neutral KY

[TFSmith121]

It's been done...

It's been done...two good general studies:

Harris, William C. Lincoln and the Border States: Preserving the Union. Lawrence, Kan.: University of Kansas, 2011.

Harrison, Lowell Hayes. The Civil War in Kentucky. Lexington: University of Kentucky, 2009

There are innumerable academic histories on various topics related to Kentucky in the Civil War, but the CWT page on Kentucky (which no one needs a JSTOR subscription for) sums it up pretty clearly:

http://www.civilwar.org/hallowed-ground-magazine/spring-2010/civil-war-kentucky.html

Kentucky, by any measure - most notably the 10,774 Kentuckians who died while in US service in 1861-65 - was a loyal state. With a population of 1.155 million in 1860 (slightly less than Missouri's 1.182 million), Kentucky's fatal casualties were only a little less than Missouri's (13,885) and roughly comparable to those of Massachusetts (the definition of a loyal state) which had a population of 1.231 million in 1860 and suffered 13,942 fatal casualties.

As a side note, no less than 41 Kentucky-born men reached general officer rank (full rank, not brevet) in the US forces during the war; that compares with 45 from Massachusetts.

Population figures are from the 1860 census; deaths are from Dyer's Compendium. General officer numbers are from Warner, Generals in Blue.

Best,

 

[Saphroneth]

Slavery was first introduced to Kentucky during its territorial days, and for nearly the first 40 years of its statehood, Kentucky’s population of slaves grew faster than that of whites. By 1830, slaves constituted 24 percent of all Kentuckians, although this ratio dropped to 19.5 percent by 1860. Slave owners in Kentucky numbered more than 38,000 in 1860, the third highest total behind Virginia and Georgia. Like most slave states, Kentucky was not a land of large plantations: 22,000 of its slave holders — or 57 percent — owned four or fewer slaves.
Kentucky’s most ardent proponents of slavery came from the state’s south and west sections, where the lifestyle most resembled that of the Deep South. The primary differentiation came in terms of crop distribution. In the Deep South, slavery-based cash crops such as cotton, rice and sugar were the norm; in southern and western Kentucky, tobacco was the cash crop, accounting for one quarter of the nation’s tobacco output and requiring nearly year-round labor to produce. Another prominent crop was hemp, the growing of which involved the hardest, dirtiest and most laborious agricultural work in the state, making it desirable for slave labor. Together, tobacco and hemp firmly bound southern and western Kentuckians to the preservation of slavery.
In the north and east, Kentuckians were ideologically and economically moving away from slavery. Economically, the area was diversifying. More and more of these Kentuckians broadened their traditional tobacco-and-hemp livelihoods by cultivating grains and cereals, breeding horses and livestock and manufacturing goods. By 1850, they had given Kentucky the South’s second broadest economic base. Generally, a more diversified economy meant less reliance on slavery, which helps to explain Kentucky’s rising emancipation ideology. Already, diversified Kentucky had a profitable market in the excess slaves sold to the Deep South. It was only a step further, then, to support emancipation, which called for a gradual and compensated end to slavery.
A third faction of Kentuckians was ambivalent about slavery. Although not economically bound to the institution themselves, they justified it for several reasons. Some called it a “necessary evil” for life in an agricultural state. Others, prejudiced against or wary of a large free-black population, regarded slavery as a means of control.

So we have a Pro-Slavery faction, a Pay Them For Freeing Their Slaves fation, and a Necessary Evil And Racist faction.

Are we sure this is comparable to Massachusets?

In total, about 100,000 Kentuckians served in the Union Army. After April 1864, when the Union Army began recruiting African American soldiers in Kentucky, almost 24,000 joined to fight for their freedom. For the Confederacy, between 25,000 and 40,000 Kentuckians answered the call of duty.

So 76,000 white Union and 25,000-40,000 white Confederacy.

I wonder how many Massachusets men served in the CSA...

Anyway, that's one side of the numbers. The one we're missing is how much of the population of the state the Confederacy held and for how long they held it. (If we could compare Dec 31 1861 Union Kentucky recruits, Dec 31 1861 Confederate Kentucky recruits and the front line position at the end of 1861 we'd probably have what we needed.)

