Favorite Sons Of Civil War Kentucky

When the Civil War broke out, thousands of Kentuckians struggled to maintain the state's neutrality in deciding which side to support. Although Kentucky was a slaveholding state, most of the population did not wish to secede from the Union. More than 140,000 Kentucky solders fought on both sides, in the Eastern and Western Theaters. Some of those who emerged from these battlegrounds are among the state's favorite local heroes. Join historian and author Bryan S. Bush as he recounts the journeys of these brave men who fought to build and maintain the legacy of the Bluegrass State.

For Kentuckians, the Civil War was truly a conflict of brother against brother. As a slave state bordering the United States and the Confederate States, Kentucky had ties to both the North and South. Although its state government remained in the Union, the people of Kentucky were divided in sentiment, prompting some 40,000 Kentuckians to leave their homes to fight for Southern independence. When Confederate soldiers eventually returned from the country's bloodiest war, they were held in high regard by their fellow Kentuckians. To be counted among the state's Confederate veterans was an honor, and when the number of living Confederate veterans began to dwindle, groups across Kentucky raised monuments to their memory. Remembering Kentucky's Confederates presents an overview of the state's Confederate soldiers and units who fought bravely in the War Between the States.

Kentucky is the home of bourbon, and there are a proud few who helped usher the industry into prominence. Learn about men like bourbon baron Isaac Bernheim, who founded the Bernheim Forest and Research Center, or John Douglas, who built a racetrack for the trotter racing industry and was known as the "Prince of Sports." George Garvin Brown and his business partner, George Forman, formed the Brown-Forman Company, which today is one of the largest American-owned companies in the spirits and wine business. With such enormous wealth came the temptation for fraud, which led to several bourbon leaders becoming involved in some of Kentucky's famous scandals. Author and Kentucky historian Bryan S. Bush details the intoxicating history of bourbon's biggest historical names.

Frances Dallam Peter was one of the eleven children of Union army surgeon Dr. Robert Peter. Her candid diary chronicles Kentucky's invasion by Confederates under General Braxton Bragg in 1862, Lexington's monthlong occupation by General Edmund Kirby Smith, and changes in attitude among the enslaved population following the Emancipation Proclamation. As troops from both North and South took turns holding the city, she repeatedly emphasized the rightness of the Union cause and minced no words in expressing her disdain for "the secesh." Peter articulates many concerns common to Kentucky Unionists. Though she was an ardent supporter of the war against the Confederacy, Peter also worried that Lincoln's use of authority exceeded his constitutional rights. Her own attitudes toward Black people were ambiguous, as was the case with many people in that time. Peter's descriptions of daily events in an occupied city provide valuable insights and a unique feminine perspective on an underappreciated aspect of the war. Until her death in 1864, Peter conscientiously recorded the position and deportment of both Union and Confederate soldiers, incidents at the military hospitals, and stories from the countryside. Her account of a torn and divided region is a window to the war through the gaze of a young woman of intelligence and substance.

Frances Peter was one of the eleven children of Dr. Robert Peter, a surgeon for the Union army. The Peter family lived on Gratz Park near downtown Lexington, where nineteen-year-old Frances began recording her impressions of the Civil War. Because of illness, she did not often venture outside her home but was able to gather a remarkable amount of information from friends, neighbors, and newspapers. Peter's candid diary chronicles Kentucky's invasion by Confederates under Gen. Braxton Bragg in 1862, Lexington's month-long occupation by Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, and changes in attitude among the slave population following the Emancipation Proclamation. As troops from both North and South took turns holding the city, she repeatedly emphasized the rightness of the Union cause and minced no words in expressing her disdain for the hated "secesh." Her writings articulate many concerns common to Kentucky Unionists. Though she was an ardent supporter of the war against the Confederacy, Peter also worried that Lincoln's use of authority exceeded his constitutional rights. Her own attitudes towards blacks were ambiguous, as was the case with many people in that time. Peter's descriptions of daily events in an occupied city provide valuable insights and a unique feminine perspective on an underappreciated aspect of the war. Until her death by epileptic seizure in August 1864, Peter conscientiously recorded the position and deportment of both Union and Confederate soldiers, incidents at the military hospitals, and stories from the countryside. Her account of a torn and divided region is a window to the war through the gaze of a young woman of intelligence and substance.

Three Union soldiers, well within their own lines, arrived in Gallatin, Tennessee in order to catch a train back to their regiment when stopped by a Union-clad picket, or so they thought. This is a 43-page account of the capture of two Privates and a Lieutenant of 9th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry Regiment and their fate after having been captured by Morgan's Confederate cavalry early in 1862, two years before the construction of Camp Sumter "Andersonville" prison in Georgia. Each of the three soldiers met a different fate after their critical moment on March 17, 1862 at the railhead in Gallatin, Tennessee, where they were taken. One of their families would never fully be healed in a country that strove to reconstruct itself after the War. This is their story, taken from primary sources and carefully researched over seven years.

The author seeks to challenge the long-held perceptions of the politics of the American Civil War. He argues that the war was fought not to preserve the Union or free the slaves but rather to establish the political power of the Republican Party within the federal government. The author argues further that Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party manipulated events to bring about the Civil War in the first place and used the war as a pretext for the establishment of the modern central government.

"Young Abraham Lincoln and his family joined the migration over the Ohio River, but it was Kentucky--the state of his birth--that shaped his personality and continued to affect his life. His wife was from the commonwealth, as were each of the other women with whom he had romantic relationships. Henry Clay was his political idol; Joshua Speed of Farmington, near Louisville, was his lifelong best friend; and all three of his law partners were Kentuckians. During the Civil War, Lincoln is reputed to have said, ""I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky."" He recognized Kentucky's importance as the bellwether of the four loyal slave states and accepted the commonwealth's illegal neutrality until Unionists secured firm control of the state government. Lowell Harrison emphasizes the particular skill and delicacy with which Lincoln handled the problems of a loyal slave state populated by a large number of Confederate sympathizers. It was not until decades later that Kentuckians fully recognized Lincoln's greatness and paid homage to their native son.