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tion, shows that slavery, unjust as all must now admit it to have been, could not have been a universally grievous and oppressive burden upon the slaves in Kentucky. Boone County abuts upon the Ohio river, just below Cincinnati, and escape thence from oppression into Ohio was always an easy matter even in the darkest days of slavery; and escape in 1863-5 was always easy even in Kentucky itself.

The assessment of property for the whole state made in May, 1865, showed slaves to the value of about seven and a quarter million dollars, still voluntarily remaining with their masters at that late date-one month after the surrender at Appomattox and, practically, the end of the war which forever destroyed slavery. Not one of these slaves so enumerated, but could have left their servitude-and they knew it-long before they were enumerated as remaining with those whom they claimed as their masters. It is a tribute to these faithful servitors and to those who maintained over them a patriarchal watchcare, that they delayed so long an acceptance of that freedom which came finding them so ill-adapted to its acceptance.

On May 6, 1865, the enlistment of slaves in Kentucky was discontinued by order of the war department. At that date, the war was practically over and the further enlistment of men was as ridiculous as had been many other of the efforts of the government to control the movements and actions of the people in the border states. Kentucky had done its full duty to the Union. It had, in one way and another, sent more men into the Union army than it had into that of the Confederacy, yet it had been notably represented in each army, and had the right to claim that its duty had been done. It will never be known how many Kentuckians served in the two armies, but it will be known, until time shall be no more, that those who did so serve performed every duty demanded of them and that when the great conflict was ended the Kentucky volunteers

came home without a stain upon the banners under which they had fought whether of the Union or of the Confederacy. There was but one exception to this splendid record and that has been referred to in a preceding chapter in which was chronicled the performances of a man who dishonored the uniform he wore and the flag under which he served.

In the light of today, it seems very odd to record that on June 4, 1865, Judge George W. Johnston, of the city court of Louisville, committed a negro slave named Jacob Hardin to the workhouse, "until his master shall give bail that he will not be suffered to go at large and hire himself out as a free man." Gen. John M. Palmer, then commanding the Department of Kentucky, prohibited the enforcement of the law, and ordered the release of the slave "unless detained in custody for some other cause than the order of the city court of Louisville." On July 11, 1865, General Palmer ordered his quartermasters to pay all wages earned by negroes to them "and not to their pretended masters unless with the consent of the negroes." On September 11, 1865, General Palmer and General Brisbin were indicted by the grand jury of the Jefferson circuit court in Louisville, for abducting slaves and otherwise violating the slavery code of Kentucky. Of course, nothing ever came of these indictments and they are only referred to here to show how hard slavery died in Kentucky.

Joseph Wingate, mayor of Lexington, in view of the fact that great numbers of refugee slaves had assembled in Lexington and were a burden upon the town for their support, on Oct. 16, 1865, issued a proclamation notifying the owners of the slaves to remove them from that city to their homes and take care of them, or "legal proceedings will be instituted under the state laws to compel compliance." Whereupon General Palmer ordered General Brisbin. who was in command at Lexington, to inform said mayor that "you are instructed to protect the people of his city from the violence he

invites; that no portion of them can be seized and removed from that city at the mere will of persons who may call themselves 'owners and claimants'; that all the people of the state are presumed to be free and will be protected as free until orders are received to the contrary."

At that same period, the Kentucky Central Railroad Company directed its conductors to refuse to transport slaves unless they were provided with written orders from their masters. A number of slaves with military passes were refused transportation. The Louisville and Jeffersonville Ferry Company also refused military passes after the abrogation of martial law.

On October 21, 1865, General Brisbin notified Jason Williams and wife at Lexington that unless they paid their ten slaves, children of a colored soldier, reasonable wages for all their labor since March 3, 1865, when congress passed the act freeing the wives and children of negro soldiers, "suit would be entered before the Freedman's Bureau and steps taken to compel payment."

On November 3, 1865, Granville Pearl, Judge of the twelfth circuit court district, appeared in Lexington under arrest, by order of General Brisbin, whose command there was composed of a brigade of negro soldiers. Judge Pearl was arrested because in the discharge of his duties as a judge, he had ordered the sale in partition among some infant heirs, of a negro woman who, to avoid the sale, had married or pretended to marry, a negro soldier. A week later, General Brisbin notified Garrett Davis, Brutus J. Clay, and other prominent citizens of Bourbon and Fayette counties, that he would bring suit against them before the Freedman's Bureau, for wages alleged to be due to some of their own slaves, whose husbands were serving in the army.

On November 1, 1865, Gen. John M. Palmer was indicted by the grand jury of the Jefferson circuit court for enticing slaves to leave

the state, and was held in $500 to answer. This indictment was, in the December following, dismissed by Judge Johnston on the ground that before it was returned, the requisite number of states had adopted the thirteenth amendment to the constitution abolishing slavery, and that, therefore, all criminal and penal laws of Kentucky relating to slavery were of no effect.

