Epilogue

 

Students of history consider it mysterious that Kentucky was more enthusiastic for going to war against Great Britain in the War of 1812 than were the states on the Atlantic coast. Kentuckians were determined to defend the national honor and the U.S. flag on the masts of ships at sea even though the ocean was far away and they owned no ships. Those who had ships in the Northeast opposed the war. Yet Kentucky's support of Henry Clay and the war hawks seems totally logical when viewed from the perspective of the global awareness of early Kentuckians and their vision of global interdependence. Kentucky settlers brought their culture and world outlook with them, and their optimism included the dream that Kentucky would participate fully in the scientific, cultural, political, military, and socioeconomic advances of the global community. In 1841, when higher education was in full flower in Kentucky and Henry Clay's American System still remained on the national agenda, Cassius Clay delivered a speech in the Kentucky House of Representatives expressing his vision that the state could transform itself into one of the most prosperous communities in the world if it would free its slaves. Kentucky, Clay declared, had all the advantages: productive, diversified farms, valuable minerals, and water power. “I am proud of my state, and love her renown,” he said, and, if Kentuckians would vote for emancipation and encourage manufacturing, Kentucky could join the eastern states in exporting steamboats to Russia, cotton gins to India, locomotives to England, and gristmills to the Netherlands.¹

Cassius Clay's more prominent cousin, Henry Clay, agreed that Kentucky could move up to a higher level in the eyes of the world by freeing its slaves. Clay's American System was hopeful in spirit and embodied the expectation of greatness for Kentucky and the nation. The American System represented the hope of John Wesley Hunt and other Kentucky business leaders. The goal was greatness in a global sense, and artists recognized this when they painted sailing ships in Clay portraits; ship owners honored it by naming ships for Clay. On February 17, 1849, Clay wrote a letter to the people of Kentucky challenging them to use the opportunity of adopting a new state constitution to set the example and become the pioneer slave state to voluntarily approve gradual emancipation. “Kentucky enjoys high respect and honorable consideration throughout the Union and throughout the civilized world,” he wrote, but nothing would earn the admiration and esteem of humankind and amplify the glory and greatness of Kentucky as effectively as would leading the way to end human bondage.²

In 1800, Kentucky had been a state eight years, and it was only twenty-five years since the first permanent settlement, in Harrodsburg, which was established on March 15, 1775. Kentucky was still emerging from the frontier, but, when the settlers crossed the Allegheny Mountains, they brought their East Coast and European culture with them, and, in Kentucky, the transformation from wilderness to a golden age of culture and refinement and a society that was complex and stratified was unusually rapid. In his valuable study of the Kentucky militia, Harry S. Laver concluded: “No other state experienced a more rapid transformation from unforgiving wilderness to relatively comfortable urbanity.” Laver declared that militia musters, political barbecues, and other public gatherings contributed to early class distinctions and the rapid maturation of society, socially, politically, and culturally. Public events that included everyone fostered a sense of community and strengthened the people's commitment to republicanism and faith in democracy. Dedication to voting also involved identification with society back East and identification with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the ideals of George Washington and the founding fathers. In antebellum Kentucky, this deep commitment to democracy was manifest in the mass public meetings of protest or support that were so powerful.³

Only five years after the settlement of Harrodsburg, the first college was chartered; seven years after that, the first newspaper began; the first social library opened nine years later, in 1796, only four years into statehood. Two years later, a private girl's school opened in Lexington, and the young ladies were taught French. The first bookstore opened in 1802, ten years into statehood. When Lafayette came, Kentucky already had professional painters with studios, music societies, music and dance instruction, piano factories, and piano retailers throughout the state offering pianos made in Lexington, Philadelphia, New York, and London. The publication of newspapers was widespread, and Kentucky had a professional architect who had designed the main building of Transylvania University, a beautiful brick building of three stories, crowned with an elaborate cupola. By 1825, Kentuckians had enjoyed theater for well over a decade, and Shakespeare was one of their most popular playwrights. Kentucky had had European classical music concerts for twenty years; Beethoven's First Symphony was first performed in Lexington eight years before Lafayette's visit.⁴

