Kentucky.

Tonight I'm Chip Polston guest hosting this evening for Renee Shaw.

Thanks so much for joining us.

As Kentucky celebrates birthday number 234 today.

And America looks ahead to its 250th birthday next month.

Tonight, we're taking a special look at the important role Kentucky played in American history.

From the earliest settlers to the Civil War to the Industrial Revolution and beyond.

We have with us tonight four history experts in our Lexington studio.

Stuart Sanders is director of research and publications for the Kentucky Historical Society and is the author of five books.

Simon Meiners is a communications and research specialist as well as a public relations writer for the Frazier Kentucky History Museum in Louisville.

Doctor Gerald Smith is a full professor of history at the University of Kentucky and pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church in Lexington.

He has written extensively on the black experience in Kentucky and is the author, editor, or coeditor of five books, and Doctor John Kleber is a history professor emeritus at Morehead State University and is the editor of, among other works, The Kentucky Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Louisville.

Now we want to hear from you.

You can send your questions and comments by X. Formerly Twitter at Pub Affairs KET or send an email to Kentucky or KY tonight@ket.org, or use the Webb form ket.org/ky tonight.

Or you can pick up the phone and give us a call at one (800) 494-7605.

Many welcomes to all of our guests.

Thank you all so much for being here.

Stuart, let's go ahead and start with you.

There has been a committee for some time working here in Kentucky, to come up with the ways that we're going to commemorate America's 250th birthday here in Kentucky.

What are some of the ways that we're going to be doing that?

>> Yeah, the Kentucky Historical Society is really honored to be the administrators of the Kentucky Centennial Commission.

And so we've been working for several years and working on events, sort of heritage tourism projects, historic preservation projects, and really aiming toward July 4th and that important 250th anniversary.

So there are events planned across the Commonwealth.

Even starting now, we've got Liberty Tree plantings in 95 counties out of 120, which is great.

This Saturday, for example, June 6th is going to be Kentucky History Day in Frankfort.

The Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History.

We have a lot of activities.

And also we're partnering partnering with KET to show some clips from the Ken Burns documentary and have a panel discussion after that.

Importantly, July 4th is going to be a great day for Kentucky.

There are, you know, fireworks displays there, musical acts all over Kentucky that will be celebrating this event.

We're going to have a big one in in Frankfort on July 3rd and July 4th.

And again, there are events all over from Danville to Pikeville, you know, to Murray and beyond.

>> And you mentioned the History Center.

You all have a special exhibition that you've opened just to commemorate this.

We were able to take a look at it last week, and it really is remarkable.

Tell us a little bit about that.

>> We're really excited about this exhibition.

It's called From Revolution to Statehood, and it's looking at sort of the memory of the American Revolution in Kentucky to when we became a state in 1792.

And, you know, today is Kentucky's birthday.

It's June 1st, which we're excited about.

So a great way to sort of learn more about the American Revolution and how it impacted Kentucky is to come to Frankfort and tour that exhibition.

>> And one of the things we saw on the screen just a second ago, that I was absolutely amazed by a jacket liner worn by George Washington.

>> Right there, wonderful artifacts in this exhibit.

We've got everything from that jacket liner to what's called the Burgoyne Cannon to a recently sort of acquired portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Jewett, to even a plaster cast of Daniel Boone's skull, which is sort of a crowd favorite at the Kentucky History Center.

>> It's remarkable.

Simon the Frazier history, the Frazier Kentucky History Center in Louisville, what are you all going to have on tap?

>> So to celebrate America 250 like many other museums around the country, we're focusing on Kentucky, right?

We're Frazier Kentucky History Museum, where the world's largest Kentucky history museum we are where the world meets Kentucky is our brand.

So we've got an exhibition opening.

I've got this nifty pin on.

It's called I too am a Kentuckian right from Abraham Lincoln's quote.

So it's going to focus on civil rights leaders day to day folks, politicians, sort of how Kentuckians identities are baked into their identities as American citizens.

So you look at federalism, the three branches of the federal government, as far as objects, we'll have objects on loan from military personnel.

So armed forces uniforms from all the major American combat missions going back to the Mexican-American war, Civil War, World War Two, World War One, Loretta Lynn's dress from the pack horse librarians in Eastern Kentucky.

So that is going to open on Saturday, July 4th.

We'll also have exhibitions later in the summer called Revolutionary Threads and Pursuit of Happiness, which looks at 13 figures from the American Revolution period and how they pursued happiness in their own ways.

That's sort of bigger picture than Kentucky.

>> It's a remarkable setup, and if folks haven't visited it, we want to encourage them to do so.

Stuart, a website that people can go to to access more information, what would that be?

>> Yeah, people can go to the 250 events page@history.ky.gov and just add on to something Simon said, you know, there's a great exhibition in Frankfort at our museum.

They're doing wonderful things at the Frazier.

And this is happening all over Kentucky.

You know, there are small local history organizations across the state that are really doing great work and have wonderful exhibitions.

>> So lots of things for folks to check out to start our discussion.

Doctor Kleber, let me start with you.

I made the mistake about a year ago when I was sitting in a room full of historians to refer to some early folks in Kentucky as pioneers, and I was very quickly admonished that that was not the way that you wanted to refer to folks who were early into Kentucky.

What's the correct way to identify them and why is that important?

>> Well, I think if you look at the definition of the word pioneer and it means to open up or to originate, then those early European pioneers were not indeed pioneers.

They were something else.

Another definition for pioneer is early, and the Europeans did not.

They did not originate.

They did not come early.

In fact, if you look at the word pioneer, it may better define the Native Americans who were here some 12000 years ago.

More than 12 tribes roamed across Kentucky hunting, exploring, trading, settling.

Most notably were the Cherokee and the Shawnee.

And so you may call them pioneers, but perhaps I would call the Europeans settlers.

