
of attracting immigrants by excessive inducements be
deferred until the results of the experiment have been
obtained, until the time conies for comparing the con-
ditions of such a Commonwealth with the mixed blood
of other States. Besides the want of immigration that
arises from the unwillingness to seek their contribution
of new blood by solicitation, there are other barriers
that have hindered the coming of immigrants into Ken-
tucky. The European immigrant is generally unwilling
to enter into competition with negro labor; although
Kentucky has but a small and diminishing proportion
of black people, although there are large parts of the
State entirely without negroes, the name of a slave
State clings like a cloud over her reputation, and leads
many people to go to other more distant and less fer-
tile lands for their homes. There is, moreover, a prac-
tical obstacle arising from the difficulty with the land
titles in Kentucky. The peculiarities of the patent sys-
tem have already been noted, and the fact set forth
that while this system was of great value to the State
in the process of its settlement, it left the land titles
of the less occupied districts in a very uncertain state.
In the most populous parts of the Commonwealth, time

396 KENTUCKY.

and the courts have settled the questions of boundaries
and ownerships; but in the eastern part, and generally
in the regions where the lands are low priced enough to
encourage immigration, there is often a cloud of doubt
over the laud titles that is vexatious to the stranger.

All these influences have acted to retard the accumu-
lation of population within the boundaries of the Com-
monwealth, and to leave its people to a greater extent
unmixed with new European blood than in any North-
ern State. These hindrances are rapidly disappearing.
The negroes are leaving the fields and gathering into
the towns. The process of litigation is rapidly making
an end of the difficulties concerning land titles, so that
in a very few years these obstacles will pass away.

The census statistics given in the Appendix will show
the fact that there was decided evidence of the recuper-
ation from the effects of the war at the time when the
census statistics of 1880 were gathered. In all the im-
portant arts there was a gain ; and we may accept it as
proven that all the material losses of the war had then
been more than made good. The greatest and most re-
grettable retardation in the advance of the State has
been in the system of education.

The public school system of Kentucky has never
been in a satisfactory condition compared with the
Northern communities, though, measured against the
other Southern States, the showing is very good. The
trouble has been that the scattered position of the pop-
ulation has made the gathering of the children for
school purposes a very difficult matter ; and next, that
the standard of education has been low, an evil that
Kentucky has shared along with the rest of the South-
ern States. New England started with a highly edfu-

THE NEW COMMONWEALTH. 397

cated clergy and bar, and their educated character has
been maintained with occasional exceptions ; the clergy
and bar of Kentucky have had little more than profes-
sional trainings ; they have done their special work
well, because of the native force and earnestness of
their minds, but they have not acted as supporters of
public education among the people, as the men of their
class have done in New England.

There has always been a good old Saxon sense of the
value of education. The earlier acts of the legislature
abound in efforts to found schools ; again and again, even
in times of grave difficulty, the State has made great
efforts to develop a good system of education. The
constitution now in force made a permanent provision,
in the form of a bond from the State, to pay a sum to
the schools, which in its time was the largest contribu-
tion made by any Southern or Western State. This
liberal help from the State, though meant for a benefac-
tion, has been on the whole a curse to the educational
system of the State ; it made it possible to maintain
some semblance of a school in every precinct of the
Commonwealth for a few months in the year without
any contribution from the local taxes. It taught the
people to look to the State, rather than to themselves,
for the maintenance of education. Here, more than
anywhere else, we see the vicious system of county
government by which the South is cursed, — an evil
that even as much as slavery has served to retard its
advancement in educational methods.

As is well known the important unit of government
in all these States is the county, always a large area,
averaging several hundred square miles in surface. All
the political life centres about the county seat of this

398 KENTUCKY.

county. Usually in Kentucky this " court house," as
it is called, is on the average a dozen miles away from
the home of the citizen ; except he be a political leader
or a man of the law, he only visits the county seat at
long intervals and for matters of a large political na-
ture. He votes at his precinct, generally at the school-
house in his school-district ; but this school-district is
practically an administrative district with reference to
the school alone. Its concerns are absolutely sepa-
rated from the other affairs of the Commonwealth. All
the political activity gathers about the county court
house, where school affairs have no place in the discus-
sions ; all the matters that concern the schools are at-
tended to by a small board of elected trustees.

In this system of county government there are no
assemblies in which the people meet to discuss the af-
fairs that most concern their life. The precious seed of
the Folkmote, which was preserved in New England in
the town system, never existed in the Virginia system
of government. The political life is limited to the hear-
ing of stump speeches, very interesting and profitable
debates on the questions of large politics, but little help-
ful in such humdrum matters as schools, roads, and
bridges. The result is that the life of the people went
out to questions about the Resolutions of '98, the Mis-
souri Compromise, and other national matters, and there
has been little care for the equally precious local life.
The result is that there have always been thousands of
men in Kentucky hardly able to read or write who
could enlighten a Yankee farmer on questions of na-
tional politics, but who had never given a thought to
the district school. This absence of a good system of
local government is the most serious difficulty in all l,he

THE NEW COMMONWEALTH. 899

States of the American Union outside of New Eng-
land.1

While the elementary schools of the State have re-
mained little cared for save by the State gift, which is
barely enough to keep them alive, there have been nu-
merous efforts to develop a higher education. Very early
in the history of the State provision was made for the
foundation of certain academies. In the beginning of
the century the impulse towards higher education led to
the establishment at Lexington of an excellent school
called Transylvania University. This college had a
short but brilliant career. In its time it had some very
scholarly men among its teachers, and it trained a gen-
eration of fair students. It perished, however, under
the malign influence of sectarian education. Each re-
ligious sect strove to keep those born into its fold from
the risk of contamination by its brother Christians.
Schools for Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians
sprang up over the State, each with the name of col-
lege, but with generally little more than the system or
resources of good high schools. It is the same dreary
history which we read in the other parts of the Mis-
sissippi Valley ; divide and be conquered by poverty
seem to have been the issue of all the efforts for a
higher education in that region. — •

One of these schools, that of the Presbyterians at
Danville, though always poor in all but the spirit of
scholarship, has done on the whole excellent work.

1 It is an interesting fact that the New England States are the only
Commonwealths that have secured that principle of local government
which is the soul of the " State rights " doctrine. This has been given
them by their system of division into towns. Despite their longing
for a local system of control, the Southern State.s have missed the true
wav to it.

400 KENTUCKY.

For more than fifty years Centre College has shown
by its many well-trained graduates how well this peo-
ple could profit by an extended higher education. If
the efforts to create a university in Kentucky had led
to the enriching of this excellent school, the State
might now have an institution of higher learning wor-
thy of its people.

It was not until the last year of the Civil War that
any effort was made to create a school of high grade
deserving the name of a university. In 1864, Colonel
J. B. Bowman, a public spirited citizen, began an effort
to bring together the nucleus of a true university. The
newly given Agricultural College fund, arising from the
grant of government lands, the remnants of the dead
Transylvania University, and various other fragments,
were skillfully patched together into a school of much
promise. No sooner was it well started than in 1875
a fierce religious war broke out within its walls. At
the end of five years this most promising effort to create
a university came to an end, leaving the State without
a single institution strong enough to carry the burden
of the higher modern education. The State Agricul-
tural and Mechanical School and the old Centre Col-
lege are the only institutions that have more than the
semblance of life and growth.

The educational problem is by far the most serious
of all the difficulties before this State. The neglect of
education has gone so far that it jeopardizes the future
influence of the people in the affairs of the nation.
Hitherto the natural talents of the people, given them
by the admirable accidents of selection that secured to
the Commonwealth the most vigorous blood of America,
have served them well, have enabled them to keep, a

THE NEW COMMONWEALTH. 401

permanent place in all the arts of war or peace. As
long as the native strength of this people, unhelped by
training, was matched against equally untrained people
from the other Western States, there was no State in
the Mississippi Valley that had anything like the power
of giving able men for all needs that was manifested
in Kentucky. This is seen in the history of legisla-
tion, trade, and war in the decades of this century down
to the end of the rebellion. In the war Kentucky pro-
duced more good soldiers than any other equal popu-
lation of the West, and at the present moment she has
a large number of her sons in important public posi-
tions ; but these men, with rare exception, have owed
their promotion to the gifts of nature, unhelped by
education. The time when men could win without the
aid of training is rapidly passing away. It can hardly
be hoped that the native talent of this people will ena-
ble them much longer to keep the lead in the race for
dominance. In another generation they will certainly
be left behind by their less well endowed but more
aptly trained competitors, unless they meet the needs
of education with the same courage and self-sacrifice
with which they have faced the other dangers and diffi-
culties of their development.

We may accept the fact that it will not be possible
to create an adequate machinery like the New England
town system, which can take charge of the schools and
support them from local contributions. Even the ad-
venturous Jefferson, who well knew and much admired
the advantages of this New England system, never ven-
tured to plan the introduction of this system of town
government in the South. Nothing is so difficult as to
alter the methods of. local government of a country.

402 KENTUCKY.

There is hardly a case in history where these govern-
mental units of the State, once firmly placed, have been
much changed by enactments. Inasmuch as there is no
hope of developing good schools by local support, it will
be necessary to maintain the public schools by the di-
rect action of the State. To do this well will require
at least the doubling of the revenue available for sup-
porting the State school system in its primary grades.

