Influential People
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Robert Anderson was born on June 14, 1805 in Jefferson County, Kentucky at his family's plantation, Soldier's Retreat. After graduating from West Point in 1825, Anderson served in the Black Hawk War (1832), the Seminole War (1837-38), and the Mexican War (1846-48). In 1860, when South Carolina seceded from the Union, Anderson was sent to Charleston to command Fort Sumter and the other forts in the harbor. He and his seventy men held out for nearly four months without any supply shipments from the North. Upon receiving the news that the Lincoln administration was sending a shipload of provisions, the Confederates under General P.G.T. Beauregard demanded that Anderson surrender. He refused and on April 12, 1861, Confederate artillery began bombarding Fort Sumter. Anderson held his position for thirty-four hours but he surrendered to Beauregard once his food supplies were depleted. The command was evacuated by ship to New York, where they were heralded as war heroes. Subsequently, Anderson was commissioned a brigadier general and was placed in charge of recruiting Union troops in Kentucky until ill health forced him to retire from active duty in October 1861. On October 26, 1871 Anderson died in Nice, France and was buried at West Point.
George H. Yater, "Robert Anderson," in John E. Kleber, ed., The Kentucky Encyclopedia (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 21.
Thomas E. Bramlette,
1817-1875
Thomas Elliott Bramlette was born in present-day Clinton County on
January 3, 1817. Admitted to the bar in 1837, Bramlette engaged in
a successful legal and political career. In the 1840s, he was
elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives and served as
commonwealth attorney for Cumberland County. In 1856, he was
elected to the bench of the 6th Circuit Judicial District. At the
outbreak of the Civil War, Bramlette became colonel of the 3rd
Kentucky Infantry (USA). In 1863, after rising to the rank of major
general, he resigned after being elected as governor of Kentucky.
As governor, Bramlette and Lincoln often quarreled over federal
actions in the state. Particularly, Bramlette complained to the
president about emancipation policy, military interference in
elections, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. As the
war came to a close and Reconstruction began, Bramlette opposed
constitutional amendments giving rights to blacks and also
criticized the presence of the Freedmen's Bureau in Kentucky. In
1867, when his term as governor ended, he practiced law in
Louisville, where he died on January 12, 1875.
Lowell H. Harrison, "Thomas Elliott Bramlette," in The Kentucky Encyclopedia, ed. John E. Kleber (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 112-113
Jeremiah
T. Boyle, 1818-1871
Born on May 22, 1818 in Mercer County, Kentucky, Jeremiah Tilford
Boyle became a prominent Kentucky attorney and businessman
following education at Centre College, Princeton University and
Transylvania University. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Boyle
recruited troops for the Union army and was commissioned a
brigadier general. In 1862, Boyle was placed in charge of the
Department of Kentucky. Boyle spent most of his tenure as military
commander of Kentucky responding to threats from Confederate
guerrillas and raiders. In June, Boyle began implementing
counterinsurgency tactics, particularly arresting southern
sympathizers and forcing pro-Confederates to pay for damages done
by guerrillas. Kentuckians, both loyal and not, criticized these
policies and wrote to Lincoln complaining about the situation in
the state. They also charged that Boyle had used the military to
influence state elections, particularly the 1863 gubernatorial
election. In 1863, when the Union began plans to enlist black
soldiers in Kentucky, Boyle resisted and soon fell out of favor
with federal officials. On January 2, 1864, having lost support in
Kentucky and in Washington, Boyle was removed from command. He
resigned his commission and became involved in the railroad
industry. He died on July 28, 1871.
Ross A. Webb, "Jeremiah T. Boyle," in John E. Kleber, ed., The Kentucky Encyclopedia (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 109.
John C. Breckinridge,
1821-1875
Born on January 16, 1821, John Cabell Breckinridge was a major
figure in state and national politics in the late-antebellum
period. In 1849, after serving in the Mexican War, Breckinridge
entered state politics, serving in the Kentucky House of
Representatives. After one term, Kentucky sent him to the U.S.
House of Representatives, where he earned a reputation as a
supporter of the South. Five years later, he was elected as James
Buchanan's vice president. During the election of 1860,
Breckinridge was chosen as the candidate of the southern wing of
the Democratic Party, which had split along sectional lines. In the
four-way race for the presidency, Breckinridge won most of the
slave states but lost to Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate.