>> Wright and Doctor Smith the indigenous presence in the area around this time.

What did that look like?

>> Well, it was long and varied in the sense that even during the Ice Age, there were people who were living in Kentucky.

There was an ancient people, the Mississippian culture.

Of course, you had the Shawnee and the northern and eastern part of the state.

You had the Chickasaw who were in the western part of the state.

You had, of course, the Cherokee and the southeastern part of the state.

You had the Yuchi, which also in the southeastern part of the state.

And so actually those early settlers focusing on John Filson were the ones who began this early myth that Kentucky was an empty land.

Of course, he wrote the first history of Kentucky.

He was focusing on the fact trying to attract European settlers to this region.

But the indigenous population had a huge impact on the state, including the name Kentucky.

The name Kentucky itself was believed to be from the Wyandot origins of a word Kentucky, which meant land of tomorrow.

>> It was far from an empty place when when they came here.

And a key for the indigenous presence in Kentucky lies within a trail that traverses the eastern part of the state.

Earlier this year on Kentucky Life, we explored the warrior's path, an ancient route in the Commonwealth that stretches from the Cumberland Gap to the Ohio River.

Its origination dates back thousands of years ago, and the path was a literal roadmap for the struggles and survival that shaped the lives of native peoples and settlers who lived along the way.

>> 12,000 years ago, and perhaps even longer.

The First Peoples followed those animals through the Cumberland Gap, and they began to create what we now know as the Warrior's Path.

>> It was the first path into Kentucky.

It was the major north south route from Lake Erie down to the Gulf Coast.

[MUSIC] >> It was a heavily traveled, well-used route that I think was the path of least resistance for both the animals and the people.

>> It wasn't made by Wagon wheels.

It was made by the hoofs of the horses that the Native Americans rode in.

The settlers rode.

The Shawnee had a different name for it.

ACA Murray path of the armed ones.

For more than 10,000 years it was a route of commerce that tied all the people and all the cultures of North America together.

>> The people that came along and utilized those paths, I think they further developed them as they would branch off and go to a settlement, a place they would trade, a place where they may go for conflict, to war with another tribe.

>> So the original warrior's path was actually called the Common Path.

It wasn't called the Warrior's Path until later.

And over the years, this path then became one in which hunters like dragging canoe and my ancestors would use for deer and buffalo and other sort of fur trading.

And then, of course, as we approach the Revolutionary War era, much more utilized then for routes that ended up in more overt conflict probably than had ever been seen along the path before.

That's when it starts being more commonly referred to as the Warrior's path.

>> Following in the footsteps of the great herds, Paleoamericans walked these same trails, leaving the earliest human mark on this ancient path.

>> We know that they traveled the path because of their tools that we have found.

Along the path.

>> We find all sorts of what we call cultures clutter, artifacts.

It's people leaving their tracks.

>> Many things were traded along the path salt, flint, precious minerals.

That's why in Eastern Kentucky we still find seashells from mobile Bay, Alabama.

[MUSIC] We find copper from the Great Lakes.

[MUSIC] >> Other types of materials.

[MUSIC] Types of chert used to make tools could come from southern Ohio.

>> In my historical explorations along the warrior's path, I found points from 13,000 years ago a paleo period point right along the warrior's path, which says to me that that path has been in use for at least that long.

>> Doctor Kleber, when those settlers first came in, most of the indigenous people had withdrawn.

Why did they leave?

And then why did they fight so hard to hang on to the land that they had once claimed here?

>> You know, I'm always aware when I visit Ohio how many Indian names I encounter, virtually none in Kentucky.

And I think that reflects the fact that when the European settlers entered Kentucky, there were no permanent Indian settlements.

The last had ended in 1754.

Why?

Well, I think that disease had decimated the Indian populations.

And so it made sense for the Shawnee to move north of the Ohio River, for the Cherokee to move south into Tennessee for mutual defense.

Although they may have left Kentucky, they still continued to use it as a hunting grounds.

They would often come in and spend long months hunting in this Paradise.

Really.

So they never, ever gave up their claim to Kentucky as their hunting ground.

And since they had been here 12,000 years, they were going to fight to keep it.

>> And Stuart, many people point to Daniel Boone coming through.

The Cumberland Gap is really the seminal moment of those those settlers coming in.

But in the time frame that we're referencing, somebody actually beat him here that we don't hear a whole lot about.

Tell us about him.

>> Yeah.

He beat Boone by about 19 years coming through the Cumberland Gap.

And that's Doctor Thomas Walker, who was a Virginian.

He was a politician, and he was part of a group that was called the Loyal Land Company that had been given hundreds of thousands of acres in what is now southeastern Kentucky.

And Walker led a group of surveyors into that region of Kentucky, stayed there for several months, never really got into the bluegrass region, but spent a lot of time surveying, built a cabin, and was sort of again predated Boone by about 19 years.

>> But the Daniel Boone mythology, that's what everybody has kind of locked into with the story of him coming through the Cumberland Gap, when really somebody had already been there.

>> Yeah, Boone had great press, which.

>> Is a good PR person.

Right.

And Doctor Smith Boone brought with him enslaved people when he came through the gap, as you and I were talking about, he was heavily influenced by one enslaved person in particular who was later emancipated for his efforts.

Tell us that story.

>> Yes.

Boone, as well as his family, were enslavers.

And once Fort Boonesborough was erected, there was one individual by the name of Monk Estill, who was played a very prominent role in all the activities that took place at Boonesborough.

It was Mark Estill that planted an apple orchard.

Who was the fiddler who believed to be the father of the first child, African American child that was born in the state of Kentucky and and also became a hero in himself in terms of saving one of the European families that were attacked by Native Americans and was was emancipated because of that heroic act.

>> That's a remarkable story.

And, Simon, around this time, you know, we talked a lot about different areas of Louisville.

