Lexington, KY - This March marks the end of the first year of the Civil War Sesquicentennial (i.e., 150th anniversary). Yet, it seems as if no one is paying attention. Those of a certain age remember the hoopla around the Bicentennial of the War Between the States in 1961-1965. That observance spawned a television series (“The Americans”), a Civil War board game produced by Time-Life that arguably launched what became the modern PC game industry, and even a movie (“The General,” starring Fess Parker).
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Other than the “bombardment” of Fort Sumter in April 2011, hardly a peep has been heard. To be sure, the 150th reenactment of the Battle of Mill Springs (see below) was observed in January. And a movie, “The Conspirators” produced by Robert Redford opened (and almost immediately closed) in April 2011. But, by and large, the sesquicentennial has been a non-event. Perhaps that clunky word “sesquicentennial” fails to excite. Or we as a people are simply worn out when it comes to war.
For whatever reason, let’s look at some reasons to get excited.
The Civil War Trust, which has been responsible for saving thousands of acres of “hallowed ground,” included several hundred in Kentucky, has published a book titled “The Civil War 150: An Essential To-Do List for the 150th Anniversary” that is basically a “bucket list” for Civil War buffs. Included on the list are four “essentials” in Kentucky, three of which are nearby, and one of those right here is Lexington.
First is the aforementioned Battle of Mill Springs that took place near Nancy, Ky., about 11 miles west of Somerset in Pulaski County. That battle was essentially the opening salvo by the Rebels to secure Kentucky for the Confederacy. One of the two nearby sites was the coda to that attempt: The Perryville Battlefield near Danville. The largest battle in Kentucky was a tactical victory for the Confederates, but a strategic victory for the Federals since it was the last major military action in the state. The Civil War Trust has preserved 385 acres of the battlefield as permanent parkland.
The other nearby site is Camp Nelson, on Danville Road outside Nicholasville. Initially a supply depot, Camp Nelson evolved into the Union’s third largest recruiting station for African American soldiers –– the U.S. Colored Troops. It was also where hundreds of wives and children starved and died of exposure during the winter of 1864-1865 when the Federals failed to care for the camp followers.
The Lexington site is found at the Lexington Cemetery on Leestown Road. Here are to be found the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers, as well as statues dedicated to each sides’ dead. Buried here, too, are such notable antebellum figures as Henry Clay, John Cabel Breckinridge, Gen. John Hunt Morgan, and many of Mary Todd Lincoln’s relatives.
Speaking of Morgan, loyal readers will recall two articles in mid-2011 that addressed the history of Gen. John Hunt Morgan’s equestrian statue that stands on the Lexington History Museum lawn. Now, another tidbit of information has surfaced, thanks to the diligence of collector, historian and museum trustee R. Burl McCoy.
Much has been made over the years as to why, if Morgan’s favorite mount was a mare, the statue depicts a stallion. Although Morgan, in fact, had several choice horses, Black Bess is the most-remembered. And the last most know of Black Bess is hauntingly told by Lester V. Horwitz in his monumental “The Longest Raid of the Civil War.” As the Federals are closing in on Morgan at the end of the raid that stretched from southern Indiana to near Wheeling, W. Va., Morgan unsaddles Bess and slaps her on the rump, sending her to safety in the woods. His last memory of his beloved mare is her whinnying to him as he is led away by his captors.
In 1902, an exchange of correspondence helps tell something of Bess’s post-raid life. The exchange took place some nine years before the Morgan statue was cast, so it is not clear if it had anything to do with the statue, although the first writer, one H. K. Bush-Brown, identifies himself as a sculptor. Both letters are addressed to a Mr. Brodhead.
In the first letter, dated Jan. 31, Bush-Brown recounts that Bess “was captured and purchased by a Union Officer and sent North.” The officer sold her to a Mr. John Prentice of Brooklyn, N.Y., “who in turn sold her for $1,000.00 to Henry K. Brown, my uncle.” Uncle Henry, also a sculptor, cast the equestrian statue of General Winfield Scott in Washington, D.C., at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and 16th Street, N.W. According to Bush-Brown, Bess was the model for the statue. “She was a very handsome animal,” Bush-Brown relates, “and known to many Union officers including General Grant.”
But Bush-Brown then makes a mysterious claim “that she was bred by Keen Richards from his Arab stock.” Black Bess, an Arabian? That does not quite square with her reputation as a Kentucky Saddler, now known as the American Saddlebred.
That’s where the second letter to the same Mr. Brodhead comes into play. Dated July 1, 1902, and signed by none other than Basil W. Duke –– Morgan’s brother-in-law –– who sets the record straight in no uncertain terms: “It’s a mistake that she was an Arab by an Arab sire.” He clarifies the record of her breeding: “She was presented to [Morgan] by Mr. Warren Viley when [Morgan] first left Kentucky for the Confederacy.”
Duke does, however, agree with Bush-Brown: “I never knew a finer animal for the saddle or for cavalry service.”