The condition of the civil law in Kentucky at the
present time demands especial consideration, for the rea-
son that there is a large amount of misconception con-
cerning the matter. It is commonly supposed that this
is a region where crimes meet with lax punishment and
where people are much given to uncontrolled violence.

It is not to be denied that there is a good deal of
ordinary homicide in Kentucky. This is not a new
feature in the life of the State, or of the race to which
its people belong ; it dates as far back as the time of
settlement. Men of the type of people who made the
State in the olden day were not as a rule gentle nat-
ured ; they had a full share of that brutal English stuff
in them which has given their kindred the control of
the world. This homicidal humor was no invention of
Kentucky ; it was in the fierce blood of their ancestors.
The first generation of Kentuckians grew amid a war
with savages, a war that knew no refinements, when
prisoners were rarely taken, and when the enemy's
wounded were killed or left to die uncared for. All
personal quarrels were settled by fighting, — sometimes
by a rough and tumble contest, or, in more serious cases,
with a duel. Until within a few years it was common
at the election places on the polling days for any one
to declare himself the " best man on the ground," with

THE NEW COMMONWEALTH. 403

the offer to " lick " any one who denied it. Some one
was pretty sure to take up the challenge ; then the an-
tagonists would have a fight as unlimited in its condi-
tions as that between two dogs. Among the better
classes the contests were always with the form of the
duel. So extensive was this practice that it became a
very serious evil. As early as 1814 all judicial officers
and attorneys at law were required to take an oath that
they had not had anything to do with a duel since a cer-
tain date, and that they would not engage in any during
their term of office.1

At other and later times various acts prescriptive of
this method of settling disputes were passed with very
severe penalties attached. Gradually the practice of
dueling was pretty thoroughly broken up, but in its
place came the greater evil of " shooting at sight.'*
Men who had a serious dispute would send each other
word that when they met they would have it out with
their pistols or their knives. Although homicide of
this nature was murder in the eye of the law, the jury
that tried the murderer were always inclined to regard
the offense as palliated by the " notice," so no one was
severely punished for the crime. The laws against duel-
ing were much in advance of the public sentiment of
the people, which has always held to the opinion that
certain personal wrongs were to be avenged with the
life of the enemy. So in place of the regulated murder
of the duel this legislation gave the public the much
more savage and demoralizing street fight.

This evil is only to be explained by the relative low
value that this people have hitherto set upon life. In
all primitive civilizations life is little valued. It is only
i Collins, i. p. 27.

404 KENTUCKY.

in communities where the enforcement of the law has
gone on uniformly for a long time that men learn to
give life a supreme place among the goods of the world.
The combatant habit of old times has been kept in ex-
istence in Kentucky, while all the other circumstances
of civilization have grown as they have done in the rest
of the world. There are many signs that this disgrace-
ful survival of an ancient bloodthirstiness is diminish-
ing, and is soon to pass away. It is the last remnant
of the " Elizabethan spirit " in the South.

In considering the question of homicide in Kentucky,
it should be remembered that, although the personal
combats are frequent, other forms of outrage against
the person are of very rare occurrence. Murder for
money is almost unknown, and is swiftly and sternly
punished. The ugly category of violent crimes against
women, so common in more cultivated communities,
has scarcely a place in its history, and such outbreaks
of degraded passion arouse to perfect fury this commu-
nity, which has not yet been brought to consider a com-
bat to the death between men as out of the order of
nature.

For many years there was no small trouble arising
from the disposition to replace the regular working of
the law by the spasmodic justice of Judge Lynch's
courts. This evil has been in good part overcome.
Ever since the closing of the war the State authorities
have shown a commendable anxiety to put down all
such outrages. Whenever there has seemed a risk of
lynching, troops have been furnished to guard the pris-
oners. Only a year ago a battalion of State troops,
guarding a wretched murderer, were compelled to fire
on a mob at Ashland, Kentucky. In resisting thefee

THE NEW COMMONWEALTH. 405

lynchers, who were endeavoring to board a steamer in
which the culprit was being taken to a place of safety,
a dozen lives, partly those of innocent spectators, were
lost. Such terrible lessons will soon make an end of
this class of misdemeanors, which are as much con-
demned by the serious people as they are in any other
society.

The disturbances of this description have mainly been
limited to the easternmost part of the State; certain
counties in Eastern Kentucky, noticeably the county of
Breathitt, have been the seat of the principal mob out-
rages. In this region there are certain blood feuds, the
heritage of the Civil War; in these feuds the decent
citizens have been settling accounts with members of
guerrilla bands who committed outrages in the Civil
War. On the one side are arrayed those who fought
in the two armies and their descendants ; on the other,
a clan of outlawish folk who belonged to neither side.
This isolated region has been more or less engaged in
the settlement of these old disputes ever since the close
of the Civil War. The district has suffered much loss
of life in this chronic struggle ; it seems at length to be
over; the dangerous element has been "eliminated"
by the use of the rifle, or has taken itself away to other
lands. The small remainder of the folk who hold the
ground celebrated last year the return of peace by
building a large school-house at the county seat. Even
in the worst days of this " Breathitt War," when the
courts, if held at all, were under a heavy military guard,
the county was safe to peaceable citizens and to trav-
elers of all degree, except those who could be suspected
of being on the lookout for illicit distillers. Yet the
people in this district are, in the main, a manly, frank-

406 KENTUCKY.

natured folk, and were always ready to interrupt their
occupations to entertain the wayfarer who demanded
their hospitality.

These fierce, bloodthirsty qualities will speedily dis-
appear before the softening process of civilization ; all
experience shows us that an appetite for open combat,
blood feuds, and other savageries of this sort, often co-
exist with admirable qualities of head and heart. In
this people they certainly are associated with generous
natures, and a singular freedom from the lower vices
that are found among many less unruly peoples. The
condition of these ahill people" has much to remind
us of the Scotch Highlanders a century ago ; in a gen-
eration that folk passed from a rather lawless people
to quiet citizens. As soon as roads are made into their
wilderness, so that they can make money, avarice, that
master passion of the race, will subdue this archaic vice
of violence.

The civil law of Kentucky, in its application to prop-
erty, is in excellent condition ; justice is quickly and
cheaply rendered. The same sound commercial instinct
that led the people sooner than any other Western State
to a good system of banking, has served to keep them in
a good way in their property law. There is now an
intermediate court between the circuit and appellate
court, but this arrangement has only been voted on
trial for the term of four years. The next and final
step in litigation is to the appellate court ; the repu-
tation of this court, among jurists, is not what it was
in the days before the judges were elected by the peo-
ple ; it has, however, always been confidently looked
to for justice, even under circumstances of great polit-
ical excitement and wide-spread prejudice.

THE NEW COMMONWEALTH. 407

In its motives the Kentucky law still retains much
of the old British humor ; it is full of the traditions of
the country whence it came. It is interesting to note
that the last instance of a prisoner profiting by the
beneficium clericale, or benefit of clergy, occurred in a
Kentucky court. The case was as follows : a negro
was on trial for the crime of rape before Judge Richard
Btickner, in the Circuit Court of Glasgow, in Barren
County. As the offense was against a white woman,
the prisoner had to meet the bitter prejudice of the
jury. A verdict of guilty, which carried with it the death
penalty, was returned, though, in the opinion of the
judge, the man was clearly innocent of the crime. The
benefit of clergy was as yet unrepealed in Kentucky,
and in it the sagacious judge found a way of escape
from the task of sending to the gallows a man whom
he believed to be innocent. He directed the prisoner's
counsel to ask the benefit of clergy for his client. Then
he directed the clerk of the court to test the prisoner in
reading the Constitution of the United States ; he hav-
ing proven that he could read, the court ordered him
to be burned in the hand and discharged from custody.
In 1847 the legislature abolished the benefit of clergy.1

The moral condition of the State in regard to matters
of which the law takes imperfect cognizance is satis-
factory. The vices of gambling and drunkenness, once
grave evils, have very greatly diminished since the close
of the Civil War. The evil of intemperance in drink has
undergone a very singular diminution within ten years.
There is probably no State in the Union where the

i Colonel John Mason Brown, of Louisville, informs me that he has
examined into the record of this incident, and that the facts are as
given above.

408 KENTUCKY.

recent betterment in this respect has been greater. It
is interesting to note that this improvement has been in-
digenous, and that it has not been accomplished through
any process of law ; there is a statute that permits the
local divisions, called precincts, to prohibit the sale of
spirits, if they elect so to do. This method of suppres-
sion is here and there in use, but it has not been gen-
erally adopted. The cessation of intemperance is a spon-
taneous and apparently permanent reaction against the
excesses of early days ; coming swiftly and silently, it
constitutes one of the most interesting changes of the
social practice that has ever taken place in any Amer-
ican community.

Lastly, we may note the fact that the State has as
yet escaped the degradation of the marriage relation,
arising from the extreme increase of divorce that is so
rapidly becoming a menacing evil in other States. Ex-
cept among the negroes the family relations seem to be
in a very satisfactory condition.

