John Hunt Morgan Monument in Lexington, Kentucky

This impressive memorial to Confederate General John Hunt Morgan astride his horse stands proudly in front of the old Fayette County Courthouse, now the Lexington History Museum, Lexington, Kentucky.  The front inscription on the granite pedestal of the memorial reads simply "Genl. John H. Morgan and His Men."   On the side of the pedestal are the words, "Erected by the Kentucky Division United Daughters of the Confederacy."    A Commonwealth of Kentucky historical marker beside the monument reads:

JOHN HUNT MORGAN (1825-1864)   

 Known as the Thunderbolt of the Confederacy, Morgan was born in Huntsville, Alabama; in 1831 moved to Lexington. After attending Transylvania, he fought in the Mexican War. In Lexington, he prospered as owner of hemp factory and woolen mill. Morgan organized Lexington Rifles Infantry, 1857; later led them to aid Confederacy. Reverse, John Hunt Morgan 1825-1864 Leading cavalry raids behind the enemy lines, General J. H. Morgan disrupted Union supplies and communications. For southerners, he was the ideal romantic hero. Captured in Indiana-Ohio raid, he escaped and was killed in Greeneville, Tennessee, September 4, 1864. Buried in Lexington Cemetery. Morgan became a courageous symbol of the Lost Cause.

John Hunt Morgan Historical Marker - Side 1

John Hunt Morgan Historical Marker - Side 2

John Hunt Morgan Memorial, Lexington, Kentucky

Photos by J. Stephen Conn

Lexington, Kentucky preserves the home of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan

Visitors to the lovely city of Lexington, Kentucky are able to tour the Hunt Morgan House. The home, also known as Hopemont, is located near the downtown area at Lexington's Gratz Park. A favorite tourist attraction, it was once the home of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan.

Hunt-Morgan House, Lexington, Kentucky

This historic marker, number 3 in the Kentucky Historical Highway Marker Program. was placed beside the house more than half a century ago.  It reads:

"MORGAN HOUSE  -Home of John Hunt Morgan, "Thunderbolt of the Confederacy." Born Huntsville, Alabama, June 1, 1825. Killed Greeneville, Tennessee, September 4, 1864. Lieutenant, Kentucky Volunteers in Mexican War 1846-1847. Major General, C.S.A., 1861-1864.:"


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The Confederate Guest

These old stone steps, near the center of the picturesque small town of Somerset, Kentucky, are all that remain of the home of Dr. J. M. Perkins  The good doctor and his descendants lived here for 130 years.

Of the many stories of things that happened in the old house, one of the most intriguing was that of "The Confederate Guest," during the War Between the States.  A historical sign along the sidewalk tells the story.

Mrs. Richardson, who  died in the house in 1985 was the last of Dr. Perkin's descendants to live here.  She loved to tell of story of the wounded soldier which her grandmother hid in the house, a story passed down through the family for generations.

On a dark night during the War Between the States, when Union Soldiers were occupying the town, Mrs. Perkins was  twice interrupted by noises in the foyer while she was entertaining guests for supper.  The second interruption was by Union troops, searching for a wounded Confederate soldier.

"There's no one here but my guests and I," she told them.   Her dinner guests never knew that her other "guest" had been the wounded Confederate, whom she hid from the invading Yankees.

Next door the local Public Library, built as a U.S. Post Office in 1912, stand on the former site of the family home of former Kentucky Governor Edwin P. Morrow.  His family lived there from 1865-1903.

Photos and text by J. Stephen Conn

They Died in Defense of Constitutional Liberty

Kentucky's First Confederate Memorial, Cynthiana, Kentucky

Battle Grove Cemetery in Cynthiana, Kentucky was dedicated November 4, 1868 to honor those who fell there June 12, 1864 during the second Battle of Cynthiana.  The battle ensued when Union troops invaded Kentucky during the War to prevent Southern Independence (1861-1865).

In the following spring, on May 27, 1869, Battle Grove Cemetery became the site of the first of dozens of Confederate memorials in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and it is widely believed to be the second oldest Confederate monument in the nation. 

The memorial consists of a granite shaft, beside which flys the First National Flag of the Confederacy.  Surrounding the shaft and flag is a circle of headstones of Confederate dead, most of them unknown.  And why did these brave men die?  The monument makes the answer clear with the inscription:  They died in defense of Constitutional Liberty. 

