Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 9.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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[461] which the Federal Government has established, and which is endorsed and acted upon by its highest officers, civil and military, in all serious and trivial affairs, ought to be regarded as one of the wonders, and most disgusting moral deformities of this war; but it is not more wonderful than the credulity of the people who, for so long a time, continue to receive its statements with perfect faith, while they treat everything opposed to them with contemptuous disbelief. The processes of the old despotisms of Europe, by which the people are deluded and held in subjection, are easily and readily adopted by this “Free Government,” and, apparently, with equal success; and the reports of generals, big and small, and penny-a-liners for the press, imitate and surpass, with the coolest indifference to truth, the exaggerated bulletins of the great Napoleon.

Our kindly demeanor gained upon the confidence of Mr. Thornton, and, coming to put some trust in our assurance, he declared that the emancipation proclamation was more than Kentuckians would bear, and that for himself, although he had always been an Union man, he was one no longer. It is probable that this desperate measure of the Federal Administration would have produced effects favorable to the Confederate cause, had its army been able to remain in the State for a time longer; but it is extremely doubtful withal, if a majority of the Kentuckians could be induced to declare openly for the South by any thing short of the complete overthrow of the Federal power. As a people, they no longer possess the high qualities for which they were once famous. The sturdy woodsmen, who drove the Indians from the State, and rendered her gallantry conspicuous on many battle-field, have ceased to exist. The rocky bluffs of the Kentucky river, illustrious since the days of Daniel Boone, do not now echo the crack of the rifle and the savage war-whoop. The country has grown rich and populous. The indefatigable Yankee has overrun the land, and petty farmers and horse-traders have succeeded the hunters of Yore.

This class constituting the bulk of the population in the wealthier districts, like the same class everywhere, are guided more by their apparent interests than by the higher influence of principle, honor and patriotism. There are others, descendants principally of the Old Virginia settlers, and those from the more Southerly States, who are brave, intelligent, courteous and hospitable, not possessing perhaps the high polish to be found along the Atlantic coast, but compensating for it by the genial vivacity of their manners, and frank and manly bearing. They are, almost without exception, either in the Southern army, or declared adherents of that cause. A distinct people, already mentioned,