Friday, February 13
10 – 4 p.m.
Kentucky Historical Society
Abraham Lincoln Mobile Museum Tours
Norton Center
Bus Tour of Historic Sites – Departing Norton Center
Stop 1: The Historic Home of James Gillespie Birney
Born February 4, 1792, Danville, Kentucky to an Irish Episcopalian slaveholder, died November 24, 1857, Perth Amboy, New Jersey – Presbyterian Writer, Politician, Abolitionist, Freemason, member and agent for the African Colonization Society turned Gradual Emancipationist, Birney later became a member of the American Antislavery Society founded by Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and a member of Danville’s Town Council. He and wife Agatha McDowell had three children, William, David B., James M. A graduate of Transylvania University and Princeton, Birney served in the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1816 to 1818.
Though Birney’s father fought to prevent Kentucky from joining the Union as a slave state, when the effort failed, his father decided that until the legislature abolished slavery from the state as a whole, a person could own slaves as long as he treated them humanely. For much of his youth and education, Birney was under the influence of teachers and friends with strong anti-slavery views, including the organizer of the state’s first antislavery society, Baptist minister David Barrow.
A campaigner for Henry Clay, Birney later studied law with Alexander Dallas in Philadelphia where he passed the bar exam. Birney began practicing law in Danville as a civil and criminal attorney in 1814. In an effort to develop his political career, Birney moved to Madison County, Alabama in 1818, where he owned a cotton plantation and slaves. In 1819, Birney was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives and a Madison County elector opposed to Andrew Jackson as President. While in Madison, Birney helped draft an act that afforded slaves tried by jury paid legal counsel, barring the master and prosecutorial witness or their relatives from being members of the jury; both actions slowed the progress of his political career. Birney was elected Alabama Solicitor General in 1823.
With the American Anti-Slavery Society’s schism in 1840, Birney resigned his position in opposition to equal rights for women. Birney was named vice-president and a delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. When he returned, the Liberty Party made use of his legal expertise in defense of blacks and fugitive slaves. Birney was chosen as the Liberty Party Presidential candidate in the 1844.
Information taken from the National Portrait Gallery; Fladeland, Betty (1955). James Gillespie Birney: Slaveholder to Abolitionist. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. The Kentucky Encyclopedia, “James Gillespie Birney.”
Stop 2: Sleettown
One of the many Kentucky African American communities that flourished prior to and immediately following the Civil War, Sleettown, near Perryville, represented a fascinating dynamic in Southern history. Black townships dotted the landscape of southern states during the Reconstruction Era as freed slaves sought to claim their independence through land ownership and economic self-sufficiency. Sleettown was founded by African Americans Warner and Octavia Sleet following the Civil War. Although records do not indicate when Warner and Octavia Sleet moved to Boyle County, census data shows that each of their three sons–Henry (c. 1842), Preston (c. 1844), and George (c. 1850)–were all born in Boyle County.
At the close of the Civil War, just west of Perryville, Henry and Preston Sleet laid the foundation for Sleettown. Although official purchase of the property now recognized as Sleettown was not recorded at the Boyle County Courthouse until 1880, deeds suggest the Sleet family resided and sharecropped this land as early as 1865. The Sleets opened their community to other black families nearby, including the Pattersons, the Swanns and the Popes. For nearly 70 years, Sleettown served as home to many of the African American families in western Boyle County. For its residents, it was the gateway to freedom. The community gave its residents the opportunity for economic self-sufficiency and personal growth.
By 1931, the last of the Sleets left Sleettown to join the community of Perryville and in 2006 Anne Sleet was elected Mayor of Perryville. The legacy of Sleettown, however, lives on through the work of the Sleet family. The most nationally noted Sleet family member was Moneta Sleet Jr., who in 1969 became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize in photography. He is best remembered for his documentation of the Civil Rights movement, including the touching photograph of Coretta Scott King at her husband’s funeral.
Information taken from Perryville Enhancement Project
Stop 3: Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site
In the summer of 1862, Confederate generals Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby Smith devised plans to invade Kentucky. In an attempt to procure supplies, enlist recruits, and to pull Union troops away from the vital railhead of Chattanooga, Tennessee, these Southern commanders instigated a two-pronged advance into the Commonwealth.
Kirby Smith left Knoxville on August 14 and entered the state. Two weeks later, Braxton Braggs’ Confederates followed. By mid-September, Smiths’ soldiers had whipped a Federal force at Richmond and Braggs’ troops had captured a Union garrison at Munfordville. The Confederate armies had captured Lexington and Frankfort, controlled most of central Kentucky, and threatened the entire state.
Northern soldiers in Tennessee were quick to react to the Southern invasion. Moving from Nashville, Federal troops led by Major General Don Carlos Buell rushed to Bowling Green. As Braggs’ occupation of Munfordville (where the Louisville and Nashville Railroad passed) threatened Louisville, Buell hustled his forces to that city. Buell bolstered his force with thousands of recruits. To keep Smiths’ force at bay he sent 20,000 men toward Frankfort. He then ordered 58,000 soldiers to converge upon Braggs’ army at Bardstown. Traveling down three separate roads, the presence of the blue-clad Northern troops forced Confederate officers at Bardstown to withdraw their men eastward to Perryville.
Information taken from “History of the Battle of Perryville”
12 – 1:30 p.m. Lunch on Your Own
2 – 4 p.m.
Stop 4: Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park
Camp Nelson was founded and constructed by Major General Ambrose Burnside's 9th Corps of the Army of the Ohio in June 1863. It was closed in June 1866. The Camp is important as a Civil War site on several levels of significance:
- As a large and well defended quartermaster and commissary depot that supplied Federal troops of the Army of the Ohio, Department of the Ohio, and Department of the Kentucky, who were stationed in Eastern and Central Kentucky and Eastern Tennessee;
- As a defensive site which helped defend Central and Eastern Kentucky from invasion and guerrilla activities through its heavy fortification and substantial troop garrison;
- As a site which contained a tremendous engineering feat in its water distribution and storage system, which consisted of a pump house on the river, a 500,000 gallon reservoir, thousands of feet of piping which supplied water all over the camp, and indoor running water faucet and water closets in the hospital and soldiers' home;
- As a mustering and training center for Kentucky and Tennessee Volunteer Regiments who performed garrison and defensive assignments in Kentucky and Eastern Tennessee, as well as participation in Stoneman's Southwestern Virginia campaign and in action against Confederate raiders at Lexington Kentucky and Cynthiana, Kentucky in June 1864; As the largest recruiting, mustering, and training center for African American troops (called U.S. Colored Troops) in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and one of the largest in the United States.
U.S. Colored Troops trained at Camp Nelson performed garrison duty throughout Kentucky, saw action in both Major General Burbridge's and Major General Stoneman's Southwestern Virginia campaigns, saw action against Confederate raiders at Cynthiana, Kentucky and were involved in the siege of Petersburg, Virginia and the pursuit of the Army of Northern Virginia to Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
Information taken from “Historic Significance”
Dinner on your own
7:30 p.m.
World Premiere —
Abe Lincoln and Uncle Tom in the White House
— Weisiger Theatre.
A play by Carlyle Brown,
Theatre Department, University of Louisville
Audience Discussion to Follow Performance
