You should research why KY didn't secede, and TN did. The state legislature from both states voted against secession, TN kicked it out to the populace to vote on, and KY did not. If it had KY would've seceded as well.
Settle this for me...is Kentucky considered the south or not?
- Thread starter KingOfBBN
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You should research why KY didn't secede, and TN did. The state legislature from both states voted against secession, TN kicked it out to the populace to vote on, and KY did not. If it had KY would've seceded as well.
Oops, sorry orlando.II
I assume you meant Orlando Bloom.
Those damn foreigners taking all the best roles.
The vast, VAST majority of "Eastern" Kentuckians fought for the Union, or simply engaged in local warfare. Casey County might not qualify in some definitions of "Eastern" Kentucky, but is illustrative . . . . only one recognized confederate grave is located there . . . . and he moved to the County 30 years after the War's end.
My mother is from Morristown, Tennessee and my father from rural Central Kentucky. There was little separating us from our Eastern Tennessee cousins, culturally, but we always laughed that the Tennessee folks were from an overwhelmingly Unionist/Yankee area, and the Kentucky folks from a modestly confederate area. You won't find Lexington, Kentucky's Confederate Monuments in East Tennessee, and "Lincoln University" is not located in Central Kentucky, but rather Tazwell, Tennessee.
No where close. Lexington and Central Kentucky are overwhelmingly of Anglo and African American descent, as is the entirety of the South (with a few German Towns mixed in.) Cross the Ohio River (the Little Rhine) and enter at Swiss County, Indiana, or any other county in any mid-western state North of the Ohio, and the population instantly switches to a majority of European (mainland) descent, with many counties exceeding 60% German ancestry. And . . . . many "Swiss" counties, and "Swiss" descendants "became" Swiss in 1916 . . . . just as my English ancestors became "Scotch Irish" in the 1770's.
I travel Ohio and Indiana a good bit. I could give many, many examples of this, but will leave it at one. Not long ago, in the mid-west, at a lunch counter, I asked a woman who was a stranger to me, and who had the only empty seat right next to her, "may I join you, Ma'am . . . ." She looked at me and in that grating mid-western tone, said, "you can sit next to me, but you do not have to call me Ma'am, because you and I are the same age . . . . blah, blah, blah." I smiled and said, "do you see the flat spot on the back of my head . . . . that's where Daddy and Granddaddy would smack me if I failed to say "Ma'am" or "Sir" to someone whose name was unknown to me, from ages 8 to 80, blind, crippled and crazy.".
Kentucky never had a draft for the Union Armies, but more than twice as many served in Blue. THOUSANDS of slave-owners fought in Blue, and while the numbers are sketchy, it is possible that a majority of slave owners fought in Blue.
The most prominent of these (at least in later life) was Supreme Court Justice, John Marshall Harlan of Lincoln/Boyle County. In 1896, he was the only Southern Justice, and the only former owner of slaves on the Court. He was also the only dissenter on the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, which legalized racial segregation. His dissenting opinion ended with words I fear that have proven to be prophetic . . . . "nothing of the future will atone for the wrong this day done."
Most of the discussion, above, confuses the terms "Southern" and "Northern" with the ideas of being Unionist or pro-Confederate, or secessionist, and is an unfortunate residue of popular culture, and over-simplistic movies and tales since the War.
Sherman rode through Georgia and South Carolina with a group of calvary men from Alabama . . . . proud Southerners all, but equally determined the Union would survive the War. Of his "Hundred Thousand More, Father Abraham," thousands were from slave owning families of Tennessee, Kentucky, and likely every "confederate" state (and also non-slave owning families from those areas), including the "Rock of Chickamuagua" Thomas, of Virginia.
In short, even had 100% of Kentuckians chosen Union over secession, it would not have and could not have changed the basic cultural and geographic fact that Kentucky is Southern.
The greatness of Kentucky (and Missouri, and West Virginia), is that it's people, by a very clear majority, made the correct decision in rejecting the deep-southern radicals, and fought to maintain the Union.
Some might still have sentimental opinions that disagree with mine, but if that sentiment were sufficient to change history, and retroactively tilt the balance of power to an ultimate secessionist victory, I'm afraid we would having this discussion in German or Japanese.
