15

Civil War, Part Three

Lincoln's War on Slavery

Summer sunlight glistened on Queen Anne's lace blooming in the pastures and gleamed on tiny trumpet-honeysuckle blossoms along the fence rows, and across the fields above the rows of tobacco one could see the Old South civilization disappearing on the roads. African Americans were on the move, walking toward recruitment centers of the Union army, walking as families—men, women, children, grandparents, ill, and infirm—marching for freedom. Lincoln would lose Kentucky in the presidential election that autumn, for he had invested his political capital on this election in June, and he was winning. The slave dependents knew that their fathers and husbands would be free the moment they enlisted, and they also realized that their freedom would follow. Some families gathered their clothes the night before and left before daylight; others went openly. Twenty-one-year old Robert Anderson talked it over with his master and won his blessing. “He seemed to sense the fact that the slavery of the past was over,” Anderson wrote.¹

One of Lincoln's most popular actions in the war was relieving General Boyle of command on January 12, 1864; it was an unusual event in that Governor Thomas Bramlette and other Unionists and pro-Southerners all united in breathing a sigh of relief. General Grant, who was in charge in the West, selected General Jacob Ammen as Boyle's replacement even though he was not a Kentucky native, having been born in Virginia and reared in Ohio. Grant considered him level-headed enough, but he was serving on court-martial duty and not available at the moment. Therefore, Grant appointed General Stephen Gano Burbridge on February 15, 1864, on a temporary basis to serve until Ammen was available. Burbridge and Bramlette were friends, and Burbridge was well liked by the Unionist leaders of Kentucky. They were so pleased with him that the governor and others signed a petition requesting that the appointment be made permanent. Bramlette wrote to Grant with the same request.²

Burbridge was one of the most patriotic Kentucky Unionists; he was a brave, aggressive field commander who took care of his men. He was a fighter and a friend of General Sherman since they became acquainted in the Vicksburg campaign when Burbridge commanded a brigade under him. Burbridge was born in Scott County, Kentucky, son of a War of 1812 veteran, and he attended Georgetown College and Kentucky Military Institute. When the war came, he was farming in Logan County. Grant agreed to make the appointment permanent on March 14, 1864, but it was against his judgment. Later, when Bramlette's friendship for Burbridge had turned to bitter enmity and Bramlette wrote to Grant asking that Burbridge be removed, Grant replied: “I have from the start mistrusted General Burbridge's ability and fitness for the place he now occupies.” Grant recognized vanity and ambition in a man, and he knew that Burbridge lacked the common sense and wisdom to navigate the rough waters of Kentucky politics and maintain his perspective. The temptation was to go over the edge and follow the urging of radical Kentucky Unionists, who advised extreme measures that were more harmful than helpful. As military commander of Kentucky, Burbridge was insensitive and domineering, and, by November 9, when Bramlette asked Lincoln to remove him, eight months after asking for his permanent appointment, Bramlette complained that Burbridge was blind to reality because of his “weak intellect and an overwhelming vanity.”³

Burbridge fell into the same snare as Boyle; he decided that, as commander of Kentucky, it was up to him to win the war for the hearts and minds of the people of Kentucky and that by saving this vital state he would be the savior of the Union. His totally unrealistic goal was, not only to create quiet and calm, but also to transform pro-Confederate Kentuckians into ardent Unionists who would refuse to give the slightest aid and comfort to the Confederates and who would by all their actions and conversations support the Union army and all the policies of the Lincoln administration. He demanded that all Kentuckians assist in ferreting out traitors and reporting guerrilla bands operating against Union facilities or Unionist families. He demanded that there be no “treasonable and seditious speeches” against enlistment of black troops or any resistance to such enlistment, calling instead for full support. Non-Unionists were not to run for office; he demanded that they “must remain quiet or leave the State.” Governor Bramlette's goal was more attainable and would have resulted in less opposition to the Lincoln administration—he wanted to allow political dissent, and he wanted the Union army to allow free elections. “Our people are right and true,” he informed Lincoln, “though they have been much bedeviled by the course of subordinate officers.”⁴

Before John Hunt Morgan's Last Kentucky Raid in June, Burbridge maintained self-control and administered successfully and with moderation. And, much to his credit, when Halleck informed Burbridge that Morgan was preparing to raid into Kentucky, rather than going into a panic, he organized a force and went on the offensive, attempting to intercept Morgan as he came into the state through Pound Gap. Burbridge arrived there too late but vigorously pursued the raiders, defeating the two brigades Morgan left behind at Mount Sterling and then defeating and scattering Morgan's main force at Cynthiana on June 12, 1864. Victory over the world-famous Rebel Raider was the turning point for Burbridge; in his mind, he became the new “Young Napoleon” of the war, paralleling McClellan's self-estimation after the Battle of Rich Mountain on July 11, 1861. Lincoln and Stanton sent messages of congratulation, and, on July 4, Stanton informed him that all the loyal people in the nation admired him and that for his “meritorious and distinguished service” Lincoln had recommended him for promotion to brevet major general, a promotion the Senate approved unanimously. Stanton had General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck send Burbridge twelve hundred horses from Cincinnati for the mounted infantry he was organizing, a very unusual victory gift. When Sherman learned about his friend's Cynthiana victory, he was almost beside himself. Immediately he telegrammed from Big Shanty, Georgia: “Go on, raise the hue and cry, and don't mind the cost of money or horseflesh to hunt down every robber and guerrilla in your State.” These were heavy words, but Sherman's encouragement had just begun. A few days later, he declared that Morgan's recent raid and other guerrilla actions called for action. He wrote that guerrillas were not soldiers but “wild beasts” and that their supporters, whether men or women, should be arrested, sent down the Mississippi River, placed on a sailing ship, and taken somewhere outside the United States. Then Halleck ordered Burbridge to arrest disloyal citizens who were aiding armed rebels and send them to Washington; he was not to distinguish with regard to sex or high office, including members of the state government or Congress.⁵