On December 18, 1865, William H. Seward, secretary of state of the United States, announced by proclamation that the legislatures of twenty-seven of the thirty-six states (threefourths) had ratified the thirteenth amendment, "and it has become valid to all intents and purposes, as a part of the constitution of the United States." The ratifying states were Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The nine states which refused to ratify the amendment were California, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon and Texas. In both Ohio and West Virginia the amendment was voted on twice by two separate legislatures. In Ohio, the first legislature voted to reject the amendment; the next legislature reconsidered the matter and voted to ratify it; and, in the final count the vote of the second legislature was counted. In West Virginia, the first legislature voted to ratify the amendment; the next legislature reconsidered the matter voting to reject it and in the final count, the vote of the first legislature was counted.

It will be observed that among the states reported as ratifying the amendment abolishing slavery were Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, all of which had seceded and formed a part of the Confederate states and not one of which had representation in the congress of the United States at the

time when their legislatures made up of southern "scalawags," northern "carpetbaggers" and ignorant plantation negroes, are alleged to have solemnly voted to amend the organic law of the Union. It seems that they were back in the Union for the purpose of ratifying constitutional amendments, but in the matter of sending representatives to sit in congress, they were outside the Union. During the war it was claimed that no state could withdraw from the Union; when the war had ended, it was contended that the seceding states had forfeited the right to representation in congress because they had left the Union, and when it was desired to amend the constitution these same states were recognized as having never left the Union and as being competent to pass upon a proposed amendment to the organic system upon which the government rested. Those whose years do not permit their minds to go back to the period immediately following the war, may find difficulty in understanding this anomalous condition of political affairs, but those who are older will recall that, in those days, nothing was deemed impossible or improper which bore hard upon the prostrate south. No indignity conceived in the mind of the most wicked partisan; no reversal of the declarations made while the war was in progress, was permitted to stand in the way of a congress, most of the members of which had very carefully abstained from risking their lives along the battle line when that war was most dangerous. All this happened a long time ago. Whether the thirteenth amendment was legally or illegally ratified does not matter now. It killed slavery forever in our country and for that reason, all good people can overlook possible irregularities and give thanks that the curse which the north first put upon the south, has been removed from that section for all time and that it can return to us no more. Every southern man can and does give thanks to the Great Jehovah that he, at last, is set free, however much the northern

people may claim that it was the black and not the white slaves whom they relieved from the bonds of slavery.

On January 25, 1866, the Kentucky legislature adopted the following joint resolution:

"Whereas, it is represented that Major General Clinton B. Fisk, head of the Freedman's Bureau of Kentucky, did, on the 18th instant deliver an address in Cincinnati, Ohio, in which he made, among others, these statements:

"Only the day before yesterday in Lexington, Kentucky, thirteen discharged colored soldiers stood on the streets, in full sight of Henry Clay's monument, with their bodies lacerated; their backs bleeding from the cruel lash; their heads cut to the scalp, and one or two of them with their eyes put out. And what for, do you suppose? Simply for going to their former masters and asking for their wives and children. I appealed to the civil authorities in their behalf and was told that there was no law in Kentucky to help them. I heard there of a slave to be sold on a certain day and I made an arrangement with the master commissioner to buy him myself, as the last slave sold in Kentucky.'

"And whereas, it is believed that those statements have no foundation in fact and are calculated to place the people of Kentucky in a false light before the country:

"Therefore, be it resolved, that a committee be appointed of two from the house and one from the senate, to proceed immediately to Lexington, and ascertain the truth or falsity of the statements."

This joint resolution was adopted and Senator William A. Dudley and Representatives Benjamin F. Buckner and John M. Armstrong, all good Union men and as fine representatives of the best class of Kentuckians, as could be found in the state, were appointed as the proposed committee. After a thorough investigation, this committee reported to the general assembly on February 15th, "that the charges made by General Fisk are false and slanderous; they are but a continuation of the system of misrepresentation to which the people of this state have been exposed for several years," etc. The temptation to apply to Fisk and his kind a shorter and uglier word than that used by the committee must have been almost

irresistible to the gentlemen who composed it, as it is to this writer. Fisk was not manly enough to withdraw his false statement and was such a craven that the severe statement by which the committee characterized his utterance, had no effect upon him. He had accomplished his purpose and had put into circulation in the northern states, a baseless story to further enrage them against the southern people, then prostrate at the feet of those who had conquered them.

Any one who lived in Kentucky during the days when the Freedman's Bureau was in supreme control, will recall this man Fisk and his like creatures, who made life a hell for white men, Union and Southern men alike.

After the promulgation of the alleged adoption of the thirteenth amendment, the people of Kentucky promptly accepted it. February 14, 1866, the general assembly agreed to acts. concerning the negro citizens of the state, conferring certain civil rights, relieving them from former disabilities as slaves, making them subject to the same punishment as the white people for crime; authorizing schools for their children, and appropriating for the education of colored children all taxes collected from the colored people.

