By Todd Hatton
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Murray, KY – Each week, WKMS' own Civil War correspondent Todd Hatton brings us stories written by author and historian Berry Craig detailing the Commonwealth's role in the American Civil War. On today's Kentucky Civil War Dispatch, new U.S. President and Kentucky native Abraham Lincoln is sworn into office, and in his first address, urges calm amid the rising sectional tensions.
On this date in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most anticipated inaugural addresses ever.
Historian Allan Nevins wrote that a majority of Northerners felt that the nation was on the verge of its final decision for peace, or war.
Lincoln's remarks were firm yet conciliatory. He said the Union was indivisible and therefore secession was illegal. He also promised to hold onto federal property in the seceded states.
According to Nevins, the president once more, and emphatically, declared that he had no purpose to interfere with slavery in the States where it existed.
Lincoln urged the nation to remain calm and promised the South, quote, In your hands, my fellow dissatisfied countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors."
He concluded, We are not enemies, but friends.
The most important piece of federal property Lincoln meant to keep was brick-walled Fort Sumter in the harbor at Charleston, S.C. On his inauguration day, Lincoln received a disturbing dispatch from Major Robert Anderson, the fort's commander. Anderson warned that he couldn't hold the fort much longer without more food, supplies, and troops.
Like the president, Anderson was a native Kentuckian.
Born in Jefferson County in 1805, Anderson was a career soldier. A West Point graduate, he was a veteran of the Black Hawk, Seminole and Mexican-American wars. He was wounded in the Mexican-American war and made a brevet major. Paducah, Kentucky's Civil War fortification was named in his honor.
Like most Bluegrass state citizens, Anderson did not want to fight his fellow Americans. And like most of them, he was pro-slavery as well as pro-Union and saw no contradiction in the two viewpoints.
President James Buchanan sent Anderson to Charleston in late 1860. He believed Anderson's Southern background, his wife was a Georgian, would make him less objectionable to the rebellious Carolinians.
Anderson took command at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island. But on December 26th, he abandoned that strongpoint and shifted his forces to Fort Sumter, which squatted on a tiny artificial island in the middle of the harbor.
Anderson believed he could more easily defend Sumter against a Confederate attack. He also hoped the Carolinians would see Fort Sumter as less threatening than Fort Moultrie, since Moultrie was closer to Charleston.
Some Confederates believed Anderson was at heart a southern sympathizer who might even surrender Fort Sumter to them without a fight. Lincoln was somewhat worried about Anderson's loyalties, but kept him in command.
Yet like most Kentuckians, Anderson's love of the Union would ultimately trump his pro-slavery and pro-Southern opinions. He would defend Fort Sumter, and the Stars and Stripes, with honor.
WKMS produces Kentucky Civil War Dispatches from West Kentucky Community and Technical College history professor Berry Craig. The Murray State alumnus is the author of Hidden History of Kentucky in the Civil War and True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon, and Burgoo.