Kentucky S Rebel Press

Throughout the Civil War, the influence of the popular press and its skillful use of propaganda was extremely significant in Kentucky. Union and Confederate sympathizers were scattered throughout the border slave state, and in 1860, at least twenty-eight of the commonwealth's approximately sixty newspapers were pro-Confederate, making the secessionist cause seem stronger in Kentucky than it was in reality. In addition, the impact of these "rebel presses" reached beyond the region to readers throughout the nation. In this compelling and timely study, Berry Craig analyzes the media's role in both reflecting and shaping public opinion during a critical time in US history. Craig begins by investigating the 1860 secession crisis, which occurred at a time when most Kentuckians considered themselves ardent Unionists in support of the state's political hero, Henry Clay. But as secessionist arguments were amplified throughout the country, so were the voices of pro-Confederate journalists in the state. By January 1861, the Hickman Courier, Columbus Crescent, and Henderson Reporter steadfastly called for Kentucky to secede from the Union. Kentucky's Rebel Press also showcases journalists who supported the Confederate cause, including editor Walter N. Haldeman, who fled the state after Kentucky's most recognized Confederate paper, the Louisville Daily Courier, was shut down by Union forces. Exploring an intriguing and overlooked part of Civil War history, this book reveals the importance of the partisan press to the Southern cause in Kentucky.

When Fort Sumter fell to Confederate troops in April 1861, most states quickly declared their allegiances to the North or South. Kentucky, however, assumed an antiwar posture that outlasted Fort Sumter by five months, begrudgingly joining the Union cause only when Confederate troops marched into the state and seized the town of Columbus. With its hesitancy to make an immediate commitment and faced with the conflicting sentiments of its people, Kentucky stood as a microcosm of the nation’s dilemma. In the first comprehensive examination of Kentucky’s secession crisis in nearly ninety years, Gary R. Matthews examines the antebellum social, economic, and political issues that distinguished Kentucky from the rest of the slave and border states, identifying it instead with a national perspective and its own peculiar form of Unionism. On the eve of the Civil War, Kentucky’s affinity for the South was based on historical and cultural similarities, including the presence of slavery and a powerful “master class.” However, the planter class that dominated early Kentucky was supplanted in the 1830s by an urban middle class that challenged both the need for slavery and the authority of the master class. Matthews analyzes the dichotomy of these two groups, examines emancipation efforts in Kentucky, and explores the intricacies of Whig politics to show how Kentucky differed from the “southern” model in significant ways. He also explains how geographical components, most importantly the southern Appalachian Mountains and the Ohio-Mississippi River system, helped define Kentucky’s singular role in antebellum America. As Matthews shows, Kentuckians desired both Union and slavery, and saw secession as a threat to both. The state’s unique political and economic identities had been established long before the sectional crisis, and its self-interests could be best served in a national as opposed to a sectional environment. By choosing neutrality and then Unionism, the Kentucky of 1861 proved it was more American than southern.

As a Unionist but also proslavery state during the American Civil War, Kentucky occupied a contentious space both politically and geographically. In many ways, its pragmatic attitude toward compromise left it in a cultural no-man's-land. The constant negotiation between the state's nationalistic and Southern identities left many Kentuckians alienated and conflicted. Lincoln referred to Kentucky as the crown jewel of the Union slave states due to its sizable population, agricultural resources, and geographic position, and these advantages, coupled with the state's difficult relationship to both the Union and slavery, ultimately impacted the outcome of the war. Despite Kentucky's central role, relatively little has been written about the aftermath of the Civil War in the state and how the conflict shaped the commonwealth we know today. New Perspectives on Civil War–Era Kentucky offers readers ten essays that paint a rich and complex image of Kentucky during the Civil War. First appearing in the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, these essays cover topics ranging from women in wartime to Black legislators in the postwar period. From diverse perspectives, both inside and outside the state, the contributors shine a light on the complicated identities of Kentucky and its citizens in a defining moment of American history.

A Companion to the U.S. Civil War presents a comprehensive historiographical collection of essays covering all major military, political, social, and economic aspects of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Represents the most comprehensive coverage available relating to all aspects of the U.S. Civil War Features contributions from dozens of experts in Civil War scholarship Covers major campaigns and battles, and military and political figures, as well as non-military aspects of the conflict such as gender, emancipation, literature, ethnicity, slavery, and memory

The largest and most destructive military conflict between the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War, the American Civil War has inspired some of the best and most intriguing scholarship in the field of United States history. This volume offers some of the most important work on the war to appear in the past few decades and offers compelling information and insights into subjects ranging from the organization of armies, historiography, the use of intelligence and the challenges faced by civil and military leaders in the course of America‘s bloodiest war.

"In 1923, the Southern Historical Society (SHS) published 'Proceedings of the Confederate Congress' in its journal, Southern Historical Society Papers. It was the first of nine issues containing congressional minutes from the public sessions of the Confederate Congress that met in Richmond, Virginia from February 1862 to March 1865. Unlike the summary notations of the official US congressional journals, the 'Proceedings' were drawn primarily from the archives of two newspapers from Richmond, Virginia-the Examiner and the Dispatch-which served the Confederacy's capital city. These journalists['] reports preserved nearly verbatim transcripts of speeches, debates, and bills considered by the Confederate legislature, including details seldom available from other sources, and have proven to be invaluable sources for Confederate political history. 'Proceedings of the Confederate Congress' is not without problems, however, chief among them its lack of completeness. Owing to budgetary constraints and lack of resources, SHS president Douglas Southall Freeman was forced to focus exclusively on the sessions of the Regular Confederate Congress beginning in 1862. None of the proceedings of the Montgomery and Richmond Provisional Congresses of 1861 and 1862 were included in the series. With 'Congress of States,' David Carlson fills this void by compiling and editing the minutes of these early legislative sessions from daily press reports published in newspapers in Richmond, Virginia; Montgomery, Alabama; Charleston, South Carolina; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Savannah and Augusta, Georgia, in the process assembling a complete set of transcriptions documenting the creation of the Confederate government. When delegations from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and, later, Texas met in Montgomery, Alabama in February 1861 to discuss the creation of a southern national government, none had been authorized to do so by the conventions that sent them. Within weeks, however, they launched a de facto constitutional convention, formed a government, and selected Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens to serve as president and vice president of the new nation. This transpired at a critical juncture prior to Abraham Lincoln's first inauguration when eight other slave states had yet to act. The delegates understood their place on the public stage and newspapers' usefulness in espousing and galvanizing their cause. From its initial formation through the expansion of the Confederacy and the new government's official establishment in the capital city of Richmond, Virginia, the Provisional Congress provided a vehicle around which the new nation coalesced as members negotiated with states and foreign governments, mobilized a military, consulted with constituents, and forged a national culture. As the conflict deepened, sensitive business increasingly took place behind closed doors away from the public, reporters, and the risk of espionage (as would also be true in the Regular Confederate Congress), but even the public functions that remained and were reported on in open chambers provide valuable insights into the workings and mindset of the Confederate government. Intended as a primary source and reference for libraries, historians, and political scientists of the nineteenth century, 'Congress of States' provides an introduction explaining the Provisional Confederate Congress and the background and purpose of the book relative to the SHS and its 'Proceedings of the Confederate Congress'; a chronology outlining the major events surrounding the secession crisis which informed and influenced the Provisional Congress; annotated minutes for each of Provisional Confederate Congress's five sessions; and appendices featuring the leadership and committees of the Provisional Congress, primary source documents referenced but not included in the proceedings, and examples of the proposed emblem and flags debated as symbols of the Confederacy"--