14

Civil War, Part Two

Union War of Pacification

When Kentucky neutrality ended, Lincoln's military commanders struggled to keep the people loyal to the Union. Lincoln chose commanders carefully, using the number one criterion that the man be a Kentucky native in order to win the contest for the people. In this regard, his first selection was outstanding—Major Robert Anderson was the Union's first military hero, the man at the top of the news, “the Hero of Fort Sumter.” He was from near Louisville; his father was a Revolutionary War officer, and his career had a remarkable parallel to that of Albert Sidney Johnston. They were at West Point together for three years, Anderson graduating in 1825 and Johnston in 1826. Both served in the Black Hawk War and the Mexican War, and, when the Civil War began, both were on duty in the U.S. Army, having made it a career. Anderson was five feet, nine inches tall and had the look of a determined military officer, with a firm chin, prominent, well-formed nose, and dark eyes that gleamed with self-confidence and determination.¹

Anderson had achieved what seemed like a miracle at Fort Sumter by turning a defeat and surrender into a victory. It was a rare event, indeed, in military history. The crisis lasted for several months, and Northerners admired Anderson for refusing to surrender. When the Confederate attack came, he and his men fought back for forty hours, and he surrendered with honor. It was a double victory for Lincoln in that he had maneuvered the enemy into firing the first shot and starting the war and that Anderson's calm management of the crisis inspired what historian Charles P. Roland called “a tidal wave of patriotic wrath and determination to avenge the act and punish its perpetrators” that enabled Lincoln to call for seventy-five thousand troops the next day.²

Lincoln was confident that Anderson had the national reputation, patriotism, valor, and integrity that would inspire Kentuckians to remain in the Union. He promoted him to brigadier general and in May 1861 appointed him to command the Department of Kentucky and to open his headquarters in Cincinnati to recruit volunteers. The appointment went over well in Kentucky; he was respected by the public and admired by Kentucky Unionists. The General Assembly gave him command of state volunteers and honored him with a ceremonial sword with the engraved tribute that it was from the citizens of his native state in honor of a “gallant soldier and true patriot.” He had the steadiness and common sense required, and there was only one warning—he was fifty-five years old and had lost his health at Fort Sumter. The New York Herald reported that his health was delicate and that he suffered severely from a persistent cough.³

Anderson's headquarters was located in Cincinnati out of respect for Kentucky neutrality, and it remained there until September 7, 1861, when neutrality was ending. Locating Anderson in Cincinnati had the appearance of honoring neutrality, but, on the other hand, Lincoln approved recruiting, arming, and training Union soldiers inside Kentucky. Anderson appointed navy lieutenant William Nelson, born in Maysville, to recruit four regiments and establish Camp Dick Robinson in Garrard County. When Governor Beriah Magoffin learned about this violation of neutrality, he requested Lincoln to close Camp Dick Robinson, but Lincoln replied that he believed that most Kentucky Unionists approved of the camp. After neutrality ended, one of the themes of Confederate proclamations was that Lincoln had betrayed Kentucky.⁴

Every informed person knew that the end of neutrality was a matter of time, and in August 1861 Anderson sensed that the crisis was near. Still in delicate health, he went to Washington to ask that several younger generals be assigned to help him. Lincoln set up a meeting in Willard's Hotel and invited a group of congressmen from Kentucky and Tennessee, and Anderson invited General William T. Sherman. After some discussion, it was agreed that Anderson could take Sherman and George H. Thomas, both friends of his from their time serving together at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, in the 1840s. Sherman was forty-one years old, and Thomas, from Virginia, was forty-five; the two had been classmates at West Point. Sherman realized that Anderson had him in mind for second in command and stipulated that he would accept only if Lincoln promised that he would not be placed in charge. This did not seem to be a problem since Lincoln wanted the commander to be a native Kentuckian and Sherman was from Ohio, but, in making this demand, Sherman revealed that at this point in his career he lacked the self-confidence required to take over in case something happened to Anderson. Thomas was assigned to take command at Camp Dick Robinson, relieving Nelson for recruiting in the area of his native Maysville.⁵

Anderson's timing was almost perfect; he returned from Washington, and, when he arrived at his Cincinnati headquarters, rumors were flying that at any moment the Confederate army would march from Tennessee into Kentucky. On September 2, Indiana governor Oliver P. Morton wired the War Department that Kentuckians were ready to rebel: “The blow may be struck at any moment, and the southern border is lined with Tennessee troops, ready to march.” Anderson sent Sherman to Indianapolis, Springfield, Illinois, and St. Louis to request reinforcements, and, after Confederate and Union troops moved into western Kentucky, Anderson moved to Louisville on September 6 and transferred his headquarters there the next day. On September 15, Sherman was in St. Louis when Anderson wired him to rush to Louisville immediately because neutrality was ending and he needed help managing the crisis.⁶

