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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date:_December 13, 2006_ I, James Michael Rhyne______________________________________, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Doctor of Philosophy in: History It is entitled: Rehearsal for Redemption: The Politics of Post-Emancipation Violence in Kentucky’s Bluegrass Region This work and its defense approved by: Chair: _Wayne K. Durrill_____________ _Christopher Phillips_________ _Wendy Kline__________________ _Linda Przybyszewski__________ Rehearsal for Redemption: The Politics of Post-Emancipation Violence in Kentucky’s Bluegrass Region A Dissertation submitted to the Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in the Department of History of the College of Arts and Sciences 2006 By James Michael Rhyne M.A., Western Carolina University, 1997 M-Div., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1989 B.A., Wake Forest University, 1982 Committee Chair: Professor Wayne K. Durrill Abstract Rehearsal for Redemption: The Politics of Post-Emancipation Violence in Kentucky’s Bluegrass Region By James Michael Rhyne In the late antebellum period, changing economic and social realities fostered conflicts among Kentuckians as tension built over a number of issues, especially the future of slavery. Local clashes matured into widespread, violent confrontations during the Civil War, as an ugly guerrilla war raged through much of the state. Additionally, African Americans engaged in a wartime contest over the meaning of freedom. Nowhere were these interconnected conflicts more clearly evidenced than in the Bluegrass Region. Though Kentucky had never seceded, the Freedmen’s Bureau established a branch in the Commonwealth after the war. The efforts of freed people and Bureau agents to achieve a social revolution were opposed by roving bands of white supremacists, self-defined as “Negro Regulators” or “Judge Lynch’s Men.” Using violence as a political tactic, white supremacists under the banner of the reunited state Democratic Party consolidated their control of local and state politics in the violence-marred election of 1867, in effect “redeeming” Kentucky from perceived federal interference. These self-styled southern conservatives were aided by voters who valued reconciliation and restoration of order far more than equal rights and social justice. In fear and frustration over post- emancipation violence, large numbers of freed people fled the state. Those who were left behind had little ability to enjoy their freedom due to the politics of white supremacy. By the early 1870s, though in theory they had been granted equal rights and equal protection under the law, black Kentuckians had failed to achieve the level of freedom they desired. iii iv Acknowledgements Let me express my profound gratitude to the University of Cincinnati for years of generous support, particularly via the University Research Council, the Charles Phelps Taft Memorial Fund, and the Department of History’s Lenore McGrane Fund. To the faculty, including those who taught me so much but have now moved on to other abodes; staff, especially Hope Earls; and my dear fellow graduate students of the Department of History, especially the members of the writers’ group dubbed Diss-Anon, many thanks, as well, for ceaseless encouragement and insightful commentary. My thanks also extend to the Filson Historical Society, Louisville, for their support in the form of a Filson Graduate Fellowship, along with expert assistance in archival research by the staff; to the staff of the Kentucky Historical Society, the Kentucky Military History Museum, and the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives, all in Frankfort, for their expert assistance; and to all the libraries from which I have borrowed materials, and in which I have browsed through uncounted reels of microfilm, especially Langsam and Marx of the University of Cincinnati, Young and King of the University of Kentucky, Steely of Northern Kentucky University, and the fabulous Main Branch of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Special thanks go to what insiders simply call Archives 1, the main branch of the National Archives on Pennsylvania Avenue, where I spent many glorious days delicately leafing through the original Freedmen’s Bureau records, red tape and all. I am grateful to Jeffrey Williams, NKU, for the opportunity to teach several sections of History of Kentucky, a delightful task that has immeasurably enriched and deepened my understanding of the Commonwealth. Special thanks are due to Linda Przybyszewski for years of encouragement and support, including serving as my outside reader after she relocated to v South Bend; to Wendy Kline, for her careful reading of