Louisville in the American Civil War
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Louisville in the American Civil War was a major stronghold of Union forces, which kept Kentucky firmly in the Union. It was the center of planning, supplies, recruiting and transportation for numerous campaigns, especially in the Western Theater. By the end of the war, Louisville itself had not been attacked even once, even though surrounded by various battles such as the Battle of Perryville and Battle of Corydon.
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[edit] Pre-war
In the November 1860 Presidential election, Kentucky gave native Kentuckian Abraham Lincoln less than one percent of the vote. Kentuckians did not like Lincoln, because he stood for the eradication of slavery and his Republican Party aligned itself with the North, but Kentuckians also did not vote for native son John C. Breckinridge and his Southern Democratic Party, which most of the country regarded as secessionists. Kentuckians owned 225,000 slaves, but Kentucky also loved the Union. Kentucky wanted to keep slavery and stay in the Union. Most Kentuckians, including residents of Louisville, voted for John Bell of Tennessee, of the Constitutional Union Party, which stood for preserving the Union and keeping the status quo on slavery or Stephen Douglas of Illinois, who ran for the Democratic Party ticket. Louisville cast 3,823 votes for John Bell. Douglas received 2,633 votes.
[edit] 1861
On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Other Southern states followed and by early 1861, eleven Southern states seceded from the Union, except Kentucky. Senator Henry Clay from Kentucky had worked for compromise and the state followed his lead. On April 12, 1861, Confederate Brigadier General Pierre G. T. Beauregard ordered his cannons to be fired on Fort Sumter, located in the Charleston, South Carolina harbor, starting the Civil War. At the time of the Battle of Fort Sumter, the fort's commander was Union Major Robert Anderson of Louisville.
After the firing upon Fort Sumter, President of the United States Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers, but Kentucky Governor Beriah Magoffin refused to send any men to act against the Southern states, and Unionists and secessionists both supported his position. On April 17, 1861, Louisville hoped to remain neutral and spent $50,000 for the defense of the city, naming Lovell Rousseau as brigadier general. Rousseau formed the Home Guard. Unionists asked Lincoln for help and he secretly sent arms to the Home Guard. The U. S. government sent a shipment of weapons to Louisville and kept the rifles hidden in the basement of the Court House.
As with the rest of the state, Louisville residents were divided as to which side they should support. Prominent Louisville attorney James Speed strongly advocated keeping the state in the Union. Louisville Main Street wholesale merchants dealt with the South with steamboats traveling the Ohio River from Louisville to New Orleans and supported the Confederacy. Blue-collar workers, small retailers, and professional men, such as lawyers, supported the Union. On April 20, two companies of Confederate volunteers left by steamboat to New Orleans, and five days later, three more companies departed for Nashville on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. Union recruiters raised troops at Eighth and Main, and the Union recruits left for Indiana to join other Union regiments.
On May 20, 1861, Kentucky declared its neutrality. An important state geographically, Kentucky had the Ohio River as a natural barrier. Kentucky's natural resources, manpower, and the Louisville and Nashville Railroad made both the North and South respect Kentucky's neutrality. President Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis kept a hands-off policy when dealing with Kentucky, hoping not to push the state into one camp or the other. The L&N's depot on Ninth and Broadway in Louisville and the steamboats at Louisville wharfs sent uniforms, lead, bacon, coffee and war material south, but Lincoln did not want to stop the city from sending goods south for the fear of upsetting Kentucky's delicate balance of neutrality, but on July 10, 1861, a federal judge in Louisville ruled that the United States government had the right to stop shipments of goods from going south over the L&N railroad.
On July 15, 1861, the War Department authorized U.S. Navy Lieutenant William "Bull" Nelson to establish a training camp and organize a brigade of infantry. Nelson commissioned William Landrum a colonel of cavalry, Theophilus Garrard, Thomas E. Bramlette, and Speed Fry colonels of infantry. Landrum turned his commission over to Lieutenant Colonel Frank Wolford. Garrard, Bramlette and Fry established their camps at Camp Dick Robinson in Garrard County, and Wolford erected his camp near Harrodsburg, effectively breaking Kentucky's neutrality.[1] Brigadier General Rousseau established a Union training camp opposite Louisville in Jeffersonville, Indiana, naming the camp after Joseph Holt. Governor Magoffin protested the establishment of the Union camps to Lincoln, but he ignored Magoffin, stating that the will of the people wanted the camps to remain in Kentucky.[2]
In August 1861, Kentucky held elections for the State General Assembly and Unionists won majorities in both houses, but the residents of Louisville continued to be divided on the issue of which side to join. The Louisville Courier was very much pro-Confederate, while the Louisville Journal was pro-Union.
