Sketch of the 1st Kentucky Brigade

Sketch of the First Kentucky Brigade

In the general history which will go down to posterity of such immense bodies of men as were gathered under the banners of the Confederate States of America, it is not likely that more than a brief and cursory reference can or will be made to the services of so small a force as composed the First Kentucky Brigade. Yet the anomalous position which it occupied, in regard to the revolution, in having revolted against both State and Federal authority, exiling itself from home, from fortune, from kindred, and from friendsabandoning everything which makes life desirable, save honorgave it an individuality which cannot fail to attract the attention of the calm student, who, in coming years, traces the progress of the mighty social convulsion in which it acted no ignoble part. The State, too, from which it came, whatever may be its destiny or its ultimate fate, will remember, with melancholy and mournful interest, not, perhaps, unmingled with remorse, the career of that gallant band of men, who, of all the thousands in its borders inheriting the proud name and lofty fame of Kentuckians, stood forth fearlessly by deeds to express the sentiments of an undoubted majority of her peopledisapprobation of wrong and tyranny. Children now in their cradles, youths as yet unborn, will inquire, with an earnest eagerness which volumes of recital cannot satisfy, how their countrymen demeaned themselves in the fierce ordeal which they had elected as the test of their patriotism; how they bore themselves on the march and in the bivouac; how in the trials of the long and sad retreat; how amid the wild carnage of the stricken field. Fair daughters of the State will oftentimes, even amid the rigid censorship which forbids utterance of words, love to come in thought and linger about the lonely graves where the men of the Kentucky Brigade sleep, wrapped in no winding-sheets save their battle-clothes, beneath no monuments save the trees of the forest, torn and mutilated by the iron storm, in which the slumberers met death. It has seemed to me not improper, therefore, [Pg 4] that the story should be told by one possessing peculiar facilities for acquiring knowledge of the movements of detached portions of the force, and who, in the capacity of a staff officer, under the directions of its General, issued every order and participated in every movement of the brigade, who had not only the opportunity but the desire to do justice to all who composed it, from him who bore worthily the truncheon of the General, to those who not less worthily in their places bore their muskets as privates. A deep interest will always be felt in the history of the effort which was made, by men strong in their faith in the correctness of republican forms of government, notwithstanding the tyranny which the great experiment in the United States had culminated in, to reconstruct from the shattered fragments of free institutions upon which the armies of the Federal power were trampling, a social and political fabric, under the shelter of which they and their posterity might enjoy the rights of freemen. When the first seven Southern States seceded, and President Lincoln took the initial steps to coerce them, the Legislature of Kentucky, by an almost unanimous vote of the House of Representatives, declared that any attempt to do so by marching troops over her soil would be resisted to the last extremity. The Governor had refused to respond to the call of the Executive for troops for this purpose. The Legislature approved his course. But here unanimity ceased; effort after effort was made in the Legislature to provide for the call of a sovereignty convention. The majority steadily resisted it. As a compromise, the neutrality of the State was assumed, acquiesced in by the sympathizers with the North because they intended to violate it when the occasion was ripe; acquiesced in by the Southern men because, while their impulses all prompted them to make common cause with their Southern brethren, they believed that the neutrality of the State, in presenting an effective barrier of seven hundred miles of frontier between the South and invasion, offered her more efficient assistance than the most active co-operation could have done. The Legislature adjourned; the canvass commenced for a new General Assembly; delegates were elected, pledged to strict neutrality; the Northern sympathizers had been vigorous, active, and energetic, and unscrupulous. They had in every county organized Home Guards; arms were, by their [Pg 5] connivance, introduced by the Federal Government in large quantities. On the first Monday in September the Legislature met, the mask was thrown off; neutrality was scouted; troops were openly levied for the Northern army, and the outraged Southern men revolted. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 34891
Author: Hodge, George B. (George Baird)
Release Date: Jan 8, 2011
Format: eBook
Language: English