A Response to Lincoln's Call for 300,000 Troops

In response to Abraham Lincoln's July 1862 call for 300,000 more troops from the states for the Union army, the Adjutant General's Office, Headquarters Kentucky Volunteers, issued this directive, as published in the July 19, 1862 Covington Journal.

GENERAL ORDERS, No. 18
The President of the United States, acting upon a request from the Governors of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virgina, Michigan, Tennessee, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, ,Minnesota Illinois, Wisconsin and the President of the Military Board of Kentucky, has called into the service an additional force of three-hundred thousand men. Of this force, Kentucky is expected to furnish, as early as practicable, four regiments of infantry, a part of her quota under the late call.

(Note: Kentucky Governor Beriah Magoffin sympathized with the South and when Lincoln's first call for 75,000 volunteers went out after the firing at Fort Sumter, Magoffin promised "I will send not a man nor a dollar for the wicked purpose of subduing my sister Southern States" so the President did not even pretend that Kentucky's governor belonged on this list. Instead, John Baylor Temple represented Kentucky on this list.)

It is enough for loyal Kentuckians to know that their country needs their aid. The State has already in the service thirty-four regiments, two battalions and two batteries, and her troops (illegible) in the field have distinguished themselves at Wild Cat, at Ivy Mountain, at Middle Creek, at Mill Springs, at Fort Donelson, and at Shiloh! The battles in which her soldiers have been engaged have all been victories.

Other battles have to be fought, and more laurels are to be won. The rebellion has to be put down and the national unity and authority maintained. Towards the accomplishment of that great end, let Kentucky so act her part, that she will vindicate her claim to be called "the military State of the Union."

Relying upon the love of country and the courage of the people, there is no fear, but these regiments will speedily report themselves with their full complement, and be ready to take up the line of march to whatever point they may be required to go.

Special instructions to recruiting officers will be issued without delay. 

By order: 
John W. Finnell
Adj. Gen. Ky. Vols. 

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The next post will give more details on the system of recruiting Finnell established and details on some army organization.

April 20, 1861 - Some Opinions on the future of Kentucky

Here is another commentary from the Covington Journal about its perceptions of Kentucky's future as the Civil War unfolded, as well as a few other other comments published in this same edition, from papers around the state. It includes more comments than I republish here.

Here is Governor Beriah Magoffin's reply to the War Department's request for troops, also published in this paper, and which is referred to in some of the following commentaries.

Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, Washington, D.C.:
Your dispatch is received. In answer, I say emphatically, Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States.
Yours truly, 
B. Magoffin
Governor of Kentucky


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The Position of Kentucky

There is no longer room to doubt the position of Kentucky. She will give no aid to the North in its war upon the South - NOT A MAN, NOT A DOLLAR. The reply of the governor of the State to the requisition of the Black Republican authorities at Washington is heartily endorsed as a fitting response to an insulting demand. 


NO AID TO THE NORTHERN SECTIONALISTS! Upon this vital point Kentucky prevents an undivided front, and she will maintain it at any sacrifice that may be demanded. Beyond this, as we view the case, she is not at present prepared to go.

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This same edition publishes the following comments from the Frankfort Yeoman:
Lincoln has no chance to get his four regiments from Kentucky. She is a sound Southern State to the core, and abhors Abolitionism as she does the devil.

From the Lexington Observer:
The reply of the Governor will meet the sanction of our people. The Government need calculate upon no aid from Kentucky in any purposes of military coercion that it may entertain.

The following excerpt is in a column of various topics, with no author noted, so it may be another commentary from the Covington paper.
Kentucky, glorious old Kentucky, loyal as ever, to the principles of Justice and Freedom, heartily and unanimously endorses her Governor's response to the impudent demand of the Northern sectionalists for four thousand Kentuckians to aid in subjugating the people of the South.

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Again, much of this seems like wishful thinking on the parts of the writers, but at that time they probably had good reason to believe what they wrote. Also, given how Kentucky's reputation and links to the Confederacy grew at the end of the war and in the years following it, maybe these writers were more right about this topic than I realized, though a spirit of staying in the Union did rule the state for most of the war.