You said that Louisville wasn't much more than a swampy pond where your exact words that I remember you saying to me, tell me what Louisville looked like around this time around.

>> This time we're talking America.

250 1776 George Rogers Clark doesn't found Louisville until May of 1778.

Right.

So at this time when he showed up with this flotilla of soldiers and families coming from Pittsburgh, the only reason they stopped here was because of the falls of the Ohio, which is the only natural impediment from Pittsburgh down to New Orleans, on the Ohio, into the Mississippi.

So you get 600 miles from Pittsburgh.

Your boats stop.

Oh, I got to get out.

I got to walk my boats two miles to get over these 28 foot rapids.

So Clark or George Rogers Clark founded Louisville here on Corn Island as a military outpost for a month later to go on to Kaskaskia and Cahokia and go to the northwest.

The folks, the citizens who came with him from Pennsylvania, came and settled on mainland Louisville in 7879 at that time.

But it all started because of the falls and the impediment that it imposed there.

>> So that problem in the river really gave birth to the city of Louisville.

>> Of course.

I mean, it was right at the mouth of Beargrass Creek before it was rerouted in Louisville.

So it's been on maps for, you know, since the mid 1700s.

But people, indigenous people have known about it obviously for millennia.

And it's just it became a wharf, a steamboat destination here in the early 1800s.

But before steamboats were around those first few decades, like you said, it was just covered in ponds.

People don't realize this.

Even in Louisville.

I work at ninth and Main Street, right in downtown Louisville.

Everything from the Ohio River down to the south end, Fairdale, Fern Creek, Pleasure Ridge Park, all that stuff was just a network of funky ponds, sycamore trees and deer and bear and turkey and mosquitoes spreading malaria.

So it was very unhealthy place to live until they drain those ponds.

>> So the effort for Kentucky to become a state kicks off.

We had were part of Virginia.

Folks wanted to become our own state.

Stuart, some of the documents from those constitutional conventions I actually got to see last week at the Kentucky History Center.

It's remarkable.

It took ten constitutional conventions before everybody could finally agree on how this was going to work.

Why did it take so long?

>> You're right.

There were ten conventions from 1784 until 1792 when we became a state.

And really, you have to think of it, this was the first time, you know, Vermont became the 14th state.

But Kentucky becoming a state was the first time any sort of Western territory had tried to organize in order to become a part of the union.

You know, there were large issues that were going on that people had to discuss, you know, from from how land would be distributed to who would control the Mississippi River.

And really, you know, there were just simply problems with quorum.

You know, the fourth meeting, you know, there weren't enough people to make up a meeting because people were off on military service.

So it really had a lot to do with distances traveled.

The issues of importance that were, were dealt with at that time, too.

Those were the main reasons.

>> And Doctor Smith Lexington was somewhat tapped to be the new capital city of the state, but obviously it ended up in Frankfort.

What happened to Lexington there?

>> Yeah.

Lexington being the largest town in the state at the time, that the Kentucky becomes the 15th state of the Union, what happens is, even though Kentucky had a relatively wealthy population, not only that, it's the first newspaper that was in Lexington, Kentucky.

The Transylvania Seminary was here.

It was centrally located.

But the the legislature at the time put together a committee that was responsible for finding out where was the best opportunity to situate the state Capitol.

Frankfort, of course, right there by the river.

Not only that, there was a gentleman by the name of Andrew Holmes who offered building construction materials as well as land, and it seemed the best and the most opportune place to have the state capitol.

>> So the state was set up.

Everybody finally got on the same page.

Doctor Kleber, as the state was put together, they came up with 120 different counties in Kentucky.

Now that makes us fourth in the nation for the highest number of counties.

And there's an interesting caveat as to why that's the case.

How did we end up with 120 counties?

>> Well, Kentucky certainly loves its counties.

At one time I thought we were number three, but now I think we're number four.

So I'm not sure how we got to be number four instead of number three.

But nevertheless, we have a large number of counties.

Virginia, its counties were very important in local government.

We learned to make counties from Virginia, and we learned it well.

By 1860, we had 110 counties.

Counties were formed for several reasons for convenience, for economic advantage, for.

Simply the fact that political power could be given from a new county so that these counties were created.

Also, I would have to say that to recognize important individuals 110 by 1860, the Constitution of 1891 made it very difficult to name any additional counties.

And so after that constitution, we had only one county created, and that was after governor.

Governor, trying to think of the county.

McCreary.

Governor McCreary.

So that was that was the final county created.

And again, given here's a county named after an important individual.

>> To follow up on, on those names, the names of some of those those counties in Kentucky came from a battle that occurred relatively early in Kentucky statehood.

Now, you probably learned about American wars and battles in history class back in the day, but there's one that might have gotten by you.

The battle of the River raisin was fought as a part of the war of 1812, and even though it was fought in what is now Michigan, a contingent of Kentucky soldiers played a key role in what happened there.

It's so struck the consciousness of our young state that there are nine counties in Kentucky named after native sons who died or were captured there.

And as you'll see in this story from Kentucky life, it led to what is regarded as the first battle cry in our nation's history.

Remember the raisin?

[MUSIC] This is Monroe, Michigan.

At first glance, this tiny strip of land surrounded by an industrial area looks rather unremarkable.

[MUSIC] It's bordered on one side by Lake Erie and on another by its namesake, the River raisin.

But like with a lot of history, when you peel back the layers of what happened on this very land in 1813, you learn how a bloody battle that took place right here in many ways reshaped our nation.

And at its forefront were men from Kentucky who came to fight.

The battle was part of the war of 1812.

[MUSIC] This was fought between the U.S.

and British forces, who were arguing over land and resources.

[MUSIC] Native Americans fought alongside the British in an effort to preserve tribal lands.

Even though our country was relatively young, the majority of soldiers who fought in the war of 1812 were Kentuckians.

