What if...Kentucky joined the Confederate States

"I would like to have God on my side......but I must have Kentucky." - Abraham Lincoln.

My late grandmother from Wolfe County KY who lived into her late 90's had an uncle Ben Franklin Rose who served under John Hunt Morgan 10th KY Cavl at the Battle of Cynthiana where he was captured by Union forces. She remembered as a little girl seeing him dressed in his uniform in a wooden casket. No serious historian would ever claim the CSA ever had a real chance - with or without KY, and my own family on both sides was decimated by this horrible war. Once Sherman declared total war, those who survived scattered like wild geese. Don't kid yourself. it was a rich man's war, and a poor man's fight.

I’ve always heard how more Kentuckians served in the northern army than fought for the confederacy. Unfortunately when speaking about that rarely does anyone mention that even if it had completely joined the confederate states it was under control of federal forces for nearly the entire war. When men wanted to enlist in the confederate army early on they had to leave the state and go to places like Tennessee or Virginia, most of the war the union army recruiting stations were in their nearest town. It’s hard to join an army that you have to travel an increasingly large distance to get to. Also many fail to annotate how many of those were draftees, volunteers vs conscripts are seldom differentiated and it’s a bigger indicator of sentiment than just simply serving.

The answer is the confederacy would have unfortunately won the war. They very nearly did without Kentucky. Forcing the north to fight a confederacy even closer to its own strength would have been catastrophic

Bowling green did join thats why there are 13 Stars on the flag we was the 13th to join

Kentucky was the 13 state of the confederacy. 79 Kentucky counties seceded in November 1861. Eastern Kentucky was the only pro union area in the state. They just weren’t able to “formally secede” like the rest of the states, but they were in fact a confederate state.

I write here again, because is important facts: The historians know almost person to person who went to the Union Army from counties of Kentucky: Illinois (12.56%) led the free states in percentage of its population volunteering, and New Jersey (8.95%) was lowest. Tennessee had a 3.19% rate of Union volunteering, highest among the seceded states. It may be noted that there were few federal soldiers from Kentucky's western counties. Fulton, Hickman, Calloway, Union, McCracken, Graves, Livingston, and Ballard counties had less than 2% of the total white population in Union service. At the other extreme, Ohio, Russell, Greenup, Monroe, Boyd, Metcalfe, Lewis, Carter, McLean, Jackson, Clinton, Clay, Estill, and Owsley counties contributed over 10% of their population to the effort to preserve the Union. Ohio, MCLean, Monroe, Clinton are Middle Kentucky counties! Monroe county is border county to Tennessee (but the neighbore Macon county in Tennessee was the only prounionist county in Middle Tennessee.) In Kentucky twenty-seven counties, primarily in the eastern end of the state, supported the Union Army with higher percentages of Union volunteers than that of the northern state, New Jersey, which had the lowest rate of voluntary enlistment. In seventeen other Kentucky counties, extreme secessionism was inferred--less than 3% of the total white population voluntarily enlisting in the Union army. Strong seccessionist counties: Calloway, Morgan, Hickman, Owen, Graves, Trimble, Scott, Fulton, Livingston, McCracken, and Henderson, where about 2% prounionist soldiers came from the white population! About 101 000 White soldiers were in the Union Army, about 24 000 African American and about 35 000 White soldiers fought for the Confederacy.

I grew up over in Webster County and Kentucky was in fact part of the Confederacy. I mean at least as far as the people of Western Kentucky where I live are concerned👌

KY Governor James Garrard was an outspoken opponent of slavery and very popular with voters, but he served earlier (1796-1804.) Keep in mind, in the 1860's slaves were 20% of the state population so there was serious economic interest in exploiting unpaid labor. Like most soldiers who fought for the south - my ancestors included, they were mostly dirt farmers and would have no real benefit from owning slaves or dying for the peculiar institution.

Very interesting. Thank you and have a good week.

Bad news Louisville did

No talk about how important saltpeter is to produce gunpowder… the massive mines of it in Kentucky??? This is as overlooked like other the Union being stuck in the NE if it didn’t stay neutral. 💯

Good Stuff

It would have been a major difference in my opinion because Cincinatti was a booming industrial town and disrupting or taking them over would have had great impact! Fact remains though, that Cinci was very well defended even on the Kentucky side with Federal forces batteries on nearly every high piece of ground in Northern KY.

Abraham Lincoln avoided any slave abolution idea untill Antiatem because he wanted to hold the border states as Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. He replaced Fremont in Missouri, General Curtiss in Arkansa and General Hunter at the Atlantic Ocean for abolution plans. The modern people wonder why the abolution was not in plan in April of 1861? The answer is Kentucky! The 19.5% slave population (1860) was important factor, because almost the only Southern state was Kentucky where higher slave populated counties were prounionists in Middle Kentucky. East Kentucky was low slave populated area as East Tenneessee, but Middle Kentucky was higher slave populated region. The root case of the prounionism was the posthumous effexct of Henry Clay (Lincoln's examplar) who learnt a lotof people in Kentucky thounk of ALL USA instead of localy!

Good job thank you, when are you guys mentioned the fact about losing the capital or it changed twice you forgot about Nashville Tennessee. Just saying

In Gurant’s dairy , and it’s in book form under the title of, Blue Grass Kentucky Cavalier, Marshal was in SWVA, Hawes too firmly in factual evidence, when it was reported on here, he spent the rest of the war in Richmond. Also, he had his family from Salem Va campZerkerl, his wife had a baby, in Tazewell or Fort Chisswell he was, at camp GA, in Grundy Va area. Jefferson ville is today’s Tazewell Township, in Tazewell co. Lots of Ky men in SWVA , they fought in the 34 Va Battalion, The frist Company was all volunteers from Ky, some are May’s men, around Pound gap, and the Big Sandy, , My great great Granpa’s was Ky born but couldn’t go home, bc, accused’ of black flagging.

What were most of the slaves used for in Kentucky anyway? Tobacco farming?

I've always wondered what Kentucky might look like today had it joined the confederate states - what might the industrial / agricultural profile have looked like after the war, etc. Would it be markedly different?

If Kentucky had joined in Confederacy Lincoln and the Congress would have started the 13th Amendment in January of 1862 instead of January of 1865. Missouri had 9.7% slave population, Maryland 12.5% slaves, Delaware 1,4% and nowdays West Virginia had below 5% slave population. No any hesitation about abolution because the other border states had not 19.5% slave population and the low slave populated areas were prounionists in the other border states. Kentucky was the only Southern state where higher than 15% slave populated counties were en masse prounionists! One and one county was prounionist with higher slave population than 15% in the South but there were not en masse! Jones county had 12% slave population in Mississippi, Winston county 3.4% slave population in Alabama, the unionist Ozark region in Arkansas had the most counties had below 10% slave population, slave population in East Tenneessee were not too high. West North Carolina voted beside Union in 1861 with low % slave population. Missouri Little Dixie region with high % slave population was en masse proconfederate or the tobbaco plantation system counties with high % slaves in Maryland were proconfederate en masse so the Congress and Lincoln could start the abolution 13th Amandments regardless of Kentucky in January of 1862.