As a whole the social order of this Commonwealth,
considering the fierce impulses derived from its early
life, is in an eminently satisfactory condition. The his-
tory of the Commonwealth gives us one of the most
encouraging chapters in the history of our English race ;
it shows us that its blood, entirely separated for two
centuries from its parent influences, can carry on its
development on the American soil, undiminished in
vigor, and true to its original motives.

APPENDIX A.

THE RESOLUTIONS OF 1798.

THE Resolutions of 1798, as is well known, were intended
as a protest against the unconstitutional action of the Fed-
eral Congress in enacting the alien and sedition laws. In
this protest the States of Virginia and Kentucky intended
not only to manifest their deep displeasure on account of
the passage of these acts, but to give publicity to the inter-
pretation which they put upon the Federal Compact. On this
account these resolutions have a great political importance.

The original record of the Kentucky Resolutions was lost
by fire, and for many years it has been believed by the stu-
dents of the history of that Commonwealth that no attested
copy of the original was in existence.

Knowing that a copy of the document had been sent to
the Governor of Massachusetts, it seemed to me worth while
to search for it in the archives of the secretary's office of
that Commonwealth. The search was kindly undertaken by
the present secretary, Henry B. Pierce Esq., and fortunately
resulted in the discovery of the copy given below.

The document is neatly printed, and in a perfect state of
preservation. It may therefore fairly be taken as an exact
copy of the original.

KENTUCKY LEGISLATURE.

In the House of Representatives, November 10, 1798.

The House, according to the standing order of the day,
resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the state

410 APPENDIX.

of the Commonwealth, Mr. Caldwell in the chair. And after
some time spent therein the Speaker resumed the chair, and
Mr. Caldwell reported that the Committee had, according
to order, had under consideration the Governor's Address, and
had come to the following Resolutions thereupon, which he
delivered in at the clerk's table, where they were twice read
and agreed to by the House.

I. Resolved, that the several States composing the United
States of America, are not united on the principle of unlim-
ited submission to their general government ; but that by
compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the
United States and of amendments thereto, they constituted a
general government for special purposes, delegated to that
government certain definite powers, reserving each State to
itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-govern-
ment ; and that whensoever the general government assumes
undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of
no force: That to this compact each State acceded as a
State, and is an integral party, its co- Stales forming, as to
itself, the other party : That the government created by this
compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the ex-
tent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have
made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of
its powers ; but that as in all other cases of compact among
parties having no common Judge, each party has an equal
right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode
and measure of redress.

*II. Resolved, that the Constitution of the United States
having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason,
counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United
States, piracies and felonies committed on the high seas,
and offenses against the laws of nations, and no other crimes
whatever, and it being true as a general principle, and one of
the amendments to the Constitution having also declared
" that the powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved
to the States respectively, or to the people," therefore also
the same act of Congress passed on the lith day of July,
1798, and entitled " An act in addition to the act entitled an
act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United
States ; " as also the act passed by them on the 27th day of
June, 1798, entitled " An act to punish frauds committed on
the Bank of the United States " (and all other their actp

APPENDIX.

which assume to create, define, or punish crimes other than
those enumerated m the Constitution), are altogether void
and of no force, and that the power to create, define, and
punish such other crimes is reserved, and of riht appertains

P

within

III. Resolved , that it is true as a general principle, and is
also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the
Constitution that "the powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States
are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people ; "
and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom
of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right
remain, and were reserved to the States, or to the people :
lhat thus was manifested their determination to retain to
themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of
speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening
their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot
be separated from their use should be tolerated rather than
the use be destroyed ; and thus also they guarded against all
abridgment by the United States of the freedom of relig-
ious opinions and exercises, and retained to themselves the
right of protecting the same, as this State, by a law passed
on the general demand of its citizens, had already pro-
tected them from all human restraint or interference : And
that in addition to this general principle and express dec-
laration, another and more special provision has been made
by one of the amendments to the Constitution which expressly
declares, that " Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,"
thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same
words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press,
insomuch, that whatever violates either, throws down the
sanctuary which covers the others, and that libels, false-
hoods, defamation equally with heresy and false religion, are
withheld from the cognizance of Federal tribunals. That
therefore the act of the Congress of the United States passed
on the 14th day of July, 1798, entitled " An act in addition
to the act for the punishment of certain crimes against the
United States," which does abridge the freedom of the press,
is not law, but is altogether void and of no effect.

412 APPENDIX.

IV. Resolved, that alien friends are under the jurisdiction
and protection of the laws of the State wherein they are ;
that no power over them has been delegated to the United
States, nor prohibited to the individual States distinct from
their power over citizens ; and it being true as a general
principle, and one of tlie amendments to the Constitution
having also declared that " the powers not delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the peo-
ple," the act of the Congress of the United States passed on
the 22d day of June, 1798, entitled " An act concerning
aliens," which assumes power over alien friends not dele-
gated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void
and of no force.

V. Resolved, that in addition to the general principle as
well as the express declaration, that powers not delegated
are reserved, another and more special provision inserted in
the Constitution from abundant caution has declared, " that
the migration or importation of such persons as any of the
States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be
prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808." That
this Commonwealth does admit the migration of alien friends
described as the subject of the said act concerning aliens ;
that a provision against prohibiting their migration is a pro-
vision against all acts equivalent thereto, or it would be nu-
gatory ; that to remove them when migrated is equivalent to
a prohibition of their migration, and is therefore contrary to
the said provision of the Constitution, and void.

VI. Resolved, that the imprisonment of a parson under
the protection of the laws of this Commonwealth on his fail-
ure to obey the simple order of the President to depart out
of the United States, as is undertaken by the said act enti-
tled " An act concerning aliens," is contrary to the Consti-
tution, one amendment to which has provided, that " no per-
son shall be deprived of liberty without due process of
law," and that another having provided " that in all criminal
prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a public
trial by an impartial jury, to be informed of the nature and
cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses
against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining wit-
nesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for
his defense," the same act undertaking to authorize the Pres-
ident to remove a person out of the United States who is
under the protection of the law, on his own suspicion, with.-

APPENDIX. 413

out accusation, without jury, without public trial, without
confrontation of the witnesses against him, without having
witnesses in his favor, without defense, without counsel, is
contrary to these provisions also of the Constitution, is there-
fore not law, but utterly void and of no force. That trans-
ferring the power of judging any person who is under the
protection of the laws, from the courts to the President of the
United States, as is undertaken by the same act concerning
aliens, is against the article of the Constitution which pro-
vides, that " the judicial power of the United States shall be
vested in courts, the judges of which shall hold their offices
during good behavior," and that the said act is void for that
reason also ; and it is further to be noted, that this transfer
of judiciary power is to that magistrate of the general gov-
ernment who already possesses all the executive, and a quali-
fied negative in all the legislative powers.

VII. Resolved, that the construction applied by the gen-
eral government (as is evinced by sundry of their proceed-
ings) to those parts of the Constitution of the United States
which delegate to Congress a power to lay and collect taxes,
duties, imposts, and excises ; to pay the debts, and provide
for the common defense, and general welfare of the United
States, and to make all laws which shall be necessary and
proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by the
Constitution in the government of the United States, or any
department thereof, goes to the destruction of all the limits
prescribed to their power by the Constitution : That words
meant by that instrument to be subsidiary only to the execu-
tion of the limited powers ought not to be so construed as
themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part so to be taken
as to destroy the whole residue of the instrument : That the
proceedings of the general government under color of these
articles will be a fit and necessary subject for revisal and
correction at a time of greater tranquillity, while those speci-
fied in the preceding resolutions call for immediate redress.

VIII. Resolved, that the preceding Resolutions be trans-
mitted to the Senators and Representatives in Congress from
this Commonwealth, who are hereby enjoined to present the
same to their respective Houses, and to use their best en-
deavors to procure, at the next session of Congress, a repeal
of the aforesaid unconstitutional and obnoxious acts.

