More than any other border state, Kentucky was torn between allegiances to the North and South. Birthplace of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, Kentucky had profound ties to the South through the institution of slavery, family connections, and various economic ties that looked southward and tied the state to other slaveholding states.
But it also had connections with the Lower North because of its long Ohio River border. Kentucky was a state that worked hard to achieve a compromise between the sections of the North and the South. The state had voted for John Bell and the Union in Henry Clay, who often pushed for compromise over many decades, and John J.
Crittenden tried to find a compromise in late and early Clay and Crittenden represented the compromising spirit of the State of Kentucky when it came to sectional tensions and problems.
In John J. So those families in Kentucky were literally divided by this great conflict. This is a transcript from the video series The American Civil War. Watch it now, on Wondrium. Kentucky at first hoped to remain neutral. The Governor of the State, Beriah Magoffin, was pro-Southern who issued a proclamation of neutrality. Troops and precious war resources were spent in the effort to retain these Border States from falling to the Confederate Army.
The fact that states like Missouri and Kentucky, despite remaining pro-Union, were deeply divided in their sentiments did not help. The Border States unshaken loyalty to the Union was a big boost to the morale and the resources mobilized by the North states during the course of the American Civil War.
Like all men who do not know what to do, they procrastinate and temporize, until they are forced to a decision. Whatever may be the apology for this procrastination, there is one thing which no sane man can question; and that is, that these States cannot possibly maintain a neutral position in a war between the two sections.
The attempt to do so would end in an utter failure in two months. Individuals might possibly retain a position of silence and inaction in either section, but with States it will prove entirely different. The government could not permit Kentucky, for instance, to stand as a territorial shield to the States South of her, and yet suffer her citizens to individually aid the South.
Such a position might be more effective in aiding the seceders than an open revolt. It is not possible for Kentucky to control or prevent her citizens from taking such a course; nor is it possible to prevent the citizens of the North from making retaliatory aggressions upon Kentucky.
However sincere the governments of the Border States might be in their attempts to maintain a neutral position, they will find it a road too hard to travel. They would be alike the object [of] suspicion and insult from both sides, and in the end would be compelled to take sides.
Without, therefore, for a moment encouraging those States with the hope that they can escape the general scourge of civil war, we must at the same time express our utter dissent from the policy of browbeating them and snubbing them, while they are still in the Union and preparing to make their election. Such a course can add nothing to our chances of securing their fidelity to the government, but, on the contrary must tend to still further alienate them from us.
Their support would be equally useful and gratifying to the North at this juncture. That support is not most likely to be secured by a system of threatening and snubbing. Federal officials were irritated at the state's failure to enact an oath for voters, so Schenck announced that the army would enforce one he promulgated at the polls. Schenck, who had been elected to Congress from Ohio, claimed that his purpose was to prevent disloyal elements from voting, but he was equally interested in assisting the antislavery forces in the state.
Bradford immediately protested to Lincoln about military interference with the election. After conferring with the general, the president modified Schenck's proclamation, designated General Orders No. In his reply to the governor, Lincoln chided the state for failing to enact a loyalty oath and noted that under Schenck's order disloyal citizens could regain the right to vote by taking the oath.
He managed simultaneously to offer concessions to the governor, avoid undermining the military authority in the state, and publicly affirm his policy that "all loyal qualified voters in Maryland Page [End Page 20] and elsewhere" should be allowed to vote without disturbance.
Indeed, for the election state officials stipulated a stricter loyalty test than Schenck had imposed in , and the election passed with little federal disturbance.
Montgomery Blair, Lincoln's postmaster general. The dispute over Schenck's loyalty oath was part of a larger struggle between radical Congressman Henry Winter Davis and Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, a conservative, for control of the Unionist party in Maryland. Wishing to retain the support of both men, Lincoln tried as much as possible to keep out of this fight, Page [End Page 21] which he viewed as largely personal.
While unable to stop the bitter factional struggle within the emerging Republican party in Maryland, Lincoln's temperate actions also bore fruit. Unionist sentiment remained paramount in the state, and in Lincoln and the Republican party gained a clear victory. The Republicans won control of the statehouse and the legislature and elected a majority of the state's congressmen.
Most striking was Lincoln's victory. In , he had received only 2, votes in the state; in , he polled more than 40, votes and secured Lincoln's personal triumph was testimony to his adroit management of affairs in Maryland.