Southern Democrat and Kentucky son John C. Breckinridge won 36 percent of the state’s vote with a pro-slavery platform and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, champion of popular sovereignty, received 18 percent, while Constitutional Unionist John Bell, who stood simply for preserving the Union, carried the state with 45 percent. Abraham Lincoln, promoting Republican opposition to slavery’s expansion swayed less than one percent of Kentucky voters.

This would seem to suggest that a majority of the Kentucky population were not pro Union in the election. (Remember, Bell's position was "the Constitution protects slavery"... and after Sumter Bell abandoned the Union.)

 

[TFSmith121]

In terms of population numbers, yes.

- snip -
Are we sure this is comparable to Massachusets? ... So 76,000 white Union and 25,000-40,000 white Confederacy.

In terms of raw population numbers, and how many men that yielded for the US forces, yes, which is the point that was being made. Was that somehow unclear to you?

Kentucky, by any measure - most notably the 10,774 Kentuckians who died while in US service in 1861-65 - was a loyal state. With a population of 1.155 million in 1860 (slightly less than Missouri's 1.182 million), Kentucky's fatal casualties were only a little less than Missouri's (13,885) and roughly comparable to those of Massachusetts (the definition of a loyal state) which had a population of 1.231 million in 1860 and suffered 13,942 fatal casualties.

Obviously, the Border states were different in terms of their social and demographic make-up then New England or the Mid-Atlantic or the Old Northwest, or what have you ... this is not a revelation to any American.

Having said that, the realities are that when the time came for a) a political decision between loyalty and rebellion, and b) for men to actually walk down to the recruiting office and take the oath, Kentucky remained a) loyal and b) sent forth as many men - and suffered, essentially, as many dead - as loyal states with roughly similar populations, even New England states, and including Massachusetts.

Beyond that, there's also the anecdotal evidence that when Bragg et al invaded Kentucky for the second time in the summer 1862, the number of Kentuckians who stepped forward to join the rebel army was minimal, to the point the rebel generals themselves complained about it.

As far as the gibe about the 1860 presidential election, you do note that pro-Union candidates won 63 percent of the vote in November, 1860, before a single southern state had seceded? Likewise, even being a Breckinridge voter in 1860 did not equate to supporting secession. Finally, you may want to look at the results of the 1861 state legislative races in Kentucky, which returned a loyal majority and allowed Magoffin to be sidelined; there is also the evidence of the 1861 special Congressional elections and the 1862 Congressional elections, which also returned a loyal majority among the state's Congressional delegation. As shown:

The fact is that secession had little chance in Kentucky after public opinion found expression. Neutrality early became the order of the day. The elections of 1861 were significant in that they gave the people a chance to express their will. It should be borne in mind that the legislature of 1859 was elected when the question of union or disunion was not before the people. Now in 1861 they had to elect members to the Border State Convention, a new legislature, and congressmen to represent Kentucky at the special session called by President Lincoln. In all these elections, Unionists won. Some historians like Smith and Shaler seem to think that the State had pledged itself to remain unconditionally neutral, that these elections had no particular bearing on the situation and that if a "sovereignty convention" had been called, secession would have won. These writers do not seem to see that the people of Kentucky, although nominally neutral, desired to remain with the Union. Doubtless a better statement is that, although the election of 1861 showed that a large majority of the people were in favor of the Union, the Union leaders did not show so in the early part of the year and neutrality was adopted not as an end but as a means that triumph over the enemies of the Union might finally be assured. We easily see now that there was not much danger of secession, but the Unionists could not see it so well at that time. Smith and Shaler doubtless exaggerate the situation, for what danger of secession could there have been when the people had elected the Union candidates for the Border State Convention to be convened at Frankfort on May 27, when they sent nine Unionists out of the ten congressmen to represent them in the special session of Congress, and when on the 5th of the following August, after the battle of Bull Run, they elected to the State Legislature 103 Unionists out of 141 members. The calling of a convention then would have made little difference, if the people had chosen a majority of Unionists to represent them in other bodies. How can one conclude then that they would have elected seceders to represent them in a "sovereignty convention"? Hodge states that the sympathizer with the Confederacy did not contest to any considerable extent the elections of August, 1861, and consequently the supporters of Federal Government were in the ascendancy in the next legislature. He seems to indicate that the Unionists used fraud, but the records show that the Secessionists, regarding it as a lost cause, in many cases withdrew their candidates. Evidently these elections showed not only that secession was impossible but that neutrality could not last.