IX. Resolved, lastly, that the Governor of this Common-
wealth be, and is hereby authorized and requested to com-
municate the preceding Resolutions to the Legislatures ot the

414 APPENDIX.

several States, to assure them that this Commonwealth con-
siders Union for specified National purposes, and particularly
for those specified in their late Federal Compact, to bo
friendly to ths peace, happhiass, and prosperity of all the
States : that faithful to that compact according to the plain
intent and meaning in which it was understood and acceded
to by the several parties, it is sincerely anxious for its preser-
vation : that it does also believe, that to take from the States
all the powers of self-governmsnt, and transfer them to a
general and consolidated government, without regard to the
special delegations and reservations solemnly agreed to in
that compact, is not for the peace, happiness, or prosperity
of these States : And that, therefore, this Commonwealth is
determined, as it doubts not its co-States are, tamely to sub-
mit to undelegated and consequently unlimited powers in no
man or body of men on earth : that if the acts before speci-
fied should stand, these conclusions would flow from thorn ;
that the general government may place any act they think
proper on the list of crimes and punish it themselves, whether
enumerated or not enumerated by the Constitution as cog-
nizable by them : that they may transfer its cognizance to
the President or any other person, who may himself be the
accuser, counsel, judge, and jury, whose suspicions may be
the evidence, his order the sentence, his officer the execu-
tioner, and his breast the sole record of tha transaction : that
a very numerous and valuable description of the inhabitants
of these States being by this precedent reduced as outlaws
to the absolute dominion of one man, and the barrier of the
Constitution thus swept away from us all, no rampart now
remains against the passions and the powers of a majority of
Congress, to protect from a like exportation or other more
grievous punishment the minority of the same body, the leg-
islature, judges, governors, and counselors of the States, nor
their other peaceable inhabitants who may venture to reclaim
the constitutional rights and liberties of the State and people,
or who for other causes, good or bad, may be obnoxious to
the views or marked by the suspicions of the President, or
be thought dangerous to his or their elections or other inter-
ests, public or personal : that the friendless alien has indeed
been selected as the safest subject of a first experiment, but
the citizen will soon follow, or rather has already followed :
for, already has a sedition act marked him as its prey : that
these and successive acts of the same character, unless ar-
rested on the threshold, may tend to drive these States int9

APPENDIX. 415

revolution and blood, and will furnish new calumnies against
Republican governments, and new pretexts for those wbo
wish it to be believed, that man cannot be governed but by a
rod of iron : that it would be a dangerous delusion were a
confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for
the safety of our rights : that confidence is everywhere the
parent of despotism : free government is founded in jealousy
and not in confidence ; it is jealousy and not confidence
which prescribes limited Constitutions to bind down those
whom we are obliged to trust with power : that our Consti-
tution has accordingly fixed the limits to which and no fur-
ther our confidence may go ; and let the honest advocate of
confidence read the alien and sedition acts, and say if the
Constitution has not been wise in fixing limits to the govern-
ment it created, and whether we should be wise in destroy-
ing those limits ; let him say what the government is if it
be not a tyranny, which the men of our choice have conferred
on the President, and the President of our choice has as-
sented to and accepted over the friendly strangers, to whom
the mild spirit of our country and its laws had pledged hos-
pitality and protection : that the men of our choice have
more respected the bare suspicions of the President than the
solid rights of innocence, the claims of justification, the sa-
cred force of truth, and the forms and substance of law and
justice. In questions of power then let no more be heard of
confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the
claims of the Constitution. That this Commonwealth does
therefore call 011 its co-States for an expression of their sen-
timents on the acts concerning aliens, and for the punish-
ment of certain crimes herein before specified, plainly declar-
ing whether these acts are or are not authorized by the
Federal Compact. And it doubts not that their sense will
be so announced as to prove their attachment unaltered to
limited government, whether general or particular, and that
the rights and liberties of their co-States will be exposed to
no dangers by remaining embarked on a common bottom
with their own : That they will concur with this Common-
wealth in considering the said acts as so palpably against the
Constitution as to amount to an undisguised declaration, that
the compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers of
the general government, but that it will proceed iu the exer-
cise over these States of all powers whatsoever : That they
will view this as seizing the rights of the States and consoli-
dating them in the hands of thj general government with a

416 APPENDIX.

power assumed to bind the States (not merely in cases made
Federal) but in all cases whatsoever, by laws made, not with
their consent, but by others against their consent : That this
would be to surrender the form of government we have
chosen, and to live under one deriving its powers from its
own will, and not from our authority ; and that the co-States,
recurring to their natural right in cases not made Federal,
will concur in declaring these acts void and of no force, and
will each unite with this Commonwealth in requesting their
repeal at the next session of Congress.

EDMUND BULLOCK, S. H. R.
JOHN CAMPBELL, S. S. P. T.
Passed the House of Representatives Nov. 10, 1798.

Attest: THOMAS TODD, C. H. R.
In Senate, Nov. 13, 1798, unanimously concurred in.

Attest : B. THRUSTON, Clk. Sen.
Approved Nov. 16, 1798.

JAMES GARRARD, G. K.
By the Governor.

HARRY TOULMIN,

Secretary of State.

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.
SECRETARY'S DEPARTMENT, Boston, October 20, 1884.
A true copy of the original, on file in this Department.
Witness the Seal of the Commonwealth.

HENRY B. PIERCE,
[L. S.] Secretary.

APPENDIX B.

THE following tables are taken from the statistics of the
tenth census of the United States. They are intended to
give the reader a basis on which to criticise some of the gen-
eral statements in the foregoing pages, and not as a statistical
account of the Commonwealth, a task that is beyond the pur-
pose of this very limited book.

The reader who desires to extend his knowledge of tflie

APPENDIX. 417

statistics of the State should consult the tables of the last
census. The following indications will aid him in an effort
to understand the movements of population to and from Ken-
tucky. In volume 1, p. 417, of the statistics of the tenth
census he will find a map showing the residence of the na-
tives of Kentucky in that as well as other States. This will
show how large has been the emigration from Kentucky to
the Northwestern States. The map on page 273 of the same
volume shows the relative amount of the foreign-born popula-
tion in Kentucky and the States bordering it on the north : —

TABLE I.

NATIVE WHITE POPULATION OF KENTUCKY DISTRIBUTED ACCORD-
ING TO STATE OR TERRITORY OF BIRTH.

PLACE OF BIRTH. NUMBER.

United States ............ 1,317,725

Kentucky .............. 1,149,994

Alabama .............. i.502

Arkansas .............. i.024

California ..............

Connecticut .............

Delaware ....... • ......

Florida ............... 68

Georgia ............... *>m

Illinois ............... 5>522

Iowa ...............

5

Louisiana ..............

Maine ...............

Maryland

Massachusetts '""

Michigan

Minnesota

Missouri

New Hampshire ...........

New Jersey .............

_. . . . o, < 10

New York .........

North Carolina ...........

Ohio .... ...........

27

418 APPENDIX.

Table I. continued.

Pennsylvania 5,952

South Carolina 1,211

Tennessee 46,828

Texas 624

Vermont 252

Virginia 30,193

West Virginia 1,677

Wisconsin 240

District of Columbia 187

TABLE II.

SHOWING NUMBER OF THOSE BORN IN KENTUCKY RESIDENT IN
OTHER STATES AND TERRITORIES.

Alabama 2,624

Arkansas 18,039

California 7,851

Colorado 3,786

Connecticut 155

Delaware 45

Florida 668

Georgia 1,136

Illinois 61,920

Indiana 73,928

Iowa 12,920

Kansas 32,978

Louisiana 6,564

Maine 42

Maryland 422

Massachusetts 502

Michigan 1,732

Minnesota 2,151

Mississippi 7,844

Missouri 102,799

Nebraska 4,034

Nevada 578

New Hampshire 47

New Jersev 483

New York* 1,720

North Carolina 365

Ohio . . 32,492 '

APPENDIX. 419

Table 11. continued.

Oregon 2,754

Pennsylvania 1,829

Rhode Island 76

South Carolina 194

Tennessee 24,868

Texas 34,121

Vermont 28

Virginia 2,087

West Virginia 4,361

Wisconsin 1,410

TABLE III.

SHOWING THE NATIVITIES or FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION IN
KENTUCKY.

Austria proper ..............

Belgium ............... 105

Canada ................ 1>010

Denmark ...............

Baden ................ 2,668

Bavaria ................ 3>3°2

Hamburg ...............

Hanover ................ >

He-en ................ M*

Nassau ................

Oldenburg

Wih-temberg . . .
Germany, not specified

... 18,256
Ireland .......... ' 9

Scotland ...............

Holland ............ .„„

Til ,.»••• t •'• WU

Ital5' ........ ... 124

Poland ......... gg

K»ssia ............. 95

23*?,' ...... !.."•• 1,130

Switzerland ........ 17

Total ... ....... ......

420 APPENDIX.

TABLE IV.

NATIVE COLORED POPULATION OF KENTUCKY ACCORDING TO
STATE OR TERRITORY OF BIRTH.

Kentucky 252,618

Alabama 352

Arkansas 112

Georgia 384

Illinois 152

Indiana . 341

Louisiana 282

Maryland 307

Mississippi 566

Missouri 530

. North Carolina 792

Ohio 346

Pennsylvania 80

South Carolina 319

Tennessee 7,558

Texas 117

Virginia 6,322

West Virginia 59

Wisconsin '. 78

Total American born 271,448

The foregoing tables show the origin and in a general way
the distribution of the Kentucky people. It should be no-
ticed that when in the census tables the number of immi-
grants from any other State, or the Kentuckians settling in
any other State, are less hi number than fifty they have no
place in the table, though counted in the totals.

The most important conclusion to be drawn from these
tables is that Kentucky has received a much less considerable
number of people from other countries than she has sent to
other States of this Union. In 1880 the total number of per-
sons born in Kentucky and then resident beyond the State
amounted to about 380,000, while those born in other States
of this Union and resident in Kentucky amounted to about
168,000. In other words, Kentucky has of late been sending
out more than twice the number of persons that she has re-

APPENDIX.

421

ceived from the other American States. In the early decades
of the century the proportion of these two movements was
even more diverse.

Next we note that the greater part of this immigration
into Kentucky has been from immediately adjacent States.
Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri, and Virginia have fur-
nished more than half the total number. On the other hand,
the emigrating Kentuckians have as a whole gone to more
remote States.

