In the end, however, it was not the Union forces, but rather the Confederates who terminated Kentucky's neutrality. On September 4, 1861, Southern forces preempted the Union side and occupied Columbus, Kentucky. Seizing the initiative, General Grant immediately responded by occupying Paducah. Soon thereafter, Union forces from Ohio and Indiana occupied the Kentucky shore of the Ohio River, including Louisville. Based upon these new developments, General Fremont sent the Federal high command in Washington "an elaborate plan for a forward movement in Kentucky and astride the Mississippi, looking toward the capture of Columbus, the occupation of Nashville, and ultimately the capture of Memphis." But soon thereafter, renewed Confederate activity in Missouri and resultant concern in Washington forced the Western Department Commander to return his attention to the area west of the Mississippi. By the early autumn, however, the Lincoln Administration was having serious doubts concerning the "Pathfinder's" ability to command the Western Department. Finally, on October 24, 1861, as anti-Fremont pressure in Washington mounted, Mr. Lincoln yielded and ordered that General Fremont be relieved of command. Temporarily, Major General David Hunter would command, but General Fremont's permanent successor would be Major General Henry W. Halleck.64

General Fremont's removal and replacement was only one of the key command changes made by the Lincoln Administration in the autumn of 1861. The aged General-in-Chief, Winfield Scott, in ill health, troubled by a strained relationship with his principal eastern subordinate, General McClellan, and increasingly the target of criticism by McClellan, members of the Lincoln Administration, and Congress, decided to retire from active duty. Hence, on October 31, 1861, the brevet Lieutenant General was placed on the retired list. On November 1, President Lincoln named General McClellan as his replacement. Concurrently, General McClellan would continue to command the Army of the Potomac. As the General-in-Chief's flag passed to the youthful McClellan, General Scott and the President could congratulate themselves that, notwithstanding some reversals, under their stewardship the Union had seized the upper hand in the

Border states and had established the foundation for an effective blockade of the Southern coastline. These gains would be critical to the ultimate Union victory three and a half years later.65

CHAPTER II

Autumn 1861-Summer 1862

By the end of 1861, popular and Congressional pressure upon the President to escalate the Federal war objectives to include the immediate, uncompensated abolition of slavery mounted significantly. When the Congress met in December, the U.S. House of Representatives "refused to reaffirm the moderate Crittenden Resolution that the war was being waged for the Union alone." Similarly, Radical Republican Senators submitted a measure in the Senate calling for the "confiscation of rebel property." Indeed, while most Northerners, foremost the President, hoped that the Union armies would swiftly facilitate the end of the rebellion, many Radicals hoped that the war would last long enough to guarantee the abolition of slavery. In short, as Allen Nevins wrote, confronted by this mounting pressure, as the autumn of 1861 drew to a close, Mr. Lincoln "hammered into rough form a project which represented as bold a step as Jefferson had made in the purchase of Louisiana." As noted earlier, Mr. Lincoln "had long before concluded that some system of gradual emancipation at national expense, coupled with an effort to colonize the freed people abroad," promised to be the best way to approach the vexing slavery question. Consequently, he decided that the time had come to test the waters concerning the feasibility of such a scheme. Indeed, he reasoned that compensated emancipation "could arrest heedless Congressional action, facilitate the surrender of the Confederacy, and give notice that slavery everywhere must be regarded as a temporary and not a permanent institution." The President felt that the slaveowners in the Border states were likely to agree to the plan since they would recognize that emancipation was inevitable. Moreover, regarding the resettlement of liberated slaves abroad, Mr. Lincoln had maintained that there was " "a moral fitness in returning to Africa her children whose ancestors have been torn away from her by the ruthless hand of fraud and violence;' or if Africa

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offered no refuge, in sending them to another tropical land." Finally, regarding the cost of compensated emancipation, the President argued that "this is the cheapest and most humane way of ending the war,' since "the bill for a single half-day of hostilities would pay for all of Delaware's slaves, with enough left over to colonize them abroad." Thus, in early November, the President made overtures to officials from Delaware concerning his plan for compensated emancipation. He requested that these men "ascertain whether the legislature could be persuaded to free the slaves if the government paid for them at local and individual appraisals." Mr. Lincoln hoped that, if his plan was demonstrated to be feasible in that small state, the larger Border states would follow Delaware's lead. During the next several weeks, Lincoln's plan was discussed in Delaware, but by early 1862, it was clear it would not be adopted by the state's political leaders. Party rivalries, proslavery feelings, concern about Congressional authority to buy the slaves, reluctance to guarantee a debt based upon "a mere pledge of Federal faith," states rights, and apprehension concerning the feasibility of "controlling race relations without slavery," all conspired to undermine the prospects for the adoption of President Lincoln's plan. In short, the President's first experiment in solving the slavery problem, while, simultaneously, keeping it separate from the definition of Federal war objectives, failed.' But notwithstanding this initial setback, as Allen Nevins wrote, Mr. Lincoln,

... had adumbrated the boldest movement in the history of the Presidency. His conception ran beyond the mere liberation of four million colored folk; it implied a far-reaching alteration of American society, industry, and government. A gradual planned emancipation, a concomitant transportation of hundreds of thousands and perhaps even millions of people overseas, a careful governmental nursing of the new colonies, and a payment of unprecedented sums to the section thus deprived of its old labor supply-this scheme carried unprecedented implications. To put it into effect would immensely increase the power of the national government and widen its activities. If even partially practicable, it would mean a long step toward rendering the American people homogeneous in color and race, a rapid stimulation of immigration to replace the workers thus exported, a greater world position for the republic, and a pervasive change in popular outlook and ideas. The attempt would do more to convert the unorganized country into an

organized nation than anything yet planned. Impossible, and undesirable even if possible? probably; but Lincoln continued to hold his vision.2

Meanwhile, the emancipationist political pressure on the President to incorporate the liberation of the slaves into the definition of the Federal war objectives continued to mount. The President, however, continued to resist adoption of such a drastic step at that time, opting instead to repackage his gradual, compensated emancipation plan. In a message to Congress on March 6, 1862, the President asked the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass a joint resolution stating, "Resolved, that the United States ought to cooperate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such a change of system.'" Discussing the Presidential initiative, Professor Nevins observed that Mr. Lincoln,

argued that the mere initiation of a gradual scheme in some or all of the Border States would do much to shorten the struggle, for it would cut off from Confederate leaders the hope that they could ever win that area. Other considerations played a part in his stroke. It enabled him to test the sentiment of slaveholders from the Chesapeake to the Missouri; it would temporarily quiet the radicals; and it advertised to the country two of his basic principles-that while the gradual extinction of slavery must be accepted, the work should be gradual, and the whole nation should bear the cost.3

While most mainstream political opinion applauded Mr. Lincoln's initiative, it was sharply criticized by the extreme elements at both ends of the political spectrum. Many of the same criticisms leveled earlier in the Delaware initiative were again expressed in the context of the March 6 joint Congressional resolution proposal. Again, ultra-Conservatives expressed concern about the fate of the former slaves following emancipation. Many suggested that, "after the President spent billions of dollars to buy freedom for the slaves, a great part of the freed Negroes would then come North, to be supported as paupers at public expense, or to compete with white laborers and thus take the bread from the white children's mouths." Indeed, Frank Blair, Jr. of the powerful Missouri political family argued that "eman