However, in 1859, he had been elected to the U.S. Senate, and in
March 1861, he began his term as senator from Kentucky. For nine
months, Breckinridge was criticized for his pro-southern stance,
and in December, he resigned to join the Confederate army. First as
a field general and later as Secretary of War, Breckinridge was a
capable military leader for the Confederacy. With the end of the
war in April 1865, Breckinridge fled the U.S. and lived in exile
until 1868, when he received a presidential pardon. He then
returned to Kentucky and engaged in business and legal pursuits
until his death on May 17, 1875.
William C. Davis, Breckinridge: Soldier, Statesman, Symbol (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1974); James C. Klotter, The Breckinridges of Kentucky, 1760-1981 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986)
Stephen G. Burbridge,
1831-1894
During the Civil War, Stephen Gano Burbridge was Kentucky's most
controversial military commander. Born in Georgetown, Kentucky, on
August 19, 1831, Burbridge practiced law and also owned a large
plantation at the beginning of the Civil War. In 1861, Burbridge
was commissioned as colonel, and in June 1862, he was promoted to
brigadier general. In 1864, after seeing combat at Shiloh,
Vicksburg, and Port Gibson, Burbridge returned to Kentucky where he
fought against Confederate raiders, particularly John Hunt Morgan.
In August 1864, following his promotion to brevet major general,
Burbridge was placed in command of the Department of Kentucky. His
predecessor, Jeremiah T. Boyle, had alienated many loyal
Kentuckians because of his harsh counterinsurgency tactics. Yet,
Burbridge continued many of these policies, which included the
arrest of Confederate sympathizers and suspected guerrillas. In
addition, he ordered that four captured guerrillas be executed for
each Union man killed by insurgents. Burbridge quickly lost the
support of Kentuckians and was replaced in February 1865. At the
end of 1865, he resigned his commission and moved to Brooklyn, New
York. He died there on November 30, 1894.
Aloma Williams Dew, "Stephen Gano Burbridge," in John E. Kleber, ed., The Kentucky Encyclopedia (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 142.
Cassius M.
Clay, 1810-1903
Born on October 19, 1810 in Madison County, Cassius Marcellus Clay
became one of Kentucky's most famous advocates of emancipation. In
1832, after graduating from Transylvania University, Clay attended
Yale, where he heard William Lloyd Garrison speak against slavery.
Clay stated that this speech, combined with his first-hand
experience with slavery in Kentucky, convinced him of the necessity
of emancipation. When Clay returned to Kentucky, he became active
in Whig politics, and in 1835, was elected to the state
legislature. By the end of the decade, Clay focused his political
career on the gradual abolition of slavery. Given his proximity to
slaveholders and proslavery politicians, Clay was often met with
violence. On numerous occasions he engaged in physical combat,
using either a pistol or a bowie knife, to protect himself from his
enemies. In 1845, he began publishing The True American, an
antislavery newspaper based in Lexington. The newspaper was soon
suppressed and he moved his operations to Cincinnati. In the 1850s,
Clay attempted to establish a branch of the Republican Party in
Kentucky, but he found little support for its antislavery platform.
However, he rose to prominence in the national party, and Lincoln
appointed him minister to Russia in 1861. In 1862, he returned to
the United States, and Lincoln sent him to Kentucky to get a sense
of the state's feelings about emancipation. Clay reported that most
Kentuckians would remain loyal, and following the Union victory at
Antietam, Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
In 1863, Clay began his second tenure as minister to Russia and
held that position until 1869. Upon his return to Kentucky, Clay
grew dissatisfied with the Republican Party and in 1872 helped form
the Liberal Republican faction. After the 1870s, Clay was mostly
retired, living at White Hall, his Madison County home. He died on
July 22, 1903.
David L. Smiley, The Lion of White Hall: The Life of Cassius Marcellus Clay (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962); H. Edward Richardson, Cassius Marcellus Clay: Firebrand of Freedom (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1976).
Henry Clay,
1777-1852
Henry Clay was born in Hanover County, Virginia, on April 12,
1777. In 1797, after admittance to the bar, Clay moved to
Lexington, Kentucky, where he practiced law. Shortly after
the turn of the nineteenth century, Clay also became active in
state politics before gaining prominence in the U.S.