see: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/JNH/1/4/Defeat_of_Secessionists_in_Kentucky*.html

Again, none of this is unplowed ground. The Border states - Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, and a significant piece of Virginia - were loyal, as the history of 1861-65 shows quite clearly. To try and get any different result requires points of departure that would predate the 1860 election by a significant degree.

None of this is particularly controversial.

The other point is that breaking out the USCT enlistments as somehow not being significant is a common enough trope among a certain segment of the population; do you really want to go there?

Best,

 

[Saphroneth]

The other point is that breaking out the USCT enlistments as somehow not being significant is a common enough trope among a certain segment of the population; do you really want to go there?

Best,

Since I'm fairly sure this is you trying to - once again - paint me as racist, then I'll explain my precise reasoning.


If you are attempting to determine the extent to which a nation was "Union" or "Confederate" in sympathies, then counting USCT is in fact statistically wrong simply because it was a category of recruitment which only took place for the Union. The white population is the population which could support one side or the other by enlisting; thus, this is the population which is fungible to whether a state was pro-Union or pro-Confederate.


The other reason is that even if the CSA had started recruiting CSCT at the same time as the Union recruited USCT (1864) they couldn't have done it in Kentucky because Kentucky was not under Confederate control.


What we are attempting to do is to decouple the question of "X controlled Y region" from "X recruited Z troops", to determine whether:


1) The Pro-confederates in Kentucky were more or less likely to enlist than the Pro-Union elements.
2) Someone in CSA-controlled areas was more likely to enlist in the CSA.


It may well be that the pro-CSA faction just all joined up in one go. But the very fact that you're dancing around the subject itself makes me suspect that the numbers are not favourable to you; that is, that the area controlled by the CSA was smaller population-wise than you would expect looking at the 2-3:1 white recruitment ratio.

 

[TFSmith121]

As explained,

Since I'm fairly sure this is you trying to - once again - paint me as racist, then I'll explain my precise reasoning.

As explained, from November, 1860 to (arguably) Polk's invasion in September, 1861, Kentucky was (essentially) "unoccupied," and so any Kentuckians who wished could travel north to Ohio or Indiana or south to Tennessee to sign up, or, if they so desired, simply remain in Kentucky and join (or not join) the various loyal or rebel militias that were being formed.

The rebel invasions occurred against the backdrop of (as mentioned above) the state's Unionists coming out on top in the various political campaigns and contests, including the selection of delegates to the Border States Convention and the 1861 state legislative and special congressional elections.

It is worth noting that in the special congressional election in June, 1861, nine of ten men elected were loyalists, with an aggregate majority of 54,000 votes; likewise, in the state legislative election in August, 75 percent of the members in both (state) houses were Unionists. Polk invaded in September, and was followed by Johnston's movement to Bowling Green and Zollicoffer's to Somerset. The connection is obvious.

Note that, as made clear above, the rebels controlled significant parts of the state, from Columbus to Bowling Green to Somerset, during the interval after the rebel invasion and before active campaigning began in the winter of 1861-62; and that at the same time, as made clear above, the number of infantry regiments recruited in the state amounted to 28 for the US and nine for the rebels - 3-1 difference.

Note, as well, that despite the loyal and rebel forces being present, there was little hindrance on travel; there are anecdotal examples of rebel recruits going south riding past loyal recruits moving north in this period, or even sharing the same train (different cars) while moving east or west. An excellent survey of the situation, written by someone who was there, is R.M. Kelley's Holding Kentucky for the Union, in Volume I of Battles and Leaders, which is available on-line for free.