The relatively little emigration of the negroes is also
well shown by these tables. It will be seen that less than
twenty thousand of the blacks, or about one fourteenth of the
population, were born in other States.

TABLE V.
POPULATION OF KENTUCKY DURING THE LAST TEN DECADES.

1880.

1870.

1800.

1850.
982,405

1840.

1830.

1820.

1810.

1800.

1790.

1,648,690

1,321,C11

1,155,684

779,828

687,917

564,135

406,511

220,955

73,677

It will be seen from the foregoing table that the rate of
increase has been remarkably steady for the decades since
1810. The most noticeable difference being in 1830-40,
when the emigration to the Western States was very great.
The disturbances of the Civil War made but a slight inter-
ruption.

Table VI. shows that the negroes and whites in Kentucky
are almost equally fecund, the negroes having a slight but
unimportant superiority in the number of births in the thou-
sand; but among the negroes the proportion of male and
female children is almost exactly the same, or 208 to 207,
while among the whites the males exceed the females at
birth in the proportion of 126 to 122. This proportion is
approximately maintained through life.

Between ten and fifteen years of age an important change
is observed: the negro children of that age form less than

422

APPENDIX.

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APPENDIX.

423

one ninth of the total of that race, while the white children
of that age amount to over one eighth of the total population
of their blood. Between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-
nine the same feature is not discernible; the negroes then have
established themselves in their conditions, and afterwards
have a promise of longevity quite equal to the whites.

As far as statistics go the principal differences between
the races in Kentucky seem to be : that the negroes have
a larger proportion of female births, a larger infant mortal-
ity, and, after middle age, a greater expectation of life,
though the well-known fancy of old blacks for claiming a
greater age than they have attained doubtless vitiates this
part of the statistics.

TABLE VII.

TABLE SHOWING THE RELATIVE PRODUCTION AS COMPARED WITH
OTHER STATES, OF CERTAIN AGRICULTURAL STAPLES IN KEN-
TUCKY, IN SUCCESSIVE DECADES.

1840.

1850.

1860.

1870.

Wheat

First

Ninth

Ninth

Eighth

Maize ... . •

Second

First

Sixth

Ryp

Fourth

Fifth

Fifth

Tobacco .....
Flax ... . .

Second
Third

Second
First

Second
Third

First
Eighth

Hemp

First

First

First

Eleventh

Twelfth

Swine

Second

Second

Fourth

Fifth

Second

Second

Second

Third

Value of home (or house-
hold) manufactures .

Third

Second

Third

This table shows the degree to which the climate and soil
of Kentucky are adapted to a varied agriculture. It will be
observed that in each decade the Commonwealth is foremost
among the States of the American Union in the production
of some one or more staples, . .

LIST OF KENTUCKY HISTORIES AND BOOKS RE-
LATING TO THE SUBJECT, ALPHABETICALLY
ARRANGED.*

Allen, William B. A History of Kentucky. Louisville. 1872.

Arthur, T. S., and W. H. Carpenter. The History of Ken-
tucky. Philadelphia. 1852.

Atherton, William. Narrative of the Sufferings and Defeat
of the Northwest Army under General Winchester. Frankfort.
1842.

Bishop, Robert H. An Outline of the History of the Church
in Kentucky. Lexington. 1 824.

Bradford, John. Sketches of Kentucky in a Series of Articles
in the Kentucky Gazette. Lexington. 1826.

Breckinridge, W. C. P. Address delivered at the Centennial
Celebration of the Settlement of Breckinridge County. Frank-
fort. 1882.

Brown, John Mason. An Oration delivered on the Occasion of
the Centennial Anniversary of the Battle of the Blue Licks.
Frankfort. 1882.

Butler, Mann. A History of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Louisville. 1834.

Do. Second edition. Cincinnati. 1836.

Do. Sketch of Louisville in the Directory of 1832. Louis-
ville. 1832.

Casseday, Ben. The History of Louisville. Louisville. 1852.

Carpenter, T. The Trial of Colonel Aaron Burr. 3 vols.
Washington. 1807.

Clark, George Rogers. Sketch of his Campaign in Illinois.
Cincinnati. 1869.

Collins, Lewis. History of Kentucky. Covington. 1847.

i This list has been furnished by R. T. Durrett, Esq., of Louisville,
Kentucky.

LIST OF KENTUCKY HISTORIES. 425

Collins, Richard H. History of Kentucky. 2 vols. Coving-
ton. 1874.

Craik, Rev. James. Historical Sketches of Christ's Church.
Louisville. 1862.

Dana, E. Geographical Sketches of the Western Country.
Cincinnati. 1819.

Daveiss, Joseph Hamilton. View of the President's Conduct.
Frankfort. 1807.

Darnell, Elias. A Journal containing an Accurate and Inter-
esting Account of the Hardship, etc., of the Kentucky Volunteers.
Philadelphia. 1854.

Davidson, Robert. History of the Presbyterian Church in
Kentucky. New York. 1847.

Do. An Excursion to the Mammoth Cave. Lexington. 1840.

Deering, Richard. Louisville in 1859. Louisville. 1859.

Drake, Daniel. Pioneer Life in Kentucky, a Series of Remi-
niscential Letters. Cincinnati. 1870.

Duke, Basil W. History of Morgan's Cavalry. Cincinnati.
1867.

Durrett, Reuben T. The Life and Writings of John Filson,
the first Historian of Kentucky. Louisville and Cincinnati. 1884.

Filson, John. The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State
of Kentucke. Wilmington. 1784.

Do. Stockdale edition. London. 1793.

Do. Campbell edition. New York. 1793.

Fitzroy, Alexander. The Discovery, Purchase, and Settlement
of the Country of Kentucky. London. 1786.

Flint, Timothy. Indian Wars of the West. Cincinnati. 1833.

Hall, James. Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in the
West. 2 vols. Philadelphia. 1835.

Hutchins, Thomas. A Topographical Description of Virginia,
etc. London. 1778.

Imlay, Gilbert. A Topographical Description of the Western
Territory of North America. London. 1792.

Do. Second edition. London. 1793.

Do. Third edition. London. 1797.

Joblen, M., & Co. Louisville, Past and Present. Louisville.
1875

Johnston, Wm. Preston. The Life of General Albert Sidney
Johnston. New York. 1878.

426 LIST OF KENTUCKY HISTORIES.

Kentucky. The Biographical Encyclopaedia. Cincinnati.
1878.

Kentucky. Decisions of the Court of Appeals by Hughes,
Sneed, Hardin, Bibb, and A. K. Marshall.

Kentucky. Journal of House and Senate, first Session of the
Legislature, June, 1792. Lexington. 1792.

Kentucky. Report of Debates in Convention of 1849. Frank-
fort. 1849.

Kentucky. Resolutions of 1 798-99. Frankfort. 1798-99.

Littell, William. Political Transactions in and concerning
Kentucky. Frankfort. 1806.

Do. Laws of Kentucky. 5 vols. Frankfort. 1809-1819.

Lloyd, James T. Steamboat Directory and Disasters on the
Western Waters. Cincinnati. 1856.

Marshall, Humphrey. The History of Kentucky. Frankfort.
1812.

Do. Second edition. 2 vols. Frankfort. 1824.

McAfee, Robert. History of the Late War. Lexington. 1816.

McClung, John A. Sketches of Western Adventure. Mays-
ville. 1832.

Do. Dayton, O. 1854.

Do. Covington, Ky. 1872.

McDonald, John. Biographical Sketches of General Nathaniel
Massie, etc. Cincinnati. 1838.

McMurtrie, H. Sketches of Louisville and its Environs. Louis-
ville. 1819.

Metcalf, Samuel L. A Collection of Some of the most Inter-
esting Narratives. Lexington. 1821.

Morehead, James T. An Address in Commemoration of the
First Settlement of Kentucky. Frankfort. 1840.

Morris, Robert. The History of Freemasonry in Kentucky.
Louisville. 1859.

Parraud, M. Histoire de Kentucke. Traduit de Panglois de
M. John Filson. Paris. 1785.

Perrin, Wm. H. History of Fayette County, Ky. Chicago.
1882.

Do. History of Bourbon, Scott, Harrison, and Nicholas Coun-
ties, Ky. Chicago. 1882.

Pioneer Life in the West. Philadelphia. 1858.

Robertson, David. Reports of the Trials o! Colonel Aar?n
Burr. 2 vols. Philadelphia. 1808.

LIST OF KENTUCKY HISTORIES. 427

Rafinesque, C. S. Ancient History, or Annals of Kentucky.
Frankfort. 1824.

Ranck, George W. History of Lexington. Cincinnati. 1872.

Bedford, A. H. The History of Methodism in Kentucky. 3
vols. Nashville. 1868.

Do. Western Cavaliers. Nashville. 1876.

Robertson, George. Scrap Book of Law, Politics, Men, etc.
Lexington. 1855.

Smith, Colonel James. An Account of the Remarkable Oc-
currences in his Life. Lexington. 1799.

Do. A Treatise on Indian Wars. Paris. 1812.

Smith, M. A Complete History of the late American War.
Lexington. 1816.

Spalding, M. J. Sketches of the Life, Times, and Character of
the Right Reverend Benedict Joseph Flaget. Louisville. 1852.