“On the day I reached Louisville the excitement ran high,” Sherman recalled. Simon B. Buckner had succeeded in using fear as a force multiplier, rumors circulated that a large Confederate army of between ten and thirty thousand was advancing on Louisville, and the Louisville Journal reported that Buckner had “sworn to destroy our city utterly.” Rumor said that Buckner's Confederates were gathering on Muldraugh Hill, the lengthy ridge five miles north of Elizabethtown and about forty miles south of Louisville. Muldraugh Hill was a natural defensive position, and the people of Louisville imagined Buckner's army camping there and preparing to advance on Louisville. These rumors seemed confirmed when the telegraph went silent, the train was late, and news came that the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N) bridge on Rolling Fork, thirty-five miles south of the city, had been burned. Anderson welcomed the opportunity for action. “I hope that the Kentuckians will rally now rapidly and in strength,” he announced. He called out the Home Guard in Louisville, brought troops from Indiana, and sent Sherman with twenty-five hundred men to Muldraugh Hill to drive away the invaders. Sherman arrived on September 17, and that night he led the first detachment south on an L&N train, arriving at 9:00 A.M. the morning of September 18 at Rolling Fork. He reported that there were no Confederates north of Elizabethtown and camped on Muldraugh Hill to guard against the expected invasion.⁷

Sherman's report did not dispel the fear in Louisville, and tension remained very high for two weeks. Anderson and his officers were convinced that the city was about to be attacked by a large Confederate army. In the middle of the night of September 18-19, Union authorities arrested former governor Charles S. Morehead for speaking against the Lincoln administration. He was taken from his bed, shackled, and conducted through the streets to a boat that transported him into Indiana for his journey to the most secure prison in the North, Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, where he remained for about four months. On the morning of September 19, U.S. marshal Alexander H. Sneed confiscated the presses of the Louisville Courier, closing it for publishing articles critical of the U.S. government. The same day, Thursday, September 19, the Louisville Journal warned that Louisville confronted “war instant and unrelenting” and that the only safe and honorable response was to prepare. “Kentuckians, To arms!” the paper declared. The rebels planned to burn every home, and it was time for the sons of Kentucky to do their duty. “Kentuckians, we repeat, to arms!” The alarm began on Tuesday, and on Friday, September 20, the Journal concluded that Kentuckians must rise for the Union “or go down forever.”⁸

General Anderson published a proclamation to the people of Kentucky announcing: “The enemies of the country have dared to invade our soil. Kentucky is in danger…. No true son of Kentucky can longer hesitate as to do his duty to his State and country. The invaders must and, God willing, will be expelled.” He stated that it was a matter of self-defense and “protection of all that is dear to freemen.” The Louisville Democrat called General Buckner “Benedict Arnold Number Two,” and the Louisville Journal designated him “the Benedict Arnold of the day,” comparing him to Attilla the Hun and Catiline the traitor in ancient Rome. Prentice condemned Buckner for behaving like a dictator and highway robber in seizing the L&N and declared his letter to L&N president Guthrie “the cream of impudence,” equaled only by his proclamation challenging Kentuckians to join the Confederacy and fight fellow Kentuckians. “Isn't that enough to make the devil laugh?” he asked. Anderson issued a proclamation warning people to stay home and give no aid to the Confederates in order to avoid being arrested.⁹

Indiana governor Morton called out the Home Guard in the counties near Louisville and sent four regiments into Kentucky. Night and day, troops poured into Louisville from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and Anderson set up camps along the L&N tracks south of town and in several other locations until the city took on the air of a large army post. When the Twenty-fourth Illinois Infantry Regiment arrived and marched to the train station on Monday, September 23, a large crowd of men and women gathered on the housetops, in windows, and on sidewalks and, when they passed, yelled, “Huzzah! Huzzah!” Anderson addressed the Illinois men at the station, and, when he swore in a Home Guard company from Oldham County, the crowd demanded a speech. “Boys, you are going to fight for your country,” he said. “Honor yourselves by heroic deeds in her behalf.” Women cooked and served homemade food and coffee, and, since no army general hospitals had been organized in the city, Anderson arranged to hospitalize sick and wounded soldiers in the U.S. Marine Hospital. The loyal women of Louisville volunteered to prepare bandages and other hospital supplies.¹⁰