>> They were found down in New Orleans and Baltimore, in New York.

And so I believe it was partly because of patriotism and tradition.

You have to remember, war of 1812 is only 25 years after the Revolutionary War.

And so it was their fathers, their uncles, that fought in that war.

And so it is the family tradition that if war happens.

>> If America is being threatened.

>> If America Kentucky.

>> Go, go put that out.

>> Yes.

>> The British had taken Detroit and all of Michigan.

And when word of this spread across Kentucky, militias were formed to go and take back the land.

Groups met in Georgetown in the summer of 1812 and marched almost 300 miles toward Detroit.

Later that winter, British and Native Americans had taken the settlement of Frenchtown at the mouth of the River raisin, which was a key supply depot right off Lake Erie.

Three regiments from Kentucky headed that way in January of 1813 and pushed them out of the area when they arrived.

[MUSIC] But they were in bad shape.

>> This was all hand-to-hand, in-your-face tomahawk fighting, not the line up in a straight row like they did in Washington, D.C.

this was this was in-your-face fighting.

>> We had to go through a great swamp.

They had to go, you know, through all these areas being attacked throughout.

And their supplies were lost.

They did not have food.

[MUSIC] They were starving.

And so they let their guard down.

[MUSIC] >> Letting that guard down proved fatal.

Four days after the Kentuckians took back the settlement, the British and Native Americans combined to attack at dawn in just 20 minutes.

The Kentuckians were quickly overwhelmed.

[MUSIC] Many were killed and others who ran across the frozen river raisin were captured.

Those who were captured were marched through three feet of snow toward Detroit.

It was what happened to the 50 or so men who were left behind that horrified the nation.

>> Those who could not travel were left here in the care of two surgeons and inside the homes of the French settlers that were here.

And unfortunately, we don't know exactly who it was.

[MUSIC] We know it was a contingent of native warriors.

But for them, the war and the battle was not over.

[MUSIC] >> Native Americans started arriving in the village, and they began looking around for souvenirs for trophies.

[MUSIC] Little by little, more and more Native Americans gathered until you had quite a mob that surrounded the hospital buildings.

Those buildings were entered.

Finally, the inhabitants were pulled out of them and taken away as prisoners.

If they could walk.

If not, they were killed and the buildings were set fire.

>> They drug them out.

They burned the buildings.

Those that couldn't come out, they burned them in the buildings.

And that's what got the dander up of the Americans.

>> Word quickly spread about the deaths at the River raisin, and led to what has been described as the first battle cry of America.

Remember, the raisin was reportedly yelled by Kentuckians on horseback who arrived in September of that same year to avenge the losses at the battle of the Thames in Canada.

The battle so resonated in the Commonwealth that there are nine counties in Kentucky named after men who fought at the River raisin and were either killed or captured.

[MUSIC] Alan Graves Ballard, Edmonson Hart Hickman, McCracken, Meade and Simpson counties all bear those names.

[MUSIC] The history of the battle has fallen to the ravages of time.

Many Kentuckians probably have never heard of what happened on this tiny stretch of land.

Even those who lived in nearby Monroe, Michigan, didn't know about the significance of this area.

>> This is actually my hometown, and I didn't know about this battle and this battlefield until 2009, when I was actually working in Washington, D.C.

Wow.

So this is a story that literally was buried.

>> Why do you think it was buried?

>> Because we lost.

I think it was it was a great tragedy.

Either way you look at it, it was a great tragedy.

And it was the largest American defeat in the entire war of 1812.

>> A higher percentage of Kentuckians volunteered and died in the war of 1812 than any other state.

Less than half of the Kentuckians who left to fight ever returned home.

In the heart of Monroe, Michigan, stands a memorial where unknown Kentuckians killed in the battle of the River raisin were laid to rest.

The monument stands as a permanent tribute to Kentucky and the militiamen who came to the aid of those who lived in the territory of Michigan and as a symbol of the state's sacrifice.

The memorial is one of only a few places outside of Kentucky where the Kentucky state flag is authorized and continues to fly to this day.

So in working on this story, one of the things that really struck me was why this group of people from Kentucky, including sitting members of the General Assembly, walked all the way to Michigan looking for this fight.

Why do you think they wanted the battle?

>> Well, I think at that time, Kentucky was still trying to establish its identity and its commitment to patriotism.

In fact, Andrew Jackson said in 1812, said, I've never seen a Kentuckian without a rifle, a pack of cards or a bottle of whiskey.

And so with that being said, you know, it was just expected that these people are used to fighting Native Americans.

It's in the blood, if you will.

And so it's no surprise that they would participate in this kind of battle.

>> And there was a terrible cost to that, too, because as the video alludes to, you know, more than 60% of the war's entire casualties were Kentuckians.

And a lot of that came from River raisin.

But the war of 1812 was also important because it became an important jumping off point for a generation of Kentucky politicians like General John Adair, who led the Kentucky troops at the Battle of New Orleans, for example, became Kentucky's sixth governor and U.S.

senator.

And he sort of carried that wartime service all the way through the ballot box and into higher office.

>> So moving past the war of 1812, we're getting close to the time when the Civil War is going to start.

Simon, looking at Louisville, there was some economic development that took place there with the Portland Canal being dug, and there was a very important person that grabbed a shovel and helped dig that canal.

Who was that?

>> So the story goes in 18 year old named Abraham Lincoln from Sinking Spring Farm in LaRue County, Kentucky, showed up in 1827 at the Portland Canal, which was under construction at that time.

The Louisville and Portland Canal on the west end of Louisville, said, I want a summer job, and they gave him a six week job there with a pick and shovel digging, helping dig this major infrastructure project.

The Portland Canal, which would allow larger water vessels to traverse the falls.

They're carrying flour and pork and lard and beef and apples and bacon, everything downriver cotton, iron.

