Louisville in the American Civil War was a major stronghold of Union forces, which kept Kentucky firmly in the Union. It was the center of planning, supplies, recruiting and transportation for numerous campaigns, especially in the Western Theater. By the end of the war, Louisville had not been attacked once, although skirmishes and battles, including the battles of Perryville and Corydon, Indiana, took place nearby.
Pre-war developments (1850–1860) During the 1850s, Louisville became a vibrant and wealthy city, but together with the success, the city also harbored racial and ethnic tensions. It attracted numerous immigrants from Europe such as Irish and Germans, had a large slave market from which enslaved African Americans were sold to the Deep South, and had both slaveholders and abolitionists as residents. By 1850, Louisville became the tenth-largest city in the United States. Louisville's population rose from 10,000 in 1830 to 43,000 in 1850. It became an important tobacco market and pork packing center. By 1850, Louisville's wholesale trade totaled US$20 million in sales. The Louisville–New Orleans river route held top rank in freight and passenger traffic on the entire Western river system.Yater, p. 61.
Not only did Louisville profit from the river, but in August 1855, its citizens greeted the arrival of the locomotive "Hart County" at Ninth and Broadway and connection to the nation via railroad. The first passengers arrived by train on the Louisville and Frankfort Railroad. James Guthrie, president of the Louisville & Frankfort, pushed the railroad along the Shelbyville turnpike (Frankfort Avenue) through Gilman's Point (St. Matthews) and on to Frankfort. The track entered Louisville on Jefferson Street and ended at Brook Street. The state paid tribute to James Guthrie by naming the small railroad community of Guthrie, Kentucky, in Todd County after him.
Leven Shreve, a Louisville civic leader, became the first president of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N), which was to prove more important for trade. It led to the developing western states and linked with Mississippi River traffic. With the railroads, Louisville could manufacture furniture and other goods, and export products to Southern cities. Louisville was on her way to becoming an industrial city. The Louisville Rolling Mill built girders and rails, and other factories made cotton machinery, which was sold to Southern customers. Louisville built steamboats. Louisville emerged with an iron-working industry; the plant at Tenth and Main was called Ainslie, Cochran, and Company.
Louisville also became a meat packing city, becoming the second-largest city in the nation to pack pork, butchering an average of 300,000 hogs a year. Louisville led the nation in hemp manufacturing and cotton bagging. Farmington Plantation, owned by John Speed, was one of the larger hemp plantations in Louisville. Hemp was Kentucky's leading agricultural product from 1840 to 1860, and the leading commodity crop of the fertile Bluegrass Region. Jefferson County led all other markets in gardening and orchards. The sales of livestock, quality horses and cattle, was also important.
Attracted by jobs and pushed by political unrest and famine, European immigrants flowed into the city from Germany and Ireland; most of them were Catholic, unlike the Protestants who lived in the city. By 1850, 359,980 immigrants arrived in the United States; by 1854, 427,833 immigrants arrived to seek a new living. With the increase in new immigrants in the city, native Louisville residents felt threatened by change, and began to express anti-foreign, anti-Catholic sentiments. In 1841, the growth in population prompted the Catholic archdiocese to move the bishop's seat from Bardstown to Louisville. The archdiocese began construction on a new Catholic cathedral, which was completed in 1852. This asserted Catholic presence in the city.
In 1843, a new political party arose, called the American Republican Party. On July 5, 1845, the American Republican party changed their name to the Native American Party and held their first national convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The party opposed liberal immigration policies. On June 17, 1854, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner held its second national convention in New York City. The members were "native Americans" and anti-Catholic. When the members answered questions about the group, they responded with "I know nothing about it," giving rise to the nickname Know-Nothing for the Native American Party. The new political party gained national support. The Know-Nothing party encouraged and tapped into the nation's prejudice and fears that Catholic immigrants would take control of the United States. Hostility to Catholics had a long history based on national rivalries in Europe. By 1854, the Know-Nothings gained control of Jefferson County's government.
Ethnic tension came to a boil in 1855, during the mayor's office election. On August 6, 1855, "Bloody Monday" erupted, in which Protestant mobs bullied immigrants away from the polls and began rioting in Irish and German neighborhoods. Protestant mobs attacked and killed at least twenty-two people. The rioting began at Shelby and Green Street (Liberty) and progressed through the city's East End. After burning houses on Shelby Street, the mob headed for William Ambruster's brewery in the triangle between Baxter Avenue and Liberty Street. They set the place ablaze and ten Germans died in the fire. When the mob burned Quinn's Irish Row on the North side of Main between Eleventh and Twelfth Streets, some tenants died in the fire; the mob shot and killed others. The Know-Nothing party won the election in Louisville and many other Kentucky counties.