In the spirit of American Revolution of 1776, the Confederates made the ultimate sacrifice in a war for freedom from an out of control federal government.  The North, under the despotic dictatorship of Abraham Lincoln, trampled the Constitution in a grab for money and centralized governmental control over the previously sovereign states. 

Chiseled in stone on front of the monument are these words:

ERECTED 

MAY 27, 1869

BY THE

CYNTHIANA CONFEDERATE

MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION

IN MEMORY OF

THE CONFEDERATE DEAD WHO

FELL IN DEFENSE OF

CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY 

The other side of the monument contains this verse:

THEIR NAMES SHALL NEVER BE FORGOT

WHILE FAME THEIR RECORD KEEPS.

AND GLORY GUARDS THE HALLOW'D SPOT 

WHERE VALOR PROUDLY SLEEPS.

Bowling Green - The Confederate Capitol of Kentucky

This stone monument in Fountain Square Park, downtown Blowing Green, Kentucky, recognizes Bowling Green as the Confederate Capitol of Kentucky.  The inscription reads:

BOWLING GREEN

THE CONFEDERATE CAPITOL OF KENTUCKY

A newly constituted state of Kentucky,

having been conceived in sovereignty convention

November 18-20, 1861, at Russellville,

established Bowling Green as its capitol.

The commissioners to the Confederate Congress

in Richmond were William Preston, Louisville,

William E. Simms, Bourbon, and William C. Burnett, Trigg.

On December 10, 1861, the state of Kentucky was

admitted into the Confederacy by act of the

Confederate Congress.  Section I, "The Congress of

the Confederate States of America do enact that

the state of Kentucky be, and is hereby admitted a

member of the Confederate States of America

on an equal footing of the other states of this

Confederacy."  Kentuckians sympathetic with the 

cause of states rights, found a state and a country

which they could call their own.  

The Kentucky senators and representatives were: 

Senators

Hon. Henry C. Burnett

Hon. William E. Simms

Hon. Thomas B. Monroe

House of Representatives

Hon. Benjamin F. Bradley

Hon. H. W. Bruce

Hon. R. J. Breckinridge, Jr.

Hon. Ely M. Bruce

Hon. Willis B. Machen

Hon. James C. Chrisman

Hon. John W. Crockett

Hon. John M. Elliott

Hon. George W. Ewing

Hon. George B. Hodge

Hon. James W. Moore

Hon. Henry E. Read

Hon. George W. Triplett

Hon. Theodore L. Burnett

The monument was erected by the Kentucky Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy on December 10, 1949.

Kentucky's Confederate Capitol Building was at 1320 Park Street.  The hilltop building is still standing, and is known today as the Grider House, a private residence.  Provisional government meetings took place in this antebellum home which also served as the residence of the Confederate Governor.  A garrison of soldiers was stationed there to protect the capitol.  Around the house were unusual earthworks called a “lunette fort with embankments” and three mounted cannon.

In early 1962, invading Union troops arrived and began to bombard Bowling Green from across the Barren River, forcing the Confederates to evacuate the city.  By mid-February 1862, Bowling Green fell into Union hands.  The occupying Yankee aggressors controlled Bowling Green for the remainder of the War Between the States. 

Bowling Green produced its share of heroes during the War for Southern Independence.  This historical marker, in front of the Warren County Courthouse in Bowling Green, honors the gallant local men who were awaraded the Confederate Medal of Honour by President Jefferson Davis. 

Photos by J. Stephen Conn

Confederate Monument on the Road to Perryville

This monument on the courthouse lawn in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, has honored Anderson County Confederate veterans since 1894. It consists of a granite figure on a pedestal, around which may be found the names of the Confederate regiments raised in Anderson County and a list of those men wounded or killed during America's tragic war of 1861-1865. The monument features an eight-foot tall figure dressed in winter coat with a rifle held vertically before him.

Lawrenceburg was the site of several skirmishes in the War for Southern Independence, leading up to the Battle of Perryville on October 8, 1862. Later in the War, a Home Guard unit was stationed in the city to attempt to quell guerrilla activity there.