Kentuckians connected to the East and Europe in culture, education, and religion, and their dedication to democracy had eastern antecedents. Instead of clinging to provincialism and limited mental horizons, Kentuckians reached out to the world and embraced progress and learning. Early Kentucky was known and respected for playing a major role in shaping the religious development of the nation. Church leaders emigrated from the eastern United States, bringing their theology and church traditions with them, but the Great Revival of 1801 with its camp meetings originated in Kentucky nine years after statehood and well before Lafayette's visit. The revival strengthened Protestantism in the South as Baptists and Methodists tripled in membership and two new denominations, the Disciples of Christ and the Christian Church, were born. Shakers thrived in the revival atmosphere and increased in number, and, while Roman Catholic leaders did not encourage the camp meetings, their churches continued to grow, and Catholics supported advances in education and culture. In 1805, the first Roman Catholic school opened, and three years later, in 1808, sixteen years into statehood, the church organized its first diocese in Bardstown.

Cultural institutions in Kentucky society were rich, diverse, and widely dispersed. Lexington, Louisville, and Frankfort were the centers of culture, but high-cultural activities extended into small, rural communities. As Michael Flannery reported, between 1792 and 1859, the General Assembly chartered sixty-four organizations such as literary societies, lyceums, and libraries throughout the state. By 1812, Kentucky had over twenty-five newspapers in widespread communities from Washington to Russellville. By 1840, when the state had a population of 779,828, readers supported thirty-eight newspapers and thirty-four printing offices. The Louisville Journal was one of the most influential and widely read newspapers in the nation beginning in 1830.⁵

Continuity with eastern antecedents endured in every endeavor. Kentucky artists, for example, studied under prominent painters in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. The quality of their work was recognized and appreciated at home and abroad; a Kentucky-created portrait of Zachary Taylor was displayed in the White House; John James Audubon's wildlife paintings are still considered among the best in the world; Edward Troye's Thoroughbred paintings have never been surpassed. Joel Tanner Hart, born in Kentucky in 1810, was such a great and talented sculptor that, when he went to Florence, Italy, to create a full-length statue of Henry Clay for the Women's Clay Club of Richmond, Virginia, he made the city his home for the rest of his life, comfortable and content as a respected and accepted artist in the brilliant art colony in the historic cradle of the Italian Renaissance.

Henry Clay and other Kentucky statesmen reflected the positive spirit and global view of the nation in their day, and that is one reason why so many candidates for vice president and president of the United States were from Kentucky. The greatest political issues in Kentucky reflected the forward edge of progress and advance into the future. The first comprehensive concern in the period was internal improvements—the construction of roads and canals, the improvement of river navigation, and the building of railroads—and the program was optimistic and a huge investment in the hope of strengthening Kentucky's global market in the future. Kentuckians wanted solid, meaningful, and inclusive economic growth that included small farmers and laborers, a vision shared with Henry Clay, and they did not depend solely on steamboats navigating the state's extensive river system; they entered into railroad building with enthusiasm. During the period, railroads became the number one carrier of freight in the nation; they reduced transportation costs and stimulated economic growth. Their speed and dependability symbolized the future, and Kentuckians appreciated this.

For a while, the state had the goal of creating a great state-supported university, a vision that was well over one hundred years ahead of its time. Horace Holley dreamed that Transylvania University would lead Kentucky into a glorious future in higher education that would set the standard in the West for generations. Transylvania University's Medical and Law departments were first-rate, with up-to-date libraries and professors educated by some of the best teachers on the Atlantic coast and in Edinburgh, London, and Paris. The medical school had a national reputation comparable to Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania and placed Kentucky in the forefront in science in the nation. Science Professor Constantine Rafinesque used teaching methods that are still considered advanced today, and he placed Kentucky in the forefront in alternative medicine and adoption of drugs from plant life. Big Bone Lick, the birthplace of American paleontology, was the key site in solving the global mystery of the identification of the American mastodon. Later, beginning in 1848, with voter approval of the first of two state property-tax levies for public education, education eclipsed internal improvements as the priority for state support. This was strong evidence of the optimism of that generation in that they realized that they were investing in the future through their children. By 1860, Kentucky had an excellent public education system. Participating early in the national reform efforts of antebellum days, the state government supported a state mental hospital, a school for the hearing impaired, and a school for the blind.