The city council closed business at four o'clock for drill; Anderson organized a Home Guard rally, and the city observed an official day of prayer on September 26. A New York Times article on the crisis had the headline “Kentucky among the Breakers,” and the Louisville Journal published a map of “The Seat of War in Kentucky” on the area from Louisville south to Elizabethtown. This map, along with the accompanying article, implied that Sherman was about to fight one of the great battles of the war on Muldraugh Hill. The map was published on the twelfth day of the alert, and on the thirteenth day, September 28, Anderson wired General Ormsby M. Mitchel in Cincinnati pleading for all the men he could spare: “Forward the regiments, as rapidly as you can get them ready, to this point. Here is where the most urgent call is for additional force, and the sooner here the better.”¹¹

Anderson took comfort in the fact that he had Sherman at Muldraugh Hill and Thomas at Camp Dick Robinson. Thomas would go on in the war to achieve a great reputation for leading men in some of the hardest fighting in the war and earn the sobriquet “Rock of Chickamauga.” In about four months in Kentucky, he would win the January 19, 1862, Battle of Mill Springs, and one of the opposing generals, Felix Zollicoffer, would be killed. These victories were in the future, but Anderson thought that the last man he knew who would cry wolf would be Thomas, who was in command of a brigade of five regiments of infantry and Colonel Frank Wolford's First Kentucky Cavalry Regiment at Camp Dick Robinson. But one of the special challenges facing Union commanders in Kentucky was attempting to estimate enemy strength and intentions. The fog of war seemed impenetrable, and the rumors of Confederate invasion and uprising took on double power because southern sympathizers derived hope from them and Unionists amplified the same rumors out of their knowledge of the strength of southern sympathy among their neighbors and their own fear. And the factor that made Thomas vulnerable was his expectation that the Confederates would invade and occupy Kentucky. He said this to General Winfield Scott before he left Washington.¹²

Thomas had a brigade of five regiments of volunteer infantry, including the Seventh Kentucky Infantry and Colonel Frank Wolford's cavalry regiment, and Anderson considered this force strong enough to hold the front against General Zollicoffer, who had about forty-five hundred men at Camp Buckner, near Cumberland Ford. Thomas nonetheless felt vulnerable, so on September 22, 1861, he wrote Anderson that the latest advice he had received reported that, on his front, Confederate forces were gathering from Virginia and “the far South” preparing an invasion of Kentucky in force. He said that his brigade was unorganized and that, to avoid disaster, he needed four regiments of drilled men, four thousand of them, and a battery of artillery, well trained. Anderson had his adjutant reply the next day that Louisville was “very strongly threatened” and that, until the danger passed, he would have no troops to spare.¹³

Careful general that he was, Thomas sent forward his best two regiments about forty miles south to a strong defensive position at Camp Wildcat. The Seventh Kentucky Infantry had 1,018 men and was the largest infantry regiment in Kentucky. It was commanded by Colonel Theophilus T. Garrard, a Mexican War veteran from Clay County who was familiar with the area. The other regiment was Wolford's excellent cavalry. The Seventh Kentucky infantrymen were entrenching on September 29, one week after Thomas had requested reinforcements, when Wolford rode into camp with the report that Confederate forces had captured London, about ten miles to the south and about fifty miles from Camp Dick Robinson. Garrard immediately sent this intelligence to Thomas, and it turned out to be true: a small detachment of infantry, cavalry, and artillery from Zollicoffer's army had captured London on a raid that dealt the second great blow to Anderson's self-confidence, the first being Buckner's raid south of Louisville.¹⁴

Zollicoffer's raid had the mission of confiscating salt from the Goose Creek Salt Works in Clay County near Manchester, east of London. Ironically, the saltworks belonged to Colonel Garrard. Zollicoffer sent the detachment of infantry, cavalry, and artillery against London as a diversion while a second detachment captured Manchester and the saltworks. The raiders succeeded in confiscating two hundred barrels of salt loaded on fifty wagons, and they also succeeded in creating the alarm in Thomas's mind that the invasion in force had begun. On September 30, Thomas wired Anderson: “The enemy is at London, about 50 miles from here, and approaching this way in force. Send re-enforcements immediately.” Anderson telegrammed the governors of Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois requesting immediate reinforcements, and he told Lincoln: “I hope you will send off all the troops from the North you can raise.”¹⁵