Burbridge was pleased that the counterguerrilla part of his pacification program had the endorsement of Kentucky Unionists and federal authorities. He was encouraged, not only by Stanton, Halleck, and Sherman, but also by Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, Governor Bramlette, George Prentice, and other Kentucky Unionists. Like Boyle, Burbridge and his supporters had an oversimplified view of the guerrilla war that had been raging in Kentucky since the summer of 1862. When the Civil War began, guerrilla warfare was a respectable term applying to the tactics of hit-and run raids against a stronger enemy, but, during the Civil War, the word guerrilla took on a negative connotation to most people. The term was still applied to Partisan Rangers operating independently of the regular army, but mostly it meant self-constituted, unauthorized bands that raided civilians, usually families favoring the other side in the war. Burbridge and his supporters regarded all Kentucky guerrillas, including the pro-Union bands, as Confederate and supported by secessionist Kentucky civilians. Prentice articulated this viewpoint when he lumped them all together as “guerillas, horse-thieves, and bushwhackers.”⁶

This conclusion seemed reasonable because the strongest and most successful guerrillas in the state were partisan rangers, commissioned under the April 21, 1861, Partisan Ranger Act of the Confederate Congress to raid behind enemy lines, and regular Confederate soldiers working independently and without direct authority to operate in Kentucky. Burbridge was correct in viewing them as opponents in the contest to win the loyalty of the people of Kentucky—they were dedicated to recruiting troops, destroying Union supplies, disrupting communications, and causing embarrassment for Federal authorities. With a small force, Adam R. Johnson made the news by raiding Henderson, Kentucky, and Newburgh, Indiana, on July 17-18, 1862. Having temporarily captured Henderson, he published a proclamation appealing to Kentuckians to fulfill their reputation of dedication to liberty. “Come to the field!” he exclaimed. “Rally to your country's call! Rise in your majesty and might, and drive from your midst the monster of oppression.” Johnson had served under Morgan, as had Colonel George Jessee, who, after Morgan's Last Kentucky Raid, remained in Kentucky, returned home to Owen County, and raided successfully the rest of the war.⁷

When Confederate guerrillas raided, they created enemies, and local Unionists and Home Guard members formed guerrilla bands to retaliate and struggle for local control. Bands of Union army deserters and men home on leave joined them in clashing with the Confederates. In the raids, men were killed on each side, barns and houses burned, and food taken from women and children. And the worst aspect was that Kentucky, western Virginia, and other border states attracted outlaws who had no loyalty except to themselves and came to murder and steal from civilians on both sides. Word went abroad among the network of deserters and outlaws that law and order had broken down in rural Kentucky, and, as Thomas D. Clark wrote, “it seemed that every rascal, deserter, robber, and outlaw had begun operation in Kentucky.”⁸

Brian McKnight's Contested Borderland is the first in-depth study of the Civil War in eastern Kentucky and the first concentrated analysis of guerrilla war in a region of Kentucky. His narrative demonstrates how much of a nightmare it was to live without basic law and order. Mountain Kentuckians hoped that the mountains would isolate and protect them, but it was the opposite—the mountains sheltered the bandits, and isolation protected the men from both armies who robbed civilians as they marched through the area. Private wars broke out between neighbors; bushwhackers burned homes; people withdrew from society, allowing schools and churches to close. A resident of Harlan County wrote to a Union army official and pointed out that the circuit court had not met in three years and that guerrillas had burned the courthouse and destroyed the jail. These men, he wrote, were “all well armed and men of the worst character and the Civil Authorities cannot apprehend them.”⁹

Lincoln endorsed Burbridge's counterguerrilla program the day after he promoted him by issuing a proclamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus and establishing martial law. Lincoln explained that this was necessary because many “disaffected and disloyal citizens” were supporting insurgents who had “overborne the civil authorities and made flagrant civil war.” He declared that there was to be no interference with elections, the state legislature, or state courts. On July 16, 1864, Burbridge issued General Order No. 59, and this famous directive was very popular among Kentucky Unionists and was approved by the Union army high command and the Lincoln administration. But it cast the darkest shadow on Burbridge's legacy; it labeled him in history as “Butcher Burbridge,” and many Kentuckians remembered him for this more than anything else. Lincoln, Sherman, Stanton, and Holt supported the order; they could have countermanded it, but they did not. Therefore, they share the responsibility for the executions. But Kentuckians were well aware that Burbridge enforced the policy with enthusiasm. It was a Union policy of retaliation, but, to pro-Confederate Kentuckians, it was personalized as Burbridge's order.¹⁰

Burbridge proclaimed that, according to Sherman's directions, “Rebel sympathizers” residing within five miles of a guerrilla outrage would be arrested and deported from the United States. Their property would be seized to indemnify loyal citizens or the Federal government for the depredation. And the sentence that made Burbridge famous as “Butcher Burbridge” stated: “Whenever an unarmed Union citizen is murdered four guerrillas will be selected from the prisoners in the hands of the military authorities and publicly shot to death in the most convenient place near the scene of outrage.” That this order was approved by usually fair-minded Kentucky leaders is a measure of their frustration with the breakdown in law and order that prevailed. People were willing to suspend individual justice in the hope of shutting down the guerrilla violence. George Prentice wrote that the order “falls like a stream of golden sunshine upon the dark storm-clouds of an angry sky,” and he approved of the retaliatory executions that came under the order. Union judge advocate general Joseph Holt, a Kentuckian, visited Kentucky on an inspection tour and reported to Stanton that the order was producing “the happiest effect” on the situation by inspiring “a most wholesome terror” among the guerrillas. On August 1, Burbridge informed Sherman that he had arrested many guerrillas and their supporters, and he asked whether he could send them to the Dry Tortugas. Sherman replied that it was a good idea but that it would require Stanton's approval. “I fully approve your course,” Sherman stated, “and want you to make it thorough, and clean out Kentucky of all suspicious men.”¹¹

