Relevant History welcomes historical mystery author Gwen Mayo. Mayo grew up in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, but moved to Lexington in order to study politics and history at the University of Kentucky. She is a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, Sisters in Crime, and the Historical Novel Society. Her debut novel, Circle of Dishonor, set in post-Civil War Kentucky, was published by Pill Hill Press in July 2010. For more information, check her web site and blog.

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When I decided to write historical mysteries set in Kentucky, it wasn’t difficult for me to choose a period. Civil War and post-Civil War Kentucky are filled with murder. The years between the Civil War and the turn of the century are called the “Decades of Discord.” It is a time when Kentucky was the most violent place in America. Much of that violence is rooted in our unique position during the Civil War.

Many Americans think Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the United States. It didn’t. The Emancipation Proclamation was a combination of political maneuvering and war propaganda. Lincoln freed the slaves in Confederate states, which was essentially another country. Kentucky and Delaware, the two slave holding states that did not join the Confederacy, remained slave states until 1865, when the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified.

Kentucky refused to ratify the 13^th Amendment until 1970. Kentucky would have been the last state to officially ratify the 13^th Amendment, but Mississippi overlooked notifying the federal government of its vote to ratify until 1995. We Kentuckians would like to officially thank Mississippi for that oversight. It makes us look better.

When it comes to violence, Kentucky needs all the help it can get in improving its image. Last year our state legislature again introduced a bill to remove the dueling language from our oath of office. Legislators have introduced similar bills forty times, but still must choose between public service and defending their honor. Duels were so prevalent in Kentucky that in 1891 legislators attempted to curb the practice by including the following in Kentucky’s Oath of Office:

“I, being a citizen of this State, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this State nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending, so help me God.”

The debate about removing this language from the oath centers on the preservation of tradition and the quaint language of the oath, versus the embarrassment of having to say this in front of witnesses who snicker when they hear the words. As usual, tradition trumped shame.

I would personally support allowing duels as a way of toning down the rhetoric in public office. Campaigns today would be a lot less likely to indulge in mud slinging if the opponents faced the consequences with deadly force, but I digress. This is about Kentucky’s “readjustment” and how it helped escalate violence statewide.

“Readjustment” is uniquely Kentuckian. Officially, Kentucky was part of the Union, but the federal government could not ignore the divided loyalties of her citizens or the fact that Kentucky was a slave state. Washington was also unwilling to turn a blind eye to the former Confederates being reelected to public office after fighting to overthrow the government. The problem was, they had no legal standing to impose “reconstruction” on a state that remained in the Union. The solution those esteemed members of Congress came up with was a period of “readjustment” to “help” the state control some of the chaos caused by having 100,000 newly freed slaves achieve full citizenship.

It worked about as well as most government solutions: hate for Washington and the Union Army increased to the point that visitors would be hard-pressed to find a Kentuckian willing to admit to ever supporting the Union.

Kentucky’s readjustment foreshadowed two enduring themes in American race relations: the belief by whites that blacks must be kept in “their place,” and the determination of blacks to attain equality at any cost. In the nineteenth century the cost was exponential. Within ten years of the war, Central Kentucky was firmly Southern and the rest of the state claimed to be Southern with varying degrees of success. With the increase in self-identification with the Confederacy came an increase in violence against blacks. In the first ten years following the war, there were 149 reported lynchings. That number grew to an average of 100 lynchings per year for each of the last 20 years of the nineteenth century.

There are no accurate records for the number of deaths from other types of violence. The departure of the military left a vacuum in law enforcement. That vacuum was quickly filled by vigilante groups. Regulators, the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the Golden Circle, Mountain Militias, and other semi-secret groups were at work throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Black churches, the center of newly formed black communities, were burned. In Frankfort, the state capitol, every home in the black community was set ablaze. Klansmen shot men, women, children, even family pets as terrified residents tried to escape the flames.

In the aftermath of this incident, not a single arrest was made.

Although conditions were much harder for blacks, the violence in Kentucky wasn’t limited to racial violence. Klan and Regulator activity created an atmosphere of fear in all racial and social classes. Kentucky Klan and Regulator organizations were not synonymous; the groups split along political lines. Southern sympathizers joined the Klan, returning Union soldiers often joined the Regulators. Feuds broke out in the mountains, sometimes wiping out entire families. Judge John Elliott, a member of the state supreme court, was assassinated in broad daylight in front of 800 witnesses. The killer confessed, but was sent to an asylum instead of prison because there wasn’t a single witness brave enough to dispute his version of the shooting. Perhaps the most telling legacy of Kentucky’s long violent history was the assassination of Governor William Goebel in 1900. Kentucky still remains the only state to have ever assassinated a sitting governor.

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A big thanks to Gwen Mayo. She’ll give away a print copy of Circle of Dishonor to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available within the U.S. and Canada.

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