Do. Sketches of the Early Catholic Missions of Kentucky.
Louisville. 1844.

Taylor, John. A History of the Baptist Churches. Frank-
fort. 1823.

Toulmin, Harry. A Description of Kentucky. London. 1792.

Voyage au Kantoukey et sur les Bords du Genesee. Paris.
1821.

Webb, Ben. J. The Centenary of Catholicity in Kentucky.
Louisville. 1884.

Wilkinson, James. Memoirs of my Own Times. 3 vols. Phil-
adelphia. 1816.

Williams, L. A., & Co- History of the Ohio Falls Cities. 2
vols. Cleveland. 1882.

Withers, Alexander S. Chronicles of Border Warfare. Clarks-
burg. 1831.

INDEX.

ABOLITION of slavery, 197-199.
Abolition, first political campaign for,

217. See, also, Anti-Slavery.
Adair, Governor, 179.
Adams, J. Q., speech of, on Kentucky,

Admission of Kentucky into Federal

Union, 167.

Alien and sedition acts, 140.
Alien and sedition, protest against,

143.
Alleghany Mountains, effects of, 14,

Allen, Colonel, 1GO.

Anderson, General R., 2G6.

Anderson, General R., proclamation
of, 266.

Anderson, Fort, attack on, 354.

Angostura (Buena Vista), battle of,
206.

Anti-slavery, first movements of par-
ty, 122, 148. See, also, Abolition.

Aristocracy, fear of, 127, 140.

Arms, purchase of, in 1861, 246.

Ashland, mob at, 404.

Augusta, battle of, 315.

BANK of Kentucky, 176.

Bank of Louisville, 188.

Bank of the Commonwealth, 177, 187.

Banking system, origin of, 149.

Banks hi 1818, 176.

Banks in 1857, 220.

Banks, charters annulled, 177.

Banks, plan of, 190.

Banks, value of, to State, 191.

Baptists, first, in Kentucky, 118.

Baptists' place in Kentucky history,

157.

Bardstown, fight at, 340.
Barlow, Captain, 354.
Barry, Colonel H. W., 351.
Barry, William T., 180.
Barter, system of, 173.
Beech Grove, Fort, 274.
Bell and Everett, 234.

Benefit of clergy, 407.

Benham, General, 206.

Benton, M. M., 347.

Blue Licks, battle of, 89.

Boiling, R. R., 234.

Boone, Camp, 258.

Boone, Daniel, explorer, 64.

Boone emigrates, 156.

Boone seeks help, 156.

Boonesborough, assaults on, 74, 78.

Boonesborough convention, 69.

Boonesborough laws, C9.

Boonesborough, plan of Fort, 75.

Boone's Station, 69.

Border State compromises, 241.

Bowman, J. B., 361.

Boyle, General, 322.

Boyle, Judge, 180.

Bradford, Colonel (Dr.) J. T., 315.

Bragg, General, enters Kentucky, 291-

Bragg at Perryville, 306.
Bramlette, Governor, 337, 345, 350.
Brandenburg, Morgan crosses Ohio

river, 341.

Breckinridge, John, 233, 234.
Breckinridge expelled from United

States Senate, 273.
Breckenridge, Dr. R. J., 351.
Breckinridge, William C. P., vi.
Browne, Colonel, vi., 351, 354, 407.
Browne, Daniel, 245.
Buckner, General, 247, 261.
Buell, General, at Shiloh, 284.
Buell, battle of Perryville, 306.
Buell enters Louisville, 301.
Buell, retreat of, 300.
Buell, retirement of, 317.
Buena Vista, battle of, 203.
Buffalo trails, 58.
Burbridge, General, 346, 351, 365.
Burial customs, 156.
Burr, Aaron, 150, 152.
Burt, Major, 340.
Butler, General, 110.
Butler, Mann, v.

430

INDEX.

CEMETERY, state, 213.

Cheatiiam, General, 307.

Chenault, Colonel, 340.

Cherokee Indians, 70.

Chickasaw Indians, 81.

Churchill, General, 292.

Cincinnati, siege of, 298.

Civil government, struggle for, 358.

Civil War, attitude in, 236.

Clarke, George Rogers, 79, 81.

Clarke, as French general, 128.

Clarke, Judge, decision of, 179.

Clay, candidate for President, 193.

Clay, defeat of, 194.

Clay, influence of, 18G, 381.

Clay, Cassius M., 217, 218.

CUy, Henry, defense of Burr, 153.

Clay, Colonel Henry, death of, '210.

Clay, Colonel Henry, Jr., 201.

Cleburne, General, 192.

Climate of Kentucky, 224.

Cobb, Howell, speech of, 249.

Collins, Lewis, iv.

Collins, R. H., iv. et passim.

Commercial advance, 226.

Commonwealth, problems of, 121.

Constitution, first, 121.

Constitution, important points, 122.

Constitution, first revision of, 145.

Constitution, second revision of, 213.

Constitution, difficulty of changing,

216.
Constitution, Federal, Thirteenth

Amendment, SCO.
Convention, for separation, 96.
Convention, general secession, 102.
Convention to form a Constitution,

107.

Coombs, Leslie, 234.
County system, 397.
Court party, intent of, 106.
Court, Supreme, power of, 123.
Courts of justice, early, 112.
Corydon, capture of, by Morgan, 341.
Crittenden, General, 307.
Crittenden, Senator, 238.
Cumberland Gap, 285.

DANVILLE, convention at, 102.

Danville political club, 113.

Davis, General J. C., 318.

Debt of Kentucky to Virginia, 1.

Debts, power to make limited, 215.

Democratic clubs, 126.

Democratic party, position of, in 1860,

232.
Depew, Charles, employed by Genet,

128.

Doeha, Governor, 180.
Divorce, 408.
Dixon, Archibald, 217.
Donelson, Fort, 277.

Draft for troops, failure of, 356.
Dueling, 403.
Duke. General, v.
Dunmore, Lord, 67.
Durrett, R. T., 426.
Duval, Allen, 347.

EAST INDIA COMPANY, effect of, on

Virginia, 4.

Elections, interference with, 334, 346.
Emancipation convention of 1850, 231.
Emancipation proclamation, 332.
Emigration from Kentucky, 155, 222.
Erie, Lake, battle of, 165.
Estell's Station, 82.
Evans, Lewis, map of Kentucky, 61.
Ewing, General, 350.
Explorations of Kentucky, 57.

FALLEN TIMBEBS, battle of, 130.
Falmouth, fight at, 317.
Fayette County, 81.
Fecundity of Kentucky people, 223.
Federal Congress, address to, 104.
Federal Congress, tax of, 174.
Federal Congress, troops, call for, 242.
Federal Congress, attitude towards

slavery, 331.
Filson, John, iv.
Financial management during civil

war, 387.

Fincastle County, Virginia, 79.
Finnell, Adjutant-General, 267, 268.
First Kentucky Confederate brigade,

Fitch', John, 174, 175.
Floyd, General, 278.
Forrest, General, 353.
Fortifications, previous methods, 75.
Frankfort, attack on, 303.
Franklin, abortive State of, 94.
Freedman's Bureau, 366.
French Revolution, 148.
Fry, General Speed, 351.

GAKEAED, 268.

Genet, Citizen, 127, 128.

Geological Survey, first, 228.

German settlers in Virginia, 11.

Gilbert, Colonel, 335.

Oilman, General, 339.

Girty, Simon, 83.

Gooding, General, 307.

Goodloe, W. C., vi.

Gould, B. A., 372.

Grant, General, at Paducah, 251.

Grant, General, at Donelson, 277.

Green, General, vi.

Greenup, Christopher, 114.

Guerrillas, 325.

HALDEMAN, W. K., 271.

INDEX.

431

Hanson, Colonel, 258.
Hardee, General, 304.
Harris, General, 306.
Harrison, Colonel, 258.
Harrison, General, 159, 192.
Harrod, James, 67.
Harrodsburg, 67.
Harrodsburg, assault on, 73.
Hawes, Governor (secession), 303.
Hawthorne, L. R., 378.
Henderson, Colonel, 69, 75.
Henderson & Co., 68.
Henry, Fort, loss of, 276.
Heth, General, 296, 297.
Hewitt, Fayette, vi.
Hicks, Colonel, 253.
Hines, Captain (Judge), 341.
Holder, Captain, 83.
Home Guards, 267.
. Houston, General Felix, 193.
Hull's surrender, 158.

ILLINOIS, expedition to, 79, 163.

Immigration, 81, 108.

Immigration, attitude of Kentucky to,

396

Independence, spirit of, 106.
Indians, humanity of, 109.
Indians, treaty with, 98.
Inglis, Mary, captivity, 61.
Innis, Henry, 104.

JACKSON, GENERAL ANDREW, 185.

Jackson, Gsneral James, 306.

Jay, John, 100.

Jefferson, Fort, 81.

Jefferson, Thomas, 81.

Johnson, G. W., 271.

Johnson, Joseph, 361.

Johnson, R. M., 193.

Johnston, General A. S., 108, 193, 261-

233, 283.
Johnston, Colonel J. Stoddard, 295,

320.
Johnston, "W. P., 261.

KENTUCKY ACADEMY, 139.

