Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/494

462 Confederates invade Kentucky. [isei control, the Secessionist leaders finally attempted to organise a revolu- tionary uprising under the guise of popular peace-meetings to overawe or disperse the legislature ; but this effort also failed. As the autumn approached, events had so far progressed that the State could no longer preserve the attitude of neutrality which she had maintained for nine months. Despairing finally of gaining the State by intrigue, the Confederate General Polk, in the early days of September, advanced his military lines into Kentucky. Upon his refusal to withdraw from the soil of the State, as requested by the Kentucky legislature, that body formally invited the Federal Major Anderson to take command, and authorised the enlistment of 40,000 volunteers to repel invasion, with a provision that they should be mustered for the service of the United States, to co-operate with the armies of the Union. Hitherto there had been no Unionist troops in Kentucky, except a single brigade privately enlisted at Camp Dick Robinson, and the " Home Guards," composed of carefully selected Union men, organised under the State militia laws, and supplied with Federal arms. All the while, however, Unionist forces stationed on the north shore of the Ohio river had been ready to go to the aid of the Kentucky Unionist leaders whenever the necessity should arise. The invasion of Kentucky by Confederate troops created the neces- sity. That invasion was begun by General Polk, who ordered General Pillow, with a detachment of 6000 men, to cross from the Missouri side and occupy Columbus, Kentucky, the first defensible point on the Mississippi river below Cairo. Polk further advised Jefferson Davis that the important Confederate military enterprises begun in the west should be combined from west to east across the Mississippi Valley, and placed under the direction of one head, with large discretionary powers; and he recommended General Albert Sidney Johnston for this command. Davis approved the suggestion, and on September 10 appointed Johnston to the proposed duty, creating for that purpose Department Number &, comprising the States of Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, with part of Mississippi and part of the Indian Territory. Proceeding at once to Nashville, Johnston threw for- ward a detachment of 5000 Confederates to Bowling Green, Kentucky, under General Buckner, while a third column entered the State at its eastern end through Cumberland Gap, under General F. K. Zollicoffer, who advanced with six regiments to Cumberland Ford near Mill Spring. It had now become impossible to maintain any longer the neutral attitude in which peculiar political conditions had kept the State of Kentucky since the preceding January. Both sides were watchful of the coming crisis; and even before Polk's movement, Fremont, while still in St Louis, announced to the Unionist commander in south-east Missouri his intention to occupy Columbus "as soon as possible." This intimation was sent by Fremont to an officer who