Sherman's goal was to encourage Burbridge to win the war against the guerrillas, but he had no appreciation for how the human side of Burbridge's campaign would affect the contest for the loyalty of the people of Kentucky. Among the farmers and laborers and women and children of the state, Burbridge's retaliatory executions seemed tyrannical and unjust. Justice demanded the capture and punishment of outlaw guerrillas who were robbing and murdering, but it was arbitrary to execute four prisoners of war who usually had nothing to do with the crime. Burbridge personally ordered the executions, and sometimes he directed that captured guerrillas be selected as the shooting victims from among the prison inmates, but usually no prisoner could be identified as a guerrilla, and, indeed, the way Union officials lumped all guerrillas in the same category meant that Partisan Rangers operating legally were included. Regular Confederate soldiers among the prison population were executed, and they had never been involved in anything resembling guerrilla war.

Captain John Brooks served legally under Adam Johnson and Morgan; he was one of the four men executed near Brandenburg. His family reinterred his body in his hometown of Slaughters, Kentucky, and his gravestone reads: “Executed Near Brandenburg, Ky. for a crime of which he was innocent, Sept. 4, 1864.” When an order from Burbridge came to the prison commander in Louisville to select men for execution, he would have his guards gather a group of prisoners and line them up for a lottery. Some white beans and four black beans were placed in a hat; when a man drew a black bean he was to be shot. The order required that the executions take place in public as near as possible to the site of the outrage. The four men were handcuffed and a ball-and-chain attached to one leg. They were taken away by steamboat or train usually, guarded by a squad of Union soldiers. Sometimes they spent a night in the local jail and were taken to the place of execution on wagons, each man sitting on his coffin. At the selected site, they were blindfolded and shot by the Union soldiers organized into firing squads, sometimes five men per squad, with one rifle loaded with a blank cartridge. Their bodies were placed in the coffins and taken to the local cemetery and buried. Confederate captain Lindsey Duke Buckner was executed in Jefferson County on October 4, 1864, by Burbridge's order, and, sitting on his coffin just before he was shot, he wrote to his sister: “I am under sentence of death, and for what, I do not know…. It is a hard thing to be chained and shot in this way; and if it was not for the hope I have of meeting you all in Heaven, I would be miserable indeed.”¹²

Governor Bramlette favored extreme action against guerrillas, but, when Burbridge interfered with elections, Bramlette could no longer support him. The first time the governor came out publicly against the general was when Bramlette criticized him for interfering in the annual state election of August 1, 1864. The election was for county officers and judge of the Court of Appeals, Kentucky's supreme court, for the Second District. Burbridge should have kept his hands off the election, but his pacification program required that only staunch Unionists could stand for office, and Judge Alvin Duvall, the Democratic nominee for the judgeship, was prosouthern. Duvall was the incumbent and had been chief justice earlier. Three days before the vote, Burbridge ordered his name removed from the poll books; Duvall fled from the state, fearing arrest. Bramlette wrote Lincoln on September 3 that Burbridge's removal of Duvall from the ballot violated “the most sacred rights of a free and loyal people.”¹³

One of the purposes of arresting civilians who refused to take the oath of allegiance was to discourage them from voting, and one of the Unionists who refused was prevented from voting because he was under arrest during the election. Reverend William Conrad had been interrogated and pressed by the provost marshal to take the oath, but he said that he would quietly mind his own business and refused. On the evening of July 30, 1864, two days before the election, when he was sixty-seven years old, a squad of Union soldiers came to his home in Grant County and arrested him. He was taken away on horseback with soldiers riding on his left and right with bayoneted muskets pointed toward him, each with his thumb on the hammer. “We had proceeded but a few yards from my house when the thought rolled into my mind I might be shot down before we reach the end of my lane. But immediately it occurred to my mind, suppose they do shoot me, what of all that I am already old, and doubtless it would be the best for me—the Lord's will be done.” He was taken to Louisville and imprisoned in a barracks of three-tier bunks with over one hundred other prisoners until his friend and family physician Dr. Carter Snell, provost marshal of Owen County, pointed out that Conrad was an elderly minister, not a politician or meddler.¹⁴

Disregarding Bramlette's criticism, Burbridge intruded even more thoroughly in the November 8 presidential election. “I deem it of the utmost importance for Kentucky's future that the State should be carried for Mr. Lincoln,” he wrote to Judge Advocate General Holt. With this goal in mind, he escalated his pacification program to its highest level. He ordered people arrested who said they favored McClellan. He required that merchants have a trade permit to conduct business, and to obtain a permit one had to solemnly swear that one had not given any aid to the Confederates, that one “ardently” desired a Union victory, and that one would use all of one's influence to support the Union government. Burbridge asked Holt to send commissioners into the state to pay Unionist slaveholders for the slaves who had enlisted in the Union army. He believed that this would convince hundreds of “weak-kneed and doubting” Unionists to vote for Lincoln. He came to the ridiculous conclusion that the Confederate government planned to send detachments of cavalry into Kentucky to steal the election for McClellan and that, once the election was over, they were to concentrate behind General Breckinridge for “a grand raid over the State.” Burbridge reported: “These opinions are formed from letters received by rebel sympathizers from their friends in the rebel army.” He asked Holt for reinforcements to protect remote precincts from the rebel raiders and to intimidate voters into voting for Lincoln, concluding that “with a judicious disposition of the troops the State may be carried for Mr. Lincoln.”¹⁵