Several regiments were sent to Thomas, and the buildup later proved valuable for the Battle of Mill Springs, but Anderson soon realized that he and Thomas had sounded a major false alarm all the way to Washington in response to Zollicoffer's salt raid. Four days later, on October 4, with several regiments of reinforcements marching toward Camp Dick Robinson, Anderson had calmed down when another giant rumor rose, even more exaggerated. General Nelson, near Maysville, and General Thomas at Camp Dick Robinson in separate messages, with differing details, reported that Confederates had left a thin screen of men in northern Virginia and that General Pierre G. T. Beauregard was leading the army to Tennessee to invade Kentucky and occupy the state in order to winter their horses on Kentucky hay. Thomas stated that he expected the invasion to begin in ten days, and, since the reinforcements Anderson had sent were all untrained recruits, he repeated his request for four regiments of infantry and two batteries of artillery, all well trained. Anderson replied on October 7 that he did not believe the rumor, and the next day he resigned.¹⁶

About three weeks earlier, on September 15, two days before the alert began with Buckner's raid, Anderson had written Governor Morton that he feared the coming of war in Kentucky as much as a threatening cloud from an approaching storm. Hovering in the back of his mind was the threat of an uprising of the military-age Kentucky men who had not joined either army. John Hunt Morgan and his officers estimated that there were between twenty-five and thirty thousand such, and one of his proclamations asked for fifty thousand volunteers. The front extended for over three hundred miles from Paducah to the Big Sandy River, and the fog of war seemed impenetrable. Anderson desperately needed a coterie of dependable scouts who could ride horseback into the state and behind enemy lines and return with accurate estimates of enemy strength and plans. In the absence of scouts or spies, fear reigned, and the raids of Buckner and Zollicoffer were force multipliers of enemy strength. Having been in command less than five months and only twenty-two days since Buckner's raid, Anderson sent for Sherman and told him, according to Sherman's memoirs, that “he could not stand the mental torture of his command any longer, and that he must go away, or it would kill him.”¹⁷

Before Sherman left Washington, he wrote his brother, Senator John Sherman, that he considered his new assignment vital to the war effort. He stated that it was “of vast importance” that Kentucky remain in the Union and that his role would be to mingle among the people, confirm their opposition to the South, and recruit men to organize a force large enough to conquer East Tennessee. But, when he led his men south to meet Buckner's threat and established headquarters at Muldraugh Hill, he was disappointed. On September 27, having been there over a week, he reported that nobody had rallied to his support. “I expected, as we had reason to, that the people of Kentucky would rally to our support, but, on the contrary, none have joined us; while hundreds, we are told, are going to Bowling Green.” He came to the conclusion that the people were all unfriendly, that the young men were heading South to join the Confederate army, and that the older men were furnishing them with weapons and horses. “I am to be sacrificed,” he wrote. He estimated that he was outnumbered five to one and worried that Buckner had part of the L&N and could maneuver, concentrate, and easily flank him on Muldraugh Hill. He worried that Johnston was “a real general.” Regarding the people of Kentucky, he could identify with the Unionist proclamation to the people of northeastern Kentucky by General Nelson: “What has your country done that you should rise against it, or what good will it do you to murder the people, burn and pillage the towns, and overthrow the Constitution and laws of Kentucky?”¹⁸

In reality, about ten thousand Kentuckians enlisted in the Confederate army, compared to about twenty thousand in the Union army, by the end of September, but Sherman reported that Confederate spies were everywhere, and he believed that Buckner was so strong his army could easily walk into Louisville, where most residents would welcome him. Sherman concluded that Buckner could reach the Ohio River at any of one hundred points. He became convinced that the contest for the loyalty of the people of Kentucky was lost and that he would be blamed for losing this key state and possibly the war. He had his headquarters on the first floor of the Galt House, and, unable to sleep, he relieved the stress by pacing the corridors with a blank expression on his face. He lost hope, and, with stress blocking the daylight, the future looked “as dark as possible.” He chain-smoked cigars, and, when he visited the war correspondents in the press office in the evenings, he slumped in a chair and sat silently smoking or occasionally speaking frantically at a rapid rate. When he left, his chair was encircled with cigar butts on the floor that the reporters called “Sherman's old soldiers.” Gossip on the street said that he planned to evacuate the city and move his forces across the river into Indiana; people said that he was “unhinged.”¹⁹