But he was just a gangly 18 year old who came up with his stepbrother, a shipping port, and obviously, as Kentucky Roots, we claim him over Illinois spent the first seven years of his life here, but then went on to be a ferry pilot on the river, so came back, I don't know, I've seen that.

I haven't seen it truly substantiated.

I don't know if that's hokum or not, but that's the legend.

>> It's a great story.

And so we moved into the Civil War.

Stuart, why was there this great mythology built up around claiming Kentucky was neutral during the Great War when we really weren't right?

>> I remember when I was in high school, looking at a map in my history textbook, you know, you had the blue states and the gray states, and the Kentucky was sort of red to show it was neutral.

But it's actually a myth about Kentucky, even though the Commonwealth declared sort of a brief three month period of neutrality starting in May of 1861, that quickly ended when Confederate soldiers began pouring into the state and after some after Union party politicians.

One major elections in August of 1861, the state officially threw its lot in with the Union.

So ultimately a lot more soldiers served in the Union Army at about probably 70,000 Union troops, compared to about 30,000 Confederates from Kentucky.

But again, it's I think people out of state especially, think it was neutral because of these textbooks and because it was seen as a border state.

People just assumed that it was neutral during the conflict.

But it wasn't.

>> And Doctor Smith, even though Kentucky was a slave state, there were recruitment camps for black soldiers during the war.

And you were telling me the lengths that women went to in order to be able to fight in the conflict as well.

>> Yeah, there were a number of different recruitment and refugee camps in Kentucky, of course, Camp Nelson and Louisville in Paducah, Bowling Green, Louisa Hardin County, Kentucky, the list goes on.

But there were a number of women, about 400 women that actually participated or served rather in the Civil War fought.

Some of them masqueraded as as men in terms of what they were wearing.

But there were a number of men that, you know, they just carried the flag to show what side they were on.

>> And we talked earlier about some of the mythology around the war.

Doctor Kleber.

There was a lot of mythology around Abraham Lincoln.

He was not well liked in Kentucky when he ran for president and in fact was trounced here, even lost his home county.

Why was he so disliked?

>> In 1860, Abraham Lincoln received less than 1% of the popular vote.

In 1864, he received only 30% of the popular vote.

He certainly was not liked here.

To Kentucky, Lincoln reflected the very unpopular policies of the federal government during that Civil War period, and those policies include the recruitment of slaves into the Union Army, military rule, involvement in Kentucky's politics, the 13th amendment, Kentucky Rifles, all of these things turned Kentucky against the federal government.

And since Abraham Lincoln represented and was head of the federal government, they turned against him.

And that feeling against Abraham Lincoln continued long, long after the Civil War.

In fact, it was probably after the Civil War that Kentucky joined the Confederacy.

And its president was Jefferson Davis.

>> Right.

And Doctor Smith, there were some in Kentucky that really tried to have it both ways.

They didn't want to be identified as slave owners.

So how did they get around that designation?

>> Yeah.

They didn't want to be identified as slave owners in the sense that, you know, one trying to maintain this sense of neutrality, which was not true, of course, as we've already discussed, but also leasing their slaves or renting them out.

And of course, Kentucky did not have a climate that was conducive for plantation labor.

And so it was seasonal work in order to make up for that time and to earn the profits.

It was to their benefit, of course, to lease their slaves, particularly skilled enslaved people who were carpenters, blacksmiths were leased out, sometimes on a daily basis or weekly basis or monthly basis.

They could have it both ways.

You know, they could be enslavers, but at the same time say, well, I'm not an enslaver because I'm allowing this person to go out and work and, and the possibility of, of earning some money and buying their freedom.

>> And how does Kentucky fit into this narrative of the Civil War was a lost cause?

>> Yeah.

You know, that sort of, you know, goes into this another one of those myths about Kentucky history and about the history of the South.

You know, the lost cause, this noble cause that the Civil War was actually fought, you know, about states rights and state sovereignty.

And it was not about slavery.

The only reason that the North won was because the North, you know, had the supplies and the equipment to overturn the South.

But, you know, as Doctor Kleber was just mentioning earlier, in terms of when the Kentucky become Confederate or on the South.

Well, you know, it had always been in the South.

But with the federal policies immediately after the war, then we begin to see Kentucky drift more and more towards towards supporting the South.

>> So when the Civil War wraps up and we get into reconstruction, Stuart, what did reconstruction look like in Kentucky?

>> Well, it meant it was a time of great political, social and economic upheaval in the state.

And it took the Commonwealth a long time to really recover from it.

Not only was there military occupation here, but you had 20% of the population were enslaved.

In 1860, you had these recently freed slaves trying to find their place in Kentucky society, but you had a major loss in horses and cattle and other you know, the economy just took a major hit here.

But as Doctor Smith alluded to, you had a you know, Kentuckians were against the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, which freed the slaves and offered citizenship and gave African Americans the right to vote.

I mean, it wasn't until 1976, for example, that the legislature finally approved the 13th amendment.

But as Doctor Kleber mentioned to, you know, the state sort of seceded after the war.

It was said during the Civil War, Kentucky was comprised of mainly pro-slavery unionists.

As Doctor Kleber mentioned, they were against the Emancipation Proclamation and the enlistment of slaves as Union soldiers.

And so after the war, you know, you see sort of pro-southern Democrats coming back into power.

And you have a long chain of of former Confederates who become governors of the Commonwealth.

This included Simon Bolivar Buckner, who was a major general in the Confederate army.

So you had this shift.

But what went hand in hand with that shift was major political violence that occurred across the state.

And African Americans really bore the brunt of that as well.

>> So when we moved into reconstruction, Simon Louisville really played a big role in this.

How how did Louisville, in particular, become kind of a hub for materials needed for the reconstruction?

>> Well, first, look at this blessed position we have geographically.

We've talked about the falls of the Ohio.

We're logistics hub here, right?

