A Youth's History of the Great Civil War
Van Evrie, Horton & Co., ©1866
Revised edition, ©2006 www.ronie-mooney-encs.us
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CHAPTER XIX, CAMPAIGN IN KENTUCKY
I HAVE to tell you many sad and painful things of the war in Kentucky. At the beginning of the war, the Legislature of that State passed a resolution against secession, and also against abolitionism. It determined that it would remain neutral in the bloody conflict, that is, that it would not take sides with either party. While it justly condemned abolitionism and all its bloody and inhuman plans, it would not withdraw from the Union, nor take any part with secession. There is no doubt that the most respectable portion of the people of Kentucky strongly sympathized with the South, but there was a numerous though less prominent class of people in the State who sympathized with the Lincoln party.
But it was agreed that the State should remain entirely neutral during the war. It was not in the power of the State to prevent individuals from leaving its borders and going, as their inclinations led, either North or South. No doubt many did so; but still the official attitude of the State remained for some time faithful to its resolution of neutrality. This neutrality the Lincoln party professed to be satisfied with, and promised to respect it, but truth compels me to tell you that they broke the bargain the very first instant they had power to do so.
The friends of Mr.Lincoln were cunning, watchful, and vigilant. Not only watchful and vigilant, as unscrupulous men generally are in a bad cause, but they were full of hatred toward those who did not sympathize with the Lincoln party. They connived with the authorities in Washington to the illegal arrest of some of the most respectable and peaceable citizens of the State, whose influence they dreaded, and whose integrity they knew they could not corrupt.
Among these, ex-Governor Morehead was seized by the Lincoln authorities, and dragged out of his own house at midnight, in the presence of his frightened family, and spirited away out of the State, in violation of the most sacred laws of the land. For a great many months he was kept locked up in Fort Lafayette, denied any trial-not even allowed to know why he had been seized, and refused the least privilege of communicating with his friends. Governor Morehead does not know to this day why he was thus seized. This cruel outrage on the part of the Lincoln Administration produced a perfect storm of indignation among all the most respectable people of Kentucky. The truth probably was that Lincoln wanted to get out of the way all the influential men in Kentucky who could not be swerved from the peaceful resolution to take no part with either side in the bloody conflict.
Soon after the seizure of Governor Morehead it was discovered that the Administration had hatched a conspiracy to seize the Hon.John C. Breckinridge, ex-Vice-President of the United States, Hon.Humphrey Marshall, ex-member of Congress, Hon. William C. Preston, Ex-United States minister to Spain, Hon. Thomas B.Monroe, for more than thirty years District United States Judge, Captain John Morgan, and a good many more of the first citizens of Kentucky. Several of these gentlemen were apprized of the conspiracy against their liberty, if not their lives,in time to get off, and were obliged to throw themselves within the lines of the Confederacy for protection and safety. Messrs. Breckinridge, Marshall and Morgan no longer hesitated to take up arms against a power which had driven them from their peaceful homes.
About the time the above crime of driving peaceable citizens from their cherished homes was committed, it was discovered the Lincoln Administration was about to invade and seize Kentucky on a large military scale. There was a man by the name of Rousseau at Louisville, in that State, who was ready to sell himself to the cause of abolitionism, and he was commissioned a general, with powers to get up a brigade to fight for Mr.Lincoln. At the same time it was discovered that the abolition forces were about to seize upon Paducah and Columbus, important points in Kentucky, for the purpose of permanently holding the State. The Confederate general, Bishop Polk, discovered this plan, and instantly moved and occupied those places himself.
All idea of the neutrality of Kentucky was now at an end. The State became the scene of the wildest anarchy and violence. Whenever the Lincoln force prevailed there was no security for the property or the life of a man who was known to be opposed to the war. Governor Magoffin, who was sincerely desirous of preserving the neutrality and peace of his State, demanded that the Confederate troops under General Polk at Columbus should be withdrawn. General Polk replied that he would promptly comply with this request, provided the abolition army should be withdrawn at the same time, and that guarantees should be given that it would make no more attempts to occupy Kentucky. But this proposition, which was agreeable to Governor Magoffin's sense of justice, was literally hooted at by Mr.Lincoln and his party. The truth is that the Lincolnites wanted Kentucky as a base of supplies and operation against the Southern States.
On the 14th of September, 1861, the Confederate General Zollicoffer wrote to Governor Magoffin as follows: "The safety of Tennessee requiring, I occupy the mountain passes at Cumberland, and the three long mountains in Kentucky. For weeks I have known that the Federal commander at Hoskins' Cross Roads was threatening the invasion of East Tennessee, and ruthlessly urging our people to destroy our railroad and bridges. I postponed this precautionary movement until the despotic government at Washington, refusing to recognize the neutrality of Kentucky, has established formidable camps in the centre and other parts of the State, with the view first to subjugate your gallant State,and then ourselves. * * * If the Federals will now withdraw from their menacing position, the force under my command shall be immediately withdrawn."
Under the influence of William G. Brownlow, a vulgar and desperate man, known as "Parson Brownlow," there were Lincoln clubs formed in East Tennessee, of a number of unprincipled and desperate characters like himself, who formed a conspiracy to burn all the bridges in their part of the State, especially on the line of the railroad. This was evidently a part of a general plan formed by the authorities at Washington, of making a strong invasion of the South through Kentucky and Tennessee.
