Confederate Kentucky

i'm sure this has been done before but i'm wondering what all differences would be made to the Civil War if Kentucky seceded & joined the Confederacy? any opinions would be appreciated
 
i'm sure this has been done before but i'm wondering what all differences would be made to the Civil War if Kentucky seceded & joined the Confederacy? any opinions would be appreciated

A mess, as quite a few Kentuckians would violently object.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
A mess, as quite a few Kentuckians would violently object.

Quite a few Kentuckians violently objected to Kentucky remaining in the Union, don't forget.

If Kentucky threw its lot with the Confederacy (and I'm assuming you mean in the same timeframe as the other border states which seceded, so April of 1861) I really don't see how the Union could bring the war to a successful conclusion. Not only would Kentucky add vast numbers of soldiers to Confederate ranks and vast potential war-making resources, but it would create a large buffer zone which would protect the vital areas of Tennessee which, IOTL, fell quite early in the war.
 
Quite a few Kentuckians violently objected to Kentucky remaining in the Union, don't forget.

If Kentucky threw its lot with the Confederacy (and I'm assuming you mean in the same timeframe as the other border states which seceded, so April of 1861) I really don't see how the Union could bring the war to a successful conclusion. Not only would Kentucky add vast numbers of soldiers to Confederate ranks and vast potential war-making resources, but it would create a large buffer zone which would protect the vital areas of Tennessee which, IOTL, fell quite early in the war.

How early in the war would Kentucky fall? Kentucky's effectiveness as a buffer zone would likely be short-lived (I don't know how short).
 
Quite a few Kentuckians violently objected to Kentucky remaining in the Union, don't forget.

If Kentucky threw its lot with the Confederacy (and I'm assuming you mean in the same timeframe as the other border states which seceded, so April of 1861) I really don't see how the Union could bring the war to a successful conclusion. Not only would Kentucky add vast numbers of soldiers to Confederate ranks and vast potential war-making resources, but it would create a large buffer zone which would protect the vital areas of Tennessee which, IOTL, fell quite early in the war.

Judging by the number in uniform, not nearly as many as in blue (100,000 Unionist Kentucky soldiers vs. 40,000 Confederates). Not sure that will change that much here - maybe more initially, but probably not another ten or twenty thousand all totaled.

As for a buffer zone...how? Union troops can do what Grant did OTL just about as easily versus a Kentucky unable to defend its borders as a Kentucky in the Union.

I suppose if we assume that a Confederacy-joining Kentucky is more slanted to the CSA than OTL it might be worse, but that still favors more "Kentucky is torn apart" than "Kentucky makes it impossible to win the war".
 
Judging by the number in uniform, not nearly as many as in blue (100,000 Unionist Kentucky soldiers vs. 40,000 Confederates). Not sure that will change that much here - maybe more initially, but probably not another ten or twenty thousand all totaled.

I doubt a great many Kentuckians will have fought for the Union if their state joined the Confederacy. The fact that more than 2 to 1 fought for the Union in OTL is due primarily to the fact that Kentucky stayed with the Union. Nothing more. I am sure the numbers would be reversed if Kentucky cast its lot with the Confederacy.
 
I doubt a great many Kentuckians will have fought for the Union if their state joined the Confederacy. The fact that more than 2 to 1 fought for the Union in OTL is due primarily to the fact that Kentucky stayed with the Union. Nothing more. I am sure the numbers would be reversed if Kentucky cast its lot with the Confederacy.

Or maybe due to the fact that most Kentuckians (OTL) were Union sympathizers.

It stayed with the Union because of that, not as some unrelated fact, in other words.

But if things are otherwise the same except that the legislature votes to secede, that legislature will be in exile soon.
 
As I recall it, sentiment in Kentucky was pretty evenly divided initially, and the state actually tried to remain neutral in the conflict. There was a well-equipped and pro-Southern state militia initially, but as sentiment in the legislature swung against succession that militia was disbanded and replaced by a pro-Union one.

On public sentiment: In the border states, and indeed in some of the non-border states, some individuals and organizations were strong advocates of one side or the other, but there was also a rather large part of the population with no strong commitment to one side or the other, and who would fight with one side or the other or try to avoid the fight based on their perception of their personal interests and their perception of the power/legitimacy of the two sides.

The Lincoln administration had a tightrope to walk in the border states. These were states that had long considered themselves culturally and politically part of the south. Leaders in those states had to fear being politically isolated and powerless in a truncated Union if the southern states successfully left the Union. Most importantly, leaders in the border south had a number of dilemmas: (1) Any war was going to be fought primarily on their territory, and (2) If they stayed in the Union, they would be required to send troops to invade the territories of not just fellow Americans but fellow southerners, and finally (3) They would be doing all of this for an administration most of them didn't vote for and actively despised.

Whatever your other views on the Civil War, it is difficult not to see the degree of Union support in the border south as surprising and politically difficult to pull off. Any major political misstep on the part of the Lincoln administration either in the direction of looking too weak or of looking to eager to war on fellow Americans could quite possibly have swung more border state sentiment toward the confederacy. Lincoln's success on that tightrope was probably the most crucial aspect of Union victory in the war, but it was by no means a sure thing. It took a lot of political skill.
 
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