Word leaked out that Burbridge was planning to use soldiers to control the election, and Governor Bramlette issued a letter to the people and to election officials directing that everyone was to show contempt for Union soldiers at the polling places and that, if any soldier attempted to interfere, the sheriff and the people were to arrest him. If they were unable to do so, local authorities were to close the polls. “If you are unable to hold a free election, your duty is to hold none at all,” he asserted. Former Union colonel Frank Wolford said that he would kill any man who attempted to prevent him from voting. Burbridge countered with an order that anyone would be arrested who advocated going to the polls armed in order to resist Union soldiers guarding the polls. When Lincoln lost Kentucky in the election, Burbridge realized that it proved that pacification had failed miserably. Only about two of five, or 40.5 percent, of eligible voters voted in a turnout that was 54,000 fewer than that in 1860. McClellan won by 69.8 percent with 64,301 votes. Lincoln received 30.2 percent, with 27,787 votes, and this was the lowest in any of the twenty-five states. The only other states carried by McClellan were Delaware and New Jersey. Over two months before, on September 3, Bramlette had informed Lincoln that he favored McClellan, that a change was “essential to the salvation of our country.” He claimed that Burbridge's extreme measures had caused three-quarters of the people of Kentucky to oppose Lincoln when a more moderate military commander would have retained the people as “brave and loyal” friends of Lincoln.¹⁶

Election was by voice vote; on the day of the election, Burbridge arrested many citizens who voted for McClellan. The next day, he issued orders for the arrest and deportation through the lines of Louisville Journal editor Paul R. Shipman, Lieutenant Governor Richard Jacob, Frank Wolford, and John B. Huston. They were to be arrested quietly and forbidden to communicate with any person en route. All four had been outspoken against Lincoln administration policies, all four favored McClellan, and the timing made it appear that they were arrested because they voted for McClellan. This was how Bramlette reported it to Lincoln regarding General Huston, a Lexington resident. Lincoln replied that, if opposing him in the election was cause for arrest, he “would have heard of more than one arrest in Kentucky on election day.” When Lincoln directed Burbridge to release Huston immediately, Burbridge replied that the real cause of the arrest was that Huston had made treasonous speeches. Burbridge stated that, if he had erred, it was in making too few arrests, not too many.¹⁷

The arrest that attracted the most attention was that of Lieutenant Governor Jacob. However, this was not the first time Burbridge had arrested a prominent elected state official. In August 1864, he had gone to Indianapolis personally to break up a suspected secessionist conspiracy of “the Sons of Liberty” and arrest Kentucky chief justice Joshua F. Bullitt, one of the suspects. Now, in November, the threat seemed less secret and more openly defiant; Jacob was known as one of the most outspoken opponents of Lincoln, having given a famous speech in Paris, Kentucky, in which he said that the English king Charles I lost his head for fewer crimes than those committed by Lincoln. Burbridge demonstrated how determined he was to banish Jacob by directing the colonel in command at Catlettsburg: “Have Colonel Jacob sent through the lines by way of Charleston or Kanawha River, not to return during war under penalty of death.” Once through the lines, Jacob went to Richmond, Virginia, where he wrote a letter to Lincoln pointing out that he was accepting the hospitality of people he had fought against. Lincoln ordered Grant to allow him to pass through the lines to Washington. Once he arrived, Lincoln pardoned him and sent him home to Kentucky to preside over the Senate, which was already in session. Writing the pardon carefully so as not to offend Kentucky Unionists, Lincoln expressed his hope that there was less likelihood of misunderstanding now than when the arrests were made.¹⁸

Burbridge's arrests and interference with the presidential election motivated Bramlette to write Sherman, Grant, and Lincoln the day after the election requesting Burbridge's removal. He wrote Lincoln: “I regret that Gen. Burbridge is pursuing a course calculated to exasperate and infuriate, rather than pacify and conciliate.” On November 22, 1864, Lincoln wrote Bramlette thanking him for reporting where Jacob and Wolford were incarcerated and informing Bramlette that he and Stanton were “trying to devise means of pacification and harmony for Kentucky” now that the emotions of the election were settled down. Part of Lincoln's pacification was pardoning Jacob and Wolford, and the Richmond Sentinel in Richmond, Virginia, announced that this signaled a “new policy” for Lincoln. The removal of Burbridge was another move toward harmony, but Lincoln did not act for over three months, not until Burbridge acted arbitrarily again in a way that enabled Lincoln to justify his removal to Burbridge's Unionist supporters in Kentucky. On February 6, Burbridge issued an order disbanding the state militia. Secretary of War Stanton informed Burbridge that Lincoln had been considering the same action but that Burbridge had gone beyond his authority and acted prematurely. Stanton ordered him to revoke the order immediately. On February 22, 1865, when a delegation of five members of the Kentucky state legislature met with Lincoln to request Burbridge's removal, Lincoln replaced him with General John M. Palmer.¹⁹

The removal of Burbridge was like walking a high wire for Lincoln because it went against his Unionist supporters in Kentucky who wanted him kept in office—Lincoln moved for conciliation with Bramlette and the mass of people in Kentucky who wanted Burbridge gone. Unionists expressed approval of Burbridge on January 4, 1865, when the Radical Union convention in Frankfort recommended his promotion to brigadier general in the regular army “for his gallant services in the field, and for his able administration in the affairs of this military district.” They organized a letter-writing campaign. C. T. Worley of Lexington wrote Lincoln on February 9 that, if Burbridge were removed, “the copperheads will triumph, and Kentucky is gone forever.” Another correspondent wrote the president that, if he removed Burbridge, it would be “the severest blow” Unionists in Kentucky ever received.²⁰

The reason Lincoln could be more conciliatory was that, by early 1865, he had succeeded in his greatest challenge in attempting to win the support of the people of Kentucky for the war—he had succeeded in his great goal of freeing Kentucky slaves to the point that slavery was practically dead in the state. He had successfully recruited many of Kentucky's African Americans into the Union army, and their dependents had fled or been driven away by their owners. Burbridge had been Lincoln's faithful ally in this challenge. Lincoln's Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of September 22, 1862, did not apply to Kentucky or other border states since they had not seceded, but Kentucky slaveholders realized that, if slavery ended in the southern states, it would end in Kentucky as well. In Kentucky, the proclamation demonstrated that the Confederate proclamations had been correct in branding Lincoln as an abolitionist, and Kentucky Unionists realized that it cut the ground from under them—they were fighting for the Union and the state right of slavery. “Kentucky cannot and will not acquiesce in this measure. Never!” declared the Louisville Journal.²¹