Perryville, which is in the next county to the south of Anderson, was the site of Kentucky's largest battle in the War Between the States. Two of my great great uncles fought for the Confederacy in that battle. One was captured and the other was listed as missing. He is presumably one of the several hundred unknown Confederate dead who are buried on the Perryville battlefield in a mass grave. I will tell their story in more detail in future posts.

The Stars and Bars

This flag flies over the Confederate Cemetery at Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site, Perryville, Kentucky. It was on this same battlefield where two of my Confederate great uncles fought to defend their homeland from an invading Northern army. Here my uncle John Thomas Conn (known as J.T.) was captured and sent to Camp Morton, a Union Prison in Indianapolis. His brother, my Uncle James Walter Conn, is still listed as missing in action from that battle. No doubt James is one of the hundreds of unknown Confederate dead who are buried in the mass grave beneath this flag.

When the Confederate States of America were formed in 1861, the flag pictured here was the first to officially fly over the new nation. It is the flag properly known as the "Stars and Bars," The circle of seven stars represents the first seven states that seceded from the Union: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas.

This first official flag of the Confederacy was adopted by the Confederate Congress on March 4, 1861 and raised over the dome of that first Confederate Capitol. The Stars and Bars were flown until May 26, 1863, when it was replaced because during battle it was sometimes mistaken as the Stars and Stripes - the flag of the invading enemy.

The Kentucky Secession Convention

Carrico Park Square, in the historic District of Russellville, Kentucky, marks the site where Kentucky seceded from the United States in order to cast its lot with the Confederate States of America. A monument on the square, pictured below, tells the story:

RUSSELLVILLE
SITE OF THE SOVEREIGNTY CONVENTION

HERE ON NOV. 18-20, 1861, DELEGATES FROM 68 COUNTIES
OF KENTUCKY IN CONVENTION, BY THE ANCIENT RITE OF SELF
DETERMINATION AND REVOLUTION, SET UP A NEWLY CONSTITUTED
STATE OF KENTUCKY. HENRY C. BURNETT, TRIGG, WAS PRESIDENT
OF THE CONVENTION, ROBERT McGEE, LOUISVILLE, SECRETARY
T.S. BRYAN, CHRISTIAN, AND THEODORE L. BURNETT, SPENCER,
ASSOCIATE SECRETARIES

Elected officials of the new Confederate State of Kentucky are listed:

George W. Johnson, Scott County, Governor
Robert McGee, Louisville, Secretary of State
John Burnam, Warren County, Treasurer
Josiah Pillsbury. Warren County, Auditor

Governor Johnson was killed the following April at the Battle of Shiloh
and was succeeded by Richard Hawes of Bourbon County.

The monument also lists the Council of Ten by name and county, followed by these words:

UNDER THIS NEW REGIME, THE SOVEREIGNTY OF OUR PEOPLE
FOUND A MEDIUM OF EXPRESSION FOR SYMPATHY FOR THE
SOUTHERN CAUSE IN WHICH THERE WOULD BE NO STIGMA OF
TREASON. SECTION 16 OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION LOCATED
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT AT BOWLING GREEN.

Here are more photos from Carrico Park Square:

The monument was erected December 10, 1949, by the Kentucky Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Jefferson Davis Birthplace - Bethel Baptist Church

First organized in 1814, Bethel Baptist Church stands on property donated to the congregation in 1886 by Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, 1861 - 1865. The church occupies the same spot as the log cabin in which Jefferson Davis was born in 1808.

LIke many other churches in the antebellum South, this congregation had both caucasian and negro members before the Yankee attrocities of "reconstruction" following the War Between the States caused a racial divide which has never been fully overcome. In 1870 the church had 62 black members who requested permission to be dismissed in order to organize their own church at nearby Pembroke, Kentucky.