On September 4, 1861, Confederate General Leonidas Polk, outraged by Union intrusions in the state, invaded Columbus, Kentucky, forever shattering Kentucky's neutrality policy. As a result of the Confederate invasion, Union General Ulysses S. Grant entered Paducah, Kentucky. President Jefferson Davis allowed Confederate troops to stay in Kentucky. General Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of all Confederate forces in the West, sent General Simon Bolivar Buckner of Kentucky to invade Bowling Green, Kentucky. Union forces in Kentucky saw Buckner's move toward Bowling Green as the beginning of a massive attack on Louisville, Kentucky. With twenty thousand troops, Johnston established a defensive line stretching from Columbus in western Kentucky to the Cumberland Gap, controlled by Confederate General Felix Zollicoffer. On September 7, the Kentucky State legislature, angered by the Confederate invasion, ordered the Union flag to be raised over the state capitol in Frankfort, declaring its allegiance with the Union. The legislature also passed the "Non-Partisan Act," which stated that "any person or any person's family that joins or aids the so-called Confederate Army was no longer a citizen of the Commonwealth."[3] The legislature denied any member of the Confederacy the right to land, titles or money held in Kentucky or the right to legal redress for action taken against them.
With Confederate troops in Bowling Green, Union General Robert Anderson moved his headquarters to Louisville. Union General George McClellan appointed Anderson as military commander for the district of Kentucky on June 4, 1861, and on September 9, the Kentucky legislature asked Anderson to be made commander of the Federal military force in Kentucky. The Union army accepted the Louisville Legion at Camp Joe Holt in Indiana into the regular army. Major John M. Delph sent two thousand men to build defenses around the city of Louisville. On October 8, Anderson stepped down as commander of the Department of the Cumberland and Union General William Tecumseh Sherman took charge of the Home Guard, and Lovell Rousseau sent the Louisville Legion along with another two thousand men across the river to protect the city. Sherman wrote to his superiors that he needed two hundred thousand men to take care of Johnston's Confederates. The Louisville Legion and the Home Guard marched out to meet Buckner's forces, but Buckner did not approach Louisville. Buckner's men destroyed the bridge over the Rolling Fork River in Lebanon Junction and with the mission completed, Buckner's men returned to Bowling Green.
Louisville became a staging ground for Union troops heading south. Union troops flowed into Louisville from Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. White tents and training grounds sprang up at the Oakland track, Old Louisville and Portland. Camps were also established at Eighteenth and Broadway, along the Frankfort and Bardstown turnpikes.
[edit] 1862
By early 1862, Louisville had eighty thousand Union troops throughout the city. With so many troops, entrepreneurs set up gambling establishments along the north side of Jefferson from 4th to 5th Street, extending around the corner from 5th to Market, then continuing on the south side of Market back to 4th Street. Photography studios and military goods shops, such as Fletcher & Bennett on Main Street, catered to the Union officers and soldiers. With so many Union troops, brothels also sprung up around the city.
In January 1862, Union General George Thomas defeated Confederate General Felix Zollicoffer at the Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky. In February of 1862, Union General Ulysses Grant and Admiral Andrew Foote's gunboats captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson on the Kentucky and Tennessee border. Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston's defensive line in Kentucky crumbled before his eyes. Johnston had no other choice but to fall back to Nashville, Tennessee. No defensive preparations had been made at Nashville, so Johnson continued to fall back to Corinth, Mississippi.
