Civil War Lexington, Kentucky: Bluegrass Breeding Ground of Power

accomplishments.

Introduction

Athens of the West

Lexington, Kentucky, produced no great battles during the Civil War, and consequently, its part in the great conflict is often overlooked. Instead, the city afforded to each side some of its greatest leaders, both on the field of battle and in the capitals of each nation. Lexington, Kentucky, Bluegrass breeding ground of power, produced the Honorable Henry Clay, and though he died before the Civil War began, his compromise efforts postponed the war by at least a decade. Lexington touched the lives of both Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, and Abraham Lincoln, United States president, whose wife, Mary Todd, spent her early years there. Lexington molded the careers and characters of men like John C. Breckinridge, who served as senator, United States vice president, general and Confederate secretary of war for the final months of the conflict. These individuals and others like them helped shape the face of the war and the history of the United States. And each of these men and women was in some way influenced by or left their mark on the city of Lexington. Sons of Lexington, like John Hunt Morgan, Thunderbolt of the Confederacy, kept the homeplace in their hearts and would someday return to rest there at their journey’s end.

In the early 1800s, Lexington, heart of the Bluegrass region, often called the Athens of the West, thrived and grew. Lush farmlands and rolling, grassy hillsides attracted families who would become part of Kentucky history for generations to come. With a major hemp industry and a wide range of businesses, Lexington became a bustling center for commerce. Transylvania, the oldest educational institution west of the Allegheny Mountains, drew students from the finest families across the West and South. With both law and medical departments, Transylvania produced statesmen, diplomats, governors, doctors and judges for the entire nation.

Lexington in 1850. Courtesy of J. Winston Coleman Jr. Photographic Collection, Transylvania University.

Transy in 1860. Courtesy of Transylvania University Archives.

Lexington farms provided blooded horses that would later help fill the huge demand for mounts when cavalries of both North and South searched for the finest horseflesh available. Before the war, militia groups in Lexington drilled and paraded, showing their skills and elegant uniforms for the delight of townspeople. Those militia groups would form the basis for volunteers heading out to fight on both sides.

Lexington became a forum for political thought and excitement as Henry Clay repeatedly attempted to become United States president. A young Mary Todd would listen eagerly to lengthy political debates and discussions in her own home, showing an early fascination with the subject that would become a common ground between herself and a youthful Abraham Lincoln with political aspirations of his own.

Though Kentucky never seceded from the Union when war swept through the nation, the state and the city of Lexington had deep Southern roots, including maintaining what was called the peculiar institution of slavery. With Kentucky supposedly displaying a mild form of slavery, the institution held firm, with most affluent households depending on slave labor, including the homes of Henry Clay and Mary Todd. Downtown Lexington held court days where cattle, horses and slaves might be sold at auction equally casually. A slave whipping post was a standard feature, and citizens took the institution of slavery for granted as something they often considered evil but necessary.

By the time war spread across the nation, Lexington had suffered a decline. Members of prominent families sought better fortunes in the West. Attendance at Transylvania had fallen off to the point that the educational facility almost ceased existence entirely. Cholera epidemics in 1833 and 1849 carried off many hundreds of citizens and set back business and farm growth in the region.

When war broke out, Kentucky declared its neutrality, resolutely refusing to choose sides, but the state and the city of Lexington soon found that neutrality would not work. Though a group with Southern sympathies briefly established a Confederate capital and government, adding a star to the Confederate flag, Kentucky as a whole and Lexington in particular remained in the Union. Federal troops occupied the city of Lexington for most of the war, with occasional Confederate raids and a brief Confederate occupation for several weeks in 1862. As was the case throughout the country, families were split as allegiances were declared. For the most part, Lexington survived the war relatively unscathed, suffering only a few skirmishes and bouts of arson and looting. However, not every individual with ties to Lexington fared as well.

Chapter 1

The Great Compromiser

Henry Clay

Surely this time he would reach the goal he had sought so vigorously throughout his long and distinguished career. Surely this time the nation would turn its heart to him and choose him to lead the Union, to be the ultimate leader, to be president of the United States. Surely this time the race would be won. His friends and supporters worked tirelessly. He inspired that sort of dedication and energy from those who stood by him. The contest was tight, the results uncertain. As George Ranck said in the History of Fayette County, This contest was one of the fiercest and most stubborn that had yet been waged in America. Yet when the thing ended, Henry Clay had lost yet again. It was his final chance, though he did not know it at the time. The year was 1844, and James K. Polk would step into the office Clay had hungered for so insistently.

Though born, raised and educated in Virginia, Henry Clay made his way to Lexington, Kentucky, to establish himself in his chosen profession, the law, though his interest in politics soon surfaced. Ranck pointed out that Lexington was then the metropolis of the West, and in Lexington, Clay maintained his home base for the remainder of his career. He married Lucretia Hart, and together they had eleven children, only four of whom survived him. His magnificent home, Ashland, lay just outside the city and became a refuge for him whenever he returned from lengthy stays in Washington while he pursued his political career. Like Antaeus of Greek mythology who drew strength from the earth beneath his feet, Henry Clay seemed to draw his strength from his Bluegrass home.

