Question of the Week: Could the Union have won without Kentucky?
Abraham Lincoln said he could not win the war without Kentucky. Do you agree with his assessment, or could the USA have still won the war with Kentucky firmly under Confederate control?
Of course the US would have won the war. They would have just invaded Kentucky and kicked out the rebels.
Could the Confederacy have won the war with a solidly pro-South Kentucky?
The only thing the Union could not have won without is God!!!
Kentucky was important as a gateway to the south via the Mississippi, Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers. These were not only invasion routes but supply lines. The additional troops, grains and horses were also important not only for the North but also denying those to the South. And the Union couldn’t have won with all that Kentucky bourbon.
The question implies that either Kentucky’s original neutrality was respected and adhered to by both sides, or the Confederates took control of the state and maintained that control through the conclusion of the War. Not having Kentucky certainly would have complicated things for the Union. It would have impacted the implementation and success of the Anaconda Plan. The Mississippi River control so vital to Union movements and supplies would have been affected. While it might not have ended up being fatal to the Union’s war efforts, being ‘without Kentucky’ would have made things much more difficult for them and no doubt ensures a longer war. It would have made the politics if the time a lot more interesting. Lincoln’s re-election in 1864 might not have happened. Not having Kentucky certainly would have been significant to put it mildly!
The Union could have won the Civil War without Kentucky, but it would have been more difficult. The states resources, particularly in horses and mules, cattle, hogs, and grain products were of great significance. One of them many things I find fascinating about the Bluegrass State is that the majority of the state’s white male military age population chose not to serve either side. It is estimated that about 70,000 white males fought for the Union and somewhere between 25,000-40,000 served the Confederate cause.
As Anne Marshall states in her excellent book Creating a Confederate Kentucky: The Lost Cause and Civil War Memory in a Border State, “Of Kentucky’s eligible white males, 71 percent chose not to fight at all. Lincoln attempted to draft white Kentuckians twice during the war. In the first effort, the Federal government called for a little over 9,000 troops. Only 421 offered personal service, while nearly 4,000 provided proxies or monetary commutation. In 1864, the vast majority of eligible men dodged the draft completely. Unionist sentiment was not enough to compel people to fight. In July, Lincoln tried again, this time calling for over 16,000 troops. Fewer than 1,500 responded for personal service, with almost 2,000 finding substitutes of some sort. In sum, fewer then 25 percent of those targeted responded to the draft in any form. The state incurred a quota deficit of 15,472 men. By contrast, 24,000, or 40 percent, of Kentucky’s able African American males served the Union. Of the southern states, only Louisiana boasted more black recruits. White Kentuckians’ reluctance to fight reflected their irresolution about the war, the Federal government, and a president for whom they did not vote.”
I think geography has a role to play in the state’s white male population largely sitting out the war. Being positioned as they were, Kentucky, who had more slave owners than any other state except Virginia and Georgia in 1860, felt their best chance to protect the institution was to remain within the Union than from without it. If Lincoln had taken an earlier and firmer stance on emancipation, it may have made things much more dicey than it was with the state’s allegiance. By the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, with the Confederates being driven out in the fall of 1862, the Union was in fairly firm control of the state. However, as backlash, there was a tremendous surge of Confederate guerrilla activity there following the Emancipation Proclamation, and especially following the open enlistment of Black men in the spring of 1864. Although unpopular with many in his own Party, Lincoln’s handling of Kentucky was probably the wisest for the ends he desired.
In Virginia, William Beckwith, a War of 1812 veteran, near 75 years old in 1861, was on record as saying, many times, “the north were able to whip the south with sticks, that they were 4 to 1.”
Future Union General McPherson, in 1861, told his friend, future Confederate General Porter Alexander, that he could sit out the war, that the South was doomed to lose, that the north had more rail, more people, more of everything.
Its interesting to see how Kentucky was before and during the war, respect to the above posters, but Kentucky or no Kentucky, the South was recognized by many before the war as going to have the outcome that came about and Kentucky was wise to lookout for number 1 and not step in number 2.
Yes, the United States would have won the war with Kentucky under Confederate control; it simply would have been more difficult and taken longer. The usual reason – lack of resources, human, financial and material – would still have cost the Confederacy their Constitutional rights, which they were to lose for more than a decade.