We're at the concentrated right here at the mouth of the Beargrass Creek.

But it really begins 1859, right on the eve of the Civil War with the construction of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad.

Right.

They lay the track there.

And right before the war, once the war finishes, they suddenly.

Louisville has access to Nashville.

But not only that, but the interior of Kentucky for the first time.

So we're able to import.

As they continue to lay track down to Alabama.

You can get coal from Alabama and iron.

You can get in cotton and timber and marble from Tennessee.

Not only are we importing things, we are becoming a huge export hub.

I learned recently Louisville was the world's largest tobacco market in the 1870s and 80.

I don't know at what point they got that, but suddenly people are growing tobacco in the green River region here in western Kentucky, or in Cynthiana and eastern Kentucky at Hopkinsville, bringing them up to the depot at L and N on wagons, horse drawn wagons, and sending it down those tracks to Montgomery, Selma, mobile, New Orleans, and then Pensacola, which was then the biggest seaport south of Norfolk, where they put it on boats and it goes down to Australia, Africa, Central America.

They're putting it on llama back in the Andes Mountains of Peru.

So all this Kentucky tobacco is suddenly able to be exported all over the world.

>> And the railroads really made that happen.

And as railroad expansion across the Commonwealth fueled this growth that Simon was talking about, along with the huge need for supplies to use in the reconstruction of the South, Lexington in particular, embraced the steam locomotive.

In this excerpt from Kentucky Life, we look at how locomotives change the face of downtown Lexington and in turn, the entire Commonwealth.

Shortly before the Civil War, Lexington, Kentucky became a crossroads for our nation, where the growing network of railroads crisscrossing the country would pass through and often stop.

It was a role the city would play until after World War Two.

In 1835, the first train to leave Lexington, named the Daniel Boone, would travel to Frankfort, making the run to the state capital in just 2.5 hours.

[MUSIC] >> Well, in the 1830s, the first railroad was authorized in Kentucky, and the logical place to.

To begin building a railroad would be Lexington.

[MUSIC] >> As the industry grew, Lexingtonians watched rail tracks guide trains down main thoroughfares like Broadway, Vine Street, even Main Street.

In 1907, a large train station, Union Station, was completed in the center of town, situated next to what was then the Walnut Street Viaduct.

[MUSIC] This commanding structure would alter the face of Lexington.

[MUSIC] Departing Lexingtonians would unload at a large circle facing Main Street, and then board trains on tracks lining Vine Street, taking them to destinations across the country.

To accommodate the many out-of-towners arriving every day.

Filing out from under the station's two story stained glass window.

Downtown businesses would develop and grow, changing the economy of downtown Lexington.

The hotel rooms of the long standing Phoenix Hotel were no longer enough, and the skyline saw the rise of the $2 million Hotel Lafayette.

After dinner at a hotel restaurant, visitors could attend the new Ben Ali or the Strand theaters.

[MUSIC] One business, the Lexington Laundry Company, opened on Main Street, built to clean, steam and press so many suits wrinkled after the wear of traveling.

[MUSIC] Perhaps one business person who benefited during this time was Bell breezing.

Her house of ill repute was within walking distance of downtown, and by the time the station was built, Bell had gained great popularity.

In Lexington.

She would earn national acclaim for running one of the finest bordellos in the land until 1917, when political pressures forced Lexington's red light district to close.

Union station became the heart of Lexington, where soldiers marched off to war.

National politicians arrived to solicit Kentucky voters, and the first NCAA championship Kentucky Wildcat basketball team would be widely greeted by adoring fans.

>> It is something that really provides a sense of place and all sorts of, you know, people going off to World War One, returning from war, going to World War Two, returning from war.

[MUSIC] You could take daily trains to Washington, all sorts of places, and get there, you know, on an overnight sleeper and be be in Washington the next morning.

[MUSIC] >> But progress would catch up with the railways and with Union Station.

Air travel surpassed the age of trains.

Bluegrass field was established on Versailles Road, and the last train left Union Station in 1957.

[MUSIC] Three years later, the building would face the wrecking ball and the train tracks that once filled Vine Street would be ripped away.

Doctor Kleber This railroad expansion really fueled a period in Kentucky where we started to see the middle class emerge.

Tell us about that.

>> The railroads were certainly a very important part of the economic growth of Kentucky after the Civil War.

It seems as if every town, every county wanted a railroad and were willing to put up money to get it and go deeply in debt to get it.

There were trunk lines and there were short lines, and there were.

All kinds of railroads tracks reaching into the far reaches of Kentucky, the most important being, of course, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, as Simon mentioned, it carried the wealth of Kentucky to the Deep South.

It reached into every part of Kentucky.

It carried coal out of Kentucky.

Certainly the Louisville and Nashville Railroad must have enriched Kentuckians, enriched in the middle class.

>> Wright and Simon, it's fascinating, as you and I had a conversation about how Louisville really started as a logistics hub around the falls of the Ohio.

Then the railroad came in, and you look at the current economy in Louisville.

We're still a logistics hub there, aren't we?

>> That's right.

You know, I'm an alum of the University of Louisville.

First thing I notice on campus is every 5 or 10 minutes, Huff overhead aloud.

747 I didn't understand that at first, but now, as a Kentucky History Museum staff member, I think that's commerce.

That's jobs.

Those are United Parcel Service UPS is the biggest employer in the city of Louisville, and we always talk about how we are logistics hub, sorting, exporting, importing.

That goes back to the falls.

That goes back to the state of Kentucky, having the longest system of navigable streams and waterways of any state besides Alaska.

So it's rail, it's water, it's dirt roads, it's turnpikes, everything.

>> It's that statement.

Everything that's old is new again.

And it really has come back to Louisville continuing to be a logistics hub that way.

And the way that came together, it really was fascinating to learn more about that, having such a distinguished panel on our show tonight begged the question, who do they feel are the most important figures that help shape the history of Kentucky?

