Book Review by Jeff Fuller
there is a comprehensive review followed by a short and succinct one at the end
I was delighted to be asked to review this book as I have a Kentuckian friend whose views on the commonwealth and the Civil War, I have found extremely interesting and at times, challenging and because Kentucky’s role in the war has always intrigued me.
Like many Kentuckians my friend feels that the state was poorly rewarded for its allegiance to the Union and that the Emancipation Proclamation was a betrayal of the pro-Union slave owning state.
As a border state Kentucky’s strategic importance is self-evident but as a state which also claimed both Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln as natives and which was naturally southern inclined but sided with the Union and opted for neutrality, Kentucky’s unique role in the Civil War warrants our close attention. Indeed, as Lincoln said in his letter to Senator Browning:
‘I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game’.
That Kentucky opted for neutrality when the nation was tearing itself apart is testimony to its historic role as a moderator, as exemplified by the likes of Henry Clay.
This is ably explored in the first of the 10 essays which make up this book - Kentucky, the Civil War and the Spirit of Henry Clay by James C. Klotter. Klotter provides a fascinating insight into the life and times of Clay and sets the background to Kentucky’s preference for compromise over conflict. The analogy of Clay as Banquo’s ghost in Kentucky’s political deliberations goes some way to explaining why a state with such a southern outlook did not secede.
The latter theme and the philosophy behind the religious and political context of proslavery Unionism, are the subject of three of the essays. The Religion of Proslavery Unionism: Kentucky Whites on the Eve of the Civil War by Luke E Harlow; The Crouching Lion’s Fate: Slave Politics and Conservative Unionism in Kentucky by Aaron Astor; and Christopher Waldrep’s Garrett Davis and the Problem of Democracy and Emancipation.
Harlow’s is an informative paper on the political and religious nuances of a Proslavery Unionist population and explores the religious background of the southern leaning Proslavery Secessionists and Unionists, and the northern leaning abolitionists. The delicate balance in interpretation of politics and how religion informed political thinking, is well explored with many contemporary sources and is an insightful foray into the religious context of slavery in Kentucky. Although the reader is required to grapple with some complex philosophy, considering the issue of slavery in a religious context gives a different and thought-provoking perspective on the issue.
Similarly, Astor’s essay is a detailed exploration of the social and political context of Conservative Unionism and both provide an interesting window into the mind of the typical white Kentuckian and indeed antebellum thinking in the US on the issues of politics and slavery. Astor’s examination of the Conservative Unionism keystone that the Union would uphold the constitution and specifically the right to own property (human or otherwise) is particularly revealing.
The impact of the Emancipation Proclamation and the recruitment of slaves into the Union army on Conservative Unionism leads Astor to conclude that by 1870 Kentucky had ‘become thoroughly Confederate both in its partisan habits and its cultural hue.’
Waldrep’s essay on Senator Garrett Davis reflects the dilemma facing many Kentuckians to square Proslavery Unionism with states’ rights and the Constitution. The essay is one man’s struggle to come to terms with the politicisation of the Civil War through the Emancipation Proclamation and his fight to keep an increasingly outmoded and irrelevant point of view current. Davis was as ardent a supporter of the Constitution and the Union as Lincoln and also favoured emancipation, but unlike Lincoln he felt that it was the individual states who should decide upon whether to have slavery or not and that it was undemocratic for the national government to intervene as that was not what the Founders had intended when they framed the Constitution. Davis also held an unshakeable belief in the racial superiority of the white over the negro and predicted that whilst emancipation might be encouraged it would need to be framed over a significant timescale (he advocated 100 years) to prevent racial tensions and violence.
These three essays provide layers of complexity which today seem to be lost in the treatment of slavery as a simple black or white issue and as such are a most valuable assistance to the understanding of the peculiar institution at the time of the Civil War.
