A State Divided
Peer into the past at Kentucky’s numerous Civil War attractions

THOUGH history speaks of Kentucky’s Civil War involvement as that of a border or neutral state, both northern and southern camps considered it crucial to winning. Abraham Lincoln supposedly said that he hoped to have God on his side, but he must have Kentucky.

And it was in Kentucky that the War Between the States most devastatingly pitted brother against brother. More than 75,000 Kentuckians enlisted with the Federal army, while some 25,000 fought for the Confederacy. Of that total, nearly 30,000 died.

Both native sons, United States President Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis were born less than one year and 100 miles apart. From the eastern front at Cumberland Gap to Columbus in the west, fighting raged statewide for control of vital roads, rail lines and rivers.

Today, within the National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program, which identifies sites of national prominence, Kentucky has 11 major battlefields listed: Perryville, Cynthiana, Barbourville, Richmond, Paducah, Munfordville and nearby Rowlett’s Station, Ivy Mountain and Middle Creek (both in Floyd County), Wildcat Mountain (in Laurel County) and Mill Springs (in Pulaski County).

In addition, dozens of other sites are connected either with individual battles or with the hundreds of skirmishes that dotted the state, says Tom Fugate, Civil War Sites Coordinator for the Kentucky Heritage Council in Frankfort. As a result, Kentucky is rife with Civil War attractions – museums and collections, walking and driving tours and re-enactments.

"For the most part, Kentucky’s been lucky in that most of our Civil War sites are still there," he explains. "A lot of battlefields haven’t been lost to development or covered over by monumentation (which can hamper viewing), as is the case at some national battlefields. At strategic locations across the state along the northern and southern borders you can find earthen fortifications still in existence today."

A fine example can be seen just south of Louisville at the confluence of the Salt and Ohio Rivers, where General William Tecumseh Sherman, Commander of the Army of the Cumberland, ordered a fort built 300 feet above the city of West Point to protect both his supply base there and the city of Louisville. On a self-guided tour, you can explore 1,000-foot long Fort Duffield, one of the largest and best preserved earthwork forts in the state, and its cemetery.

Formerly curator of the Kentucky Military History Museum for 15 years, Fugate says it has "the largest collection of artifacts related to Kentucky’s role in the Civil War," ranging from the first machine gun, which was designed by a Kentuckian and used in battle by the Confederates, to the uniform coat of Col. Joseph Pryor Nuckols, who was shot through the arm as he raised his sword to lead troops into the Battle of Chicamauga, to a lock of John Hunt Morgan’s hair.

In Laurel County you can see remaining earthworks and the original Wilderness Road bed at the location of the Battle of Wildcat Mountain, the first engagement of regular troops, as well as the first Union victory, in the state.
From 1863-1866 a Union supply depot and enlistment and training post for the Army of the Ohio, Camp Nelson, located near Nicholasville in Jessamine County, was the third-largest recruiting base for black troops in the Civil War, signing more than 10,000 African American soldiers, who gained their freedom here. The site includes a driving tour, the Camp Nelson National Cemetery and the John Fee African American Interpretive Center.

On the Ohio River, Maysville also is a rich source of black Civil War history. Once visited by "Roots" actor Danny Glover, the National Underground Railroad Museum chronicles the practice of slavery, featuring artifacts like slave collars and bills of sale. And this archive tells the fascinating story of one of the most important aspects of the abolitionist movement, the clandestine Underground Railroad, which helped thousands of slaves escape from bondage in the South.

While in Maysville, glimpse at more of its Civil War heritage in the Mason County Museum and in Old Washington, at the birthplace of Confederate Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston and at the Paxton Inn, believed to be an Underground Railroad stop. It was in Old Washington that a slave auction inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to pen Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Its ample supply of natural resources, topography and proximity to a transportation network made Bowling Green a strategic spot, which Gen. Johnston made his headquarters. The town spent 1861 as the capital of Confederate Kentucky’s 63 secessionist counties before falling into Union hands in early 1862. Eleven sites now compose a driving tour of Bowling Green and Warren County, that includes four forts, a number of monuments and interpretive markers, and on the Western Kentucky University campus, The Kentucky Building, which houses a raft of resources for Civil War research.

