A Kentucky Conundrum: Lincoln, the Law, and Black Liberty – Part II

A Kentucky Conundrum: Lincoln, the Law, and Black Liberty – Part I

Utley naturally did not know who George Robertson was, but most Kentuckians did. Robertson had enjoyed a distinguished career in Kentucky law and politics. He was a former chief justice of Kentucky, professor of law at Transylvania University, and had served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Kentucky House of Representatives as a Whig. Robertson had also served as the personal attorney for Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln when Mary’s father Robert Todd passed away, assisting the Lincolns in settling Todd’s estate.[1]

It probably would not have mattered if Utley had known who Robertson was. When Adam refused to go with Robertson, Utley certainly did not make him. Instead Utley informed Robertson to try taking Adam, at which the soldiers of the 22nd, eavesdropping on their colonel, let out a cheer. Robertson appealed to Utley’s next in command, Col. John Coburn. He advised Utley to turn over Adam and not stir up trouble, but Utley, as he had done before, refused again. Writing to President Abraham Lincoln on November 14, Utley explained: “I refused to recognise his claims, to lead the boy, as he requested, beyond my lines, or to forbid the soldiers from interfereing should he attempt to do so. He was not, however, forbidden to take him, though, perhaps, he should have been. The boy refused to go with him and claimed protection from the power of one whose cruel treatment, as he asserted, had already made him a dwarf instead of a man.”[2]

Robertson demanded his lawful right to reclaim his human property and sought satisfaction. He believed the surest way to do so was to contact President Lincoln. Robertson telegraphed Lincoln on November 19 and remonstrated for the return of enslaved people belonging to Kentucky Unionist owners. But Robertson did not reference the Adam incident specifically. However, Lincoln would soon learn that Robertson was referring to Adam, because as mentioned above, Utley had written the president a couple days earlier.[3]

Not surprisingly, in an attempt to ameliorate the situation and pacify Unionist slave-holding Kentuckians, Lincoln responded to Robertson on November 26. Lincoln offered Robertson up to $500 for Adam and asked for the transfer of his ownership to Utley, who could then free Adam to settle the matter once and for all.[4]

By that point Robertson had already filed civil and criminal complaints against Utley before contacting Lincoln, but nothing brought the return of Adam. On December 1, Robertson wrote answering the president and refusing Lincoln’s offer, as he believed he could get at least $1,000 by suing Utley. Robertson also believed that the issue of soldiers freeing enslaved individuals claimed by Unionist Kentuckians was a matter of principle that needed to be addressed and resolved, not brushed aside. Robertson claimed that:

“I never was proslavery — in principle or in feeling. Living in a Slave State I have been necessitated to own a few slaves who are happier with me than they could be if free and of a degraded Caste. And satisfied as I have ever been, that sudden or violent abolition [is] inconsitent with phylanthropy and the welfare of both the white and the black races, is a portentous and impracticable problem— I have always been and will ever continue to be prudently conservative on the subject of slavery in Ky. and shall ever deplore the imprudent agitation of it in the national councils as the predisposing cause (though not the proximate) of this awful crisis. And as I have said to you before, I feel sure that the union can never be restored or made harmonious and permanent by a war against or for slavery as a domestic institution.”[5]

Robertson would endure a long wait while seeking compensation for Adam and retribution against Col. Utley. The 22nd Wisconsin soon received orders to move into Tennessee, where the Confederates captured Utley and a number of his command. After a prisoner exchange in May 1863, Utley returned to his unit for about a year; he resigned his commission in the summer of 1864 and returned to Wisconsin. Robertson doggedly continued the suit despite slavery’s demise at the end of 1865, with passage of the 13th Amendment. Finally in 1871, through the court system, Robertson collected a little over $900 for his claim on Adam, who had fled to the 22nd Wisconsin’s camp almost a decade before. In 1874, Robertson died from complications due to an earlier stroke. However, Utley was able to get the last laugh. He received indemnification from the U.S. Treasury through the help of his personal counsel, Lincoln’s former attorney general, James Speed, who was the brother of Lincoln’s long-time friend Joshua Speed, and also a Kentuckian.[6]

So what happened to Adam? One account published in 1915 indicates that Adam “came to Waukesha, where it is reported, he was living until quite recently, engaged as a drayman.”[7] Unfortunately, efforts to locate Adam—who may very well have changed his name and attempted to pass as a white man—in the census records of the last decades of the 19th century and early decades of the 20th century were unsuccessful.

John, Abe, George, and Dock in northern Kentucky and Adam in central Kentucky all made the choice and took the risk of recapture and punishment for an opportunity at freedom. They likely did not know that the regiment they fled to was supportive of their attempts at liberty until they got there. They could have just as easily entered a camp of less welcoming soldiers who may have turned them away, or worse yet, returned them to their enslavers. However, it was their courage that made them take that first step toward emancipation.

[1] Jessica A. Giles and Allen C. Guelzo, “Colonel Utley’s Emancipation—or, How Lincoln Offered to Buy a Slave,” in Marquette Law Review, vol. 93, issue 4 (Summer 2010), 1271-1273

[2] Giles and Guelzo, 1274-1275; William Utley to Abraham Lincoln, November 17, 1862, located at: https://www.loc.gov/item/mal1957000/, accessed February 4, 2024.

[3] George Robertson to Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1862, located at: https://www.loc.gov/item/mal1963600/, accessed February 4, 2024.

[4] Abraham Lincoln to George Robertson, November 26, 1862, located at: https://www.loc.gov/item/mal1976900/, accessed February 4, 2024.

[5] George Robertson to Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862, located at: https://www.loc.gov/item/mal1985600/, Accessed February 4, 2024.

[6] Giles and Guelzo, 1280-1281.

[7] Eugene Walter Leach, Racine County Militant: An Illustrated Narrative of War Times, and a Soldier’s Roster (Racine, WI: E. W. Leach, 1915), 105.