When the Emancipation Proclamation was published on January 1, 1863, Governor James Robinson declared it an act of gross ingratitude to Kentucky Unionists for the sacrifices they had made, and he asked the legislature to protest. The legislature resolved that it was “unwise, unconstitutional, and void.” Several Kentucky officers in the Union army resigned, and a feeling of betrayal ran through the ranks. A private in the Union Twenty-seventh Kentucky Infantry wrote: “We have carried a musket in the ranks of the loyal and brave to do battle against secession for the restoration of the Union as it was; not to change it in any way; not to violate the Constitution, or make a new one, but to restore the Union as it was.”²²

Kentuckians were even more opposed to the enlistment of black troops in the Union army. Partly it was from racial prejudice, partly to uphold the state right to control slavery in the Henry Clay tradition, and partly because black enlistment was such a threat to slavery. But why did Kentucky oppose so emotionally and so bitterly? First, black enlistment troubled Kentuckians because they realized this was the last fight to the finish over emancipation and many believed that it was a betrayal of democracy because they had debated and considered emancipation in the campaign to elect delegates to the state constitutional convention of 1849. Emancipationists had received only about 9.7 percent of the vote in that election, and the constitution of 1850 almost guaranteed perpetual slavery in the state—the issue had been settled by the people, so how could Lincoln deny their will? Second, they said that it made them seem cowards to be unable to defend themselves without the support of their former slaves. Kentucky's military tradition meant that many men of Kentucky felt that black recruitment threatened their honor and their manhood. Governor Bramlette said that it humiliated “the just pride of loyal men,” and Prentice declared that it insulted the Kentucky heritage and “all Kentuckians in uniform,” past and present. On March 2, 1863, the Kentucky Senate resolved that the idea was an “atrocious libel upon the white man, that in his cowardice he appeals to the Negro for protection.”²³

By January 1863, enlistment of African Americans in the Union army was well under way, but Lincoln was sensitive to the opposition in Kentucky and waited until June, when he hoped Kentuckians might allow enrollment of free blacks. This did not include slaves, and enrollment was simply registration and not enlistment, but it nearly set off a panic. General Boyle and General Ambrose E. Burnside, in command of the Army of Ohio in Cincinnati, begged Lincoln to rescind the order to preserve Boyle's longed-for pacification. Lincoln decided to continue making an exception for Kentucky alone and canceled the enrollment order. However, it was obvious that Kentucky would not be exempted indefinitely, and, therefore, Bramlette made his opposition clear to the people of Kentucky by publishing a public letter on January 2, 1864, and, later that month, by responding to reports that recruiters from other states were enlisting blacks in Kentucky by telling a Chicago Tribune correspondent that he would resist enlistment with all the force he could bring to bear. He said that recently a state legislator from Henderson informed him that an agent was recruiting blacks there and that he replied: “Write your people that I will pardon any one who may shoot the scoundrel. I intend to prevent the enlistment of negroes in this State, in spite of the devil and Abraham Lincoln.” On February 29, 1864, the War Department issued a circular order describing procedures for the enrollment of Kentucky slaves and free blacks, and rumors said that Union officials were prepared to begin.²⁴

Bramlette was reflecting on how to respond when, on March 10, 1864, Unionists in Lexington held a ceremony to honor their hero, Colonel Frank Wolford, for his patriotic service since early in the war and for the role he and his men played in capturing Morgan. It was a day of excitement in Lexington; a large crowd filled Melodeon Hall, and Governor Bramlette and other dignitaries were on the platform while several reporters were taking notes. The committee had prepared a jeweled saber, sash, pistols, and spurs to honor the colonel. There was a brief presentation address, and, after Wolford accepted the gifts, he began speaking. The committee expected him to deliver a patriotic speech in favor of the Union, but it was the opposite. According to one Kentuckian: “If the eloquent and conscientious old veteran had actually poured shot and shell into the midst of his loyal friends, he could not have more completely dumbfounded them.” Wolford turned a Union rally into a full-scale attack on President Lincoln and the enlistment of African American soldiers.²⁵

Wolford was one of the greatest public speakers of his day, and his speeches were described as whirlwinds of eloquence, as hurricanes of patriotism and emotion. In a strong, powerful voice, he spoke for over an hour, and the crowd applauded after almost every sentence; when he concluded, the applause was greater than one reporter had ever heard. Wolford had a clear vision of the momentous issue of the hour; he sensed the innermost concerns of the audience, and rarely in the history of Kentucky had a speaker so greatly moved an audience. He declared that President Lincoln was trampling on the Constitution, violating solemn pledges he had made about the purposes of the war, perverting the war by freeing the slaves, and usurping power by enlisting blacks in the army. He said that the rights of the people of Kentucky should be respected, that the rights of the people were guaranteed in the Constitution, and that the dominant party “had no right to make it a war upon slavery.” He stated that the people of Kentucky felt that depending on former slaves to protect their rights was “an insult and a degradation for which their free and manly spirits were not prepared.” “The days are dark, and affairs are threatening,” he said, and, if Lincoln succeeded, it would “utterly destroy constitutional freedom.” He hoped the cup would pass from Kentucky, but, if not, the people of the state should resist with force. He offered to have his regiment arrest enrollment officers and escort them to the state penitentiary and said that he was confident that Governor Bramlette would protect those who resisted.²⁶

