John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[131] openly scouted the policy of neutrality, and who from the first were eager that the Government should begin enlistments and gather an armed force to support the Union sentiment in the State. Colonels Guthrie and Woodruff opened a recruiting office on the Ohio side of the river, and as early as May 6th mustered two regiments into service, nominally as the First and Second Kentucky Volunteers, though in reality the men were principally from Ohio and Indiana.

Notwithstanding the contumacious refusals of the Governors of the Border Slave States, President Lincoln was not disposed to give up those States as lost. We have seen that, both in Maryland and Missouri, he authorized direct enlistments under the supervision of United States officers. Leading men having informed him of the actual state of Kentucky sentiment, he, on May 7th, specially commissioned Major Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame, to proceed to Cincinnati and muster into service all loyal volunteers who might offer themselves from Kentucky and West Virginia. Nor was he content with such merely negative encouragement. He felt a deep solicitude to retain Kentucky on the Union side. Very soon also the leading Kentuckians, who at the beginning had been most pertinacious to insist on neutrality, saw that it would be impossible for the State to maintain such an utterly absurd attitude. Mr. Lincoln, therefore, with their knowledge and consent, by the middle of May sent five thousand muskets to Kentucky in charge of Lieutenant William Nelson, and a committee of prominent Union leaders superintended their distribution to companies of loyal Kentucky volunteers which were being secretly formed in various parts of the State; and since this venture proved successful, larger shipments soon followed. As yet all this was done quietly and secretly; for an election was pending in the State, and the Unionists wished to avoid