By Todd Hatton
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-977830.mp3
Murray, KY – Today on WKMS' Kentucky Civil War Dispatch, residents of the Commonwealth flock to their respective banners, heeding the call for troops. We'll also meet some of the men who would lead Purchase Confederates into battle.
On this date in 1861, many Kentuckians were bidding farewell to loved ones or leaving homes and firesides for the Union and Confederate armies.
They didn't have far to travel. Camp Clay and Camp Holt were open to Yankee volunteers just over the Ohio River from the Bluegrass State. Camp Boone welcomed Rebel recruits not far below the state line in Tennessee.
Camp Clay was in Cincinnati opposite Newport. The post was named for Henry Clay, Kentucky's greatest statesman.
Camp Holt opened in Jeffersonville, Ind., across from Louisville. It was the namesake of Joe Holt, an ardent Falls City Unionist who had been postmaster general and secretary of war under President James Buchanan.
Camp Boone, named for Daniel Boone, the Bluegrass State's most famous frontiersman, operated near Clarksville, Tennessee.
Many of the Camp Boone enlistees were from the Jackson Purchase. The Third Kentucky Infantry, comprised almost entirely of Purchase men, was formed at Camp Boone. Many of the men had been in the Kentucky State Guard's Southwest Battalion, commanded by Lloyd Tilghman of Paducah.
Tilghman became colonel and commander of the Third Kentucky. He would make general, surrender Fort Henry, Tennessee to the Yankees in 1862 and die in battle in Mississippi in 1863.
Sen. John C. Breckinridge would also wear Rebel general's stars and end up Confederate secretary of war. But on July 15, 1861, he was still in Washington, and many people wondered about his future.
The Kentuckian dropped some broad hints in a senate speech on July 16. He didn't endorse the Confederacy outright. But he blasted President Abraham Lincoln and Republican lawmakers. In Breckinridge: Soldier Statesman Symbol, William C. Davis wrote that Breckinridge claimed they were stooping to unconstitutional means to defeat the Confederates.
The senator also talked about slavery's influence on the war. Davis says, " He pointed out that although the proportion of slaveholders to non-slaveholders [in the Confederacy] was quite small, he believed the general population was nonetheless overwhelmingly in favor of that form of property."
In addition, Breckinridge condemned a Republican bill that called for the freeing of all slaves in the seceded states. The measure also would allow ex-slaves to help defeat the Rebels.
The bill didn't specifically say freed slaves were welcome to join the Union army. But the implication was clear, and according to Davis, Breckinridge didn't miss it.
Breckinridge "damned the entire resolution as but a congressional act of emancipation which also intended to promote war between masters and slaves. He used the old argument that if Congress could legislate and deny this particular right, then it might overthrow all rights, personal and political."
Davis explained that "like so many before him, Breckinridge failed to see, or admit, that although the majority of the people of the North felt a moral repugnance for slavery, they did not care a whit how a southern state constituted its schools, levied taxes, or elected its legislature."
The author added: "In decrying the eventual outcome of a policy beginning with the abolition of slavery, he and others like him were carrying their arguments out to an absurdity that did not exist."
Meanwhile, Cabell Breckinridge, the senator's 16-year-old son, was already in the Second Kentucky Infantry Regiment at Camp Boone. The senator was not pleased, Davis wrote.
Nonetheless, the Second Kentucky would become part of the storied Kentucky "Orphan Brigade." The outfit's best-known commander? General John C. Breckinridge.
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.