Already a hero before the speech, Wolford became the chief spokesman for state opposition to the war program of the Lincoln administration. He delivered a similar speech later that day in Danville and began traveling the state, attracting great attention, and touching the hearts of those in his audiences. He attended a play in Louisville, and the audience paid more attention to him than to the performers onstage. When Governor Bramlette observed how well the Lexington audience applauded Wolford's speech, perhaps he reflected that two days earlier he had wired Lincoln warning against enrolling slaves because the expectation of it was depleting Lincoln's support in the state. Two days after the speech, on March 12, Bramlette telegraphed the Boyle County provost marshal: “If the President does not upon my demand stop the negro enrollment, I will. I am awaiting his answer.”²⁷

There was no answer from the White House, and, fearing armed uprising against the Union, the day after Wolford spoke, March 13, the governor sent a message to Robert Breckinridge requesting him to come to Frankfort immediately, saying that he needed to go to the White House to save Kentucky “from a collision” with the national government. Breckinridge, a leading Presbyterian minister, was a special friend of Lincoln's and one of his strongest supporters in Kentucky. Bramlette believed that he could not go see Lincoln himself because the danger of an armed uprising was too great. By the time Breckinridge arrived in Frankfort from Danville, Bramlette had decided against sending him to Washington. The governor had written a draft of a proclamation to the people of Kentucky, and this was such a serious crisis that he decided to call a meeting with Breckinridge and other friends to discuss the proclamation before releasing it to the newspapers. He invited Breckinridge, Burbridge, and a few others to meet him at 8:00 P.M. at the Capitol Hotel. It was March 15, five days after Wolford's speech, and the meeting lasted for seven hours, until 3:00 A.M.—it was the most important meeting in Kentucky in the Civil War because the draft they discussed was a firebrand, a declaration of war on the United States. It demanded what Union army commanders had feared, a general uprising of the people to resist black enlistment with force.²⁸

Breckinridge was nearly six feet tall, slender, and bent with age, with a long white beard and steel-rimmed glasses; his voice was weak, but he dominated the meeting. He persuaded Bramlette—and the others supported him—that, if the draft was published, Lincoln would send a huge wave of troops into the state and crush the rebellion, causing great suffering for the people. The group redrafted the proclamation, and Bramlette released it to the newspapers that morning, March 16. Still bearing the date of March 15, it pointed out that enlistment of slaves had not been officially ordered, and it appealed to Kentuckians to obey the law and not resist the enrollment of the names of slaves. This was the greatest crisis in the state during the war and the most important decision of Bramlette's administration. The governor could have led Kentucky into secession, and most of the people would have supported him; instead, he turned 180 degrees and kept the state in the Union.²⁹

Six days after the proclamation was published, the state was quiet enough on March 22 for Bramlette to go to Washington to meet with Lincoln. The two men met and agreed on a compromise that pleased both. Lincoln agreed not to enlist blacks in a county that provided its draft quota of white recruits, and he agreed to remove black soldiers from Kentucky for training. Bramlette promised not to resist the enrollment of African Americans. White Kentuckians failed to meet the county quotas, however, and on April 18, 1864, Burbridge ordered provost marshals to enlist both free blacks and slaves. If a slaveholder could prove loyalty, he or she was to be paid up to three hundred dollars per slave. Kentucky was the last loyal state to start recruiting blacks because of Lincoln's sensitivity to public opinion in the state. Radical Republicans in Congress and other critics of Lincoln had been criticizing him for being too lenient with Kentucky.³⁰

Burbridge was ordered by the War Department to supervise recruiting in Kentucky, and he administered black enlistment with characteristic aggressiveness. According to Victor Howard, he used the army to go to war against slavery in the state. Blacks responded immediately to this opportunity. They walked to Camp Nelson and other receiving camps, usually in small groups. In Boyle County, the provost marshal's office opened on Saturday; almost one hundred men enlisted that day and almost two hundred on Sunday. In Covington, about two hundred volunteered in the first three days. “They are flocking in by hundreds—far beyond the ability of the provost marshal to attend to them,” reported one of Burbridge's officers. The record day at Camp Nelson was July 25, 1864, with 322 black enlistments. Many families walked through a gauntlet of white slaveholders who had gathered in groups to forcibly prevent them from escaping. The angry whites captured the blacks, whipped them, locked them in jail, and murdered several. Judge Advocate General Holt reported that “their courage, and loyalty, and zeal” were “among the noblest and most cheering signs of the times.”³¹

Two of Lincoln's goals in using black troops were to provide needed manpower for the Union army and to weaken slavery. His careful handling of the contest for the loyalty of the people of Kentucky enabled him to achieve both in the state. A total of 23,703 Kentucky African Americans enlisted, second only to Louisiana with 24,052. Some slaves were forcibly inducted by Union army recruiting squads, both black and white, and this was a direct attack on slavery by the Union army. But most volunteered; the rate of enlistment was truly remarkable—56.5 percent of the eligible blacks between eighteen and forty-five. The Kentucky black recruits were in outstanding health. The physicians who examined them stated in their postwar reports, not only that they were physically fit, but also that they had proved that they were ideal soldiers, determined and brave. The other goal was emancipation, and, since the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply, black enlistment was a powerful assault on slavery. Lincoln wanted Kentucky slaves liberated as soon as possible, and, when the state rejected compensated emancipation, he moved as fast as he believed the people of Kentucky would allow—pushing them to the very brink of an uprising—to recruit slaves and free their families. Frederick Douglass expressed what it meant to a man to become a Union soldier: “Once let a black man get upon his person the brass letters U.S., and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States.” By March 1865, an estimated 71 percent of Kentucky slaves were free, and the institution of slavery was essentially dead.³²

