CHAP.XII.] ADVANCE OF CONFEDERATES INTO KENTUCKY, ETC.

[Inclosure K.]

COLUMBUS, KY., September 8, 1861

Governor MAGOFFIN, Frankfort, Ky.:

I should have dispatched to you immediately, as the troops under my command took possession of this position, the very few words I addressed to the people here; but my duties since that time so preoccupied me, that I have but now the first leisure moment to communicate with you.

It will be sufficient for me to inform you (as my short address here-with do) that I had information on which I could rely that the Federal forces intended and were preparing to seize Columbus. I need not describe to you the danger resulting to Western Tennessee from such occupation. My responsibility could not permit me quietly to lose to the command intrusted to me so important a position. In evidence of the accuracy of the information I possessed, I will state that as the Confederate forces approached this place the Federal troops were found in formidable numbers in position upon the opposite bank, with their cannons turned upon Columbus. The citizens of the town had fled with terror, and not a word of assurance of safety or protection had been addressed to them. Since I have taken possession of this place I have been informed by highly respectable citizens of your State that certain representatives of the Federal Government are seeking to take advantage of its own wrongs and setting up complaints a against my act of occupation, and are making it a pretext for seizing other points.

Upon this proceeding I have no comment to make. But I am prepared to say that I will agree to withdraw the Confederate troops from Kentucky, provided that she will agree that the troops of the Federal Government be withdrawn simultaneously, with a guarantee (which I will give reciprocally for the Confederate Government) that the Federal troops shall not be allowed to enter or occupy any part of Kentucky in the future.

I have the honor to be, respectfully, your obedient servant,

L.POLK, Major-General, Commanding.

[Inclosure I.]

COLUMBUS, KY., September 9, 1861

To Major-General POLK, Commanding Confederate Forces, &c.:

SIR: I have the honor to inclose herewith a resolution of the Senate of Kentucky adopted by that body upon the reception of intelligence of military occupation of Hickman, Chalk Bank, and Columbus by the Confederate troops under your command.* I need not say that the people of Kentucky are profoundly astonished that such an act should have been committed by the Confederate States, and especially that they should have been the first to do so with an equipped and regularly organized army.

The people of Kentucky having with great unaminity determined upon a position of neutrality in the unhappy war none being waged, and which they had tried in vain to prevent, had hoped that one place at least in this great nation might remain uninvited by passion and through whose good offices something might be done to end the war of

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*Not found but see quotation in first paragraph inclosure M, p. 186.

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