Civil War In Kentucky

Ky Civil War Dispatch 23 (June 24) - Pro-South Kentucky

As we progress through 2011, we look back at the Commonwealth in 1861, as the American Civil War was unfolding, in the Kentucky Civil War Dispatch. In this installment, you may know that our region was heavily pro-southern before and during the war, but you may not know why. We'll look at the reasons, on today's Kentucky Civil War Dispatch.

On this date in 1861, the Jackson Purchase was clearly the only Rebel region in Kentucky.

The Bluegrass State had officially declared its neutrality, but within the Union. That was fine with almost all Kentuckians, excepting most citizens of the Purchase. They demanded nothing short of a Confederate Kentucky.

Several Purchase volunteers were already in the Confederate army, and more were preparing to go.

So, why was the Purchase so different from the rest of Kentucky?

From its earliest days, the seven, now eight, counties west of the Tennessee River were decidedly more Southern in outlook than other parts of the Bluegrass.

Many of the first white settlers of the Purchase did not come from elsewhere in Kentucky. They migrated from from Tennessee, North Carolina and elsewhere in the South.

Tennessee's Andrew Jackson, not Kentucky's Henry Clay, was the Purchase's hero. The region was named for Jackson who, along with former Kentucky Governor Isaac Shelby, negotiated its purchase from the Chickasaw Indians in 1818.

In addition, river and rail trade ties bound the Purchase closer to the South than to the rest of the Commonwealth. Paducah, Columbus and Hickman carried on a lively steamboat trade with Memphis and other ports. Paducah and Columbus were northern railheads of lines that ran from New Orleans and Mobile.

All the while, the Purchase stepped to its own political drummer. Inspired by Clay, Kentucky's most important politician ever, Kentucky became a bastion of Whig nationalism and unionism in the antebellum era of sectional controversy over slavery and its expansion. Like Clay, most other Kentuckians always put the Union above all else.

On the other hand, the Purchase mainly favored ardent pro-slavery Democrats who trumpeted "states' rights," meaning the right of states to have slaves. Before the Purchase was Kentucky's "South Carolina," it was Kentucky's "Democratic Gibraltar."

Most Kentucky Unionists were pro-slavery, too.

What is Battle of Perryville, KY Civil War - Historic Perryville

October 8, 1862

Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg’s autumn 1862 invasion of Kentucky had reached the outskirts of Louisville and Cincinnati, but he was forced to retreat and regroup.

On October 7, the Federal army of Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, numbering nearly 55,000, converged on the small crossroads town of Perryville, Kentucky, in three columns. Union forces first skirmished with Rebel cavalry on the Springfield Pike before the fighting became more general, on Peters Hill, as the grayclad infantry arrived. The next day, at dawn, fighting began again around Peters Hill as a Union division advanced up the pike, halting just before the Confederate line. The fighting then stopped for a time. After noon, a Confederate division struck the Union left flank and forced it to fall back. When more Confederate divisions joined the fray, the Union line made a stubborn stand, counterattacked, but finally fell back with some troops routed.

Buell did not know of the happenings on the field, or he would have sent forward some reserves. Even so, the Union troops on the left flank, reinforced by two brigades, stabilized their line, and the Rebel attack sputtered to a halt. Later, a Rebel brigade assaulted the Union division on the Springfield Pike but was repulsed and fell back into Perryville. The Yankees pursued, and skirmishing occurred in the streets in the evening before dark.

Union reinforcements were threatening the Rebel left flank by now. Bragg, short of men and supplies, withdrew during the night, and, after pausing at Harrodsburg, continued the Confederate retrograde by way of Cumberland Gap into East Tennessee. The Confederate offensive was over, and the Union controlled Kentucky.

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