The Sins of the Fathers: Clifton Rodes Breckinridge Remembers the Civil War

The Sins of the Fathers: Clifton Rodes Breckinridge Remembers the Civil War James Duane Bolin Today, a visitor to Lexington's Cheapside, a grassy area criss-crossed with walks and dotted with streetlamps, fountains, and historical markers adjacent to the Fayette County, Kentucky, courthouse, cannot help but notice the impressive statue of John C. Breckinridge, erected by "The Commonwealth of Kentucky, A.D. 1 887." The site ofpublic slave auctions before the Civil War and ofCounty Court Days after the war, until that public nuisance was abolished in 192 1 , the Cheapside area is now set aside for remembering the heroes and events of the city's past. "Statesman, Soldier, Symbol," as biographerWilliam C. Davis has suggested, Breckinridge was Lexington's favorite son, at least after the death of Henry Clay in 1852. The fact that the Breckinridge statue dominates the west side of the courthouse lawn while an equestrian statue of John Hunt Morgan, astride an obviously heroic stallion rather than his beloved mare, "Black Bess," anchors the east side, attests to Lexington's Southern sympathies after the war. The inscription on the plaque accompanying the Morgan monument identifies the Confederate hero as "a courageous symbol of the Lost Cause."1 But Cheapside is devoted to Breckinridge. Standing before the Breckinridge shrine, the tourist will want to read the inscription on the impressive Kentucky highway historical markerjust to the right of the statue. It reads, in part: The author thanks John Marshall and Katherine Breckinridge Prewitt foraccess to Breckinridge papers in their private collections; Dr. Lesley Gordon and Dr. William H. Mulligan, Jr., directors of "Americans Remember the Civil War: Scholarship, Preservation, and Public Memory," Murray State University, April 4-5, 1997, for an invitation to read an early version of this article at a conference session; and also Dr. Joseph H. Cartwright, Dr. James W. Hammack, Jr., Dr. B.Anthony Gannon, Dr. Kenneth M. Startup, and Hugh Ridenour for reading and commenting on various drafts. 1 See William C. Davis, Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1974); John D. Wright, Jr., Lexington: Heart ofthe Bluegrass (Lexington: Lexington -Fayette County Historic Commission, 1982), 161. Civil War History, Vol. xliv No. 1 © 1998 by The Kent State University Press 36CIVIL WAR HISTORY John Cabell Breckinridge, 1821-75, one of four Kentuckians—more than any state, except New York—who were U.S. Vice Presidents. ... In U.S. Congress, 1851-55. Elected Vice-President in 1856. Candidate of Southern Democrats for President in 1 860, carrying nine Southern States. . . . Breckinridge served as a major of Kentucky Volunteers, Mexican War. Elected to U.S. Senate in i860. Became brig, general, Confederate Army, 1861, and was expelled from the Senate. In battles of Shiloh, Chattanooga, Murfreesboro, and others. Confederate Secretary ofWar, Feb. 1865 until surrender of Lee at Appomattox, April 1865. He was born and died in Lexington.2 If the tourist viewing the Breckinridge shrine on the side lawn angles a bit to the South, the visitor might also notice through the mists behind the statue and across the street the Cheapside Bar and Grill, a popular local watering hole on the corner of Short and Cheapside. The spectre of bar lights across the way behind the hero's shrine presents a compelling irony. The irony would, perhaps, be lost on tourists gazing up at the statue from across the street, and surely on revelers inside the bar peering out at the monument through the wood-louvered windows. Admirers of the hero would surely fail to appreciate the idea of the connection. Nevertheless, the connection between the hero and the bar was made by Breckinridge detractors, both contemporary rivals and later critics. After all, Braxton Bragg, the commander of the Army of Tennessee, discussed the general's drinking habits in an official report to Jefferson Davis, and in a letter written to absolve himself from his own blunderings at Missionary Ridge. Historians have pondered Bragg's accusations in biographies and general works on the war, and Breckinridge family members have discussed the general's tragic war experience with varying degrees of candor.3 Rather than the Breckinridge political defeat in the presidential election of i860, it was the...