When Secretary of War Cameron passed through Louisville on his return to Washington at the close of an inspection tour in the West, Sherman insisted that Cameron and his entourage meet with him at Galt House. Cameron came to Sherman's room along with several reporters, and, since he was exhausted, he lay on Sherman's bed for the meeting. Speaking rapidly and unburdening himself, Sherman told Cameron that the people of Kentucky supported the South and that Buckner could march into Louisville any day. He said that he had only 18,000 men to defend a vast, hostile front, that, in order to defend the state against the coming invasion, he required 42,000 additional troops, and that, in order to take the offensive, he needed 200,000. Lying on the bed, Cameron waved his hands in the air and said: “Great God! Where are they to come from?”²⁰

Word of this meeting circulated immediately among the press corps, and the Cincinnati Commercial ran the story under the headline “General Sherman Insane.” Other newspapers published the report, and Sherman later recalled: “I do think I Should have committed suicide were it not for my children.” On November 9, 1861, Lincoln announced that General Don Carlos Buell was replacing Sherman, and, on November 15, Sherman was greatly relieved when Buell arrived in Louisville. Sherman reported to Halleck in St. Louis, and Halleck sent him home for a brief leave to recuperate. He gradually recovered and, under Grant and later on his own, contributed vitally to the Union war effort—by the end of the war, the three most recognized Union generals were Grant, Sherman, and Philip Sheridan.²¹

General Buell had been selected by General-in-Chief McClellan to come to Louisville as head of the new Department of the Ohio, win the hearts of the people of Kentucky, and, with their support, invade Tennessee and capture Knoxville. McClellan stressed that Kentucky was second only to Virginia in importance and emphasized that the political problem of winning the loyalty of the people was more important than military operations. “It is absolutely necessary that we shall hold all the State of Kentucky,” he wrote. “Not only that, but that the majority of its inhabitants shall be warmly in favor of our cause.” He pointed out that civilians should be treated so as to narrow and not widen the breach with the Union. Civilians were to be arrested only when Buell or one of his generals approved and only when there was evidence of aiding the enemy; he was not to arrest citizens for political sentiment. Buell was to respect state courts and local authority and strictly discipline his troops. “It should be our constant aim to make it apparent to all that their property, their comfort, and their personal safety will be best preserved by adhering to the cause of the Union,” McClellan wrote. This was the same program in use by Confederate generals Johnston and Buckner and was the same as Grant directed in Paducah. Buell complied, as far as his headquarters was concerned, but, as will be considered later, county provost marshals and home guards were arresting civilians on their own, beyond Buell's control. When the Confederates withdrew from Kentucky after Grant captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, Buell led his army south to Bowling Green and on to Nashville in February 1862.²²

Buell continued as commander of the Department of the Ohio, and the next leader in the Union campaign to win the people of Kentucky, General Jeremiah T. Boyle, reported to Buell. Boyle was appointed on May 27, 1862, by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to command Union forces in Kentucky in Buell's absence. Boyle met Lincoln's requirement of being a Kentucky native, and Stanton believed that he was familiar with the situation in the state. Boyle was born in present-day Boyle County and attended Centre College, Princeton University, and Transylvania University law school. Before the war, he practiced law in Harrodsburg and Danville; when the war began, he recruited for the Union army and commanded a brigade with gallantry at Shiloh. He was forty-four years old and seemed qualified, but the heavy responsibility of commanding in Kentucky brought into high relief his weaknesses—he was ambitious for high office, vain, and insensitive; he was also excitable and quick to panic in a crisis. Anderson, Sherman, and Buell were models of level-headed leadership compared to Boyle, who failed in walking the political tightrope. He immediately fell into the grand delusion that all would be lost unless he transformed the people of Kentucky into smiling Unionists totally supporting the Union war effort. He viewed himself as the savior of the Union who would win the war by rooting out prosouthern sentiment in Kentucky.²³

Boyle should have followed McClellan's advice to Buell; he should have ordered provost marshals and home guards in each county to stop arresting civilians for favoring the Confederacy, and he should have prevented Union army officers from interfering with elections. When he took over in June 1862, the issues of emancipation and enlistment of black troops in the Union army had not come to the forefront. In September 1862, he would have enough to handle with Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation; his greatest challenge would be to keep Kentucky in the Union during Lincoln's war on slavery, and he only made the situation worse by going against the moderate policy of previous commanders and launching an impossible, extreme program aimed at turning every prosouthern Kentuckian into an active Unionist.