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Hack, You make some very good points.
Eastern TN had no desire to secede, and militia had to be installed in order to keep them from forming a new state loyal to the Union.
Western KY and Western TN had ideas of becoming one state, and joining the confederacy.
Eastern TN had no desire to secede, and militia had to be installed in order to keep them from forming a new state loyal to the Union.
Western KY and Western TN had ideas of becoming one state, and joining the confederacy.
CatGotMyTongue . . . . "Were you there?"
My family has farmed in one county since April 12, 1816, having just celebrated our 201st anniversary of buying our first farm, here, having previously moved to Central Kentucky from Culpepper County, Virginia.
As a child, I would play on my Great-Great-Great Grandfather's grave, a Revolutionary War soldier, who moved to Kentucky with three adult sons, a wife, and two families of slaves, beginning the trek in 1808, first to Garrard County, thence to Lincoln County. Two slots from his grave, in the family cemetery on the farm he purchased in 1816, was also my Great-Grand Father's grave, the Civil War soldier, I reference, above. His youngest son was my Grand-Father, born in 1890, and who died in 1980, my 17th year. He had some pretty direct stories from Sherman's march . . . . as told to him by his father.
I'll remind you of a famous quote about the South, from a source I've forgotten: a mid-westerner asked a Southerner if, in fact, history was not disproportionately important in the South. The Southerner responded that "history in the South is not even in the past."
Was I there?
Yes.
My family has farmed in one county since April 12, 1816, having just celebrated our 201st anniversary of buying our first farm, here, having previously moved to Central Kentucky from Culpepper County, Virginia.
As a child, I would play on my Great-Great-Great Grandfather's grave, a Revolutionary War soldier, who moved to Kentucky with three adult sons, a wife, and two families of slaves, beginning the trek in 1808, first to Garrard County, thence to Lincoln County. Two slots from his grave, in the family cemetery on the farm he purchased in 1816, was also my Great-Grand Father's grave, the Civil War soldier, I reference, above. His youngest son was my Grand-Father, born in 1890, and who died in 1980, my 17th year. He had some pretty direct stories from Sherman's march . . . . as told to him by his father.
I'll remind you of a famous quote about the South, from a source I've forgotten: a mid-westerner asked a Southerner if, in fact, history was not disproportionately important in the South. The Southerner responded that "history in the South is not even in the past."
Was I there?
Yes.
In Sandburg's biography of Lincoln, and most of the rest, Lincoln is more frequently quoted worrying about the people of East Tennessee, and his desire to get a railroad through the Cumberland Gap, than he is about individual battles. He didn't have too much to worry about, really. (Future) VP Johnson was there throughout the first half of the war and survived. I have no doubt that Nashville sent in militia, but I bet they slept very lightly if East of Murphreesboro, and got picked off from a distance in the daytime.
Damn. Good stuff
My first quarter at Centre College, I asked another freshman where he "was from."
With a blank stare he said, "What do you mean, where am I from?"
This was the first time I had encountered "suburbia" and I have fought a pathetic and failing rear-guard action against it, as it has steadily weakened our minds, our political system and our national discourse.
When I realized he was serious, I asked if he had lived in a house, prior to coming to College. He had.
Then I asked if a mother and/or a father had lived there, too. Both of his parents lived in that house.
I then asked if there was a community close to where the house was located.
He looked uncomfortable, and finally said, "well, we live in Fulton County, but I guess you could say that I'm from Atlanta."
I'm a smart ass, so I said in response . . . . "Gooood, you're from the Soooouuuuth, your from Geeooorgiaaaa . . . ."
And he said, "Not really." So I ask, "why not?"
"Well, my mom's from upstate, New York, and my Dad's from Minnesota, so . . . ."
This was a day that I learned, again, to count my blessings, and repeat, "there but for the Grace of God, go I."
I've read quite a bit about it. It's hard to make that assertion when pro-Union candidates won 9 out of 10 congressional seats in the 1861 election.