Although the threat of invasion by Confederates subsided, Louisville remained a staging area for Union supplies and troops heading south. Trains departed for the south along the L&N, but in July 1862, Confederate generals Braxton Bragg, commander of the Army of Mississippi, and Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Army of East Tennessee, planned an invasion of Kentucky. On August 13, Smith marched out of Knoxville with nine thousand men towards Kentucky and arrived in Barbourville, Kentucky. On August 20, Smith announced that he would take Lexington, Kentucky. On August 28, Bragg's army moved towards Kentucky. At the Battle of Richmond, Kentucky, on August 30, Smith's Confederate forces defeated Union General William "Bull" Nelson's troops, capturing the entire force, essentially leaving Kentucky with no Union support. Nelson managed to escape back to Louisville. Smith marched into Lexington and sent a Confederate cavalry force to take Frankfort: Kentucky's capitol.
Union General Don Carlos Buell's army withdrew from Alabama and headed back to Kentucky. Union General Henry Halleck, commander of all Union forces in the West, sent two divisions from General Ulysses Grant's army, stationed in Mississippi, to Buell. Confederate General John Hunt Morgan, of Lexington, Kentucky, managed to destroy the L&N railroad tunnel at Gallatin, Tennessee cutting off all supplies to Buell's Union army. On September 5, Buell reached Murfreesboro, Tennessee and headed for Nashville, Tennessee. On September 14, Bragg reached Glasgow, Kentucky. On that same day, Buell reached Bowling Green, Kentucky. Bragg decided to take Louisville. On September 16, Bragg's army reached Munfordville, Kentucky. Col. James Chalmers attacked the Federal garrison at Munfordville, but he was in over his head and Bragg had to bail him out. Bragg arrived at Munfordville with his entire force and the Union force soon surrendered. Buell left Bowling Green and headed for Louisville. On September 25, Buell's tired and hungry men arrived in the city. Bragg moved his army to Bardstown, but did not take Louisville. Bragg urged General Smith to join his forces to take Louisville, but Smith told him to take Louisville on his own.
With the Confederate army under Bragg prepared to take Louisville, the citizens of Louisville panicked. With Frankfort in Confederate hands, for about a month, Governor Magoffin maintained his office in Louisville and the state legislature held their sessions in the Jefferson County Courthouse. Troops, volunteers and impressed labor worked around the clock to build a ring of breastworks and entrenchments around the city. New Union regiments flowed into the city. General William "Bull" Nelson took charge of the defense of Louisville. He sent Union troops to build pontoon bridges at Jeffersonville and New Albany to speed up the arrival of reinforcements, supplies and, if needed, the emergency evacuation of the city.
Instead of taking Louisville, Bragg left Bardstown to install Confederate Governor Richard Hawes at Frankfort. On September 26, five hundred Confederate cavalrymen rode into the area of Eighteenth and Oak and captured fifty Union soldiers. The following night, a heavy skirmish occurred just beyond Middletown on the Shelbyville Pike and on September 30, Confederate and Union pickets fought at Gilman's Point in St. Matthews and pushed the Confederates back through Middletown to Floyd's Fork.
The War Department ordered "Bull" Nelson to command the newly formed Army of the Ohio, but on the steps of the Galt House, Union General Jefferson C. Davis shot General Nelson over an insult, changing the command over to General Don Carlos Buell. On October 1, the Union army marched out of Louisville with sixty thousand men. Buell sent a small Federal force to Frankfort to deceive Bragg as to the exact direction and location of the Federal army. The ruse worked. On October 4, the small Federal force attacked Frankfort and Bragg left the city and headed back for Bardstown, thinking the entire Federal force was headed for Frankfort. Bragg decided that all Confederate forces should concentrate at Harrodsburg, Kentucky, ten miles northwest of Danville. On October 8, 1862, Buell and Bragg fought at Perryville, Kentucky. Bragg's sixteen thousand men attacked Buell's sixty thousand men. Federal forces suffered 845 dead, 2,851 wounded and 515 missing, while the Confederate toll was 3,396. Although Bragg won the Battle of Perryville tactically, he wisely decided to pull out of Perryville and link up with Smith. Once Smith and Bragg joined forces, Bragg decided to leave Kentucky and head for Tennessee.
[edit] 1863
After the Battle of Perryville, the massive amount of wounded flooded into Louisville. Hospitals were set up in public schools, homes, factories and churches. Union surgeons erected the Brown General Hospital, located near the Belknap campus of the University of Louisville, and other hospitals were erected at Jeffersonville and New Albany, Indiana. By early 1863, the War Department and the U.S. Sanitary Commission erected nineteen hospitals. By early June 1863, 930 deaths had been recorded in the Louisville hospitals and Cave Hill Cemetery set aside plots for the Union dead. Louisville also had to contend with Confederate prisoners.