One other point of anecdotal evidence: when Bragg et al invaded in the summer of 1862, the rebels gained a grand total of ~1,000 men as volunteer enlistments. Bragg said he needed 50,000. He didn't get them, obviously.

Again, none of this is unknown or unplowed ground to Americans. As far as the meme of discounting the role of African-Americans in the Civil War, that's not unknown to Americans either, more's the pity.

Best,

 

[Corjomc]

I know its a stretch, but in a Confederacy wins scenario could the state be divided along union/rebel lines?

 

[TFSmith121]

The thing is, when the rebels invaded in 1861

I know its a stretch, but in a Confederacy wins scenario could the state be divided along union/rebel lines?

The thing is, when the rebels invaded in 1861, they were outmanevered in the west and center and defeated at the battle of Mill Springs in the eastern part of the state.

When Bragg invaded again in the summer of 1862, they were (essentially) defeated at Perryville in the autumn.

And there's no obvious geographic divide, as there was in western Virginia.

The point being, the rebels could not sustain an army in the field in loyal territory, as witness Lee's invasions of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and Price's attempt at Missouri; they just did not have the logistics capability for anything more than what amounted to raids...

Best,

 

[Anaxagoras]

I know its a stretch, but in a Confederacy wins scenario could the state be divided along union/rebel lines?

I doubt it. Kentucky had a particularly strong sense of identity even compared to the other states, as a time when most people identified with their state as much or more than they identified with the nation.

Moreover, the most pro-Confederate areas of the state (IIRC) were in the central belt, with areas south of there relatively pro-Union. So, if the state were divided up by union/rebel lines, the Confederate territories were not be contiguous with the rest of the Confederacy, which would present obvious problems.

 

[Shinsu]

US cavalry regiments organized from Kentuckians in the same period include the 1st-5th; two batteries were raised as well. Presumably the rebels raised more cavalry units, given the general divide between the "chivalry" and yeomen, but still - three times as many infantry regiments, loyal vs rebels, and at a time when control of the state was militarily divided suggests a far larger percentage of the population were loyal than rebel.
Best,

For the numbers that I have (and I'm merely just saying these, not exactly trying to make a point) the Confederacy raised 47 Calvary battalions plus more then a dozen semi-independent units compared to 36 Union Calvary battalions. With 38 Confederate Infantry battalions (plus some semi-independent commands and eight mounted rifle battalions) compared to 90 union infantry battalions. Only ~30 battalions were raised before 1862.

 

[TFSmith121]

That's interesting .., the USV figures included above

For the numbers that I have (and I'm merely just saying these, not exactly trying to make a point) the Confederacy raised 47 Calvary battalions plus more then a dozen semi-independent units compared to 36 Union Calvary battalions. With 38 Confederate Infantry battalions (plus some semi-independent commands and eight mounted rifle battalions) compared to 90 union infantry battalions. Only ~30 battalions were raised before 1862.

That's interesting - the USV regimental figures included above (28 infantry and five cavalry) are all from Dyer; the rebel infantry regimental numbers (1st -9th) are from the NPS Civil War Soldiers and Sailors database, which includes units, as well as personnel.

Best,

 

[Shinsu]

Anyway, that's one side of the numbers. The one we're missing is how much of the population of the state the Confederacy held and for how long they held it. (If we could compare Dec 31 1861 Union Kentucky recruits, Dec 31 1861 Confederate Kentucky recruits and the front line position at the end of 1861 we'd probably have what we needed.)

From what I can gather, every Confederate Infantry regiment plus the eight mounted battalions were all raised in 1861 before December. I can't check the Calvary as easily. The Union had ~30 infantry battalions raised as well as five Calvary regiments during 1861.

 

[Saphroneth]

So that looks like, over the same period of time (call it the "free recruitment" period) there were more CSA recruits than USA.


That could mean that the CSA supporters all joined up early on, or it could mean that the initial position of KY was more pro-CSA.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

That could mean that the CSA supporters all joined up early on, or it could mean that the initial position of KY was more pro-CSA.

only if you ignore the way they voted.

 

[Saphroneth]

only if you ignore the way they voted.

