[
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was thenceforth actively promoted.
On the 25th, a bill calling out 40,000 volunteers for the defense of the
State and Union passed the
House by a vote of 67 to 13; the Senate concurring by a vote of 21 to 5.
On that day, the Senate, by 16 to 10, passed a bill providing that any and every Kentuckian who shall have voluntarily joined the
Rebel force invading the
State, shall be incapable of inheriting any property in
Kentucky, unless he shall return to his allegiance within sixty days; and, on the next day, the
House Judiciary Committee, having reported that, in its judgment, Congress had not transcended its powers in imposing taxes for the preservation of the
Union, was discharged from further consideration of the subject by a vote of 67 to 13; and the Senate concurred without a division.
On the 16th,
Zollicoffer advanced to
Barboursville, Ky., capturing the camp of a regiment of
Kentucky Unionists, who fled at his approach.
The changed attitude and determined purpose of
Kentucky encouraged the
Federal Government to take some decided steps in defense of its own existence.
Ex-Gov. Morehead,
1 a most inveterate traitor, was arrested at his residence near
Louisville, and taken thence to Fort Lafayette, in New York harbor, wherein he was long confined, and whence he should not have been released.
Warned by this blow,
ex-Vice-President John C. Breckinridge,
Hon. Wm. Preston, late
Minister to
Spain,
Thomas B. Monroe, sr., U. S. District
Judge,
Thomas B. Monroe, jr.,
Secretary of State,
Col. Humphrey Marshall, late “American” member of Congress,
Col. George W. Johnson,
Capt. John Morgan, and several other prominent traitors, escaped about this time to the
Rebel camps in
Southern Kentucky, and passed thence into
Tennessee or
Virginia, where they openly gave in their adhesion to the Southern Confederacy.
Judge Monroe formally renounced his office and his allegiance, and was adopted a citizen of the
Confederacy in open court at
Nashville, October 3d.
Breckinridge and
Humphrey Marshall were promptly made Confederate
Brigadier-Generals.
Zollicoffer, on entering
Kentucky, issued an order promising that no citizen of that State should be molested in person or property unless found in arms for the
Union, or somehow giving aid and comfort to the
National cause.
Of course, this did not save active
Unionists from seizure, abuse, and confinement, nor the pigs, fowls, cattle, etc., whether of
Unionists or Confederates, from wholesale confiscation by his loosely organized and undisciplined banditti, who swept over the poor and thinly settled mountainous region wherein the
Cumberland and
Kentucky rivers have their sources, devouring and destroying all before them.
Mr. Breckinridge, on finding himself safely within the
Confederate lines, issued an elaborate and bitter Address, announcing his resignation