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Collection: Museum: University of St Andrews

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President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation that frees enslaved people in the rebellious states and authorized the enlistment of African Americans in the US military. The border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland were excluded from the terms of the proclamation.

Confederate Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan leads a lengthy raid through Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia in an attempt to draw Union troops from the Vicksburg and Gettysburg campaign fronts. Many of his men hailed from Jessamine County and the Bluegrass region.

With the support of his 9th Army Corps of 18,000 troops, General Burnside declares martial law in Nicholasville. He prohibits secessionists from voting and posts troops at polling places. These actions follow a period of heightened federal interventions in civilian life as officials seek to suppress Confederate sympathies and treasonous acts.

General Orders No. 41 authorizes the US Army to use enslaved African Americans for military construction projects. Enslaved men and women constructed roads and fortifications in Central Kentucky, including at Camp Nelson. Their enslavers were compensated by the federal government.

The Army of the Ohio launches the Knoxville Campaign from Camp Nelson.

US forces seize Knoxville, liberating Tennessee Unionists who had suffered under Confederate occupation from the beginning of the war.

The Knoxville Campaign ends. The Army of the Ohio secures control of East Tennessee for the remainder of the war.

The last of approximately 1,900 impressed, enslaved Black laborers are discharged from Camp Nelson at the end of the month.

A movement is begun in Louisville, KY, to erect a monument to the Union soldiers of Kentucky. The movement succeeds in raising funds to lay the monument’s foundations in Cave Hill Cemetery and a dedication service is held later in the year. Efforts to finish the monument are halted when the federal government consolidated Cave Hill as a National Cemetery in 1867.

General Orders No. 34 permits African American men (free and enslaved) to enlist with US military forces in Kentucky, with their enslaver’s permission.

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