this manuscript and for her words of encouragement; to Chris Phillips for both his professional critique and his unmatched, decidedly southern, hospitality; and to my advisor and friend, Wayne Durrill, who gave me the reins and let me follow my own path, for good or ill. Any praise or accolades this work may receive are a direct reflection of my mentor’s guidance, as well as his remarkable depth of knowledge and insight regarding the American Civil War, emancipation, and the subsequent contest over the meaning of freedom in the United States. Finally, my eternal gratitude goes to close friends and dear family who have sustained me through this process, even in the face of their own pain, sorrow, and loss. This was a story that selected me, more so than I, it, and few people know the full toll the telling of it has exacted. Without the loving kindness of my wife, who with me has paid that toll, I could never have begun writing this dissertation, much less completed it. vi Table of Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgements v Prologue: “At War with the Best Interest of this Community”: 2 Community Violence in Antebellum Kentucky Chapter One: “Bushwhackers” and “Political Cut-Throats”: Civil War 19 Comes to the Bluegrass Region Chapter Two: “Loyal Masses” and “Fiends of Hell”: Politics, Partisans, 48 Emancipation, and Guerrilla Warfare Chapter Three: “Let Old Abe Giv Them Close”: Contesting the 77 Meaning of Freedom in the Midst of the Guerrilla War Chapter Four: “The Whole Family Driven Away”: Slaveholders, 107 Regulators, and Post-Emancipation White Supremacy Chapter Five: “Conduct...Inexcusable and Unjustifiable”: Free Black 135 Women, their Children, and the Limits of Emancipation Chapter Six: “Murderous Affair in Lincoln County”: Regulators, 162 Assassination, and the Partisan Press during Readjustment Chapter Seven: “Good and True Men”: Community Violence, Negro 190 Domination, and Political Legitimacy in 1867 Chapter Eight: “Colored People Had just as well Tramp for the North”: 220 Kentucky’s Zenith of Racial Violence, 1868-1871 Epilogue: “Goebel Has Been Shot!”: The Politics of Violence in 249 Gilded Age Kentucky Appendix 265 Bibliography 268 1 Prologue “At War with the Best Interest of this Community”: Community Violence in Antebellum Kentucky Throughout December 1859 the Lexington Kentucky Statesman carried reports concerning a series of meetings held by leading citizens of neighboring Madison County. In a series of resolutions those citizens had leveled scathing criticism at John G. Fee, who was not in Kentucky at the time, and his fellow abolitionists at Berea, resolving among other things that, in their not so humble opinions, “the association of John G. Fee and others is a combination of an incendiary character, not only at war with the best interest of this community, but destructive of all organized society.” Events in Madison reflected an escalating campaign against abolitionists in the Bluegrass Region following John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. For example, in Newport, up in Campbell County, a group of citizens had destroyed the office of an abolitionist newspaper. Leaders in Bracken County, also along the Ohio, had organized a local militia company to guard against perceived abolitionist threats, though their real purpose seems to have been to drive out abolitionists like the Reverend G. H. Damon. In Madison, proslavery Kentuckians would take matters into their own hands, eventually organizing a citizen’s committee for the express purpose of driving the Berea leaders from their midst.1 On December 17 concerned citizens reportedly filled the county courthouse at Richmond, a turnout that, in the mind of the editor of the Statesman, “proved that the whole people are in 1 Lexington Kentucky Statesman, December 9, 1859; Richard D. Sears, The Kentucky Abolitionists in the Midst of Slavery, 1854-1864, (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993), 228- 237. 2 favor of first principles--self-preservation.” According to the resolutions adopted by this body, Madison had been forced to look after its own affairs, as the laws of the Commonwealth proved insufficient to protect them from abolitionist incendiaries. In point of fact, Kentucky would swiftly adopt laws in early 1860 that severely limited the possibilities and opportunities for white abolitionists or free blacks to undermine slavery in the state, but in the meantime the citizens present took it upon themselves to appoint a committee and instruct them “to take such steps as they deem right and proper in removing the said Fee, Rogers & co. from the county.” Two days before Christmas, the “committee,” some sixty men strong and by some reports well-fortified with bourbon as well as firearms, rode into Berea to