WI Fremont Invades Kentucky, Issues Emancipation Edict in August, 1861

Anaxagoras

Banned
What if, in late August of 1861, John Fremont (then in command of the Union Department of the West) had sent troops to occupy Columbus and Paducah Kentucky, while at the same time issuing a proclamation declaring that all slaves of citizens not loyal to the United States were free? This would be before Leonidas Polk's foolish move into the state. Considering Fremont's behavior IOTL, this does not seem at all implausible.
 
Lincoln issues an order that Fremont's edict has no standing. He removes Fremont from command.

Fremont's edict creates a temporary political crisis until Lincoln's countermanding order is known. Kentucky's legislature does not declare for the Confederacy however.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Kentucky's legislature does not declare for the Confederacy however.

No, but a fair chunk of the Unionist slave-holders would throw in with the Confederacy. The divide in the state would be closer to 50-50 than 65-35 (or whatever it was IOTL).
 

TFSmith121

Banned
The departmental boundaries were in a constant flux

The departmental boundaries were in a constant flux in 1861, but Kentucky never fell within Fremont's command; according to Dyer, the Department of Kentucky (created May 28, 1861, and defined as Kentucky within 100 miles of the Ohio River) was in existence until Aug. 15, 1861, at which point the command was merged with the Department of the Cumberland; the Department of the Cumberland remained as such until Nov. 9, at which point it was split between the departments of the Missouri and the Ohio.

Commanders would have been:

Robert Anderson (May - Oct., 1861)
WT Sherman (Oct - Nov, 1861)
Then split between the departments of the Ohio and the Missouri - Halleck in command in Missouri and Rosecrans in Ohio.

Fremont's command was the Western Department, which included Illinois and the states and territories west of the Mississippi to the Rockies, including (of course) Missouri; he was in command from July to Nov. 2, 1861,when he was replaced (essentially) by HW Halleck.

Best,
 
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Anaxagoras

Banned
The departmental boundaries were in a constant flux in 1861, but Kentucky never fell within Fremont's command

Fremont didn't care a damn. He ignored orders from Washington so routinely that Lincoln and others seriously worried he was trying to "set up for himself".
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Except that ignoring orders within one's designated command is one thing;

Except that ignoring orders within one's designated command is one thing; ignoring them in another general officer's command is something quite different.

And Fremont, although many things and not a West Pointer, had been a regular from 1838-48 (granted, in the CTE, with all that implies about independent command in the Old Army, but still); he had resigned in 1848 over a command issue, and so presumably had learned from that; and everyone of significance in the US leadership understood and accepted Magoffin's neutrality proclamation, because of what was at stake.

Say what you will about Fremont, but he understood politics.

Actually, the fact that Fremont did not intervene in Kentucky in 1861 is actually the strongest counter to your POD; if he recognized the issue in reality, why change?

And Fremont had a fair amount on his plate in Missouri, as it was, after all.

And the alternatives are even less likely; although Lyons, if he had survived Wilson's Creek, is probably more likely to WANT to seize the bull by the horns in regards to Kentucky, he was a soldier through-and-through. I don't seem him violating Kentuck's neutrality, any more than Anderson would have.

No, that took the military genius of Leonidas Polk.

Best,
 
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