Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 2.

[76]

Magoffin vetoed these resolutions, and they were promptly passed over his negative by a large majority.¹ In the mean time, the invasion of Kentucky by Tennessee troops had brought in a National force, under Major-General Ulysses S. Grant, then in command of the district around Cairo. He took military possession of Paducah,

Sept. 6, 1861.

at the mouth of the Tennessee River, where he found Secession flags flying in different parts of the town in expectation of the arrival of a Confederate army, nearly four thousand strong, reported to be within sixteen miles of that place. He seized property there prepared for the Confederates, and he issued a proclamation declaring that he had come solely for the purpose of defending the State from the aggression of rebels, and to protect the rights of all citizens, promising that when it should be manifest that they were able to maintain the authority of the Government themselves, he should withdraw the forces under his command.

Thus ended the neutrality of Kentucky, in which its politicians had unfortunately placed it.² That neutrality had suppressed the practical loyalty of the State, given freedom to the growth of its opposite, and allowed Confederate troops to make such a lodgment on its soil, that large National armies were required to oppose them, and war in its most horrid aspects filled all its borders with misery. But for that neutrality, Tennessee, whose disloyal authorities had espoused the Confederate cause, would probably have been the frontier battle-ground, and the blood and treasure of Kentucky, so largely spent in the war, would have been spared. Too late to avoid the penalties of remissness in duty, Kentucky, five months after the war was begun in Charleston harbor, took a positive stand for the Union.

Encouraged by the new attitude of Kentucky, the National Government determined to take vigorous measures for securing its loyalty against the wiles of dangerous men. Ex-Governor Morehead, who was reported to be an active traitor to his country, was arrested at his residence, near Louisville, and sent as a State prisoner to Fort Lafayette, at the entrance to the harbor of New York. Others of like sympathies took the alarm and fled, some to the Confederate armies or the more southern States, and others to Canada. Among them was John C. Breckinridge, late Vice-President of the Republic, and member of the National Senate; also William Preston, late American Minister to Spain; James B. Clay, a son of Henry Clay; Humphrey Marshall, lately a member

Humphrey Marshall.

of Congress, and a life-long politician; Captain John Morgan, Judge Thomas Monroe, and others of less note.