Er...
If voting matters - that is, if we assume that the "pro Union with slavery" candidate who won a plurality of the vote represents the pro Union strand of KY thought - then that would imply that the vast majority of the people who joined the Union army from Kentucky would have joined the Confederate army in the event of their knowing from the start that the war would end in abolition.

I think it's incontestible that the state of Kentucky did not, in the main, vote for Abraham Lincoln - his being the unquestionable "Union" candidate. (Though it's suggestive that the most anti slavery candidate in the election was the one who promised not to interfere with it.)

If the people of Kentucky wanted to stay in the Union if and only if it were a Union where slavery was protected, they would have voted for one candidate. (Bell.) If they wanted to stay in the Union no matter what, that would have been Lincoln; if they thought slavery should have been legal throughout the country, it would have been Breckenridge (who was himself from Kentucky!); if they felt it should be up to a state to decide (i.e. "states rights") then it would have been Douglas.

1,364 votes went to Lincoln
25,651 went to Douglas.
53,134 went to Breckinridge.
66,058 went to Bell.

The only way this can be defined as the majority voting for the Union overall is if Lincoln, Bell and one of Douglas or Breckinridge is counted as "Union" candidates.

If we go by which side each candidate ultimately supported, we have:
Lincoln and Douglas: Union
Breckinridge and Bell: Confederacy

If we go by whether the candidates considered slavery something that should be protected or expanded, instead of ignored:

Lincoln: Ignored.
Douglas: Up to the territories.
Breckinridge: Expand.
Bell: Protect.

I do not think that those who voted for "anyone but Breckinridge" were Union partisans - the following states had a majority or plurality for Breckinridge:

Alabama
Arkansas
Florida
Delaware
Georgia
Indiana
Louisiana
Maryland (just)
Mississippi
North Carolina
(South Carolina by legislature)
Texas

Notably missing Southern states:
Virginia
Tennessee


While Tennessee may be debatable, Virginia is not - it was after all the capital state of the Confederacy. And often the number of soldiers provided by a state far exceeded the number of votes cast for Breckinridge. (Take North Carolina: 48,000 votes for Breckinridge, supplied considerably more than that to the CSA.)

 

[Gannt the chartist]

And in 1861 the votes were?

 

[Saphroneth]

And in 1861 the votes were?

Assuming you mean 1861 as in the special election in 1861, which involved a massive boycott and about half the 1860 votes being cast; this is not representative given known 1860 votes... 9/10 Unionist.
(90,000 Unionist votes.)

(Edited to reflect realization of the actual meaning by the poster.)

These elections demonstrated that a majority of the people of Kentucky were opposed to secession, but they could not be interpreted as an approval of the war policy of the Lincoln administration, as was quite generally done at the north at that time. Perhaps the best explanation at that time was that the people of Kentucky desired peace and thought that the election of the union candidates was the best way to get it.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

Its probably a fair point to say that the majority of voters in Ky wanted the whole thing to go away.

But when it does not its pretty clear that most Kentuckians do their damnedest to drive the rebel crew from the land we love the best, pretty good at it too.

 

[Saphroneth]

Its probably a fair point to say that the majority of voters in Ky wanted the whole thing to go away.

But when it does not its pretty clear that most Kentuckians do their damnedest to drive the rebel crew from the land we love the best, pretty good at it too.

You say "most Kentuckians", but during the period of open and equivalent recruitment (i.e. when the same level of zeal should lead to the same level of recruitment) you get if anything slightly more troops going South.

Afterwards may be a different matter - but that is afterwards, where the figures are not comparable. For example, no matter the Confederate sentiment in Delaware it would be relatively hard to recruit troops into the armies of the CSA from there.

The evidence seems to suggest:


1) That the primary attitude in Kentucky was for neutrality.
2) That most Kentuckians favoured, at most, states-rights views on slavery, while a sizeable minority favoured legalized slavery across the whole US.
3) That Kentucky produced a considerable number of recruits for the CSA as well as for the USA.