In the Summer of 1863, John Hunt Morgan led his famous raid through north-central Kentucky, trekking from Bardstown to Garnettsville, a now defunct town in what is now Otter Creek Park. Before crossing the Ohio River into Indiana, Morgan and his crew arrived in Brandenburg, where they proceeded to capture two steamers, the John B. Combs and the Alice Dean; the Alice Dean burned after their crossing.
On September 22, 1862, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared on January 1, 1863, that all slaves in the rebellion states would be free. Some Kentucky Union soldiers, including officers such as Colonel Frank Wolford of the 1st Kentucky Cavalry, quit the army over the proclamation. The proclamation and the recruitment of slaves into the Union army ended the relationship between Lincoln and Kentucky. The controversy drove Kentucky into the hands of the Democrats, who stayed in power for a century.
The Taylor Barracks at Third and Oak in Louisville recruited black soldiers. Black Union soldiers who died from wounds or disease were buried in the Louisville Eastern Cemetery.
After the fall of New Orleans and the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 4, 1863, the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers were open to Union boats without harassment. On December 24, 1863, a steamboat from New Orleans reached Louisville.
[edit] 1864
By 1864, a dark period entered Louisville's history. Guerrilla warfare plagued the state, so the Radicals in Congress took a heavy hand to Kentucky. In Kentucky, a guerrilla was defined as any member of the Confederate army who destroyed supplies, equipment or money. Any returning Confederate was considered a guerrilla. On January 12, 1864, Union General Stephen Gano Burbridge of Kentucky succeeded General Jeremiah Boyle as Military Commander of Kentucky.
On February 21, Jefferson General Hospital was established across the river at Port Fulton to tend to soldiers injured due to the war.
Following a major planning meeting of Ulysses S. Grant, Burbridge and several other Union generals at the Galt House in February, on March 19, Generals Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman met at the same hotel to plan the spring campaign that led to Grant taking on Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Richmond and Sherman taking on General Joseph E. Johnston, capturing Atlanta, Georgia in the process.[4]
On July 5, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus, which meant a person could be imprisoned without trial, their house could be searched without warrant, and the individual could be arrested without charge. Lincoln also declared martial law in Kentucky, which meant that elected officials were powerless to act on behalf of their constituents. Civilians accused of crimes would be tried not in a civilian court, but instead a military court, in which the citizen's rights may not be guaranteed under the Constitution. On this same day, General Burbridge became military governor of Kentucky with absolute authority.[5]
On July 16, 1864, General Burbridge issued Order No. 69 which declared: "Whenever an unarmed Union citizen is murdered, four guerrillas will be selected from the prison and publicly shot to death at the most convenient place near the scene of the outrages."[6] On August 7, Burbridge issued Order No. 240 in which Kentucky became a military district under his direct command. Burbridge could seize property without trial from persons he deemed disloyal. People he deemed disloyal could be shot without trial or question.
With Order No. 69 and Order No. 240, Burbridge began a reign of terror in Kentucky and Louisville. On August 11, Burbridge commanded Captain Hackett of the 26th Kentucky to select four men to be taken from prison in Louisville to Eminence, Henry County, Kentucky, to be shot for unknown outrages. On August 20, suspected Confederate guerrillas J. H. Cave and W. B. McClasshan were taken from Louisville to Franklin, Simpson County, to be shot for some unknown outrage. The commanding officer, General Ewing Bloom declared that Cave was innocent and sought a pardon from Burbridge, but he refused to give the pardon and both men were shot.[7]
On October 25, Burbridge ordered four men, Wilson Lilly, Sherwood Hartley, Captain Lindsey Dale Buckner and M. Bincoe, to be shot by Captain Rowland Hackett of Company B, 26th Kentucky for the alleged killing of a postal carrier by guerrillas allegedly led by Captain Marcellus Jerome Clark (alleged to be Sue Munday) near Brunerstown, present day Jeffersontown, Jefferson County. On November 6, two men named Cheney and Morris were taken from the prison in Louisville and transported to Munfordville and shot in retaliation for the killing of Madison Morris, of Company A, 13th Kentucky Infantry. James Hopkins, John Simple and Samuel Stingle were taken from Louisville to Bloomfield, Nelson County, and shot in retaliation for the alleged guerrilla shooting of two black men. On November 15, two Confederate soldiers were taken from prison in Louisville to Lexington and hung at the Fair Grounds in retaliation. On November 19, eight men were taken from Louisville to Munfordville to be shot for retaliation for the killing of two Union men.[8]
Meanwhile, in November 1864, President Lincoln appointed James Speed as the U.S. Attorney General.
