Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

In assuming the part of a neutral, the attitude of Kentucky fell far below the hopes of the Confederate States; but even that plea was to be used to disguise designs which meditated nothing short of an eventual and open declaration of common cause with the Northern States. An election ensued for members of her Legislature in the month of August. In this canvass the intriguers of the Federal Government were at work; the war had fully opened; paper money in abundance was beginning to circulate; rich contracts for mules, hemp, and lumber, were scattered with lavish but discriminating hand, among the Union men of Kentucky; and when the election came, a large majority of men were returned who had professed before the people their fidelity to the neutral faith, but who, in reality, were prepared to throw the whole power of the State, as far as they could wield it, in favor of Lincoln and his war against the South.

After the returns of this election were made, it soon became evident that the Federals intended to occupy Kentucky, and to use her roads and mountains for marching invading columns upon the Confederate States. It became necessary to anticipate them. Brigadier-General Zollicoffer, of Tennessee, on the 14th of September, occupied the mountain passes at Cumberland, and the three long mountains in Harlan and Knox Counties, Kentucky, through which an invading column of Federals had been threatening for weeks to march from Hoskins' Cross-roads. And on the 3d of September Gen. Leonidas Polk advanced with part of his forces, and took possession of Hickman, Chalk Banks, and the town of Columbus, ill Kentucky.

The position of the Legislature of Kentucky, and Gov. Magoffin, that Gen. Polk's occupation of Columbus was an act of invasion of their State, and violated its neutrality, was absurd. The enemy had chosen to make his battle-ground there, and to erect there the signs of armed contest; and the Confederates had, of course, the right to confront him on any line of operations he indicated. The Federal Government had disregarded the neutrality of Kentucky, and Mr. Lincoln had hooted at it; her representatives in the Congress of the United States had voted supplies of men and money to carry on the war against the Confederate States; Federal camps and depots of armies had been established in Kentucky; military companies had been organized within her territory; and at a rendezvous in Garrard County, known as Camp Dick Robinson, several thousand troops, among whom men from Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, were mustered with Kentuckians into the service of the United States, were prepared not only to put down revolt at home, but to carry out the designs of the Washington Government for the subjugation of the South.

Nor was this all. The Federal forces were preparing to take possession of Columbus and Paducah, regarding them as important positions; and when Gen. Polk anticipated them in occupying the former place, it was