As in other cities, slavery was a consuming topic; some of Louisville's economy was built on its thriving slave market. Slave traders' revenues, and those from feeding, clothing and transporting the slaves to the Deep South, all contributed to the city's economy. The direct use of slaves as labor in the central Kentucky economy had lessened by 1850. But throughout the 1850s, the state slaveholders sold 2500–4000 slaves annually downriver to the Deep South. Slave pens were located on Second between Market and Main Streets.
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 added to the controversy, as it threatened potentially lucrative expansion of slavery to western states. Louisville also had a free black population, among whom some managed to acquire property. Washington Spradling, freed from slavery in 1814, became a barber. By the 1850s, he owned real estate valued at $30,000. With its agriculture, shipping trade and industry, and slave markets, Louisville was a city that shared in cultures of both the agricultural South and the industrial North.
The eve of war (1860) In the November 1860 Presidential election, Kentucky voters gave native Kentuckian Abraham Lincoln less than one percent of the vote. Kentuckians did not like Lincoln, because he stood for the eradication of slavery and his Republican Party aligned itself with the North. But, neither did they vote for native son John C. Breckinridge and his Southern Democratic Party, generally regarded as secessionists. In 1860, people in the state held 225,000 slaves, with Louisville's slaves comprising 7.5 percent of the population. The voters wanted both to keep slavery and stay in the Union.
Most Kentuckians, including residents of Louisville, voted for John Bell of Tennessee, of the Constitutional Union Party. It stood for preserving the Union and keeping the status quo on slavery. Others voted for Stephen Douglas of Illinois, who ran for the Democratic Party ticket. Louisville cast 3,823 votes for John Bell. Douglas received 2,633 votes.
On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, and ten other Southern states followed. Kentucky, however, chose to remain neutral and later went with the Union.
War breaks out (1861)
On April 12, 1861, Confederate Brigadier General Pierre G. T. Beauregard ordered the firing on Fort Sumter, located in the Charleston harbor, thus starting the Civil War. At the time of the Battle of Fort Sumter, the fort's commander was Union Major Robert Anderson of Louisville.
After the attack on Fort Sumter, President of the United States Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers. Kentucky Governor Beriah Magoffin refused to send any men to act against the Southern states, and both Unionists and secessionists supported his position. On April 17, 1861, Louisville hoped to remain neutral and spent $50,000 for the defense of the city, naming Lovell Rousseau as brigadier general. Rousseau formed the Home Guard. When Unionists asked Lincoln for help, he secretly sent arms to the Home Guard. The U. S. government sent a shipment of weapons to Louisville and kept the rifles hidden in the basement of the Jefferson County Courthouse.
Louisville residents were divided as to which side they should support. Economic interests and previous relationships often determined alliances. Prominent Louisville attorney James Speed, brother of Lincoln's close friend Joshua Fry Speed, strongly advocated keeping the state in the Union. Louisville Main Street wholesale merchants, who had extensive trade with the South, often supported the Confederacy. Blue-collar workers, small retailers, and professional men, such as lawyers, supported the Union. On April 20, two companies of Confederate volunteers left by steamboat for New Orleans, and five days later, three more companies departed for Nashville on the L & N Railroad. Union recruiters raised troops at Eighth and Main, and the Union recruits left for Indiana to join other Union regiments.
On May 20, 1861, Kentucky declared its neutrality. An important state geographically, Kentucky had the Ohio River as a natural barrier. Kentucky's natural resources, manpower, and the L&N Railroad made both the North and South respect Kentucky's neutrality. President Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis both maintained hands-off policies when dealing with Kentucky, hoping not to push the state into one camp or the other. From the L&N depot on Ninth and Broadway in Louisville and the steamboats at Louisville wharfs, supporters of the Confederacy sent uniforms, lead, bacon, coffee and war material south. Although Lincoln did not want to upset Kentucky's neutrality, on July 10, 1861, a federal judge in Louisville ruled that the United States government had the right to stop shipments of goods from going south over the L&N railroad.
On July 15, 1861, the War Department authorized United States Navy Lieutenant William "Bull" Nelson to establish a training camp and organize a brigade of infantry. Nelson commissioned William J. Landram, a colonel of cavalry; and Theophilus T. Garrard, Thomas E. Bramlette, and Speed S. Fry colonels of infantry. Landram turned his commission over to Lieutenant Colonel Frank Wolford. When Garrard, Bramlette, and Fry established their camps at Camp Dick Robinson in Garrard County, and Wolford erected his camp near Harrodsburg, Kentucky's neutrality effectively ended.Beach, pp. 16–17. Brigadier General Rousseau established a Union training camp opposite Louisville in Jeffersonville, Indiana, naming the camp after Joseph Holt. Governor Magoffin protested to Lincoln about the Union camps, but he ignored Magoffin, stating that the will of the people wanted the camps to remain in Kentucky.Beach, p. 18.
In August 1861, Kentucky held elections for the State General Assembly, and Unionists won majorities in both houses. Residents of Louisville continued to be divided on the issue of which side to join. The Louisville Courier was very much pro-Confederate, while the Louisville Journal was pro-Union.