Congress. From 1806 until his death in 1852, Clay was
regularly one of Kentucky's delegates to the U.S. House of
Representatives or the U.S. Senate. He became renowned for
his ability to find a middle ground during the burgeoning sectional
divide. He was instrumental in the adoption of the Missouri
Compromise of 1821, the Compromise of 1833, and Compromise of 1850,
all of which delayed the sectional crisis that caused the Civil War
in 1861. From 1825 to 1829, Clay served as Secretary of State
under President John Quincy Adams. He was also a perennial
presidential candidate, first as a National Republican and later as
a Whig. Clay died on June 29, 1852. As a prominent
Whig, Clay influenced the political ideology of many young
politicians, including Abraham Lincoln. In 1832, Lincoln
voted for Clay on the first ballot he cast in a presidential
election for Clay.
Albert G.
Hodges, 1802-1881
On October 8, 1802, Albert Gallatin Hodges was born in Madison
County, Virginia. In 1810, his family moved to Fayette County,
Kentucky. As a teenager, Hodges began working as a carrier for the
Kentucky Reporter, and before he was twenty, he had started his own
newspaper in Lancaster. In 1833, after a publishing a string of
newspapers in the Bluegrass, Hodges founded the Frankfort
Commonwealth. The Commonwealth was a staunch Whig paper and when
the Whig party dissolved in the 1850s, it gave its support to the
American, or Know-Nothing, Party. At the outbreak of the Civil War,
Hodges and the Commonwealth encouraged Unionism in Kentucky.
Although Hodges often criticized Lincoln's plans for emancipation,
by the end of the war, Hodges was one of the president's closest
advisors about affairs in Kentucky. In 1872, Hodges retired and
moved to Louisville, where he died on March 16, 1881.
Frank F. Mathias, "Albert Gallatin Hodges," in John E. Kleber, ed., The Kentucky Encyclopedia (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 435-6.
Joseph Holt,
1807-1894
Joseph Holt was born in Breckinridge County, Kentucky, on January
6, 1807. From 1828 until his retirement in 1842, Holt practiced law
in Kentucky and Mississippi. After he retired as an attorney, Holt
moved to Louisville and became active in Democratic politics. In
1857, President James Buchanan appointed Holt commissioner of
patents. Holt then became postmaster general in 1859 and secretary
of war in 1860. When the Civil War broke out in April 1861, Holt
worked to prevent secession in Kentucky and was crucial in
strengthening Unionist sentiment in the state. In 1862, President
Abraham Lincoln appointed Holt judge advocate general, where he
served until 1864, when he was made head of the Bureau of Military
Justice. In that office, he oversaw the trial of the Lincoln
assassins. In 1875, he resigned from that position and lived in
Washington until his death on August 1, 1894.
James D. Bennett, "Joseph Holt," in The Kentucky Encyclopedia, ed. John E. Kleber (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 438.
Abraham
Lincoln, 1744-1786
Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather of the president, was born in
1744 to John and Rebecca Lincoln in Berks County, Pennsylvania. His
family moved to Rockingham County, Virginia where they prospered as
farmers. During the American Revolution, Abraham was a militia
captain. Sometime before 1780, Lincoln married Bersheba Herring and
is thought to have moved westward in 1782 with his family,
including three sons (Mordecai, Josiah and Thomas) and two
daughters (Mary and Ann). They settled near Hughes Station in
Jefferson County, about twenty miles east of Louisville. In May
1786, while planting corn about a half mile from the station,
Abraham and his three sons were attacked by Indians. Abraham was
killed instantly. Thirteen-year-old Josiah ran to the station for
help, fifteen-year-old Mordecai rushed into an unoccupied cabin,
and ten-year-old Thomas remained by his father's side. When an
Indian approached Abraham's body and Thomas, Mordecai shot him. Men
from the station then drove away the remainder of the Indians.
Under Virginia's laws of primogeniture, Mordecai inherited his
father's estate and left Thomas Lincoln, the president's father,
destitute.
Lowell H. Harrison, Lincoln of Kentucky (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000).
