Henry C. Burnett, John Thomas, Thomas L. Burnett, S. H. Ford, Thomas B. Johnson, George W. Ewing, Dr. D. V. White, John M. Elliott, Thomas B. Monroe, George B. Hodge.How it happened that two of these persons--Messrs. Henry C. Burnett and Thomas B. Monroe--were, that same day, sworn in as Senators2 from Kentucky at Richmond, it is not easy to understand; but it is of no consequence. They had probably been appointed, several days before, by “Governor” Johnson. Suffice it that, since then, Kentucky has been regularly represented in the Confederate Congress, though no popular election thereto was ever held on her soil, and no shadow of consent ever given by her to such delegation of power. Of late, her representatives in that Congress have been chosen by the Kentuckians serving in the Rebel armies; which, though not very regular, seems straightforward and business-like. They represent bayonets; let them be chosen accordingly.3
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[617]
right flank from Bowling Green, and about to pounce upon and annihilate him. There was not a shadow of foundation for this story: the Rebels at Bowling Green were glad enough to keep still, and not expose their weakness, knowing well that Sherman might and would have crushed them, had he been aware of it; yet, without waiting to verify this absurd report, Gen. Schoepf faced about and raced two days toward the Ohio, as if for dear life, strewing the road with wrecked wagons, dead horses, baggage, etc., and leaving East Tennessee to her fate.
The bitter disappointment and agony of her gallant sons in his army, who but now confidently supposed themselves about to see the old flag floating in triumph from the spires of Knoxville and Jonesville, can but faintly be realized.
On the 18th of November, the Kentucky Secessionists held a Convention at Russellville, in the southernmost of her counties, behind their principal camp at Bowling Green, and organized what they termed a “Provisional” Government — perhaps from their inability to make any provision for its support.
Geo. W. Johnson, of Scott county, was here chosen Governor;1 the party having had enough of popular elections, in which they never had any success or made a respectable figure.
They chose, likewise, a “Legislative Council,” which they clothed with ample powers; and this Council proceeded to appoint Commissioners to negotiate for the admission of Kentucky into the Southern Confederacy!
No cavils as to the authority of these gentlemen to speak for Kentucky were raised at Richmond; and, on the 16th of December, The Louisville Courier (now issued at Nashville) gravely announced that said Council had this day chosen a full delegation to the Confederate Congress, composed as follows:
1 Johnson being killed in the battle at Shiloh next Spring, he was somehow succeeded in his shadowy Governorship by Richard Hawes — a weak old man who, some quarter of a century before, had twice represented, as a Whig, the Lexington district in Congress.
2 So announced next morning in The Norfolk Day-Book.
3 The Louisville Journal of Oct. 12th sharply said:
Hundreds of those exceedingly sensitive Kentuckians, who so eloquently proclaimed that they could never take up arms against the Southern States, inasmuch as those States were Kentucky's sisters, have now taken up arms for the conquest of Kentucky herself Isn't that enough to make the devil laugh?
Hartford. Published by O. D. Chase and Company. 1866.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.