Cassius Clay, Henry Clay, and others were right when they recommended that Kentucky abolish slavery. The decision of the voters in 1849 to strengthen slavery in the 1850 state constitution contributed to widening the division in the state on the issue and placed Kentucky on the path to disunity during the Civil War. During the war, cultural activity came to a halt, law and order broke down, and the people suffered. Kentuckians lost their sense of community, and many individuals abandoned their confidence in the Union and gave up their global outlook and hope for greatness in the future. The great positive in the long run was emancipation, but Abraham Lincoln's dream that Kentuckians united in freedom would replace the slavery house divided against itself was elusive; his hope for the pacification of Kentucky, including safety, peace, and opportunity for African Americans, was not accomplished in that generation.

Emancipation represented a huge loss of property for Kentucky slaveholders, but more important was the sense of betrayal on the part of Unionists who supported Lincoln under the assumption that he would continue respecting the state right to control slavery. Kentuckians had fully debated and voted for slavery in 1849, and many felt betrayed by emancipation. Many Unionists were offended by the arrests for sentiment and the interference with elections during the war; many transferred their support to the prosouthern Democratic Party by the presidential election of 1864. Probably the most significant barometer of the loss of confidence in democracy during the war is the low voter turnout in the election of 1864, when almost 60 percent of eligible voters stayed home and 9 of the 110 counties reported no voting. The war ended for Kentucky the same way it began, in an atmosphere of sadness and gloom. “The war is over,” George Prentice wrote, “and many painful thoughts and remembrances have been forgotten. Yet we are not a happy people.” The optimism and hope of 1825 was—as Margaret Mitchell wrote about the Old South civilization in north Georgia—“gone with the wind.”⁶

In August 1865, Conservative Democrats won a majority in the Kentucky legislature and quickly restored the right of former Confederates to vote and stand for election. The legislature reaffirmed the earlier rejection of the Thirteenth Amendment freeing the slaves, and, when three-quarters of the states ratified it and it became law in December 1865, what to many Kentucky Unionists seemed unthinkable occurred—Kentucky's slaves were all freed. For many Unionists, this was the last straw; they refused to accept it, and they did nothing to prevent vigilante “Regulator” groups from carrying out an outbreak of violent persecution of freedmen. Since Kentucky had not seceded, the state did not come under Reconstruction, but, in 1866, the Freedmen's Bureau moved in because of the violence against blacks and the denial of their rights. The bureau provided food, clothing, education, and legal assistance with labor contracts, but many white Kentuckians viewed it as only another federal interference, and the violence continued. After the bureau departed and left only a token force in fall 1868, the attacks increased and continued at a heightened level into 1871.⁷

Kentucky blacks lived in great fear, uncertainty, and suffering caused by the violent attacks of the vigilante groups that terrorized them and their families. Between 1867 and 1871, over one hundred African Americans were lynched. Gunfire and screaming were so constant outside one black farm family's home that the husband and father wrote the governor: “We cannot lay down at Night in peace.” Marion Lucas wrote: “In the countryside white mobs broke up, bombed, and burned schools. In small towns white gangs harassed, threatened, attacked, and drove out teachers.” Local law enforcement officials were so demoralized or so resentful they made few attempts to bring the criminal gangs to justice. Guerrilla raiding continued as well, and the cycle of violent retaliation between families and outlaw bands continued for several years after the war.⁸