Kentucky, area of, 24.

Kentucky, agricultural products, 32.

See, also, Appendix.
Kentucky, absence of Federal aid in,

52.

Kentucky, buffalo in, 46.
Kentucky, behavior of troops, 163.
Kentucky coal-beds, 38.
Kentucky caverns, 42.
Kentucky, civil law in, 402.
Kentucky contingent in Mexican War,

201. '

Kentucky, conditions at settlement, 27.
Kentucky, dueling in, 403.
Kentucky earthquakes, 44.
28

Kentucky, elevation of, 24.
Kentucky, English race not enfeebled

in, 23.
Kentucky and Federal government,

131.

Kentucky, first Kentuckians, 45.
Kentucky, French explorations, 48.
Kentucky, geology of, 35.
Kentucky, health of people, 32.
Kentucky, Indians in, 45.
Kentucky, immigration to, 79.
Kentucky iron ores, 38.
Kentucky land system, 49.
Kentucky, loss of life in Civil War,

380.

Kentucky, mammoth, 41.
Kentucky, mountains of, 26.
Kentucky mound builders, 45.
Kentucky, peculiarities of origin, 22.
Kentucky petroleum, 39.
Kentucky, position of people in 1861,

253.

Kentucky, physical conditions, 24.
Kentucky prairie land, origin of, 29.
Kentucky, qualities of early people,

111.

Kentucky salt licks, 41.
Kentucky saltpetre, 43.
Kentucky, separation from Virginia,

104.

Kentucky, strategic position, 275.
Kentucky, sympathy with Texas, 200.
Kentucky County divided from Fin-
castle, 73.
Kentucky, Mammoth Cave, 42.

LEBANON captured by Morgan, 290,

340.

Legislature of 1861, 241, 247.
Legislature, Confederate, 251.
Legislature, conservative action of,

Legislature, intermittent session,

272.
Legislature repeals expatriation acts,

367

Legislature, resolutions of 1861, 242^
Legislature, session in Louisville, 322.
Lewis, Colonel, 160.
Lexington club, 128.
Lexington, business of, in 1817, 176.
Lincoln, President, 285, 358, 362.
Lincoln County, 81.
Literary fund, 178.
Little, William, v.
Lynching, 403.
Lytle, General, 306.

MAGOFFIN, Governor, 233, 264, 321.

Manufactures, early, 175.

432

INDEX.

Marshall, H., General, 201, 210, 248.

Marshall, H., Senator, 104, 122, v.

Maryland, 21.

Mrxcn County, 108.

Massachusetts, quarrel with, 185.

McC.rty, Clinton, 234.

McCock, General, 3C7.

McKee, Colonel, 201, 210.

Measurements of men, 373.

Mcips, Fcrt, 164.

Methodists, first, 118.

Mcthodkts. revival, 147.

Mexican War, 202.

Miami expedition, 91.

Michaux, F. A., 175.

Militrry law, evils of, 335.

Mills, Cclonel, 161.

Milk, Judge, 180.

Miscissippi, question of navigation, 99,

126.

Mitchell, General, 307.
Monetary crisis 1££7, 189.
Monetary crisis 1£57, 220.
Monetary system, 172.
Mcney, cut, 191.
Money for Civil War, 263.
Money, Spanish ,.173.
Mcnterey, battle of, 203.
Moore, Colonel O. H. , 340.
Morgan, General George W., 313.
Mcrprn, General John H., 210, 208,

282, 288, 289, 290, 326, 329, 338, S42,

343.

Morgan, Lieutenant Thomas, 341.
Mount Stirling, 338.

NEGRO testimony in the courts, 368.

Nelson, General, 248, 273, 291.

Neutrality in Civil War, 237, 249, 262,
381.

New Orleans, 167, 171.

Nicholas, Colonel George, 121.

North Carolina and State of Frank-
lin, 96.

OATHS, degradation of, 322.

Ohio, Indian fights in, 109.

Old and new court, controversy, 180.

Old and new court, final decision,

182.
Old and new court, effects of decision,

183.
" Old and New, "magazine articles in,

206.
Onslow, Judge, 180.

PACK saddle, use of, 58.
Parties, division according to soil, 232.
Patriot (journal), 181.
Payne, General E. A., 351.
Pegram, General, invades Kentucky,
339.

Perryville, battle of, 304.

Fierce, H. B., Aprerdix.

Pioneers, life of, 116, 117.

Point Pleasant, battle of, 67.

Political club, 113.

Political club, debates of, 114, 115.

Polk, General Leonidas, takes Co.

lumbus, 250.
Population in 1790, 108.
Population in 1810, 155.
Powell, Lazarus W., 217.
Power, Thomas, Sptnuh agent, 132.
Presbyterians , frst, in Kentucky, 118.
Proctor, General (British), 162.
Provost marEhrl, 321, 333, 348.
Public works, 189.

QUALITIES of early Kentuckians, 111.

RAISIN, battle of, ICO.
Reconciliation in 1«5, 361.
Relief and anti-relief parties, 179.
Relief party, removal of, in 1840, 190.
Religious condition of pioneers, 118.
Resolutions of 1798, 141, and Appen-
dix.
Resolutions of 1798, effort to repeal,

Revolutionary War, soldiers from, 2L
Richmond, battle of, 291.
Rctertscn, Judfe, 347.
Rctinson, Camp Dick, 248.
Robinscn, Governor, 321.
Reman Catholics, 118.
Roman Catholics, community in Nel-
son County, 119.
Rosecrans, General, 338.
Rowan, John, 180.

ST. ASAPHS, 67.

St. Clair's defeat, 110.

Salem, fight at, 341.

Sailing, J., 59.

Sanitary commission, 372.

Schoepff, General, 268.

School system, 396.

Scott, Colonel, 292.

Scott, General, 219.

Sebastian, Judge, 133, 154.

Secession resolutions of '98, 144.

Secession spirit of I1! 90 and 18C1, 107.

Secession, Wilkinson's scheme, 98.

Separation from Virginia, 93, 94.

Sevier, Governor, 96.

Shawanee Indians, 60.

Shelby, Governor, 124, 128.

Sheridan, General, 306.

Sherman, General W. T., 268.

Shiloh, battle. 283.

Shiloh, Kentucky loss, 285.

Slavery, abolition of, 197.

Slavery, conditions of, 196. »

INDEX.

433

Slavery, effects, 217, 224.

Slavery, increase of, 195.

Slavery (anti-), 122, 148.

Slaves, enlistment of, 339.

Slaves, inattention to value of, in 18G1,

254.

Smith, Captain James, 64.
Smith, General Kirby, 291, 313.
Southern rights party, 232.
Sovereignty convention, 240, 270.
Spain, treaty with, 132.
Spaniards, possessions of, 99.
Spanish intrigues, 132.
Speculation in 1830-1837, 188.
Speed, Thomas, 113.
State guard, 246, 257.
States rights convention, 313.
Steamboats, 174.
Stephenson, General, 313.
Stone River, battle, 338.

TAX, Federal, 194.

Taylor, General, 201, 203, 213.

Tecumseh, 164, 166.

Texas annexation, 200.

Texas, war of, 193.

Thames, battle of, 165.

Thomas, General, 274, 301.

Thompson, Christopher, 180.

Thompson, E. P., history by, 258.

Tilghman, General, 247, 277.

Tippecanoe, battle, 155.

Tirrill, General, 306.

Transylvania University, 283, 361, 400.

Troops, call for, 264.

Troops, organization of, 281.

Troops, joining Bragg, 324.

UNITED STATES BANK, 187.

VIRGINIA, awakening of, after 1790, 18.
Virginia, claim on northwestern

lands, 53.
Virginia compared with New England,

Virginia, character of settlers, 8.
Virginia, dissolution of first company,

Virginia, education, 16.
Virginia, effects of AUeghany Moun-
tains, 14.
Virginia, early explorations, 57.

28

Virginia, geographical condition, 9
Virginia, organization of society, 14
Virginia, pastors and religious spirit,

Virginia, planting of, 6.

Virginia, population compared with

Massachusetts, 11.
Virginia, reasons for desiring western

colonies, 55.
Virginia, separation of Kentucky

from, 93.

Virginia, sources of population, 11.
Virginia, willingness of, for partition,

WALKER, Rev. Thomas, explorer, 59.

Wallace, General, at Cincinnati, 299.

War of 1812, 158.

War, Mexican, 200.

War, Civil, beginning of, 231.

War, Civilj attitude in, 236.

Wayne, Fort, relief of, 159.

Wayne, General, victory of, 130.

Ways from Virginia to Kentucky, 68.

Webster, General, 306.

West, Edward, 174, 175.

Whigs, indecision on the slavery ques-
tion, 217.

Wild Cat Mountain, battle of, 268.

Wilder, General, battle of importance.
296.

Wilkinson, trading treaty, 101.

Wilkinson, General, forms secession
party, 98.

Wilkinson, General, first trial of, 137.

Wilkinson, General, second trial of.
139.

William and Mary College, 17.

Williams, John S., 201.

Williams, John S., at Cerro Gordo,
212.

Williams, John S., at Ivy Mountain,
269.

Winchester, General, 161.