The reader may also ponder on the political machinations at work as Lincoln would have known and understood the Kentuckian psyche of the time and known the impact that the Emancipation Proclamation would have had in advancing the Civil War from a war about states’ rights to one entirely drawn upon the lines of abolition or slavery. Would Lincoln have pursued the Emancipation Proclamation if Kentucky had not already declared its neutrality and been, due to Confederate incursions, subject to dominion rule?
In between Astor and Waldrep’s essays is Christopher Phillips’ Netherworld of War: The Dominion System and the Contours of Federal Occupation in Kentucky. As someone who has tended to dwell on the causal factors and principal engagements of the Civil War this was a timely revelation in understanding what the implications of the dominion system and Federal occupation were for a population, in this case a loyal population, and how the suspension of habeas corpus impacted on individuals.
Bluegrass and Volunteer – Sister States or Enemy States by Benjamin Franklin Cooling is a fascinating comparison between the Civil War experiences of Tennessee and Kentucky and further analyses the impact of dominion status and martial law as well as setting the political context of Kentucky within US foreign policy.
Anne E Marshall’s A ‘Sisters’ War’: Kentucky Women and Their Civil War Diaries similarly explores the impact of dominion status but does so through the experiences of a series of Kentucky women and identifies the increasing exposure of the non-combatant to the impact of the war in an environment of occupation and divisiveness, and the shattering of the keystones of their society wrought by the war both pre and post - emancipation.
Enhancing and exemplifying the effects of dominion status Elizabeth D Leonard’s essay Lincoln’s Judge Advocate General: Joseph Holt of Kentucky provides an interesting insight into the role of the Advocate General during the Civil War and the struggle of one man to preserve his pro-Union stance in the face of post Emancipation Proclamation Kentucky public opinion and explores several specific legal cases which lend a flavour to the debates of the time. Holt’s views on the challenges facing the Union at the end of the war are most interesting, particularly in light of Andrew Jackson’s reconstruction plan and the US today.
The final two essays examine the racial issues that arose from emancipation. As Garrett Davis predicted emancipation and the Bill of Rights resulted in significant racial tension often culminating in horrific violence. Patricia A Hoskins The Freedmen’s Bureau in the Jackson Purchase Region of Kentucky, 1866-1868 describes the difficulties encountered by this organisation in an increasingly racist and supremacist postbellum Kentucky and Peter Wallenstein’s Pioneer Black Legislators from Kentucky, 1860s – 1960s reinforces the reluctance of Kentuckians to accept the new order of the postbellum era and also explores how these pioneers laid the foundations for the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
The ten essays are sandwiched between an enticing Introduction by the editor John David Smith and an excellent Afterword by Benjamin Lewis Fitzpatrick. The former provides useful references to past studies and ably sets the scene for the ensuing essays. The latter binds the contents together and acts as a most helpful summary and reference point to the issues explored in the essays. Underlying all the essays is the fragility of Kentucky’s pro-slavery Unionist position and how as the Civil War progressed, the state increasingly embraced the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.
In many ways Kentucky may be seen as a microcosm of the United States in the immediate antebellum period and this book provides the context for exploring many of the issues which all of the states had to wrestle with and with which many continue to struggle with today.
The absence of illustrations is entirely understandable in what is first and foremost, an academic work, but as there are many references to the geography of Kentucky within the narrative a selection of maps, particularly one showing the counties, would have been helpful to those readers less familiar with Kentucky.
Regardless this is a fascinating and well written book which expounds upon the unique experience of Kentucky in the Civil War and offers an informative and mentally stimulating examination of the causal factors of the war and the specific issues facing Kentucky.
Highly recommended and particularly so for those interested in the operation of dominion status and martial law, and those seeking to understand more about the philosophy and role of religion and state politics as causal factors in the Civil War.
Short review
Lincoln said in his letter to Senator Browning:
‘I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game’.
As such Kentucky should rightly command our attention and New Perspectives On Civil War-Era Kentucky is highly recommended reading, not just for those with an interest in Kentucky, but also those interested in the operation of dominion status and martial law, and those seeking to understand more about the philosophy and role of religion and state politics as causal factors in the Civil War.
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