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Historic leaves, volume 7, April, 1908 - January, 1909, chapter 5 (search)
ri the secessionists hoped to bring the state, nearly equally divided in sentiment, into the Southern fold, and with it Kentucky, thus assuring the control of the Mississippi River and its great tributaries, the Missouri and the Ohio; thereby menacing Illinois and Indiana, and forcing the war onto Union soil. Almost from the commencement of secession, until the end of the year 1861, and for some time after, the rebels had and kept control of the Mississippi River, from the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico, some seven hundred miles. From this vast extent of the greatest of rivers all Union ships and commerce were shut out for nearly a year; so that on January 1, 1862, the secession government was practically what it claimed to be, in sole control of a united and entire Confederacy. To recover the control of the Mississippi, and thereby sever the Confederacy, was one of the earliest strategic purposes of the Federal government, second only to the defence of Washington or the capture of R