ADDRESS TO THE SOLDIERS OF KENTUCKY, IN THE ARMY OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES

[Kentucky?, 1862. Broadside, 10" x 12-1/2." Flattened folds with a tiny bit of separation at bottom edge. Isolated age toning. Corner wear. Ink transfer at lower portion from folding. Very Good. Signed in type at the end, but undated: "Committee: J. R. Barrick, J. P. Burnside, Wm. Messick, Sam'l Gray, H. F. Simrall, and R. Hawes, Governor."

Barrick, named first among the Committee members, was a prolific poet who lauded the Confederacy and Kentucky's glorious origins. His poem, "Kentucky, She is Sold," begins, "A tear for 'the dark and bloody ground,' / For the land of hills and caves; / Her Kentons, Boones, and her Shelbys sleep / Where the (truncated) vandals tread their graves." After the War, he was editor of 'The Constitution,' a newspaper opposed to Reconstruction.
Hawes became Provisional Governor of Confederate Kentucky after his predecessor was killed at Shiloh in 1862. Horatio Fleming Simrall was elected [but never served] lieutenant governor of the Confederate provisional government in 1861. Burnside was responsible for the 1863 publication of the "Proceedings of the convention establishing provisional government of Kentucky. Constitution of the provisional government. Letter of the governor to the president. President s message recommending the admission of Kentucky as a member of the confederate states ... Codified and arranged by J.P. Burnside." All were active in the efforts to render Kentucky a State in the Confederacy.
The Committee's broadside is a masterful literary effort. It announces the upcoming "election for twelve members of Congress, to represent you in the Congress of the Confederate States, It is important to select the best men for these positions. Our Congressional Delegation should be kept up. The cause in which we are engaged, demands it. . . for whilst in forced allegiance to the Lincoln government, at heart they loathe its mockeries, and claim no voice in its councils. Why should they? when it fails to recognize the first obligation of a free government- - protection to life, liberty, and property. Life is wantonly sacrificed to the behests of petty tyranny; the liberty of the dungeon instituted for that of free speech and an independent press, whilst property is taken and destroyed in contempt of justice and law.".
Not in Coleman, Jillson, Sabin, Bartlett, Parrish & Willingham. OCLC 60952195 [1- NYHS, a mutilated copy] as of September 2024. Not at AAS, the Filson, U KY. (Inventory #: 40442)