Meanwhile, the Confederate Lost Cause movement offered an emotional outlet for the feeling of betrayal experienced by many white citizens. One of the themes running through Kentucky history is that it has been a distinctive state, a state often set apart. In the antebellum period, Kentucky stood out among the states for its patriotism and Unionism. Then it was the only state to declare neutrality, the only one that Lincoln excused for about one year from black enlistment, and the only state to vote against the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments. In 1865, Kentucky was distinctive in seceding from the Union in sentiment and in taking on the role of spokesman and benefactor of the former Confederate states experiencing Reconstruction. In the wave of pro-Confederate feeling, Kentucky's Union veterans were slighted, and most Kentuckians united in support of the Lost Cause. As Christopher Phillips concluded: “Defiance turned quickly into a collective Confederate memory and social identity.” Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, proposed a New Departure that would encourage Kentucky and the New South to invest in railroads and industry and unite with the North in economic progress. However, the Bourbon Democrats in control of the state government declared that Kentucky should discourage industry, embrace agriculture, and champion the South. By 1867, Kentuckians had given ten thousand bushels of corn to suffering Georgians, and the Louisiana and Nashville (L&N) Railroad was providing free transportation for food and clothing donated to former Confederates.⁹

One method of expressing defiance was to vote for former Confederates or Confederate sympathizers for office. The first six governors elected after the war were former Confederate soldiers or Confederate sympathizers. John Hunt Morgan was the great symbol of the Lost Cause in Kentucky, and this gave his former raiders an advantage at the polls. Morgan's second in command, General Basil Duke, was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives and commonwealth attorney. Colonel D. Howard Smith, one of Morgan's brigade commanders, was elected state auditor. William J. Stone, who suffered a leg amputation from fighting under Morgan, was elected speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. James B. McCreary, a lieutenant colonel of the Eleventh Kentucky Cavalry in Morgan's command, was elected a state representative and served two terms as speaker of the House. In 1875, he was elected governor, defeating the former Union colonel John Marshall Harlan, who led the pursuit force against Morgan's men during the Christmas Raid. When McCreary was seventy-three years old in 1911, he was elected governor again, and he was so admired that the General Assembly named McCreary County in his honor.¹⁰

Former Confederate lieutenant general Simon Bolivar Buckner, the Confederate who was most hated by Unionists in Louisville early in the war, the “Judas” who led many of the State Guard militia into the Confederacy, seized the L&N, and threatened Louisville in 1861, was elected Democratic governor in 1887. By then he was sixty-four years old, and, with his white hair and magnificent silvery mustache and imperial beard, he was the epitome of a southern gentleman. After the election, he said that the war was over, but a Republican Party leader countered that, during the campaign, Republican Party members had been “ostracized, oppressed, downtrodden, socially and politically.”¹¹

One of the symbolic events that demonstrated the reunification of Kentuckians in the Lost Cause was John Hunt Morgan's funeral and reinterment in his hometown of Lexington on April 17, 1868. The Morgan legend was ideally suited to the theme of the Lost Cause that Confederate soldiers were Christian knights and romantic, chivalric cavaliers whose gentlemanly manners contrasted with the rough behavior of Union soldiers. After Morgan was killed, mythmakers made him one of the most prominent embodiments of the movement. The Richmond Enquirer and Examiner proclaimed that he had been the “knightliest horseman who ever drew sword to guard his own and his country's honor.” A Louisville newspaper correspondent predicted that his name would rise from the grave, that fathers would teach their sons his chivalric manners, and that he would provide “the strongest example to urge manhood to honorable action.”¹²

Morgan's body had been buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, and every spring after the war his mother, Henrietta, met with his surviving brothers to decide whether he could be returned peacefully that year. They were correct in deciding that by 1868, three years after the end of the war, Kentucky was united behind his memory and in support of the cause for which he died. Union veterans, several of whom had pursued Morgan, joined men from Morgan's command and other Confederate veterans in marching in the funeral procession from the church to the Lexington Cemetery. Louisville leaders momentarily put aside their rivalry with Lexington and provided a wreath of flowers to match the wreath presented by Lexington. There was no protest or demonstration, and, on top of the flowers on Morgan's grave, someone placed a flower arrangement with a small Confederate flag. Morgan had come home, and his grave was crowned with the flag of the Confederacy that he loved.¹³

