When Lincoln was inaugurated as President in March 1861, seven southern states had already seceded from the United States. Within five weeks, following the Confederate assault on Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s call for volunteer troops, four more left the Union. With so many states already gone, Lincoln determined that country had to keep the Border States, particularly Kentucky, if there was any hope of winning the war. In September of that year, he famously remarked, “I think to lose Kentucky, is nearly the same as to lose the whole game.”Lincoln believed that Kentucky was the keystone of the Border States, and he feared that if the Bluegrass State went to the Confederacy, so would Missouri and probably Maryland. With the risk of Kentucky’s secession in mind, Lincoln proposed that his administration take a moderate course in the conflict in an effort to reassure Kentuckians that neither slavery nor their personal rights were in danger.

While Lincoln proceeded cautiously in Washington, his friends in Kentucky aided his political maneuvering. In particular, Joseph Holt and Joshua Fry Speed worked to keep Kentucky in the Union. Holt, a former Secretary of War, spent much of the summer of 1861 writing and speaking on behalf of the Union cause. His arguments were crucial in strengthening Unionist sentiment in the state. While Holt did much of his work from Washington, DC, Joshua Speed was active in Kentucky. In May 1861, Lieutenant William Nelson, a navy officer from Kentucky, persuaded Lincoln to let him work secretly in the state to help arm Union men. When Lincoln approved the plan, Speed was prominent among the Louisville Unionists who helped smuggle 5,000 “Lincoln guns” into Kentucky and then distribute them among loyal militia regiments. Although many pro-secession Kentuckians decried these efforts, their criticisms had little resonance among the broader populace. The work of Lincoln and his allies contributed to the Unionist victory in the 1861 state election. In September 1861, when the Confederate army invaded Kentucky, the Unionist majority in the legislature withdrew the state’s neutrality and sided with the Union.