Jefferson Davis was present for the dedication of the church in November, 1886. On that occasion he addressed the congregation with these words:

“It is with heart full of emotion that I thank you for commerating the spot of my nativity by building this temple to the Triune God. In reply to the question why I am not a Baptist I would only say that my father who was a much better man than myself was a Baptist. I left this place during my infancy, and after an absence of many years revisited it on a previous occasion. On both visits I have felt like saying, “This is my own, my native land.” I see around me now in this beautiful house of worship, the most gratifying use to which the spot of my birth could be devoted. It speaks highly for this community that the most commodious and handsome of all its buildings belongs to God. It shows your reverence and love for your Creator. I rejoice to hear of the continued progress and prosperity of my old home. I am not here for the purpose of making a speech nor would I mar the effect of this solemn dedication, nor of the beautiful and eloquent sermon to which you have listened, by attempting one. I came only to tend to you formally the site on which this building stands. May He who rules the heavens bless this community individually and collectively and may his benediction rest upon this house of worship always. I thus leave it with you. More than this it would be improper for me to say.”

A slab of violet-gray finely polished Tennessee marble set in the wall of the church has this inscription:

JEFFERSON DAVIS,
OF MISSISSIPPI, WAS BORN
June 3, 1808,
ON THIS SITE OF THIS CHURCH
HE MADE A GIFT OF THIS LOT
March 10, 1886,
TO BETHEL BAPTIST CHURCH,
AS A THANK-OFFERING TO GOD

You can learn much more by following this link: www.westernkyhistory.org/christian/church/bethelchurch.html
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Bethel Baptist Church viewed from atop the Jefferson Davis Monument

Story and photos by J. Stephen Conn

Mile Zero, Jefferson Davis Highway

This milestone, marking the beginning of the Jefferson Davis Highway, sits on the Christian/Todd County line in the village of Fairview, Kentucky. It is in the Jefferson Davis State Historic Site, Jefferson Davis' birthplace. The monument reads:

ZERO MILESTONE
JEFFERSON DAVIS HIGHWAY
FAIRVIEW KY. - BILOXI, MISS.

Erected 1930 by
United Daughters of the Confederacy

JEFFERSON DAVIS

Born June 3, 1808
In Christian, now Todd Co., KY
Died December 6, 1889
In New Orleans, LA.
Graduated West Point, 1828
Served in Indian Wars, Mexican War
Hero of Buena Vista and Monterey
Secretary of War 1858
United States Senator from
Mississippi 1857

PRESIDENT OF THE
CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA
1861 - 1865

Patriot, Soldier, Statesman, Christian

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The Jefferson Davis Highway was first conceived in 1913, one year after the Lincoln Highway was proposed. It was a coast-to-coast road through the Southern capitals and beyond. Monuments and markers may still be seen along many parts of the highway. The Fairview route is actually just one of several extensions of the Jefferson Davis Highway, running from Fairview, Kentucky south to Biloxi, Mississippi. The historical marker pictured below stands along side of the Jefferson Davis Highway at the entrance to the Jefferson Davis State Historic Site.

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Photos by J. Stephen Conn

Why My Confederate Uncles Fought at Perryville

In my last post, I shared the #1 most interesing photo out of more than 15,000 travel pictures I have on Flickr.com. Today I am posting the #2 favorite, along with the description I give on Flicker. It is especially interesting to me that both of these top favorites - as determined by the amount of views from the general public - are on Confederate themes, when 98% of my Flickr travel pics have absolutely nothing to do with the Confederacy. This is an indication of the intense worldwide interest people have in America's War Between the States.



This is the final photo in a set in which I share the tragic story of two of my great uncles, Confederate soldiers from Georgia, who fought to defend their homeland against an invading Northern army in the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky.

In war the victors write the history, and the politically correct version of America's un-Civil War heard most often today is that the North fought to free the slaves in the South. Virtually no serious historian believes that, but many average citizens do.

The Conn family, like the vast majority of Southerners, owned no slaves. My Conn ancestors came to America as indentured servants from Ireland. Some of my other ancestors were Cherokee - Native Americans. There were more abolitionists, anti-slavery societies and free blacks in the South than in the North. More than 60,000 blacks, both slave and free, were in the Confederate army.

The Southern commander, General Robert E. Lee, called slavery "a moral and political evil" years before the war. When Lee inherited slaves, through his wife's family, he freed them. General Ulysses S. Grant, the Union commander, was a slave owner who refused to give up his slaves even after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Slavery would have soon ended in the South without war, and the needless slaughter of 620,000 men and tens of thousands of innocent Southern civilians, including blacks, whites women and children. Slavery would have ended peacefully in the South just as it did in Massachusetts (Which had slaves for decades before Georgia did), New York (The largest of the slave trading states - all of them in the North), and in scores of other countries, all without war.