All over the South, bringing home the bodies of Confederate soldiers was one of the activities of Confederate memorial associations promoting the Lost Cause. Two years after Morgan's funeral, three of the victims of Burbridge's General Order No. 59 were reinterred in Frankfort with honors. Four men were shot in a vacant lot near the present state capitol on November 2, 1864, and they were buried without coffins at the scene. One of the men had been reinterred earlier in Maysville by his family, and on Saturday, November 26, 1870, the remaining three were honored with removal to the Frankfort Cemetery. The Frankfort Yeoman reported that the ceremony was the largest and most elaborate in the history of Frankfort. The bodies were placed in coffins and transported on a beautiful funeral carriage, decorated with evergreens and white flowers, to the Capital Hotel, where the procession was to begin. All the streets were filled with carriages, and people came from miles away in Franklin and surrounding counties to view the gathering of the militia escort. Four companies of 250 militiamen participated, two from Lexington, one from Frankfort, as did the corps of cadets from the Kentucky Military Institute. At the appointed time, the men formed in single file on each side of the funeral car and marched toward the cemetery in measured cadence. People stood quietly on the sidewalks until the procession passed and then joined the procession, leaving the city almost deserted. At the cemetery, there was a prayer, and riflemen fired three volleys over the three graves. The Yeoman reported that the honor was deserved, given the innocence of the three men and the public horror at the manner in which they were killed.¹⁴

The Robert E. Lee monument was unveiled in Richmond, Virginia, on May 29, 1890, and the great festival ushered in an era of monument building throughout the South. On these occasions, all were invited to lay aside their daily routine and take pride in honoring heroes of the past and commemorating southern heritage; men, women, and children, urban aristocrats and poor farmers, connected and united in easing the despondency of defeat. Thomas J. Brown wrote: “The power to install and dedicate a monument implied authority to shape the public realm and define the conduct that deserved admiration.” In Kentucky, the people united behind the movement to create the John Hunt Morgan equestrian statue for the courthouse lawn in Lexington. It was a statewide effort to commemorate the Lost Cause and the heroic legend of Morgan's men.¹⁵

At the state convention of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in 1906 in Peewee Valley, Emma Bateman, daughter of one of Morgan's men, proposed the monument as a living memorial to the Lost Cause, Morgan's men, and Morgan's honor, courage, integrity, humility, and modesty. The officers appointed a state committee, and statewide fundraising began. One of the projects was the sale of gavels made from trees from Morgan's boyhood home on Tates Creek Road in Lexington. The committee received applications from fourteen sculptors and commissioned Italian-American Pompeo Coppini, an artist in San Antonio, Texas. Coppini's success with the statue would establish him as a first-rate sculptor with a great career. He opened a temporary studio in Lexington, and, while he was working, fundraising continued. The UDC raised $7,500, but, requiring $15,000, they applied to the state legislature for the remainder; the appropriation passed, and the Republican governor, Augustus Everett Willson, signed the bill. Willson was born in Maysville and grew up in New York and Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard and practiced law in Louisville in the law firm of his friend and fellow Republican John Marshall Harlan. The state appropriation by a General Assembly with a Democratic majority and its approval by a Republican governor exemplify the bipartisan, statewide nature of the movement. Willson further demonstrated his support by attending the monument dedication and delivering the opening address.¹⁶

The dedication was for Kentucky what the Lee monument dedication was for Virginia—the cardinal event in the commemoration of the Lost Cause. On October 18, 1911, the ceremony began with a parade with Union and Confederate veterans and their sons and daughters riding in automobiles and carriages and walking, waving large Union and Confederate flags. Among the prominent statesmen were three governors—Governor Willson and former governors Simon Bolivar Buckner and James B. McCreary, who would be elected to a second term that fall. About ten thousand people gathered around the courthouse, and a chorus of schoolchildren dressed in red, white, and blue and aligned to form the shape of the Confederate flag sang Dixie and The Star-Spangled Banner. Basil Duke presided and introduced the governor. The crowd cheered when the statue was unveiled, and the day was an unqualified success.¹⁷ An article in the Lexington Herald the next day quoted lines from one of the South's favorite writers, Sir Walter Scott:

Breathes there a man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself has said:

This is my own, my native land!¹⁸

The article took into account that the monument bears the inscription “Genl. John H. Morgan and His Men” and summarized the spirit of the day: “The monument erected to John H. Morgan was not alone for him, not alone for the men who followed him, but was dedicated to the ideals of citizenship and love of country for which these men fought, and bled, and suffered, and died.”¹⁹

The themes of patriotism, self-sacrifice, and defense of civil liberty ran deep in the antebellum heritage of Kentucky. For a few, the vision of a commonwealth united in freedom and equal opportunity continued into the period after the Civil War. William Campbell Preston Breckinridge, a former colonel in John Hunt Morgan's command and a congressman from Kentucky from 1885 to 1895, was one of the most popular Kentuckians of his day; when he died in 1904, his funeral attracted the largest crowd in Lexington since Henry Clay's funeral. He was a great speaker, famous nationally as the “Silver-Tongued Orator from Kentucky,” and he thrilled audiences throughout the state when he relived the successes and bright hope of antebellum Kentucky. He remained loyal to the Lost Cause, and his speeches lauded the heroism and sacrifice of Morgan's men and other Confederate Kentuckians. In the same talks, he recommended the New South creed, the new departure that advocated industrialization, public education, improved transportation, and development of natural resources for Kentucky and the entire South. And, remarkably, in a time of deep prejudice, Breckinridge boldly proclaimed that African Americans should have equality—he said that he dreamed of the day when “barriers will be removed, prejudices will die, class distinctions be obliterated. Not at once; not in our day; not without fierce contest; not without heroism and sacrifice; but yet slowly, [that] day grows stronger.”²⁰

Lincoln shared Breckinridge's vision of the time when his native state would be united in freedom and equal opportunity for every individual. He was disappointed when Kentucky rejected the Thirteenth Amendment, and, if he had been alive, he would have grieved over the tragedy of the house of the commonwealth dividing against itself along racial lines in the years after his death. When he eulogized Henry Clay, he honored him for championing liberty in Greece and South America. Lincoln remembered Clay's dedication to the Union, and he shared the optimism and hope of Clay and other antebellum Kentuckians and Breckinridge later. He was grateful to Kentucky for remaining in the Union and realized that that was one reason the Union won the Civil War. Today, the story has come full circle; the vision of Lincoln, Breckinridge, and others has been achieved. In 1976, in commemoration of the state bicentennial, the General Assembly at last ratified the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments.²¹

In the twenty-first century, when the nation prepared to celebrate Lincoln's two hundredth birthday on February 12, 2009, the state of Kentucky entered into the national celebration with statewide unity and enthusiasm. Highway signs on the major entryways welcoming people into the state were changed to include “Birthplace of Lincoln.” The celebration was reminiscent of Lafayette's visit in 1825 in organization and planning, statewide support, participation throughout society, efficiency, gracious propriety, and success. On June 18, 2004, Governor Ernie Fletcher issued an executive order creating the Commonwealth of Kentucky Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. The mission of the commission included coordinating the statewide celebration and commemorating Lincoln's legacy of freedom and equal opportunity. The Kentucky Historical Society had responsibility for administration, and the commission invested over four million dollars in community grants through the grant programs of the Kentucky Humanities Council, the Kentucky Arts Council, the Kentucky Heritage Council, the African American Heritage Commission, the Kentucky Historical Society, and the bicentennial commission. The grants funded community celebrations, lectures, public art, preservation initiatives, and other projects throughout the state. The celebration, which began on February 12, 2008, and continued to February 12, 2010, demonstrated that the optimism and rising hope of nineteenth-century Kentuckians live again and now are more complete because Kentucky attempts to provide equality for all according to the vision of the man born February 12, 1809, in a log cabin in the heart of the commonwealth.