In far Western Kentucky, Columbus-Belmont State Park is a 156-acre site of the 1861 Battle of Belmont, which marked the opening of the Union’s western campaign. At this "Gibraltar of the West" on the Ohio, a massive chain and anchor was set in an attempt to block the passage of Union gunboats. Today the six ton anchor, a piece of chain with 20-pound links and a massive cannon are on display.

For an in-depth look at the war’s western theater (Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Georgia), the state-owned and locally-operated Old Bardstown Village Civil War Museum boasts 9,000 S.F. of display space chock full of artifacts – photos, uniforms, flags, battle wagons, medical equipment, cannons and other weapons.

When you’ve torn yourself away from this treasure of a collection, walk a few steps up Broadway to the Women’s Civil War Museum, the nation’s first dedicated solely to women’s roles in the war, from author Harriett Beecher Stowe and Red Cross founder Clara Barton, to Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, who risked their lives on the Underground Railroad.

Manning the political front lines during this volatile era, President Abe Lincoln was born near Hodgenville, and the town is a Lincoln resource, as witnessed by a huge bronze of this great leader in the city center.

Begin your tour at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site three miles out. Follow his family time line on a cross section from the 195-year-old Boundary Oak used by his father Tom to mark their farm property line. Watch a movie, "Lincoln: The Kentucky Years," narrated by actor Burgess Meredith. Visit Sinking Spring, the still-running wellspring for which the farm was named. Then climb 56 steps to the marble and granite memorial, whose cornerstone was laid in 1909 by then-President Theodore Roosevelt, that houses an authentic period cabin originally accepted as Lincoln’s birthplace, though official documentation is lacking.

Lovingly and beautifully built by volunteer community efforts, the Lincoln Museum in Hodgenville depicts the life of America’s 16th President with 21 wax figures displayed in 12 scenes ranging from his log cabin years – the local sheriff’s department dismantled an early 1800’s cabin and re-assembled it in the museum – to the Lincoln-Douglas debates to the Gettysburg Address to Ford’s Theatre, all furnished with authentic period pieces.

On your way out of town, stop at Knob Creek, the site of Lincoln’s boyhood home, where you’ll see a cabin rebuilt in 1931 with logs from the home of Austin Gollaher, a schoolmate who once saved Abe from drowning. Here, Lincoln formed early impressions when he first saw slaves being transported on the old Louisville to Nashville highway.

For a real taste of period authenticity, LaRue County’s Lincoln Days the second weekend in October features a railsplitting contest, tomahawk throw and other pioneer games, an art show and an Abe and Mary Todd lookalike contest.

The Mary Todd Lincoln House in Lexington became the nation’s first house museum to honor a first lady. Reviled as a traitor by the South and thought to be a Southern spy by the North because several family members were Johnny Rebs, this gracious woman spent her formative years in Lexington, then called the "Athens of the West," and at this home Lincoln met his "beau ideal" of a statesman, Henry Clay.

Home to one of the Civil War’s bloodiest clashes, 300- acre Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site commemorates the grounds where nearly 8,000 men lost their lives and also the specific encounter that marked a fatal loss of initiative for the South. According to the site’s manager, Kurt Holman, this battle was one of four events – along with Southern defeats at Antietam and Corinth, and the Emancipation Proclamation – that were "the real turning points of the Civil War."

Highlights of the Perryville Battlefield Museum include a nine-by nine-foot map describing the entire engagement, a cannon actually used there and a computer where folks can find personal information on a great number of its casualties.

Walking the hills, fields and woods at Perryville – where in the course of a day 8,000 men lost their lives – gives a valid sense of what that 12 hours might have been like and of the enormity of loss in this war. Topped by a Johnny Reb statue, the Confederate memorial states that poignancy well: "On fame’s eternal camping ground, their silent tents are spread, And glory guards with solemn round the bivouac of the dead."

Katherine Tandy Brown is a staff writer for The Lane Report

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