By Todd Hatton
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-972854.mp3
Murray, KY – Each week, we bring you the stories of the Commonwealth's progress during the opening days of the Civil War. On today's Kentucky Civil War Dispatch, increasing tensions between Union forces and a pro-southern Jackson Purchase threaten Kentucky neutrality.
On this date in 1861, Inspector General Simon Bolivar Buckner, commander of the Kentucky State Guard, ordered Colonel Lloyd Tilghman and six Guard companies to pro-Confederate Columbus to ensure the Mississippi River town's neutrality.
For weeks, Columbus secessionists -- who hoisted a large Rebel flag at the waterfront -- had been begging the Confederates to advance from Tennessee, take their town and save them from the Yankees at nearby Cairo.
Colonel Benjamin Prentiss, the Union commander at Cairo, worried that the Confederates might do just that.
On June 8, Buckner had gone to Cincinnati to meet with Gen. George B. McClellan, commander of federal forces north of the Ohio River.
Buckner promised Kentucky would stay neutral in the war. In turn, McClellan agreed to respect Kentucky neutrality and keep his soldiers out of the state.
But the general also pledged to lend Union troops if the Confederates invaded Kentucky and state troops needed help in driving them out. He also agreed to withdraw the Union forces as soon as the Rebels were gone.
A small group of Union troops from Cairo had already crossed into Kentucky. But they soon returned to their base.
According to the pro-secession Louisville Courier, the Yankees landed in Ballard County, harassed a number of citizens and broke up the Columbus "Independent Rangers," a Confederate outfit.
The Courier also reported that Charles Wickliffe, a Ballard County secessionist and future Confederate officer, went to Prentiss in protest. The Kentuckian apparently got nowhere with the Union chief.
As a result, Wickliffe wrote Kentucky Adjutant-Gen. Scott Brown. The Ballard countian said Prentiss told him local Unionists asked for the troops as protection against Rebel-sympathizers from Columbus. According to Wickliffe, Prentiss warned he might dispatch soldiers to Paducah to protect Unionists there, too.
Wickliffe told Brown that Prentiss had declared he would "send forces into Kentucky whenever he thought proper to do so."
Not long after Wickliffe wrote Brown, a group of Ballard secessionists sent a petition to Governor Magoffin "humbly but earnestly," inviting him to enforce neutrality against the Federals at Cairo.
Buckner was leaning toward the South. Tilghman was avowedly pro-Confederate. So one must wonder how much of a fight the Guard troops at Columbus would have put up against invading Rebels.
In any event, McClellan telegraphed Buckner on June 11 that Tennessee troops were preparing to seize Island Number One in the Mississippi River six miles below Cairo. If that were so, the Rebels likely would have to cross Kentucky to reach their objective.
McClellan's communiqu must have shocked Buckner because Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris had just promised him Volunteer State troops would steer clear of neutral Kentucky.
McClellan's alarm turned out to be a false one.
Not until September would Confederate and Union forces occupy Kentucky. The Confederates would strike first, bagging Hickman and Columbus. Soon afterwards, the Yankees would grab Paducah and Smithland.
They would be bloodless conquests in what would turn out to be America's bloodiest war.
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.