Table 2. Presidential Vote, and State Lincoln Other Lincoln McClellan Maryland 2, 89, 40, 32, Kentucky 1, , 27, 64, Missouri 17, , 72, 31, Delaware 3, 12, 8, 8, When the war began Kentucky, like Maryland, found itself torn between its loyalty to the Union and its cultural ties to the South.
Complicating the situation was the fact that the governor, Beriah Magoffin, favored secession. When Lincoln called for troops after the firing on Fort Sumter, Magoffin indignantly refused to supply any, and the state house of representatives officially adopted a policy of "strict neutrality.
Crittenden endorsed the policy of neutrality as a temporary holding action; Kentucky's neutrality quickly became part of a game of maneuver between Unionists and pro-Confederates in the state for political supremacy. Confronted with Kentucky's neutral stance and pleas for restraint from Unionist leaders, Lincoln moved cautiously so as not to provoke public opinion in the state while waiting for the population's latent Unionism to assert itself.
Varying his policy according to the situation, he realized that he could not force the issue the way he had in Maryland. A less restrained approach in the early months of the war might well have driven the state into the Confederacy. In this difficult period, Lincoln avoided issuing any threats and used conciliatory language. He resisted the demands of Republican governors and editors to adopt a vigorous coercive policy against the state, and also the pleas of military commanders to seize the initiative and invade Kentucky.
He forbad the army to recruit volunteers in the state, declined to prohibit trade with the Confederacy, and promised Garrett Davis, a prominent Unionist, that he would not use force against the state if it did not resist the laws and authority of the United States. He repeated this pledge in another meeting with state leaders in July but was careful not to commit himself as to future action. Time would demonstrate the wisdom of what James Russell Lowell, who demanded a militant approach, sarcastically termed Lincoln's "Little Bo Peep policy.
While antislavery spokesmen such as Lowell fumed, Lincoln's pragmatic policy bore immediate dividends. In a special congressional election in June, Union candidates won nine of ten seats. Throughout the summer, both sides stepped up recruiting efforts in the state, but Lincoln continued to ignore Confederate activities in the state.
In another special election in August to elect a new legislature, Unionists scored a resounding triumph, winning seventy-six of a hundred seats in the house and with holdovers twenty-seven of thirty-eight in the senate. A crisis suddenly developed, however, when John C. Fremont having actually issued deeds of manumission, a whole company of our Volunteers threw down their arms and disbanded. I was so assured, as to think it probable, that the arms we had furnished Kentucky would be turned against us.
In quick order, U. Grant occupied Paducah, Kentucky, the legislature demanded the withdrawal of the Confederate forces, and when the Confederacy refused, it requested federal aid to expel them. Lincoln promptly responded by sending additional troops to occupy the state, and Confederate forces were soon driven from Kentucky. Despite the establishment of a shadowy Confederate government and General Braxton Bragg's subsequent invasion in , Union control of the state was never undermined.
In his first annual message, Lincoln observed: "Kentucky Merton Coulter concluded, "The South, too impatient to be tolerant and too impetuous to be tactful, lost the greatest prize of the West—Kentucky. This result left Governor Magoffin in a difficult position.
Unionists distrusted him, and hence the legislature systematically hamstrung him and, as much as possible, simply ignored him. Eventually in he resigned after the legislature designated an acceptable successor. In , Thomas Bramlette, the Unionist candidate, was elected governor by a commanding majority. The outcome of the political struggle in Kentucky in , however, did not end Lincoln's problems with the state. One point of irritation was trade.
To prevent shipment of contraband to the Confederacy, the Treasury Department required permits for most goods and passengers. Applicants had to take an oath of allegiance and meet a stringent test of past loyalty. Complaints mounted that the permit system was used to punish anyone suspected of disloyalty or who ran athwart military officers.
These protests reached a peak during the tenure of General E. Paine, who was finally removed for abusing his powers. More serious was the growing resentment over arbitrary arrests and military interference in elections. Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus gave wide discretionary powers to military commanders, and he found it difficult to regulate their activities, especially on a day-to-day basis.
The various raids of John Hunt Morgan, the flight of many guerrillas from Missouri to the state, and the continuing activities of bands of Home Guards, initially created to prevent secession in , all contributed to the increase in violence and irregular fighting in In July Lincoln imposed martial law on the state, and it remained under this edict for the duration of the war.