The battle of Perryville, where two of my great uncles fought, took place during the second year of the War, and it was not until the beginning of the following year that Abraham Lincoln made his Emancipation Proclamation in an effort to change the course of his war for power and empire. Lincoln called his proclamation a "war measure." It was rhetoric that did not free a single slave, including slaves in several northern states. Freedom didn't come until the ratification of the 13th Amendment, months after the war was over.

At the Perryville Visitors Center are many quotes from soldiers who fought there. Among them I did not see a single mention of slavery. In their own words, the Southern men fought to defend their homes and families. They felt that America should remain a confederacy of sovereign states with a limited federal government, as outlined by our founding fathers in the Constitution. Abraham Lincoln and the North fought to squash states rights and institute an all powerful, centralized empire. Before the war America was always called "these" United States. Now it is "the" United States.

There are many good books that tell the truth about the War Between the States, but you won't find many of them in Federally funded public schools.

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You may see the entire story on my Flickr site by clicking here: http://flickr.com/photos/jstephenconn/2886700867/in/set-72157607484183354/

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Photo and Article by J. Stephen Conn

New Confederate Monument to mark Battle of Richmond, Kentucky

Lexington Herald-Leader

RICHMOND, Ky. -- A Texas historical group plans a monument to mark the central Kentucky site of a decisive Confederate victory of the Civil War. Madison County Historic Properties Director Phillip Seyfrit says the Texas Historical Commission will dedicate the monument in Madison County's Battlefield Park on May 23.

The monument will be made of sunset-red granite and stand 8 feet tall, Seyfrit says. On it, will be lists of the Texas units involved in the August 1862 battle along with an explanation of their roles in the fight.

"We are gratified to have Texas erect the first state-sponsored memorial on the Richmond Battlefield," Seyfrit told the Richmond Register.

Seyfrit says the monument will be placed by a paved pathway in the park, near the ravine from which Confederate troops emerged to charge the Union's right, causing the Union line to fall back. An interpretive sign already stands near the site.

Other Civil War battlefields, such as Perryville in Boyle County, are dotted with monuments commemorating the action of troops from various states, according to Seyfrit.

"Because Texas troops figured so prominently in the Battle of Richmond, it is fitting that Texas be the first state outside Kentucky to erect a monument to its troops here," he observed.

There's More. For the full article go to: http://www.kentucky.com/471/story/645574.html

The photo above is of the 2007 reenactment of the Battle of Richmond and may be found here: http://encyclopedia.vbxml.net/Battle_of_Richmond

Kentucky's Largest Confederate Monument to be put into "Politically Correct" Perspective

Louisville Kentucky's Confederate Monument, the largest in the commonwealth, is getting new neighbors. for 113 years this historical monument to the Confederacy has stood alone and proud on city property, adjacent to the Belknap campus of the University of Louisville. Now, "politically correct" university officials have announced plans to surround the monument with a new Freedom Park which will contain a new statue, exhibits, and an interpretative center, all honoring the civil rights movement. The university's elite of academia say this will "put the monument in its proper perspective."

Mark Hiland, Adjutant to the John Hunt Morgan Camp 1342, Sons of Confederate Veterans in Louisville responded, "In my mind, this would be akin to putting the Vietnam War Memorial on the Mall in Washington DC 'in its proper perspective' by surrounding it with statues of Jane Fonda and William Ayres and erecting an 'interpretive center' dedicated to the so-called Peace Movement."

"It is our ultimate hope," Hiland continued, "that out of all this nonsense we will be able to convince the city and/or university to spend some of its $2 million dollar budget on actually cleaning and restoring the Confederate monument itself."

The Confederate monument, which is owned by the city of Louisville, was erected in 1895 by the Women's Confederate Monument Association. The inscription calls the monument "a tribute to the rank and file of the armies of the South and our Confederate dead."

Below are two links about the monument. The first is from the local Louisville chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans: http://johnhuntmorgan.scv.org/loumon.htm

The next link is to an article about the monument which appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20081118/NEWS01/811180411/1008

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Article by J. Stephen Conn - Photo from University of Louisville Archives