Boyle should have followed the example of General Anderson, who on September 24 had issued a proclamation announcing that people would not be arrested if they stayed at home and gave no aid to the Confederates. Anderson supported the General Assembly's neutrality resolution, which assured that civilians would not be arrested or their property confiscated because of their opinions. However, as soon as state neutrality ended, home guards and provost marshals violated Anderson's proclamation by arresting people who were obeying the order and remaining quietly at home and who were guilty of nothing except sympathizing with the Confederacy or being the victims of provost marshals with personal grudges against them. Anderson said that he deeply regretted these arrests and ordered that arrests should be made only if the evidence of attempting to join the rebel army or assisting the Confederates would convict the accused in a court of law. “A conciliatory, fair course pursued towards such persons will join them to our cause; the reverse may force them into the ranks of our enemies,” he warned. He entreated Kentuckians to assist him “in keeping peace among ourselves.”²⁴

Boyle took over on June 1, 1862, and on June 9 went on the attack against Kentuckians who had sons fighting for the Confederacy and others who sympathized with the South—he launched his pacification campaign. Instead of discouraging the illegal and unauthorized arrest of civilians for their opinions—which was probably impossible to prevent on the state or department level—he mandated them. He issued an order to provost marshals commanding them to identify local citizens suspected of aiding the Confederates and force them—no matter how quiet and law-abiding they were—to take a loyalty oath that began, “I do solemnly swear that I will bear true allegiance to the United States,” and also to give bond for future loyal conduct. If they refused, they were to be arrested and imprisoned. He ordered that disloyal civilians in the neighborhood of a guerrilla raid were to be assessed damages equal to the amount of property lost.²⁵

Boyle's order ignored the resolution of the state legislature of September 18, 1861, prohibiting arrests for opinions and assumed that Unionists in the legislature supported his program. Indeed, the General Assembly had its own pacification program, which, like Boyle's, had the opposite effect from what was intended. The legislators enacted a law making it a felony for any Confederate Kentucky soldier to invade the state, punishable by a penitentiary term of from one to ten years. They required all teachers, jurors, and ministers to take a loyalty oath and expatriated any Kentucky citizen who aided the Confederacy in any manner. They made it illegal to have a meeting to promote secession and provided a fine of $50-$100 for displaying a Confederate flag. They opposed Governor Magoffin, who was against the arrest and persecution of moderate, states' rights men like himself who were pro-Confederate but opposed secession.²⁶

Radical Unionists in the legislature threatened to impeach Governor Magoffin, and there were rumors of assassination plots until finally, in August 1862, he agreed to resign. The legislature elected James F. Robinson, a moderate conservative but more pro-Union than Magoffin, to complete his term. In fact, Radical Unionists in Kentucky drove the governor out of office. In violation of the state constitution, they created a five-man military board and illegally gave it, instead of the governor, authority over the state militia. “I am without a soldier or a dollar to protect the lives, property, and liberties of the people, or to enforce the laws,” Magoffin stated. Unionist leaders considered driving Magoffin out of office a victory for the pacification of the state, but, as he left, he retaliated with his farewell address, a warning meant for the people, a warning using the language of dire results that marked the propaganda war: “We must stand by the Constitution,…or all is lost.”²⁷

Instead of forcing law-abiding and quiet non-Unionist Kentuckians to become ardent, active Unionists, Boyle's loyalty oath had the opposite effect: thousands of people refused to take it. The goal was to drive out of the state or transform every Jefferson Davis sympathizer. Pacification means to restore to a peaceful state, to restore tranquility, or to reduce to a state of submission, and this Boyle determined to achieve. During the first wave of arrests, he ordered the preparation of quarters for “disloyal females,” and Kentucky women were arrested throughout the remainder of the war for their political opinions or on the personal whims of provost marshals. This was the most odious part of the Union pacification program; Kentuckians considered it an insult to Kentucky women that they were arrested and imprisoned without a hearing or a trial. Confederate propaganda proclamations often mentioned this as an offense against the honor of Kentucky men.²⁸

The success of John Hunt Morgan's First Kentucky Raid in July 1862 seemed to confirm for Boyle the necessity of his pacification program. Morgan circled through the heart of the Bluegrass region, and large crowds gathered to welcome and cheer the raiders; women and girls cooked their meals, and men and boys fed and cared for their horses. A large crowd of women welcomed Morgan to Harrodsburg, and in Georgetown the welcome was extremely warm and lasted through the two days that the raiders camped and rested in the town. “The people of Georgetown also welcomed us with gladness and provided my troops with everything that they needed,” Morgan reported. Morgan published two proclamations to the people challenging them to rise, encourage fifty thousand of their brave sons to enlist in the Confederate army, and “strike—for the green graves of your sires!” Encouraged by the enthusiastic crowds, and confusing support for the raid with willingness to fight for the Confederacy, Morgan telegrammed General Edmund Kirby Smith: “The whole country can be secured, and 25,000 to 30,000 men will join you at once.”²⁹