Mary Todd
Lincoln, 1818-1882
Mary Todd was born on December 13, 1818 in Lexington, Kentucky. As
a member of a prominent and wealthy Kentucky family, Todd received
all the benefits of such stature, including receiving an unusually
high level of education. In 1839, she moved to Springfield,
Illinois, where she lived with her sister's family. In Springfield,
she met Abraham Lincoln, who at that point was working to establish
himself as an attorney. In 1842, Todd and Lincoln married. Over the
next ten years, they had four sons, only two of who reached
adulthood. In addition to fulfilling the role of wife and mother,
Lincoln also encouraged and supported her husband's political
career. During the Civil War, following her husband's election to
the presidency in 1860, Lincoln was often criticized for her
extravagant spending and for the disloyalty of her siblings. When
the Lincolns moved into the White House in 1861, Mary remodeled and
redecorated much of the mansion, spending well more than the budget
she had been given. In the midst of war, journalists and
politicians condemned her as extravagant. Many in the North
questioned Lincoln's loyalty because of her southern sympathizing
brothers and sisters. Three of her half-brothers fought in the
Confederate army, and her brother-in-law, Ben Hardin Helm, was a
southern general. After Hardin was killed at the Battle of
Chickamauga, his widow, Mary's sister Emilie, came to the White
House to be with her sister. Washington press made much of a
Confederate widow living in the presidential mansion and used the
incident to question Mary Lincoln's loyalty. A similar response
came when Martha Todd White, another of Mary's sisters and wife of
a Confederate major, came to Washington and bragged (falsely) upon
her return to the South that she had used a presidential pass to
smuggle goods through Union lines. During the war, Mary Lincoln
suffered two major personal tragedies. First, in 1862, her son
Willie died. Following Willie's death, Lincoln began participating
in sances and meeting with spiritualists who she hoped could
connect her with her son. Then, on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes
Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln. With her son Thomas (Tad),
Lincoln traveled to Europe where she remained for several years. In
1871, tragedy struck once again when Tad died of pleurisy. In 1875,
Robert Todd Lincoln, the Lincolns' only living son, had her
committed to a mental institution, where she lived for three
months. After her release, she spent the last years of her life in
France, only returning to the states when her health failed. She
died on July 16, 1882.
Jean H. Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography (New York: Norton, 1987).
Nancy Hanks
Lincoln, 1783 or 1784-1818
Little is known about the birth or early life of Nancy Hanks
Lincoln, the mother of Abraham Lincoln. The daughter of Lucy Hanks
and an unknown father, Nancy was born in Virginia, probably in 1783
or 1784. Speculation has identified the father as any number of
southern gentlemen, and Abraham Lincoln himself believed that his
maternal grandfather was from an aristocratic background. In 1784,
Nancy's family moved from Virginia and settled in central Kentucky.
Six years later, her mother married Henry Sparrow at Harrodsburg.
On June 12, 1806, Nancy married Thomas Lincoln in Washington
County, and the newlyweds moved to Elizabethtown, where they lived
until 1808. That year, Nancy, Thomas, and their one-year-old
daughter, Sarah, moved to the Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville.
In February 1809, Nancy gave birth to a son, Abraham. In 1812,
after moving to a farm on nearby Knob Creek the previous year,
Nancy gave birth to a second son, Thomas, who died in infancy. On
October 5, 1818, two years after the family moved to Indiana, Nancy
Lincoln died from milk sickness.
Lowell H. Harrison, Lincoln of Kentucky (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000).
Sarah Bush
Johnston Lincoln, 1788-1869
In 1788, Sarah Bush was born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. In 1806,
she married Daniel Johnston, but he died ten years later. It is
likely that Sarah had known Thomas Lincoln when he lived in
Elizabethtown before marrying Nancy Hanks. Some scholars have
indicated that Lincoln had courted her before she married Johnston.
When Nancy Lincoln died in 1818, Thomas realized that his children
needed a mother, and he returned to Kentucky from Indiana, where
they lived. In 1819, he married Sarah Johnston, who soon developed
a close relationship with Thomas's son, Abraham. After Lincoln
moved away from his parents' home in 1831, he remained close with
his stepmother despite his cool relationship with his father. After
Thomas Lincoln died in 1851, Abraham provided financial assistance
for Sarah. Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln died in Coles County,
Illinois, on April 12, 1869.
Lowell H. Harrison, Lincoln of Kentucky (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000).
