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Major General Ambrose Burnside appointed to command the reorganized Department of the Ohio. All troops are organized into the Army of the Ohio.

Skirmish at Hickman Bridge on the Kentucky River, near the site that became Camp Nelson.

General Burnside orders the establishment of Camp Nelson, a fortified supply depot to support a military campaign to East Tennessee.

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court John McLean, an anti-slavery egalitarian Methodist from Nicholasville, was one of two justices to dissent to the majority ruling of the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. The ruling stated that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and could not, therefore, expect protection from the Federal government or the courts.

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.

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