So we gave each one of our panelists some homework for tonight.

If they were asked to build a Mount Rushmore of Kentucky history, who are the four people they would include?

The responses were very interesting.

Doctor Kleber, let's start with you.

Who would you put on that Mount Rushmore of Kentucky history?

>> Well, as I thought about George Washington as a military man, it occurred to me that George Rogers Clark should be put on Mount Rushmore.

He certainly was a military man, and he defended early Kentucky against the attacks by the Shawnee and the British.

For Thomas Jefferson, a politician, that was an easy one.

Henry Clay, who was our greatest political figure.

As for Abraham Lincoln, who was an emancipationist, well, that one was a little more difficult, but it occurred to me it should be John Marshall Harlan, the Supreme Court justice, who was a dissenter in the case of Plessy versus Ferguson against the separate but equal ruling.

And finally, Teddy Roosevelt and I looked at Roosevelt.

He was, of course, a man of many talents.

But I looked at him as an environmentalist.

Therefore, the last man I would put on Mount Rushmore would be Wendell Berry, poet and author.

Kentucky's Greatest Treasure.

>> It's a fascinating group.

Simon, yours was a little different.

Tell us about yours.

>> I thought first, Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, preserved the Federal Union.

Second, Muhammad Ali, greatest athlete of all time.

I know we're getting down to the 20th century here, but I interpreted this broadly.

Wright greatest athlete of all time, Muhammad Ali, three and four are folks that I always pitch this on the tours I give at the museum, Patty and Mildred Hill, I always asked her visitors, you know, these sisters?

And they go, no, who are they?

Well, they were kindergarten teachers in the Iroquois Park neighborhood of Louisville, and part of their curriculum was music.

They would write and compose songs.

One of the songs they wrote and composed was Happy Birthday to You.

That is now the most recognized song in the English language.

So you can walk into a hut in Kiribati and hum this melody and people know it.

So as far as the biggest impact on the 8 billion people on earth, I think of Colonel Sanders, I think of Muhammad Ali.

But I think Patty and Mildred Hill, these two sisters, have to be on the Mount Rushmore there.

>> And the house where they wrote that they're the little loom house still stands in South Louisville.

We got to go there for our show a year or two ago.

And it's it's remarkable to be in those walls and think about when that actually took place.

Stuart, who would you put on your Mount Rushmore?

>> Sort of a bit of a different take on this.

What I wanted to do was pick four people who I think Kentuckians should know about, who may not get a lot of sort of attention from time to time.

And I thought, you know, who are who are four people who are really dedicated to a cause and working to help their fellow Kentuckians.

And so the first person I picked was Georgia Davis Powers, who was the first African American and first woman senator in the Kentucky legislature who fought for African Americans, fought for the disabled and really worked to, you know, for civil rights across the board on people.

The second person I picked was the Reverend John G. Fee, who was an early abolitionist who founded Berea College down in Madison County.

I picked fee because Berea was the first institution to really push both integrated and coeducation, integrated admissions and coeducation in the nation as well.

The third person is Martin Himler, who's a Hungarian who came to the United States with about $0.13 in his pocket, ultimately settled in Martin County, Kentucky.

And there he built up a mining community, eventually called him Louisville, and the miners who worked for Himler ended up having an equal share in the company.

And so he was great for workers rights.

But he's also equally interesting because even though him and his business went away in the 1920s, he ended up working for the OSS during World War Two and interrogated dozens upon dozens of Nazi war criminals and got them convicted.

The fourth person I picked working at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort.

I had to pick Doctor Thomas D. Clark, you know, noted Kentucky historian, wrote dozens of books, really created the state archives, created the special collections at the University of Kentucky, and really built up the foundation of studying history in Kentucky.

And I know that all of us on this panel have really benefited from his prior work.

And so I picked Doctor Clark as the final one.

>> Let's go back and look at John Fee for just a second, if we can.

And the work that he did there in Berea, why was he so progressive at the time to put together this program there at Berea that still is very strong and exists today, right?

>> He had an interesting background, really.

I think it was his education.

He was born in Augusta, Kentucky, but when he was educated, he learned to sort of abhor slavery.

And he really faced a lot of danger doing this.

He was run out of multiple communities, including Berea, at one time, and really faced personal violence and really was was chased out by mobs.

So the fact that he was able to sort of stand up for what he believed in despite this, you know, facing massive personal danger, I think is a great testament to fee and ultimately to Berea College as well.

>> Which is still a remarkable institution here in Kentucky.

Doctor Smith, who would you have on your Mount Rushmore?

>> Yeah.

Well, first, let me piggyback here.

I had John G. Fee on Mount Rushmore as well.

Yeah.

You know, not only because of he promoted integrated education, but also integrated neighborhoods at the time as well and integrated marriage.

So, you know, he was way ahead of everyone else.

You know, we're looking at the 1850s, 1860s.

And I admired his courage.

You know, even though he was run out of Berea, he came back not only worked in Berea, but he also set up schools at Camp Nelson, and he encouraged African Americans to move to Berea.

And the process of that.

So he's one.

But in taking this assignment, I looked at it a little bit differently as well.

Two things.

One, I thought about Mount Rushmore in terms of where these presidents are memorialized and the fact that Mount Rushmore exists on stolen land, you know, owned by Sioux Nation.

And of course, they sued about that.

And, you know, so that has not been resolved.

The fact that we're recognizing these presidents on stolen land.

And then I thought about Kentucky, the state motto, United we Stand, divided we fall.

And so in selecting the four that I chose, I wanted to focus on the theme of unity.

And with that John G. Fee one.

Secondly, Abraham Lincoln, you know, would be a part of that.

And then I had Muhammad Ali, who's this iconic international figure and thinking about the principles of Ali, how we live in terms of confidence and conviction and, you know, respect and giving and spirituality.