General Polk still held his headquarters at Columbus, Kentucky, when an army commanded by General Grant, in numbers nearly three times as large as Polk's force, marched to attack him from Cairo. General Grant's army embraced a large land force, and gun-boats and transports to act in conjunction with it. It was said that General Grant had men enough to "surround the rebel army in Kentucky." It is affirmed that General Grant was never known to risk a battle, except when he led three of four times as many men as the enemy.
The battle between his and Polk's forces took place at Belmont, a little village near Columbus, on the 7th of November. It was one of the fiercest little battles of the whole war. For four or five hours the conflict raged with the most deadly fury. At length the Confederate officers, Colonel Beltzhoover, Colonel Bell, and Colonel Wright, of General Pillow's division, sent word to their commander that their regiments had used up all their ammunition. General Pillow then instantly ordered the use of the bayonet. Accordingly a charge was made by the whole line, and General Grant's army was forced back some distance into a wood; but General Grant ordered up reserves, which in turn forced the Confederates back again to their old position. Twice again were Grant's soldiers forced back at the point of the bayonet, and each time the Confederates were obliged to yield again to the heavy reserve force brought against them.
At last General Pillow ordered his whole line to fall back, which it did in a most broken and disorganized manner. Grant's victory seemed complete. But just at this time reinforcements arrived under the command of Colonel Walker, and General Pillow rallied his men to the battle again. The whole conflict was opened again, if possible, with greater violence than ever, and this time the Confederates were entirely victorious. Grant's whole line gave way, and wildly fled before the hot pursuit and yells of Polk's army. Grant's forces took shelter in his gun-boats and transports, which were cut loose from their fastenings, and steamed up the river with the utmost speed. But they got off under the most murderous fire of the victorious Confederates, which produced such consternation on the boats that many soldiers were pushed overboard, or were left entirely at the mercy of the enemy.
In its flight, Grant's army left behind a great number of knapsacks, blankets, overcoats, mess chests, horses, wagons, and a large amount of ammunition and arms, all of which fell into the arms of the victorious Confederates. It is a remarkable fact, and one by no means creditable to General Grant, that in his report of this battle, he dwells at great length upon his decided success in the early part of the day, but leaves out all direct mention of his complete defeat and rout afterwards.
But this brilliant victory availed little for the Confederate cause in Kentucky. The Black Republicans were already massing an immense army to operate in that State, and it was only a question of time when the State would be entirely in the grasp of the abolition foe.
A few days after this Confederate victory at Belmont, the enemies of the Lincoln war in Kentucky enacted a very weak force at a convention which met at Russellville on the 18th of November. After deliberating two days, this convention passed a resolution to form a provisional government for the State of Kentucky, with a view to joining the Confederacy. The patriotic motives of the members of this convention are not to be questioned. Their worthy object was to preserve the ancient liberty of the people of Kentucky, and to resist the negro party, which was compassing the ruin of the State. But it was then too late. The die was already cast. The State was hopelessly involved in the net of abolition treason. So many of its own citizens were either deluded or brought into the revolutionary plans of the Lincoln party, that further resistance, for the time being, was vain.
No doubt many of the citizens of Kentucky assisted the very army that was conquering their State, and preparing for the wholesale overthrow of their property, under the delusion that they were fighting for the Union. They have lived to see their error. They now see, and the most frank portion of them freely confess, that the object of the war was to free negroes, and to overthrow the Union of sovereign States as it was formed by our fathers. It was a war led by men acting under the inspiration of the political principles of that old Puritan monarchist party of New England which tried so long to revolutionize this government in the early days of the Union, of which you have already had an account in this history. The conduct of the Black Republican Congress, and of the whole Black Republican party, since the close of the war, proves that the war was neither for the Union nor for liberty.
In November of this year an event occurred which may justly be regarded as the most humiliating in the eyes of foreign nations that had ever happened to our country. President Davis of the Confederate States had appointed as ambassadors to represent them in England and France the Hon. James M.Mason, of Virginia, and the Hon. John Slidell, of Louisiana. Both of these gentlemen had been United States senators. They ran the blockade at a Southern port in the steamer Nashville, and arrived safely at Havana.
Here they took passage on the Trent, a British mail steamer for Europe. When only two days out, the United States steam frigate San Jacinto, Captain Wilkes, fired a shot across her bows, and having learned that Messrs. Mason and Slidell were on board, demanded that they be given up. The captain of the Trent protested that Captain Wilkes had no right to invade the flag of another power on sea any more than he had on land, but this plain and common sense view did not satisfy a little mind like that of Wilkes. He was determined to seize Mason and Slidell, which he did, and carried them to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor.
When the abolitionists heard the news that these gentlemen had been arrested, their joy knew no bounds. There were no two men at the South whom they hated more intensely, for they were both able and uncompromising opponents of their wicked scheme of putting negroes on an equality with white men. The abolition papers fairly boiled over in excess of joy. Congress endorsed the act by a vote of thanks, and dinners and testimonials were showered upon him as if he was the saviour of a country.
All this shows how mad was the popular mind at this time. People who had not lost their senses told these maniacs that Captain Wilkes had violated a plain law of nations, and that Mr.Lincoln would be forced to deliver the prisoners up. They hooted at the idea. In due time however, John Bull was heard from. There was no parley. The word came, "deliver those men up or fight." It is useless to say that Lincoln and Seward backed down at once. It was a very disgraceful spectacle after all the boasting. The excuse given was that we were too busy fighting the South to attend to England at that time. "One war at a time," said Mr.Lincoln. He and Mr.Seward were both determined that nothing should interfere with their cherished designs against the Southern people. They preferred a war with their own brothers rather than any other that could be gotten up.
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