By Todd Hatton
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-984685.mp3
Murray, KY – One hundred and fifty years ago, the Bluegrass was walking a fine line, trying to stay out of the Civil War. Today on the Kentucky Civil War Dispatch, we find out the strategic importance of two Jackson Purchase towns pulled the Commonwealth into the growing storm.
On this date in 1861, Confederate troops under General Gideon J. Pillow occupied Hickman, Kentucky thus ending the Commonwealth's fragile neutrality.
On September 3, Pillow led his troops north to Columbus. In Cairo, Illinois, Union Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant expected Pillow's next stop would be Paducah. So, Grant decided to beat him to "the Charleston of Kentucky."
And on September 6, Grant's blue-clad forces bagged the city and nearby Smithland.
Now that Rebel and Yankee soldiers were on Kentucky soil, Kentuckians would have to choose sides.
Throughout the Commonwealth's neutrality, both sides had exercised great caution with the Bluegrass State. President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis wanted to win over their native state.
Lincoln feared a Northern invasion might push Kentucky into the Confederacy. Likewise, Davis worried if Southern troops violated the state's neutrality, Kentucky might fully embrace the Union war effort.
But by early September, both sides had concluded that it was time for military necessity to trump political considerations.
On September 2, Union troops were opposite Columbus at Belmont, Missouri. Their apparent aim was to cross the Mississippi River and take the town.
This prompted General Leonidas Polk to send his subordinate Pillow into Kentucky. In The Civil War and Readjustment in Kentucky, E. Merton Coulter says Pillow paused at Hickman "in consequence of the armed position of the enemy, who had posted himself with cannon and entrenchments opposite Columbus."
Union and Confederate brass had coveted Columbus since the war began. From atop the tall dirt bluffs towering over the town, an army could command the Mississippi for miles.
Paducah and Smithland were hardly less strategic. The Tennessee River flows into the Ohio at Paducah. Smithland was at the Cumberland River's confluence with the Ohio.
Since at least mid-August, St. Louis-based Union General John C. Fremont wanted to seize the pro-Confederate Jackson Purchase, including Paducah and Columbus.
On August 10, the W.B. Terry, an armed steamboat belonging to some Southern-sympathizing Paducahans, chugged up the Tennessee to Pine Bluff in Calloway County and captured the Louisville steamer Pocahontas while its crew was loading tobacco. The Terry's crew stole the valuable leaf and carried it into Tennessee to sell.
Soon afterward, a group of pro-Confederate Columbus townsfolk commandeered the U.S. Mail Packet P.B. Cheney. They forced the crew to take the boat to Memphis to help ferry Rebel troops to Missouri.
The Terry's days as a Confederate pirate boat ended August 22 when the U.S.S. Lexington, a Cairo-based wooden gunboat bristling with cannon, steamed into Paducah's harbor. Without firing a shot, the crew snagged the Terry while the crew was ashore, and towed the boat back to Cairo.
The Terry was flying a Rebel flag and piled with supplies bound for the Confederacy.
Soon afterward, the Paducah-to-Evansville mail steamer Samuel Orr chugged into port and the Terry's crew saw a golden opportunity to get even.
With help from White Fowler and other armed pro-Confederate Paducahans, they seized the Orr at gunpoint, ran the boat up the Tennessee and gave it to the Confederates.
Not surprisingly, the the Terry-Orr affair made secessionist Paducahans more fearful of the long-dreaded Yankee invasion. On August 20, some Union troops had crossed over from Cairo and briefly arrested a trio of Ballard county citizens suspected of spying for the rebels.
Pro-Southern Paducahans then hastily convened a mass meeting. The citizens passed resolutions denouncing the Federals and appealing to Governor Beriah Magoffin for military help. They also warned that if he wouldn't send aid, they'd invite the Confederate army to Paducah.
After learning what happened in Paducah, Fremont wrote Washington, arguing "events have thus transpired clearly indicating the complicity of citizens of Kentucky with the Rebel forces, and showing the impracticality of carrying on operations in that direction without involving the Kentucky shore."