Withers, Colonel, 258.

Women, imprisonment of. 348.

Wood, Colonel, explorer, 59.

Woolford, Colonel, 268, 339.

Wyandotte Indians, attack by, 82.

ZOLLICOFEE, General, 250, 262, 268,
274.

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PRESS NOTICES.

"VIRGINIA."

Mr. Cooke has made a fascinating volume — one which it will
be very difficult to surpass either in method or interest. . . . True
historic insight appears through all these pages, and an earnest
desire to do all parties and religions perfect justice. The story
of the settlement of Virginia is told in full. ... It is made as
interesting as a romance. — The Critic (New York).

No more acceptable writer could have been selected to tell the
story of Virginia's history. — Educational Journal of Virginia
(Richmond, Va.).

" OREGON."

The long and interesting story of the struggle of five nations
for the possession of Oregon is told in the graphic and reliable
narrative of William Barrows. ... A more fascinating record
has seldom been written. . . . Careful research and pictorial skill
of narrative commend this book of antecedent history to all in-
terested in the rapid march and wonderful development of our
American civilization upon the Pacific coast. — Springfield Rt-
•publican,

There is so much that is new and informing embodied in this
little volume that we commend it with enthusiasm. It is written
with great ability. — Magazine of American History (New York).

" MARYLAND."

With great care and labor he has sought out and studied origi-
nal documents. By the aid of these he is able to give his work a
value and interest that would have been impossible had he fol-
lowed slavishly the commonly accepted authorities on his subject.
His investigation in regard to toleration in Maryland is particu-
larly noticeable. — New York Evening Post.

A substantial contribution to the history of America. — Maga>
tine of American History.

" KENTUCKY."

Professor Shaler has made use of much valuable existing ma-
terial, and by a patient, discriminating, and judicious choice has
given us a complete and impartial record of the various stages

through which this State has passed from its first settlement to
the present time. No one will read this story of the building of
one of the great commonwealths of this Union without feelings of
deep interest, and that the author has done his work well and im-
partially will be the general verdict — Christian at Work (New
York).

A capital example of what a short State history should be. —
Hartford Courant.

"KANSAS."

In all respects one of the very best of the series. ... His work
exhibits diligent research, discrimination in the selection of ma-
terials, and skill in combining his chosen stuff into a narration
that has unity, and order, and lucidity. It is an excellent presen-
tation of the important aspects and vital principles of the Kansas
struggle. — Hartford Courant.

"MICHIGAN."

An ably written and charmingly interesting volume. . . . For
variety of incident, for transitions in experience, for importance
of events, and for brilliancy and ability in the service of the lead-
ing actors, the history of Michigan offers rare attractions ; and
the writer of it has brought to his task the most excellent gifts
and powers as a vigorous, impartial, and thoroughly accomplished
historian. — Christian Register (Boston).

"CALIFORNIA."

Mr. Royce has made an admirable study. He has established
his view and fortified his position with a wealth of illustration
from incident and reminiscence. The story is made altogether
entertaining. ... Of the country and its productions, of pioneer
life and character, of social and political questions, of business
and industrial enterprises, he has given us full and intelligent ac-
counts. — Boston Transcript.

It is the most truthful and graphic description that has been
written of this wonderful history which has from time to time
been written in scraps and sketches. — Chicago Inter-Ocean.

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO,, PUBLISHERS,
BOSTON AND NEW YORK.

American Statesmen.

A Series of Biographies of Men conspicuous in the.
Political History of the United States.

EDITED BY

JOHN T. MORSE, JR.

The object of this series is not merely to give a
number of unconnected narratives of men in Ameri-
can political life, but to produce books which shall,
when taken together, indicate the lines of political
thought and development in American history.

The volumes now ready are as follows. —

John Quincy Adams. By JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
Alexander Hamilton. By HENRY CABOT LODGE.
John C. Calhoun. By DR. H. VON HOLST.
Andrew Jackson. By PROF. W. G. SUMNER.
John Randolph. By HENRY ADAMS.
James Monroe. By PRES. DANIEL C. OILMAN.
Thomas Jefferson. By JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
Daniel Webster. By HENRY CABOT LODGE.
Albert Gallatin. By JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS.
James Madison. By SYDNEY HOWARD GAY.
John Adams. By JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
John Marshall. By A. B. MAGRUDER.
Samuel Adams. By JAMES K. HOSMER.
Thomas H. Benton. By THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
Henry Clay. By Hon. CARL SCHURZ, 2 vois.
Patrick Henry. By MOSES Coir TYLER.
Gouverneur Morris. By THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

IN PREPARATION.
George Washington. By HENRY CABOT LODGE.

2 VOls.

Martin Van Buren. By EDWARD M. SHEPARD.
Others to be announced hereafter. Each volume,
f6mo, gilt top, $1.25; half morocco, $2.50.

ESTIMATES OF THE PRESS.

"JOHN QUINCY ADAMS."

That Mr. Morse's conclusions will in the main be those of
posterity we have very little doubt, and he has set an admirable
example to his coadjutors in respect of interesting narrative,
just proportion, and judicial candor. — New York Evening
Post.

Mr. Morse has written closely, compactly, intelligently, fear-
lessly, honestly. — New York Times.

"ALEXANDER HAMILTON."

The biography of Mr. Lodge is calm and dignified through-
out. He has the virtue — rare indeed among biographers —
of impartiality. He has done his work with conscientious care,
and the biography of Hamilton is a book which cannot have
too many readers. It is more than a biography ; it is a study
in the science of government. — St. Paul Pioneer-Press.

"JOHN C. CALHOUN."

Nothing can exceed the skill with which the political career
of the great South Carolinian is portrayed in these pages. The
work is superior to any other number of the series thus far, and
we do not think it can be surpassed by any of those that are to
come. The whole discussion in relation to Calhoun's position
is eminently philosophical and just. — The Dial (Chicago).

"ANDREW JACKSON."

Prof. Sumner has, ... all in all, made the justest long esti-
mate of Jackson that has had itself put between the covers of a
book. — New York Times.

One of the most masterly monographs that we have ever had
the pleasure of reading. It is calm and clear. — Providence*

"JOHN RANDOLPH."

The book has been to me intensely interesting. ... It is
rich in new facts and side lights, and is worthy of its place m
the already brilliant series of monographs on American States-
men. — Prof. MOSES COIT TYLER.

Remarkably interesting. . . . The biography has all the ele-
ments of popularity, and cannot fail to be widely read. — Hart-
ford Courant.

"JAMES MONROE."

In clearness of style, and in all points of literary workman-
ship, from cover to cover, the volume is well-nigh perfect.
There is also a calmness of judgment, a correctness of taste,
and an absence of partisanship which are too frequently want-
ing in biographies, and especially in political biographies.—
American Literary Churchman (Baltimore).

The most readable of all the lives that have ever been written
of the great jurist. — San Francisco Bulletin.

"THOMAS JEFFERSON."

The book is exceedingly interesting and readable. The at-
tention of the reader is strongly seized at once, and he is carried
along in spite of himself, sometimes protesting, sometimes
doubting, yet unable to lay the book down. — Chicago Standard.

The requirements of political biography have rarely been
met so satisfactorily as in this memoir of Jefferson. — Boston
journal.

"DANIEL WEBSTER."

It will be read by students of history ; it will be invaluable as
a work of reference ; it will be an authority as regards matters
of fact and criticism ; it hits the key-note of Webster's durable
and ever-growing fame ; it is adequate, calm, impartial j it is ad-
mirable. — Philadelphia Press.

The task has been achieved ably, admirably, and faithfully.—
Boston Transcript.

"ALBERT GALLATIN."

It is one of the most carefully prepared of these very valu,
able volumes, . . . abounding in information not so readily ac-
cessible as is that pertaining to men more often treated by the
biographer. . . . The whole work covers a ground which the
political student cannot afford to neglect. — Boston Correspon
dent Hartford Courant.

Frank, simple, and straightforward. — New York Tribune*

"JAMES MADISON."

The execution of the work deserves the highest praise. It is
very readable, in a bright and vigorous style, and is marked by
unity and consecutiveness of plan. — The Nation (New York).

An able book. ... Mr. Gay writes with an eye single to truth,
— 7 he Critic (New Yotk).

"JOHN ADAMS."

A good piece of literary work. ... It covers the ground
thoroughly, and gives just the sort of simple and succinct ac-
count that is wanted. — Evening Post (New York).

A model of condensation and selection, as well as of graphic
portraiture and clear and interesting historical narrative.—
Christian Intelligencer (New York).

"JOHN MARSHALL."

Well done, with simplicity, clearness, precision, and judg-
ment, and in a spirit of moderation and equity. A valuable ad-
dition to the series. — New York Tribune.

"SAMUEL ADAMS."

Thoroughly appreciative and sympathetic, yet fair and criti-
cal. ... This biography is a piece of good work — a clear and
simple presentation of a noble man and pure patriot; it is
written in a spirit of candor and humanity. — Worcester Spy.

A brilliant and enthusiastic book, which it will do every
American much good to read. — The Beacon ( Boston).

*% For sale by all booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on re~
ceipt of price by the Publishers,

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY,
BOSTON AND NEW YORK.

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