It very much troubled Boyle that Kentuckians welcomed and supported the Rebel raiders. This was actually the first time in the war that central Kentucky civilians had an opportunity to provide food and direct support to Confederate soldiers; in Boyle's mind, this demonstrated that his pacification program had a long way to go. Morgan's raiding strategy was to keep the enemy off balance and use fear as a force multiplier, and his proclamations succeeded in sending Boyle into a panic. He reported that secessionists all over the state were rising and joining Morgan and that Morgan's raiders were closing on Frankfort and Lexington. Morgan had about 850 men, but Boyle estimated that he had 3,000 and warned that the raiders would devastate the state unless he received reinforcements. Responding to Boyle's flurry of messages, Lincoln sent word to General Henry Halleck in Corinth, Mississippi: “They are having a stampede in Kentucky. Please look to it.”³⁰

Boyle sent almost daily messages to his superior, Buell, during the raid, messages that reveal his rising punitive and retaliatory attitude as the raid continued. He was angry that such a raid could occur in his department and determined to prevent it from happening again. On July 15, when Morgan was in Midway, Boyle informed Buell that such raids could be prevented were he allowed to pursue a more rigid policy against Confederate sympathizers. On July 16, when Morgan was camped at Georgetown, Boyle reported to Secretary of War Stanton that he had prevented some rebel citizens from standing for elected offices and declared that he would continue unless countermanded. On July 19, when Morgan was withdrawing, Boyle spoke at a Union rally in Louisville and said: “For a long time this country and this State will continue in a most critical position.” “All Government, National and State, and all Constitutional liberty and personal freedom in the land” would be lost, he predicted, if “the vilest rebels and worst men that ever existed” were allowed to run for office.³¹

On July 23, Boyle reported to Buell that Morgan had passed through Somerset on his withdrawal and that he would issue orders confiscating the property of southern sympathizers and raise the black flag against guerrillas, ordering them shot when captured. “A more vigorous policy must be pursued in Kentucky or all is lost,” he wired. The no-quarter idea was a portent, but Buell disapproved and warned against levying contributions “for opinions alone.” He approved collecting fines from civilians who aided Morgan, and he approved removing avowed secessionists from election rolls. Buell was wise in turning down the no-quarter policy, but, in approving intervention in local elections, he was approving a serious deviation from McClellan's policy. Boyle was upset that Confederate sympathizers had alarmed his officers by spreading the false rumor that Kentuckians were rising to join an army of thirty thousand men invading the state under General John C. Breckinridge. About midway through the raid, Boyle learned that Morgan's recruiting was not strong—he gained fewer than three hundred men on the raid—but this did not reassure him. A few days later, toward the end of the raid, he informed Stanton that he and the best men of the state were expecting “a general uprising.”³²

Morgan's raid provoked Boyle into increasing the arrest of citizens, adopting intervention in Kentucky elections as a general policy, and proposing the extreme policy of no quarter against Confederate guerrilla bands. Morgan read a newspaper clipping that reported that federal agents in Paris were forcing his friends to pay for his property damage in Bourbon County; on August 18, he issued his proclamation of retaliation, that, for every dollar taken, he would take two dollars from “men of known Union sentiments.” Complaints about Boyle's arrests stacked up on Governor Robinson's desk, and Robinson wrote Secretary of War Stanton that Boyle was injuring the cause of the Union in the state and causing great dissatisfaction. He recommended that arrests be made only on his approval as governor. Lincoln's close friend Joshua F. Speed in Louisville agreed and told Lincoln that Boyle was “doing more harm than good. Our cause is weakening under his management.” Stanton ordered Boyle to make no more arrests except on the order of the governor of Kentucky, and Boyle replied that, if the administration did not intend “to put down the rebels in our midst” and confiscate their property, “the war will have to be fought over in Kentucky every year.”³³