Thomas
Lincoln, 1778-1851
In 1778, Thomas Lincoln, the father of Abraham Lincoln, was born
in Virginia, but his family moved to Kentucky when he was a young
child. In 1786, his father was killed by Indians in Jefferson
County, and Thomas was left to fend for himself. At age
twenty-five, after years of scraping buy with manual labor and
carpentry, Lincoln's purchased his first farm on Mill Creek near
Elizabethtown. In 1806, he married Nancy Hanks, and on February 10,
1807, Nancy gave birth to Sarah Lincoln. The following year, the
family moved to the Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville. On
February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born at the farm. Like many
early Kentuckians, Thomas Lincoln had difficulty maintaining his
land claims, due to inaccurate surveys and confusion over title. In
1811, after losing the Sinking Spring Farm in a land dispute, the
Lincolns moved to a farm on Knob Creek about ten miles to the
north. Five years later, the Lincoln property once again became the
subject of a lawsuit and the family moved to Indiana. In 1818,
Nancy Lincoln died, and the following year Thomas married Sarah
Bush Johnston. Lincoln experienced more success in Indiana than he
had in Kentucky, but he still sought better circumstances. In 1831,
the family relocated to Illinois. Abraham Lincoln then left the
family home to begin his own career. For the rest of Thomas
Lincoln's life, he and his son had a distant relationship, both
emotionally and geographically. Despite their estrangement, Abraham
did provide some financial support to his father. When Thomas
Lincoln died in 1851, Abraham did not attend his father's
funeral.
Lowell H. Harrison, Lincoln of Kentucky (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000).
Beriah
Magoffin, 1815-1885
Born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, on April 18, 1815, Beriah Magoffin
was governor of Kentucky during the secession crisis of 1860-1861.
Beginning in the 1830s, after graduating from Centre College and
Transylvania University, Magoffin pursued a legal career, which led
him to politics. Throughout the 1850s, he was prominent in
Democratic politics, and in 1859, he was elected governor of
Kentucky. Although a supporter of slavery and states' rights,
Magoffin rejected both the Union and the Confederacy during the
secession crisis. Instead, he led Kentucky into a policy of armed
neutrality. In April 1861, following the Confederate attack on Fort
Sumter and Lincoln's call for volunteers, Magoffin famously
telegraphed the president that Kentucky would not support "the
wicked purpose of subduing my sister Southern states." In September
1861, the Confederate army invaded southwestern Kentucky and the
Unionist state legislature repealed neutrality, siding with the
North. For nearly a year, Magoffin attempted to govern the state,
but he had little power, as the Unionist majority in the
legislature had enough support to override his vetoes on most
issues. Embattled and ineffective, Magoffin resigned the
governorship on August 18, 1862. After the war, Magoffin served in
the Kentucky House of Representatives and urged the state to accept
the effects of the war, including civil rights for blacks. Magoffin
died on February 28, 1885.
Lowell H. Harrison, "Beriah Magoffin," in The Kentucky Encyclopedia, ed. John E. Kleber (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 603-4.
George
D. Prentice, 1802-1870
George Dennison Prentice was born on December 18, 1802 in
Connecticut. After graduating from Brown University, Prentice began
a career in journalism. In 1830, Prentice relocated to Kentucky to
write a biography of Henry Clay, and while in the state, he became
editor of the Louisville Journal. Prentice soon became known for
his sharp wit and his pointed editorials. Under Prentice's
leadership, the Journal rose to national prominence. It became one
of the leading Whig periodicals and influenced Whigs, including
Abraham Lincoln, throughout the western United States. In the
1850s, the Whig party collapsed, and like many Whigs, Prentice
joined the American, or Know-Nothing, Party. On August 6, 1855,
during the Kentucky state election, nativist supporters of the
American Party in Louisville attacked German and Irish immigrants
living in the city. Because of his strong rhetoric in favor of the
Know Nothings, Prentice is sometimes considered partly responsible
for the violence, which came to be known as the Bloody Monday
riots. During the election of 1860, Prentice supported the moderate
John Bell, but when Lincoln won the election, Prentice urged
southerners to be patient with the incoming administration.