The slave dependents who left home to follow their husbands or fathers into the army often settled in shantytowns near the camps. Some were forced to leave home because their masters refused to support them after the head of the household had gone; they would destroy their cabins and run them off. In the camps, they were in legal limbo; Union officers had no authority to care for them. Camp Nelson was the largest black recruiting center in the state, and camp commander General Speed S. Fry treated them with hostility, periodically having troops remove them. His eighth expulsion on the morning of November 23, 1864, made national news and resulted in improvement for the refugees. It was bitterly cold and windy. About four hundred women and children were loaded on wagons, taken outside the guard lines, and ordered to leave. They were dressed lightly without coats, and Fry provided them no food or blankets. Word reached Burbridge in Lexington, and he ordered his quartermaster, Captain Theron E. Hall, to gather them up and take them back to Camp Nelson and provide them food and shelter. Hall and his men found some women and children lying outside the railroad depot in Lexington, but most were scattered along the road, sitting in cornfields, wandering in the woods, or lying in sheds and barns, almost starving. Hall's soldiers came too late for 102 people who died of exposure.³³

With federal approval, Burbridge appointed Captain Hall to take charge of building a government-sponsored refugee home at Camp Nelson. Hall supervised the construction, and, when the buildings were completed, Burbridge appointed Hall superintendent of the home; with the help of John G. Fee and the American Missionary Association and other volunteers, Hall provided shelter and food for all dependents of the soldiers who had volunteered. Hall realized that government sponsorship of the refugee home was a potent weapon, an unofficial recognition that slave dependents were free and, in his view, “the death blow to slavery in Kentucky.” It was a precursor of the March 3, 1865, joint resolution in Congress that freed the wives and children of all Union soldiers and sailors.³⁴

Secretary of War Stanton encouraged Burbridge to organize black regiments and use black enlistment to destroy slavery in the state. Burbridge appointed his chief of staff, Colonel James S. Brisbin, an abolitionist from Pennsylvania, as superintendent of black troops in Kentucky, and by December 27, 1864, Brisbin had recruited and organized 9,623 African American Kentucky soldiers. In January 1865, Brisbin began a stepped-up recruiting program of sending his soldiers into slave houses, dragging them out of bed, and forcing them to enlist. “I shall go on and if left alone will kill slavery in Kentucky,” he declared.³⁵

Burbridge leaped onto the cutting edge of emancipation and use of black troops by requesting permission to organize two black cavalry regiments. General-in-Chief Halleck rejected his request, stating that the army had all the cavalry it needed. Then Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas, who had been sent west to increase black enlistment, recommended approval, and so did Judge Advocate General Holt. Stanton agreed with Thomas and Holt and gave Burbridge the authority on July 28, 1864. Next, Burbridge requested authority to mount the men on horses seized from disloyal Kentucky civilians, and Stanton approved on August 7. Stanton was following through with his complete support of Burbridge's war on slavery. Previously, the secretary of war had written to him: “This Department will do all in its power to render the command you have so bravely exercised efficient in every respect.” One can hardly imagine an action that would cause more hostility to Burbridge than seizing the horses of southern sympathizers and providing them for black cavalrymen.³⁶

Within a few days, Burbridge organized the Fifth and Sixth U.S. Colored Cavalry regiments, and the next challenge was to prove wrong the assumption that African American soldiers would not or could not fight. He determined to give his recruits the opportunity to prove that this was a myth. He organized a cavalry raid into southwest Virginia, with the strategic mission of capturing the valuable saltworks in Saltville and the lead mines in Wytheville. His division of fifty-two hundred men was all white except for six hundred men in the Fifth U.S. Colored Cavalry, who joined the column in Prestonsburg. There they were brigaded for the first time in the Fourth Brigade, joining white cavalrymen from Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan. The African Americans had not marched with white soldiers before, and they found it an extremely trying experience. The white cavalrymen ridiculed the white officers of the black men and persecuted the black men by jeering, taunting, grabbing their hats off their heads, stealing their horses, and screaming in their faces that they were cowards who would not fight. The black men bore this treatment in silence and did not retaliate.³⁷

Saltville was defended by General John Echols and twenty-eight hundred veteran Confederate troops arranged in a very strong defensive position on the line of steep hills and ridges around the town. Arranging his assault, on October 2, 1864, Burbridge ordered a holding action on the right and gave the Fourth Brigade the key assignment of taking Chestnut Ridge on the left, where the ground was steepest. About halfway up the mountain, Tennessee soldiers were in rifle pits made of logs and stone. The African American regiment had one hundred men sick or incapacitated that day, and one hundred held the horses in the rear, leaving about four hundred for the attack. On the order to move, they walked steadily up the mountain with guidons flying in the face of deadly fire from the Tennesseans above them. Fifty yards from the rifle pits, their colonel ordered “Charge!” and they gave a yell and ran forward and into the entrenchment, where they fought hand-to-hand, capturing the mountain and several prisoners. Participants from both sides recalled that they had the hardest fighting of the battle. Burbridge said that they fought gallantly and better than any other regiment that day, and Colonel Brisbin officially reported: “Of this fight I can only say that the men could not have behaved more bravely. I have seen white troops fight in twenty-seven battles and I never saw any fight better.”³⁸

Standing on the ridge they had captured, the brave Kentuckians prepared to advance into Saltville, but, because his division was running low on ammunition, Burbridge decided not to continue the fight. In the assault, the Fifth Regiment lost twenty-two men killed and many wounded, several too severely to ride. Leaving them on the field along with other wounded, Burbridge withdrew in the night. The next day, Confederate soldiers massacred about ninety of the brave wounded men, most of whom were African Americans. In contrast, the men of the Fifth treated their prisoners kindly, attempting to make them comfortable, and offering them water. On the return march to Kentucky, the white Union cavalrymen treated the African Americans with respect, and there were no taunts or jeers. From December 9 to January 2, Burbridge raided into southwestern Virginia, again as part of the raiding force of General George Stoneman, and this time he included five hundred men of the Sixth Regiment. In their baptism of fire, they fought a small detachment of seasoned Confederates under General Basil Duke, who had taken command of Morgan's men after Morgan was killed on September 4, 1864. The African Americans advanced over open ground, holding their fire until within thirty yards of Duke's entrenched line on top of a hill. Then, on the command, they opened fire and attacked, flanking Duke on his right, and capturing the works. Duke's men rallied and drove them back down the hill, but their achievement was impressive for their first time under fire; they had to some extent avenged the earlier massacre. On April 24, 1865, at Camp Nelson, the Fifth and Sixth Colored Cavalry honored Burbridge with the highest honor soldiers could give their commander; they presented him a ceremonial sword, belt, and spurs valued at more than one thousand dollars. Brisbin delivered the presentation speech, and he proclaimed that Burbridge was “the pioneer of freedom to the slaves of Kentucky.”³⁹