Morgan's reports from the heart of the Bluegrass misled Bragg and the Confederate high command into believing that the men of Kentucky would rise in support of an invasion in force. Jefferson Davis provided drafts of proclamations exhorting the people to rebel, and he requested Bragg to install Richard Hawes in the executive mansion in Frankfort as the provisional Kentucky governor. Bragg included in his munitions wagons twenty thousand extra rifles to arm the anticipated recruits. During the invasion, Bragg, Edmund Kirby Smith, Buckner, and Morgan issued proclamations, and the one by Bragg on September 14, 1862, announced: “Kentuckians, we have come with joyous hopes. Let us not depart in sorrow, as we shall if we find you wedded in your choice to your present lot. If you prefer Federal rule, show it by your frowns and we shall return whence we came.” Bragg proclaimed that he was giving the men of Kentucky an opportunity to avenge the arrests of women and wrote that he believed the heart of Kentucky was with his army. However, Bragg and Kirby Smith discovered the same thing that Morgan's raiders found in July; Kentuckians who were pro-Confederate in sympathy were mostly unwilling to fight. Bragg raised about twenty-five hundred men and Kirby Smith fifteen hundred. Hawes was installed as governor for a few hours, but a Union detachment forced him out of Frankfort—the provisional Confederate government returned to exile, and Bragg's army withdrew after the Battle of Perryville.³⁴

Boyle should have rejoiced that Bragg was frustrated in his expectation that twenty thousand or more Kentuckians would join his army during the invasion. He should have thanked Governor Robinson for issuing a proclamation to the people of the state on August 31—the day after the disastrous Union loss in the Battle of Richmond, Kentucky—calling on them to “rise up as one man” and rally in defense of the state. He should have been grateful that, when Bragg seemed about to capture Louisville, Robinson issued a proclamation to the people of Louisville challenging all men, young and old, to rally and fight to the death to defend the city, and he should have appreciated the fact that business closed all day on September 24 for work on the city's fortifications. Instead, Boyle tested the opinion of the people himself by interviewing a great number of “domestic rebels and citizens” who had been arrested and imprisoned in Louisville. In January 1863 in Cincinnati, he testified in the court of inquiry investigating Buell's response to the Bragg invasion that most Kentuckians were still pro-Confederate and that, if Bragg had persevered, he could have held Frankfort and that part of Kentucky south of Frankfort and “derived great assistance from the people.” Therefore, rather than being encouraged that lack of enthusiasm for enlisting in the Confederate army had contributed to Bragg's withdrawal and had given the Union army a strategic victory, Boyle determined that he needed to step up his pacification program.³⁵

Buell approved the new, escalated level of arrests when he ordered Boyle to arrest all civilians who had aided and abetted the Confederates during the invasion. Union troops and provost marshals greatly increased arrests, and Boyle issued new orders attempting pacification through restrictions on economic activity. On October 3, he ordered that no person in Grant County could engage in the retail merchant business without a certificate signed by “six Unconditional Union men” that he was an “Unconditional Union man.” On October 24, 1862, he required the loyalty oath and a military permit for retail merchants to ship or purchase goods; anyone who had supported the enemy was prohibited from engaging in business. “Every few weeks, now,” recorded William Conrad of Grant County in his diary, “new hand bills signed by Boyle are nailed up at all the cross roads.” Conrad was pastor of the Baptist church in Williamstown, a farmer and slaveholder who was pro-Union when the war began. Because of Boyle's orders and arrests, he was gradually becoming pro-Confederate. “Our afflictions seem to have no end; new hand bills are being posted nearly every day. Sunday not being excepted.” Several of his neighbors and church members were arrested; he heard about one man who was shot and killed by Union soldiers who buried him by the road and left, claiming that he had attempted to escape.³⁶

Unionist Kentuckians realized that Boyle's pacification program was extreme. Frances Peter in Lexington condemned Boyle's and General Ambrose E. Burnside's use of soldiers to intimidate voters in the state election in August 1863; she estimated that half the eligible voters abstained from casting their voice vote because of fear of arrest. Unionist farmer George Washington Smith in Henderson County feared that he would be forced to take Boyle's degrading loyalty oath and that he would be arrested under Boyle's “military despotism.” Lincoln finally decided to remove Boyle, and the decision was one of those uncanny win-win political actions that Lincoln had a talent for taking. The action went over well with Lincoln's Unionist supporters in Kentucky; the time was right to make a change because emancipation and use of black troops had come to the forefront and Boyle had made it clear that he opposed both actions, believing that Kentuckians were so opposed that they would bring down the house of his pacification program, destroy “the peace and quiet” of the state, and lead to secession and disaster. Boyle's successor, General Burbridge, was not Lincoln's handpicked man, but he would not hesitate to begin Lincoln's war on slavery and bring in out-of-state abolitionist Union officers to assist in administering the program once he had clear approval from Washington.³⁷