The Strange Case Of Simon Bolivar Buckner

Albert Feldman took his B.A. degree at Harvard in 1949 and did his graduate work in history at Columbia University. His college career was interrupted by service in the Navy as an electronics technician. Since finishing school, he has been in radio and television work, being currently em· ployed as a consultant in Educational Television by N3.C. The Strange Case Of Simon Bolivar Buckner ALBERT FELDMAN rrisJanuary 6, 1958. In BowlingGreen, Kentucky, the courtroom comes to order as Commonwealth Attorney J. David Francis steps forward carrying a bundle ofyellowed documents. Workmen had come upon the papers in a group of long-lost wooden filing cabinets whüe they were refurbishing the 100-year-old Warren County Courthouse last November . And now, because ofwhat these old papers contain, Lawyer Francis has been summoned before the bar of justice to defend some of Kentucky 's most popular heroes against treason and conspiracy charges for joining the Confederacy in 1861. Three generals are named in the indictments : Major General John C. Breckinridge, at thirty-five the Union's youngest Vice-President (1856-1860), later Jefferson Davis' Secretary of War; Major General John H. Morgan, who led the famous cavalry charges of "Morgan's Raiders"; and Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, who became Governor of Kentucky twenty years after the war ended. The workmen's discovery is a shock to the citizens of Bowling Green, who are sentimental about their heroes and their traditions. Perhaps it is symbolic that Attorney Francis speaks in a spanking-new courtroom while outside the courtroom door stands the original columned exterior, a classic reminder of the ante-bellum South. The lawyer argues: "It is high time that we remove the stain of indictments from the names of these valiant Confederate generals and their followers." But for Warren County Circuit Judge John B. Rodes, sitting in judgment in early 1958, it is no easy task to look back ninety-seven years and 199 200ALBERT FELDMAN see just what transpired when some Kentuckians were faced with a quandary that would alter their very lives. When Confederate troops opened fire on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, most Kentuckians favored die Union cause. But the situation in this vital border state remained touch and go for some time. Both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were willing enough to let Kentucky be neutral if that was what Kentucky wanted. Meanwhile, botii sides were privately throwing out cautious feelers. With Generals Breckinridge and Morgan, the issue was never really in doubt. Both were identified with the Confederate minority in Kentucky from the time the Confederate states began forming in Montgomery , Alabama, two months before Sumter. The position of Kentucky Governor Beriah Magoffin was not so easy to pinpoint. Identified with Confederate sympathizers, Magoffin had to contend with a pro-Union legislature as well as a pro-Union electorate. He solved the immediate problem by refusing to send troops to either the North or the South and by issuing a proclamation of Kentucky neutrality. But the state remained uneasy. Kentucky's State Guard was commanded by Inspector General Simon Bolivar Buckner, a former regular army officer. Washington hoped that he would eventually go with die Union, but Union men in Kentucky were sure he would become a Confederate. For many months Buckner's sympathies were unknown. The General had many important friends on the Union side whom he had known since his cadet days at West Point. In New York City, back in the mid-fifties, Buckner had helped an obscure ex-captain of infantry who needed money to get back to bis home in Ohio. The indigent classmate 's name was Ulysses S. Grant. Another of Buckner's classmates was General George B. McClellan, in 1861 a newly appointed major general in the United States Army, Department of the Ohio. The two men met in Cincinnati a month after the fighting started. The results of their interview have long been disputed . Buckner claimed he got a promise from McClellan that Federal troops would not enter Kentucky unless state troops were unable to preserve her neutrality and to protect United States property within her borders. McClellan, on the other hand, insisted that...