Given the tremendous opposition to emancipation and black troops in Kentucky, it seems almost miraculous that Lincoln kept the state in the Union. The outcome meant that Clay's Union was saved, but the state right to determine the issue of slavery was lost. When Lincoln removed Burbridge as part of his goal of harmony in Kentucky, it was not because of Burbridge's war on slavery—Lincoln approved, and he grieved over the cruel treatment that black volunteers received. With the exception of Burbridge's Unionist friends, many Kentuckians were relieved when he was replaced, but anyone who thought that Palmer would de-escalate the war on slavery was wrong. Palmer elevated the attack on slavery to an even greater extent. Lincoln's pacification of Kentucky included the goal of freeing all Kentucky slaves because he realized that, as long as slavery continued, Kentucky families and communities would be divided. Lincoln knew that, when ratified, the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, would accomplish this for Kentucky, but he wanted freedom immediately, and he wanted the people to move forward, the sooner the better.⁴⁰

Burbridge was a slaveholder and abolitionist, and he hated slavery, but Palmer had never owned slaves, and his hatred ran even deeper. Palmer was born in Scott County, Kentucky; when he was about two years old, his family moved to Christian County. They left their Kentucky home when he was thirteen and moved to Alton, Illinois, because of slavery. Palmer became a lawyer and state senator, and, as a friend of Lincoln's, he helped organize the Illinois Republican Party and was a delegate to the Republican national convention that nominated Lincoln. “Slavery cannot recover under my administration,” he wrote. “It drove me from the State in my boyhood.” He said that his highest dream before the war was to destroy slavery in Kentucky. Slavery did not end officially in Kentucky until December 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, but, when a rumor spread that on July 4, 1865, Palmer would proclaim freedom for all Kentucky slaves, thousands gathered in Louisville in expectation. On July 3, he told their committee that he lacked the authority to emancipate them, but, on July 4, he spoke for a large crowd and, somewhat overwhelmed with emotion, ignored the law and revealed his heart when he said: “My countrymen, you are free.” On July 20, he acted on the promise by issuing, on his own authority, free passes to slaves to leave the state, and thousands accepted these travel documents with their names on them as their freedom papers—with these documents in their pockets, they crossed the Ohio River into freedom.⁴¹

The cost of the Civil War in Kentucky is incalculable. The slave investment of $107,494,527—the assessed value of Kentucky slaves in 1860—was gone. About thirty thousand Kentucky military men, about one-third of those who enlisted in both armies, died from disease or battle wounds, and many others were wounded. Those who came home struggled with the end of the prewar economic expansion. The production of tobacco, wheat, hemp, and other farm products declined, and land under cultivation decreased by over four million acres. Instead of increasing, the number of livestock declined. Kentuckians owned 388,000 horses in 1861 and 299,000 in 1865. Mules decreased from 95,000 to 58,000 and cattle from 692,000 to 520,000. James Klotter concluded: “Real purchasing power had declined one-third; the tax rate had risen 70 percent; money for any southern loans had disappeared; all funds invested in slaves had vanished.”⁴²

The breakdown of law and order left families and society devastated. “The Civil War brought Kentucky to its knees in virtually every aspect of life,” wrote Michael Flannery. The disorder included schools and colleges, churches, and local government; symphonies, libraries, theaters, and literary societies retreated into inactivity. Augusta College and Shelby College closed because of the war. The number of students in the state common schools declined from 165,000 before the war to 90,000 in 1861. Morrison College of Transylvania University and its other buildings were used as hospitals for the Union army, beginning in 1862. Medical Hall was being occupied as a Union hospital when it burned on May 22, 1863; fortunately, none of the sick and wounded patients were injured. A considerable part of Augusta and Lebanon had been burned, and in Louisville the landmark Galt House burned. Several courthouses were burned along with their important legal documents.⁴³

The great positive outcome was freedom for the slaves, one of whom recalled: “When the news came we were freed every body was glad.” Another former slave, Harriet Mason, was born in Garrard County and was taken by her master to Texas with her two sisters and brother. “When news came that we were free we all started back to Kentucky to Marse Jones old place,” she recalled. “I received the first news of freedom joyfully,” recalled Bert Mayfield of the time when he was thirteen years old. “I think Abe Lincoln a great man.” By October 26, 1865, General Burbridge had renewed his friendship with Governor Bramlette, but, in 1867, he wrote to Robert Breckinridge that he was unable “to live in safety or do business in Ky.” The same year he lamented: “My services to my country have caused me to be exiled from my home, and made my wife and children wanderers.” He practiced law in Washington, DC, until 1879, when he retired and went into real estate in Philadelphia. He died in Brooklyn, New York, on December 2, 1894, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.⁴⁴

In Newport and Covington, where residents remained predominantly Unionist throughout the war and voted for Lincoln in 1864, business was suspended on April 14, 1865, for victory celebrations. For most of Kentucky, parades and ceremonies came later, especially during the dedication of monuments to Kentucky Confederate soldiers. In 1868, Union and Confederate soldiers marched in Morgan's funeral cortege, and the people of Lexington and the surrounding area united in honoring Morgan and his men and all veterans of the war. The General Assembly funded half the expense for Morgan's equestrian monument for the Fayette Country courthouse lawn, and on October 18, 1911, about ten thousand people came to town for the parade and unveiling ceremony—Morgan, Buckner, and Jefferson Davis had won the contest for the hearts of the people; Kentucky had joined the Lost Cause.⁴⁵