I actually think it's hard to argue the state would have voted to secede. They had several opportunities to vote for candidates either sympathetic to the southern cause or outright in favor of secession, and chose in nearly every case to support pro-union candidates- both popularly and in electoral matters.
In the watershed 1860 presidential election, the popular vote went heavily for John Breckinridge, a staunchly anti-secession candidate, with John Bell (also strongly anti-secession) finishing second (while winning the Electoral college), and Stephen Douglas finishing a distant 3rd. After that election, in which Lincoln won nationally, of course, the opportunity for secession became a reality for border states like Kentucky if they so chose.
If the state was in favor of secession, one would have to assume the next congressional election in June of 1861 would have seen secessionists and pro-confederacy candidates winning at least in many areas of the state. The Opposite was true. Anti-secession/pro union candidates won 9 out of the Commonwealth's 10 seats. Further, in august, the state held its elections for state representatives and the pro-union majority in both houses increased dramatically, leaving the pro unionists with a 76% majority in the state senate and a 71% majority in the state house. And that was before the actual "violation of Kentucky's neutrality" that pushed the state even farther pro-union.
During the war, looking at enlistment numbers, 27 of Kentucky's then-44 counties showed far heavier enlistment in the Union army than the Confederate one. In the 17 counties that favored Confederate enlistment, overall percentages of volunteers was lower.
So while it's impossible to say with 100% accuracy that the state would not have favored secession because there wasn't a poll of every citizen in the commonwealth in 1860 and 1861, it's easy to look at the actual results from every opportunity Kentucky citizens had to actually CHOOSE whether they supported leaving the union or not. Because at every opportunity to choose secession, they declined to do so- overwhelmingly.
That doesn't mean there wasn't a strong pro-confederacy vein running throughout southern and western KY- there was. We WERE a border state, after all. That pro-confederate population, however, made up a minority of the state.
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The elections of 1861 don't tell the entire picture, as of that time it was still in doubt as to whether the Northern Slave states were going to secede. The southern backing parties backed off the election as they thought the North would break KY's neutrality which would push KY to the South.
TN also failed to secede the first time it went to vote, it followed the same path as KY did up until it was bounced back to the people the second time. With the state electing to secede in June 1861.
The enlistment numbers don't paint the picture as cut and dry as it seems. Tennessee had the highest number of Confederate enlistees, and the Eastern portion of TN was heavily pro union. That points to many KY citizens flowing south to enlist in TN, as well as many from TN flowing North to enlist in KY as well as free slaves enlisting in KY.
KY was and is southern, and had southern sympathies, but they didn't want the state to be the battleground for the war.
Don't forget Central Kentucky. Anderson County has dozens of names of those who died with the "Orphan" Brigade, a group of 5,000 or so, who never got to come home for leave during the war, as the Unionists had solid control early on. Also, the majority of John Hunt Morgan's (original) men were from Central Kentucky.
My great-grandfather who marched with Sherman had four first cousins from Anderson county who went confederate . . . . three died at Shiloh, and are on the Anderson County monument.
And the "interior" states had an added interest in maintaining national unity . . . .had secession won, each state would have possessed, by implication, that right, thereafter. Imagine trying to get Kentucky tobacco/hemp/timber down the Mississippi, and paying import/export duties two or three times by the time you got to New Orleans. Given the knowledge folks had of this inherent weakness in secessionist thought, I've always been a bit surprised that any interior Southern state went for it . . . . whereas Southern states with sea ports had it made. And only two interior states did so, Arkansas and Tennessee (yes, Oklahoma . . . . but it was entirely Indian Tribes in 1861). And according to some things I've read, the Tennessee departure might not have been legal or favored by the majority. I've read nothing about the movements in Arkansas.
I'm glad to see that our posters have largely avoided the trap of confusing being "Southern" with being "Confederate," or Secessionist. It was an extraordinarily complex time to be alive, with a Pennsylvanian trying his damnedest to hold Vicksburg for the Confederacy and Alabama Calvary providing General Sherman his personal guard. The complexities do not fit the typical narratives, and tend to be forgotten, and bright-and-clear lines are superimposed upon thoughts about that time . . . . bright-and-clear lines that did not exist in the 1860's.