Although he was unsuccessful in his efforts to prevent secession in
the lower South, Kentuckians listened to Prentice's support for the
state's policy of neutrality. Prentice eventually became a staunch
Unionist but was often at odds with the Lincoln administration
because of emancipation policy and the treatment of Kentuckians by
the federal military. Following the Civil War, Prentice continued
to publish the Journal, until 1868, when it merged with the
Louisville Courier. Prentice briefly worked at the new
Courier-Journal but died on January 22, 1870.
Betty Carolyn Congleton, "George Dennison Prentice," in John E. Kleber, ed., The Kentucky Encyclopedia (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 736.
James Speed,
1812-1887
On March 11, 1812, James Speed was born at Farmington, his
family's plantation near Louisville. After graduating from
Transylvania University's law school in 1833, Speed practiced as an
attorney in Louisville. He was also active in state and local
politics, serving in the Kentucky House of Representatives
(1847-1848) and the state Senate (1861-1863) among other positions.
He also held a professorship at the University of Louisville Law
School both before and after the Civil War. Throughout the
antebellum period, Speed advocated emancipation, and when the Civil
War began, he worked diligently to keep Kentucky in the Union
during the secession crisis. In December 1864, Lincoln appointed
Speed as U.S. Attorney General. After Lincoln's assassination,
Speed issued the legal opinion that allowed the conspirators to be
tried by military tribunal rather than civilian courts. Speed
served as Attorney General until July 1866, when he resigned
because of political differences with President Andrew Johnson.
Following his resignation, Speed returned to Louisville, where he
continued his law practice and was active in Republican politics.
He died on June 25, 1887.
James Speed, James Speed: A Personality (Louisville: J. P. Morton & Co., 1914); Jennifer Cole, "For the Sake of the Songs of the Men Made Free: James Speed and the Emancipationists' Dilemma in Nineteenth-century Kentucky," Ohio Valley History 4 (Winter 2004): 27-48.
Joshua Fry
Speed, 1814-1882
Joshua Fry Speed was born on the Farmington plantation in
Louisville on November 14, 1814. In 1835, Speed moved to
Springfield, where he engaged in various business pursuits. Two
years later, he became the friend and roommate of Abraham Lincoln,
who had moved to Springfield to practice law. The two men became
confidants, often commiserating over the states of their respective
love lives. In 1841, Lincoln broke his engagement with Mary Todd
and became distraught over the mistake he had thought he made. He
and Speed traveled to Louisville, where they visited Speed's family
for six weeks. After recovering from his melancholy, Lincoln
returned to Springfield and renewed his relationship with Todd.
Although Speed moved back to Louisville in 1842, he and Lincoln
remained close friends. At the outset of the Civil War, Speed and
his Unionist allies were important to preventing Kentucky from
seceding. Although he sometimes disagreed with the president,
particularly regarding emancipation, Speed advised Lincoln about
affairs in Kentucky throughout the war. Speed's opinions often
reflected those held by Kentucky's conservative Unionists who
supported both the Union and slavery. In the post-war era, Speed
became a valuable source for researchers interested in Lincoln and
he posthumously published Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln and
Notes of a Visit to California (1884). Speed died in Louisville on
May 29, 1882.
David Herbert Donald, "We Are Lincoln Men": Abraham Lincoln and His Friends (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003).
Frank L.
Wolford, 1817-1895
Frank Lane Wolford was born in Adair County, Kentucky, on
September 2, 1817. In the antebellum era, Wolford was a prominent
attorney in South Central Kentucky and also served in the Kentucky
House of Representatives from 1847 to 1849. In 1861, soon after the
Civil War began, Wolford enlisted in the Union army. Until 1864,
Wolford served as colonel of the 1st Kentucky Cavalry (USA), which
spent much of the war pursuing Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan.
In March 1864, the federal army began recruiting black soldiers in
Kentucky. In response, Wolford harshly criticized both the policy
and President Lincoln. Military officials in Kentucky arrested him
and he was dishonorably discharged from the Union army. Following
the war, Wolford was elected to the Kentucky House of
Representatives in 1865 and the U.S. House of Representatives in
1883 and 1885. He also served as Kentucky's adjutant general from
1867 to 1868. He died on August 2, 1895.
Hambleton Tapp, "Incidents in the Life of Frank Wolford, Colonel of the First Kentucky Union Cavalry," Filson Club History Quarterly 10 (April 1936): 82-100.