And then I thought about a woman by the name of Mary, Mary Britton, Doctor Mary Britton, and the reason I included her, she was a school teacher.

She was a journalist.

She was a social and political activist, but she was very much involved with the women's suffrage movement.

And there were a number of women who played an important role in that.

Of course, the women's suffrage movement, of course, Laura Clay and Madeline Brackenridge.

But but but but Mary Britton was working not only, you know, behind the scenes, but she was also working in terms of going before the state legislature, seeking to get segregated railcars abolished.

So she too, was promoting unity.

And I thought when I looked at these individuals and thought about their courage and their commitment to the cause and how they're trying to bring people together, and they reflected the state motto.

You know, I thought about, you know, making sure that those on Mount Rushmore were diverse, you know, in terms of, you know, who we wanted to memorialize.

>> Those are terrific responses.

As we said at the beginning of our show, we wanted to open things up for our viewers to be able to ask questions.

We got a lot of great response to that.

We only have a couple minutes left here at the end of the show, but we did have one question from a viewer in Jeffersonville, Indiana, that we wanted to be sure to get to.

And the question is, what single event in Kentucky history do you think deserves far more attention than it receives today?

I'll throw that out to the panel.

What do you think?

>> Well, I'm not sure it's an event, but it is something significant to Kentucky and that is our agricultural history.

I think that it's been neglected.

There is one small history of agriculture in Kentucky that Doctor Clark wrote, but other than that, we seem to have concentrated more in Kentucky politics, particularly in the early period of our history before the Civil War.

We've neglected it.

And I think that we need to look at it because recently I was in Simpson County, Kentucky, and you talk about an agricultural county that's an agricultural county that is Kentucky.

>> Why do you think that was neglected?

Why have we not paid more attention to that?

>> But because I think we've been more obsessed with with our political history, our military history that seems to garner more attention, more books, more interest.

>> Stewart, you were going to.

>> Say, you know, now I have to add a military history one since it's not neglected.

But what came to mind when you first mentioned that question to me was the Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky.

It was fought in January of 1862 down in Pulaski County.

The town now is called Nancy, and it was a small battle was fought in the rain and the fog.

And, you know, there was terrible fighting toward the end of that fight too, you know, terrible casualties at that battle.

But it's important because the Confederates had established a defensive line across Kentucky early in the war, and the Battle of Mill Springs essentially broke the Confederates right flank, forced them out of the Commonwealth, and really put the whole state in union hands at a very important time of the war.

And I think that battle, even though it was recently named part of the National Park Service, doesn't really get as much due as it should have based upon its national consequences.

>> We have time for probably just one more question, and I want to open this up to the group.

We've covered some remarkable historic events in Kentucky over the course of our show here this evening, and I appreciate all your insights.

What can we learn from the things that we have talked about that we can put in use today?

What are the history lessons that we've picked up on that could really serve us well, not only today, but potentially into the future?

Who wants to take that?

>> Well, I'll start, I think I think it teaches us to continue to pursue truth and reconciliation.

And when I look at Kentucky history and 250 years past, I mean, and Doctor Kleber has written about this wonderfully in terms of the myths in Kentucky history.

And there are so many different myths regarding Kentucky history that have not been addressed.

And so with that, I'd like to see us to pursue truth and reconciliation.

>> What are some other thoughts there?

>> I'm just constantly curious about the history of my state with no particular agenda.

I just want more information about what happened on this land.

Between takes.

Doctor Kleber and I were talking about what were the last Native American villages in Kentucky.

Wright 1750s.

Was it Lower Shawneetown up in Greenup County?

Was it a skip in Clark County?

Because there's some local historians who say this was a real village where a lot of people lived, some who say this is actually bogus.

Nobody lived here at this period in time.

So finding the sources, whether they're oral or written history and unearthing that just so we can have a truer, fuller sense of this state that people have lived in for going back Pre-statehood, like we said, 12,000 >> Years since the Ice Age ended, people have lived in this area.

We should just learn as much as we can about this to get the lessons we can from it.

>> And Stuart, within your organization, for people who have seen our show tonight, want to learn more, where could they go do that?

>> Yeah.

Please go to our website which is history.ky.gov.

And for the 250 events, we've got a great events page.

Just really quickly to bookend what Simon said.

Not only is it important to gather all these sources, but also let's work harder to preserve the historic sites across the Commonwealth.

You know, not only archival materials and important, you know, sort of firsthand accounts of what happened, but also the places in the communities where these important things happen.

I think that's really important.

>> Doctor Kleber.

>> It seems to me that history is our collective memory, and just as an individual would not do well without a memory, so could not our nation.

So this year, as we look back and recall that memory, we should know that there is power in that to make us better in the future.

>> Very well said.

And Simon, very quickly, for folks who want to learn more about the Fraser, how can they do that?

>> Follow us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.

Go to our website, Fraser museum.org, or show up any day of the week.

We're open Monday through Sunday, ninth and Main Street in downtown Louisville.

Frazier, Kentucky History Museum.

>> It's a remarkable place.

Well, this certainly has been a lively discussion tonight, as expected, and I want to thank our panelists who joined us here on the show.

I hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have.

There's a great quote from Harry Truman.

The only thing new in the world is the history.

You do not know.

I hope tonight we've been able to share with you some things about our great state that maybe you didn't know.

And if you're interested, remember the terrific resources we have available here in the Commonwealth through the Kentucky Historical Society, the Clark Center for Kentucky History, the Fraser, Kentucky History Museum and others.

We appreciate you watching.

Be sure to watch Renee Shaw each weeknight for Kentucky Edition at 630 eastern, 530 central, and I'll see you right back here again on Saturday night for Kentucky Life at 8:00 eastern, seven central.

[MUSIC] Have a good week and happy birthday, Kentucky.