By Todd Hatton / Berry Craig
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-994311.mp3
Murray, KY – This week on the Kentucky Civil Dispatch, we'll hear about a small group of pro-southern Kentucky politicians dissatisfied with recent state elections that kept the Commonwealth in the Union. So, in spite of the majority, they decided to add a thirteenth star to the rebel flag.
On this date in 1861, about 200 secessionists from 65 counties met behind Rebel lines at Russellville, the Logan County seat, to organize a Confederate government for Kentucky.
However, the Russellville sovereignty convention, which would last until November 20th, didn't come even close to reflecting majority opinion in the Bluegrass State.
Kentuckians voted overwhelmingly Unionist in August elections for the General Assembly.
According to E. Merton Coulter's The Civil War and Readjustment in Kentucky, the Russellville convention was an outgrowth of the Frankfort Peace Convention, called by the Southern Rights Party on September 10th. The secessionists were afraid the legislature was about to abandon neutrality and openly support the Union war effort, which it did soon after the convention.
Before, the Southern Rights group had fiercely opposed a neutral Kentucky. But the convention embraced neutrality as preferable to outright Unionism.
After the peace convention failed to sway lawmakers, George Johnson of Scott County led a movement for a Confederate state government. Coulter wrote that he "did much to convert [Confederate] President [Jefferson] Davis to the idea."
As a first step toward a Confederate Kentucky, 60 secessionists from 32 counties met in Russellville on October 29th. Presided over by pro-Confederate U.S. Rep. Henry Burnett of Cadiz, the attendees scheduled a secession convention for November 18th.
The convention met in the two-story, brick William Forst house, which still stands today. Delegates drafted a declaration of independence along with a secession ordinance and elected Johnson "governor." The secessionists also created a framework for the new state government, including a 10-man legislative council and various other officials. They dubbed Rebel-occupied Bowling Green the Confederate "capital" of Kentucky.
As dubious as the proceedings were, they were enough for Davis to back the "admission" of Kentucky as the 13th Confederate "state." (A similarly bogus Rebel government got Missouri added as the 12th Confederate "state.") Kentucky was granted 10 representatives and two senators in the Confederate congress in Richmond.
Meanwhile, Kentucky Unionists weren't alone in denouncing the Russellville convention as a fraud. Even Southern-sympathizing Gov. Beriah Magoffin vigorously condemned the proceedings.
In fact, most of the sovereignty convention delegates were from counties that voted Unionist in August. Apparently, all of the delegates simply selected themselves.
Only the delegates from the Jackson Purchase and adjacent western Kentucky counties of Livingston and Lyon could claim any real legitimacy. They included eight lawmakers elected on the Southern Rights ticket in August: Senator John Johnson, who represented McCracken and Marshall counties, plus representatives W.M. Coffee of Ballard; Calloway's Daniel Matthewson; George Silvertooth of Fulton and Hickman; A.R. Boone of Graves; George R. Merritt, Livingston and Lyon; John Quincy Adams King of McCracken; and Marshall's Jesse C. Gilbert.
In A New History of Kentucky, Lowell Harrison and James Klotter wrote, "Johnson labored with little success to create a viable government. Its jurisdiction extended only as far as Confederate troops advanced, and many Unionists were behind the Confederate lines."
Indeed, Bowling Green was mostly pro-Union; Russellville and Logan County were sharply divided.
Harrison and Klotter added, "When the army evacuated Bowling Green in mid-February 1862 as part of its withdrawal from the state, Johnson and the council went with it. The capitol of Confederate Kentucky was an army tent."
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.