By Todd Hatton
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-970890.mp3
Murray, KY – Each week, we chart the Commonwealth's course as it navigated the opening days of the Civil War. On today's Kentucky Civil War Dispatch, as southern states broke from the American Union, the Commonwealth opted for neutrality within the U.S. At least most of it did, at any rate. We'll visit the one part that looked away to Dixieland.
On this date in 1861, rumors were flying that the Jackson Purchase was about to secede from the Bluegrass State and form a Confederate state with west Tennessee.
A Kentucky historical marker on the courthouse lawn in Mayfield says that in May, 1861, representatives from the Purchase and from 20 west Tennessee counties convened here. They expressed "belief in the Southern cause, dissatisfaction with Kentucky adherence to Union and Tennessee delay in joining the South."
Consequently, they voted "to secede and form a Confederate State," the plaque claims, adding, "with Tennessee's vote to secede, June 8, 1861, proposal abandoned."
While all but unknown, the Mayfield convention of May 29-31, 1861, was apparently unprecedented. The Purchase was evidently the only section of a loyal state that considered secession.
The conclave alarmed Kentucky Unionists. George D. Prentice, sharp-penned editor of the pro-Union Louisville Journal, said the Mayfield convention was a dastardly plot to split the state. Loyal Kentuckians would forcibly stop it, Prentice thundered.
The convention also grabbed headlines as far away as New York. President Abraham Lincoln heard of the Mayfield meeting, too. On May 30, 1861, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan wrote Lincoln from Cincinnati that "a very delicate question is arising as to Western Ky--that portion west of the Tenna. River." McClellan said Navy Lieutenant William O. Nelson, a leading Kentucky Unionist, "will explain to you that a convention is now being held at Mayfield which may declare the 'Jackson position' separate from Ky, its annexation to [T]enna, & that this will be followed by an advance of Tenna. troops upon Columbus & Paducah."
Apparently, official records of the convention do not survive. Ironically, the only known eyewitness account is that of J.N. Beadles, a Mayfield Unionist who somehow managed to view the proceedings. The Journal and New York Tribune published his version of what happened.
Beadles claimed that after secession was debated, the convention rejected the idea because delegates feared it would harm the Confederate cause statewide. The delegates believed Kentucky was bound to join the Confederacy sooner or later.
At the same time, delegates from the Purchase and other First Congressional District counties re-nominated Representative Henry C. Burnett, a Cadiz Democrat, on the Southern Rights ticket -- meaning the "rights" of white Southerners to own slaves and secede. Burnett would run in a special election set for June 20.
Burnett promised if he were re-elected, "it was his firm determination to arraign the traitor Lincoln before the bar of his country for treason, and if, in his endeavors to bring the usurper to justice, he should lose his life, he expected that Kentuckians would avenge his death."
Before it adjourned, the convention also unanimously resolved to turn the congressional election into a referendum on Union or secession. The delegates voted to request election officers to add "for the South" and "for the North" to the ballot.
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, Hidden History of Kentucky Soldiers and True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon, and Burgoo.