On February 17, 1866, the legislature claiming to have "enacted laws for the colored race, characterized by justice and humanity, suited to their present condition and necessary for their welfare," by resolution requested the president of the United States to cause the removal of the Freedman's Bureau from the State and also to revoke his order suspending the writ of habeas corpus in Kentucky. The president did neither of these things, and the Freedman's Bureau long remained as a menace to the white people, and without advantage to the negroes.

While probably 25,000 colored troops were recruited in the state, not one of them was credited to Kentucky's quota, but every man of them went to the credit of some northern states, mostly in New England, in order to

Vol. 1-25.

lighten the draft in those states. But all that happened a long time ago and no one need to be unhappy about it now. Perhaps those superlatively good people up in New England concluded that as they had brought the first negro slaves into the country, they had the right to make use of them afterwards.

In 1871, the Kentucky legislature made legal in all the courts of the State the testimony of the negroes, who had formerly not been permitted to testify in any court of justice.

The Ku-Klux, who had found a field for their operations in the southern states, never had a respectable representation in Kentucky where there was no need for them, if, indeed, there had ever been a need for them anywhere. Some outrages had been perpetrated against negroes in several districts of Kentucky, which, in every case, had been attributed to returned Confederate soldiers, though, in no instance, had this ever been proven to be true. In 1873, the legislature passed a bill providing severe penalties against those who confederated for the purpose of intimidating or inflicting injuries upon others. This statute still prevails. Though the former Confederates had been charged with the commission of outrages against the colored people, it is a historical fact that the first men indicted in the state under the act were neither Kentuckians nor former Confederates, but men who had come from east Tennessee into Todd County after the close of the war, in which at least one of them had served in the Union army. They were properly sentenced to the penitentiary on conviction, and from that day to this the colored man has been as safe in Kentucky as the white man. His children have as good schools as the white children; no discrimination is shown in the distribution of the school fund, and peace prevails everywhere between the two races. The man who should attempt to stir up discord between the white and black people in Kentucky, would find this state a good one to get out of, and that quickly.

CHAPTER LIV.

KENTUCKY OFFICERS IN THE WARS-THE SPLENDID KENTUCKY PRIVATE-DEFECTS OF UNION RECORDS-SAD AND TERRIBLE WAR RECKONING-FUTILE ATTEMPT TO KEEP WAR ISSUES ALIVE-KENTUCKY POLITICS AFTER THE WAR-MILITARY INTERFERENCE-THE SOLDIER'S "GOOD ANGEL"-GRADUAL DEPARTURE OF MILITARY AUTHORITIES OBNOXIOUS WAR ACTS REPEALED KENTUCKY'S QUICK RECONCILIATION-KENTUCKY MEMBERS OF THE FORTIETH CONGRESS HELM-STEVENSON ADMINISTRATION CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS MADE OPERative-SteveN SON SUCCEEDS MCCREERY-NEGRO TESTIMONY LEGALIZED.

In the twenty-fifth anniversary number of the Louisville Times, issued December 31, 1909, appeared the following appreciation of those Kentuckians who have attained high ranks in the army: "In looking back through history's honor roll of valorous men who distinguished themselves in war are scores whose memory will always be kept green by Kentuckians because they were Kentuckians, and by bravery and loyalty did high honor to their native state. In all the annals of war there were none more courageous in trying times of sectional or international strife. Kentucky gave to the soldiery of both land and sea, men who stand out preeminent on the pages of history for their sturdiness, bravery and unswerving fealty to the cause they espoused. Kentuckians, in war as in peace, are esteemed for their high ideals of honor, and few of them have left records that may not be recounted to posterity as an honor to themselves and to Kentucky. In the great struggles of 1812, the war with Mexico, and the Civil conflict, Kentucky sent a full quota into the strife and all gained a full share of glory. A Kentuckian is a soldier in all that constitutes a soldier. He has the respect of his superior officer if in the ranks and the love and esteem

of the ranks, if he is a superior. He is known as fearless in battle, loyal to the last drop of his blood, and enduring to conquer any hardship."

KENTUCKY OFFICERS IN THE WARS.

Of Kentucky's soldiers of high rank in the earlier wars, the following are named:

In the wars with the Indians and the War of 1812, the following high officers are entitled to the fullest honors:

Major General George Rogers Clark.
Major General George Croghan.
Major General Joseph Desha.
Major General Thomas Jessup.
Major General John Adair.

In the war with Mexico, Major General Zachary Taylor, Major General William O. Butler.

In the War between the States, on the Federal side were the following native Kentuckians, who attained the rank of Major General: Thomas L. Crittenden; Cassius M. Clay; John A. McClernand; Ormsby M. Mitchell; William Nelson; Thomas J. Wood; D. McReynolds; John M. Palmer; Frank P. Blair; Lovell H. Rousseau.

Brigadier Generals: Jere Boyle; Daniel W.

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