By the end of 1864, Burbridge arrested twenty-one prominent Louisville citizens, plus the chief justice of the State Court of Appeals on treason charges. Many of the captured guerrillas were brought to Louisville and hanged on Broadway at 15th or 18th Streets.
By the November elections of 1864, Burbridge tried to interfere with the election for President. Despite military interference, Kentucky citizens voted overwhelmingly for Union General George B. McClellan over Lincoln. Twelve counties were not even allowed to post their returns.[9]
[edit] 1865
As the Confederacy began to fall apart in January 1865, Burbridge continued his reign of terror. On January 20, Nathaniel Marks, formerly of Company A, 4th Kentucky, C.S. was condemned as a guerrilla. He claimed he was innocent, but was shot by a firing squad in Louisville. On February 10, Burbridge's term as military governor came to an end. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton replaced Burbridge with Major General John Palmer. On March 1, Union forces captured the alleged Sue Munday (Clark) near Breckinridge County, and hanged him at the corner of 18th and Broadway in Louisville. During the three hour trial, Munday was not allowed to counsel or witnesses for his defense.
On April 9, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses Grant, and on April 14, Confederate General Joseph Johnston surrendered to Union General William T. Sherman, ending the Civil War. On December 18, the Kentucky legislature repealed the Expatriation Act of 1861, allowing all who served in the Confederacy to have their full Kentucky citizenship restored without fear of retribution. The legislature also repealed the law that any person who was a member of the Confederacy was guilty of treason. The Kentucky legislature also allowed former Confederates to run for office. On February 28, 1866, Kentucky officially declared the war over.[10]
[edit] Post-war
After the war, Louisville continued to grow with factories and transporting their goods by train. Foreign immigrants and blacks came to Louisville to work in the new factories. Ex-Confederate officers entered law, insurance, real estate and political offices, largely taking control of the city. This lead to the jibe that Louisville joined the Confederacy after the war was over.
In 1895, a Confederate monument was erected near the University of Louisville campus.
[edit] References
- ^ Beach, Damian (1995). Civil War Battles, Skirmishes, and Events in Kentucky. Louisville, Kentucky: Different Drummer Books, 16-17.
- ^ Beach, p. 18.
- ^ Beach, p. 20.
- ^ McDowell, Robert E. (1962). City of Conflict: Louisville in the Civil War 1861-1865. Louisville Civil War Roundtable Publishers, 159.
- ^ Beach, pp. 154-156.
- ^ Beach, p. 177.
- ^ Beach, p. 184.
- ^ Beach, pp. 198, 201, 202.
- ^ Beach, p. 202.
- ^ Beach, p. 228.
- Yater, George H. (1979). Two Hundred Years at the Falls of the Ohio: A History of Louisville and Jefferson County. Louisville, Kentucky: The Heritage Corporation, 82-96.
- Bush, Bryan S. (1998). The Civil War Battles of the Western Theatre, 2000, Paducah, Kentucky: Turner Publishing, Inc., 22-23, 36-41.
- Street, James (1985). The Struggle for Tennessee: Tupelo to Stones River. Richmond, Virginia: Time-Life Books, Inc., 8-67.
- Nevin, David (1983). The Road to Shiloh: Early Battles in the West. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, Inc., 11-12, 42-103.
[edit] See also
| U.S. cities in the Civil War |  |
|---|---|
| North: Cincinnati - Cleveland - Harrisburg - New York City - Philadelphia - Washington, D.C. Border / disputed states: Baltimore - Louisville - Romney, WV - St. Louis South: Atlanta - Charleston - Columbia - Mobile - Nashville - New Orleans - Petersburg - Richmond - Selma - Vicksburg - Winchester - Wilmington |