The effect of these actions was to alienate Kentucky's Unionists from the administration. Governor Bramlette was particularly outspoken in his criticism. The army's intrusion was especially marked Page [End Page 25] in the election, and matters worsened again in the presidential campaign when several prominent Unionists, including the lieutenant governor, were arrested by military authorities.
The situation required tact and forbearance, but the commanding general, Stephen G. Burbridge, who appealed to the small radical element in the state, was devoid of both. Palmer, a much more capable administrator, but only the end of the war eliminated the problems that had produced such friction.
As one Lincoln paper in the state commented, the president either had to change commanders "or give the whole of his time to the management of Kentucky affairs. It was Lincoln's policy on emancipation and black troops, however, more than arbitrary arrests or military interference with elections, that accounted for his unpopularity in the state. The army's refusal to return runaway slaves produced inevitable friction with Kentucky slaveowners, and Lincoln justified his initial reluctance to accept black soldiers on the grounds that it would turn Kentucky and the border states against the Union.
In early , with enlistments lagging, army officials in Kentucky began enrolling free blacks and slaves, and military authorities arrested several prominent state leaders for resisting recruitment of black soldiers. Black enlistments further alienated public opinion from the administration. Lincoln's policies were only partly successful in Kentucky. More Kentuckians fought for the Union than the Confederacy, and when the rebel army invaded the state on several different occasions, it did not receive a friendly reception.
In other respects, however, Lincoln's policies failed. Although Kentucky remained loyal to the Union, its congressional delegation strongly opposed the president. Lincoln never enjoyed much popularity in the state, especially after he adopted emancipation as a war aim, and Kentucky voted for George McClellan in by a decisive margin; indeed, Lincoln's Page [End Page 26] proportion of the popular vote The Republican party remained weak in the state, primarily because large numbers of Unionists supported the Democratic party over the slavery issue.
Emancipation, black troops, military arrests, and suppression had all combined to unite Unionists and conservatives in the Democratic organization. Governor Bramlette, who supported Lincoln longer than most Kentuckians before breaking with him in , warned the president that the extreme measures of his military commanders "have aroused the determined opposition to your reelection of at least three fourths of the people of Kentucky.
It was in Missouri, however, that Lincoln's policies achieved the least success. The disappearance of many of the arrest records for Missouri precludes a precise tabulation, but it is clear that a staggering number of civilians were arrested for disloyal activity, and that the number of arbitrary arrests far exceeded that in any other loyal state.
As in Kentucky, the onset of war in Missouri found a secessionist, Claiborne F. Jackson, in the governor's chair and a legislature that was more secessionist than the population as a whole.
Jackson refused Lincoln's call for troops in April, but the secessionists were not strong enough to stampede the state out of the Union. Harney, commander of the U. Louis, gaining strength daily. Even prior to his transfer, Lyon, who had aided the antislavery forces during the turmoil in Kansas, had concluded that "it is no longer useful to appeal to reason but to the sword, and trifle no longer in senseless wrangling.
Louis arsenal, the impatient Lyon began recruiting large numbers of volunteers while keeping a close watch on the secessionists. Harney, commander of the Department of the West, for consultations and put Lyon temporarily in charge of the troops in St. The rash and impulsive Lyon lost little time in upsetting the delicate balance and throwing the situation into chaos by surrounding Camp Jackson, which posed no military threat, and capturing the state militia encamped there.
Lyon's action was a major blunder: it achieved no crucial military end, provoked a serious riot in St. Louis by Confederate sympathizers, and, worst of all, drove many conditional Unionists over to the Confederacy. Quickly returning from Washington, Harney, who believed that precipitate application of force would make matters worse, worked to defuse the situation and allow Union sentiment to develop.
To this end, he negotiated an understanding with Sterling Price, commander of the state militia, to maintain the peace. Harney bluntly informed the government that aggressive military force "could not secure the results the Government seeks, viz: The Maintenance of the loyalty now fully aroused in the State, and her firm security in the Union.
Unconditional Unionists were dismayed at the Harney-Price agreement, while conservatives endorsed Harney's action. In the end, under heavy pressure from the Blairs, Lincoln once again removed Harney. Placed in command of the department, Lyon, who was devoid of common sense, promptly stirred up additional trouble. In a contentious four-hour meeting with the governor, he made clear his intention to use force against those he deemed disloyal.
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