Though he first pursued the law, local audiences soon came to appreciate his oratory skills. Henry Clay would become nationally known and admired for his natural talent at speech and debate. He spoke with drama and wit, able to poke an enemy’s weakest points and confound those whose thought processes worked more slowly than his own. His political career began in his adopted home state as he entered the Kentucky legislature. During his lengthy career, he served as United States senator, Speaker of the House of Representatives and secretary of state under President John Quincy Adams. The last role would cost him dearly, according to Ranck, who noted, It was charged that he had bought his seat in the cabinet, and the cry of ‘bargain and corruption’ was repeated over and over again to the end of his life, and defeated him in every subsequent race for the presidency.

The charges, which haunted Clay for the rest of his political life, stemmed from his first nomination for the presidency. The contest went to the House of Representatives, where Clay chose to throw his faltering candidacy over in favor of Adams, who then defeated opponents W.H. Crawford and Andrew Jackson. When Adams became president, he offered the cabinet post to Clay, who accepted. Being secretary of state traditionally opened the way to step into the presidency, so Clay saw this as a steppingstone to the office he truly yearned to fill. However, his enemies declared he’d thrown his vote to Adams as a way of buying a cabinet position.

Henry Clay, statesman. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Though Clay would again be chosen as his party’s candidate for president two more times and would hope for the nomination even as late as 1848, this scandal hung over his head every time he reached for the top office. Historians wonder—had Clay been elected president in one of his frequent efforts, could he have reshaped the course of the nation? His skill at working out compromises earned him nicknames such as the Great Compromiser and the Great Pacificator. Henry Clay responded to his country’s need for a peacemaker every time he was needed, and who can resist wondering if he had been alive in 1860, might he have somehow managed to head off the terrible Civil War entirely?

Harry of the West, campaign badge. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

In between struggles to achieve the top office or to push some vital piece of legislation through a conflicted Congress, Clay headed home. He enjoyed his time spent at Ashland. He enjoyed breeding fine horses and looking out over the expanse of farmland he cultivated. His wife, who would mark fifty-plus years of marriage with him, demonstrated her strength and ability by managing the estate whenever he was in Washington or out of the country brokering peace agreements.

Lexington was home. Clay felt at peace when he came home, settling into a life of acclaim among the people who loved him most, surrounded by family and friends. Always suffering from health troubles, he found Ashland a refuge from the demands of Washington. He supported local institutions, such as Transylvania, where he served as trustee and faculty member in the law department.

In addition to his involvement in Lexington affairs and his long and fruitful years of political service, Clay also became head of an interesting organization, the American Colonization Society. He served as president of this organization until his death, and he sincerely believed in the group’s purpose—to open an opportunity for free slaves to form their own colony on the continent of Africa. Clay saw this as a strong and hopeful solution to the slavery question. The organization raised funds, though it struggled to collect adequate amounts for its goals. Not only would it send freed slaves to Africa, but also it would provide funds to give each individual a start on a new life.

Clay, who termed himself a gradual emancipationist, owned slaves nearly his entire life. He spoke out against slavery, designating the peculiar institution to be evil, yet he lived in a state where slaveholding among the elite was the norm, where slavery was often verbally condemned by the same men who held slaves, sold them when times got tight and even rented them out to earn some extra income. Clay felt the same paternalistic tendencies common in his home state and across the South. Many slave owners believed that to free slaves with no education or preparation for a life on their own would be foolhardy and destructive.

Some slave owners who decried slavery set up elaborate plans for the eventual emancipation of the men, women and children they owned. Some declared they would free their slaves in their wills, with special arrangements for education and financial provision. Not every will was honored by the family. Other slave owners willed their slaves to Henry Clay and the American Colonization Society and left Clay to deal with the legal ramifications in slave states where laws complicated such actions. In correspondence, Clay worked out ways and means for sending those slaves willed to him or to the society to new homes in Africa, in the colony established there, Liberia. For those slaves who refused to relocate because they would not leave behind family members who had not been set free, the society tried to find solutions.

Clay himself realized what a fine line he walked between slave owner and emancipationist. In a letter to Horace Greeley, famed abolitionist, Clay remarked of his attempt to win his party’s presidential nomination in 1848: I presume my residence in a Slave State lost me the nomination. Clay must have realized that his stance as a gradual emancipationist worked against him in slave states like his home base of Kentucky, while his ownership of slaves worked against him with Northern abolitionists who wanted an end to slavery now, if not sooner, and would go to whatever lengths it took to free every slave immediately. Henry Clay struggled with a balancing act to try to appeal to such opposing viewpoints, and as some of his opponents noted, he failed to please either side.

In a letter responding to Joshua R. Giddings on October 6, 1847, Clay wrote, You kindly refer to the subject of the slaves I hold, and tell me what would be the good consequences of my emancipating them. He went on to express his ambivalence: "I regret as much as any one does the existence of slavery in our country, and wish to God there was not a single slave in the United States, or in the whole world.