John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[135] Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers with the Ohio — a movement which bore important fruit a few months later. General Polk, on his part still marching northward, reached and occupied Columbus, on the Mississippi, on September 7th. Having hastily procured the endorsement of this step from Jefferson Davis, General Polk, on the 9th, formally notified Governor Magoffin of his presence in Kentucky.

By this time also, the Unionists of the State had completed and compacted their organization and authority, and demonstrated their strength and predominance. A new military department, consisting of Kentucky and Tennessee, and named the Department of the Cumberland, was, on August 15th, created at Washington and placed under the command of General Anderson, and since September 1st that officer had made Louisville his headquarters. On the other hand, Buckner had abandoned his professed neutrality and his militia command, and formally entered the rebel service as a brigadier-general. Stationing himself just within Tennessee, south of Middle Kentucky, he was collecting the rebel members of his State guard for a hostile expedition against the homes of his former friends and neighbors. Another rebel force gathering under Zollicoffer, in East Tennessee, was watching its opportunity to advance into Kentucky through Cumberland Gap.

Under these threatening aspects Governor Magoffin communicated to the Legislature, then in session, General Polk's announcement of his arrival at Columbus. The altogether illogical and false role of Kentucky neutrality was necessarily at an end. The Legislature, by express resolutions under date of September 14th, instructed the Governor to demand the unconditional withdrawal of the rebel forces from Kentucky, while other resolutions called on General Anderson to enter at once upon the active defence of his native State. A