By Todd Hatton / Berry Craig
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-988432.mp3
Murray, KY – This week on the Kentucky Civil War Dispatch, with the Commonwealth's neutrality in the war a thing of the past, the General Assembly sets to work raising soldiers for the Union. We'll also find out what they decided to do with Kentucky's southern-sympathizing citizens.
On this date in 1861, the Kentucky legislature passed a measure raising the volunteers called for in the resolutions abandoning the Commonwealth's neutrality.
They made provisions for 42,000 men, including 1,500 sharpshooters and 500 scouts mounted on horses they would provide.
All of the volunteers would be mustered into Union service as soon as possible. To help ensure their sober training, legislators outlawed selling or giving away liquor to officers or soldiers within five miles of any military camp.
Meanwhile, political matters demanded attention. For instance, what was to be done with the many Confederate sympathizers in the state?
On September 22, Harrodsburg Home Guards arrested a trio of Southern Rights lawmakers on their way home from Frankfort. Though Unionist, the legislature dispatched a delegation to secure the release of secessionist Senator John Irvan of Murray and Representatives George Silvertooth of Hickman and Fulton Counties and George Ewing of Logan County.
Back in the state capital, Kentucky's pro-Confederate Governor Beriah Magoffin still sat on the otherwise Unionist Military Board. Unionists feared he might use what was left of the largely Southern-sympathizing State Guard to force Kentucky into the Confederacy at gunpoint. (Many of the militia soldiers were already in the Rebel army.)
As a result, the Military Board was reorganized to remove what little power Magoffin had over the state's military.
The Guard still worried the Unionist legislature. So, on September 23, lawmakers ordered militiamen to surrender their arms to state authorities. Almost to a man, the Guardsmen left with their weapons for Confederate recruiting camps in Tennessee.
As a result, the state senate passed a bill stripping the citizenship of any Kentuckian who joined or was considering joining the Rebels. The House did not concur, but a similar bill became law later in the war.
Even southern sympathizers who stayed home risked arrest. On September 26, Union authorities took Henry Clay's grandson, James Clay of Lexington, into custody. He was sent to Louisville but released on bail.
The Union dragnet also snagged ex-Governor Charles Morehead of Bardstown, who criticized the legislature for abandoning neutrality, Reuben Durrett, who contributed editorials to the Louisville Courier, which he partly owned, and A.J. Morey, editor of the Cynthiana News. Morehead and Durrett were shipped off to Fort Lafayette in New York City. Morey was held at Newport Barracks.
Before September ended, several other secessionist papers shut down, including the Lexington Statesman. Its last edition appeared on September 24, with editor Thomas Ben Monroe Jr. trumpeting: "Who then has betrayed you? Whose minions flaunt their flags in your faces and shriek their partisan cries in your ears? Lincoln! Lincoln! Lincoln!"
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. For WKMS News, I'm Todd Hatton.