I therefore suspect that Kentucky was what could be called a "swing" state - it would over time align with whichever side happened to control it, as attitudes harden over time in wars. (Much as how more people from North Carolina fought in the ACW on the Confederate side than voted in the 1860 election for anyone).


This is not to denigrate the achievements of Kentuckians in the Civil War - self evidently it produced some of the most famous generals in the war, as well as large numbers of troops for both sides. (It seems a pretty good microcosm of the US, actually.) But to claim that Kentucky was always going to be fixedly pro Union is... a little simplistic.

And I suspect, like much of the US, that if they knew where the Civil War was going they'd have recoiled in horror in 1861. (Universal emancipation? Uncompensated? But we can't ship that many back to Africa!)

 

[TFSmith121]

No one boycotts an election they have any expectation of

Assuming you mean 1861 as in the special election in 1861, which involved a massive boycott and about half the 1860 votes being cast; this is not representative given known 1860 votes... 9/10 Unionist. (90,000 Unionist votes.)

No one boycotts an election they have any expectation of making gains in; it's a lot cheaper than fighting.

As said:

The fact is that secession had little chance in Kentucky after public opinion found expression. Neutrality early became the order of the day. The elections of 1861 were significant in that they gave the people a chance to express their will. It should be borne in mind that the legislature of 1859 was elected when the question of union or disunion was not before the people. Now in 1861 they had to elect members to the Border State Convention, a new legislature, and congressmen to represent Kentucky at the special session called by President Lincoln. In all these elections, Unionists won. Some historians like Smith and Shaler seem to think that the State had pledged itself to remain unconditionally neutral, that these elections had no particular bearing on the situation and that if a "sovereignty convention" had been called, secession would have won. These writers do not seem to see that the people of Kentucky, although nominally neutral, desired to remain with the Union. Doubtless a better statement is that, although the election of 1861 showed that a large majority of the people were in favor of the Union, the Union leaders did not show so in the early part of the year and neutrality was adopted not as an end but as a means that triumph over the enemies of the Union might finally be assured. We easily see now that there was not much danger of secession, but the Unionists could not see it so well at that time. Smith and Shaler doubtless exaggerate the situation, for what danger of secession could there have been when the people had elected the Union candidates for the Border State Convention to be convened at Frankfort on May 27, when they sent nine Unionists out of the ten congressmen to represent them in the special session of Congress, and when on the 5th of the following August, after the battle of Bull Run, they elected to the State Legislature 103 Unionists out of 141 members. The calling of a convention then would have made little difference, if the people had chosen a majority of Unionists to represent them in other bodies. How can one conclude then that they would have elected seceders to represent them in a "sovereignty convention"? Hodge states that the sympathizer with the Confederacy did not contest to any considerable extent the elections of August, 1861, and consequently the supporters of Federal Government were in the ascendancy in the next legislature. He seems to indicate that the Unionists used fraud, but the records show that the Secessionists, regarding it as a lost cause, in many cases withdrew their candidates. Evidently these elections showed not only that secession was impossible but that neutrality could not last.

see: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...Kentucky*.html

Again, none of this is unplowed ground. The Border states - Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, and a significant piece of Virginia - were loyal, as the history of 1861-65 shows quite clearly. To try and get any different result requires points of departure that would predate the 1860 election by a significant degree.

None of this is particularly controversial.

Best,

 

[Shinsu]

Again, none of this is unplowed ground. The Border states - Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, and a significant piece of Virginia - were loyal, as the history of 1861-65 shows quite clearly.

I have some numbers (again) right here.
UNION
Maryland: 34,000 whites, 9,000 blacks
Kentucky: 50,000 whites, 24,000 blacks
Missouri: 80,000 whites, 8,000 blacks
Delaware: 10,000 whites, 1,000 blacks
White men joining from Southern states
Virginia: 22,000
Alabama: 3,000
Arkansas: 10,000
Florida: 3,500
Georgia: 400
Louisiana: 7,000
North Carolina: 25,000
Tennessee: 42,000
Texas: 2,200

CONFEDERACY
Maryland: 20,000
Kentucky: 35,000
Missouri: 30,000
Delaware: 1,000