When did Kentucky actually abolish slavery? A lot later than you think.
April 12, 1861: The American Civil War begin after Confederate troops fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.
Jan. 1, 1863: President Abraham Lincoln announces the Emancipation Proclamation, which frees all enslaved people in the rebellious states of the Confederacy. It does not apply to Kentucky, which had not joined the Confederacy.
April 1863: Camp Nelson is established as a U.S. Army depot logistics center for the Western Theater of the Civil War. Enslaved Kentuckians built a series of forts as a defense along the palisades of the Kentucky River.
June 1864: Racial restrictions are removed on enlistment. Camp Nelson quickly becomes the third-largest United States Colored Troops (USCT) recruiting center in the entire nation, surpassed only by Camp William Penn in Pennsylvania and recruiting centers in New Orleans. Many enslaved men are joined by their families, although the Army has not made provision for them.
Nov. 22-24, 1864: Camp Nelson expels more than 400 Black refugees, most of them women and children during a cold snap. Of those, 102 people die.
January 1865: In response to the tragedy, the Army establishes the Camp Nelson Home for Colored Refugees across U.S. 27 from the camp. Rev. John Fee, founder of Berea College eventually leads the home.
March 1865: After hearing first-person accounts of the tragedy, Congress enacts a law emancipating the wives and children of any enlisted member of the U.S. Colored Troops.
April 9, 1865: Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
June 19, 1865: Gen. Gordon Granger delivers General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, informing the people of Texas that all enslaved people are free, even though they have been free since 1863. The day becomes a holiday celebrating emancipation in Texas, and then spreads throughout the nation.
Dec. 6, 1865: National ratification of 13th Amendment, which ends slavery in the United States. The amendment is ratified by 27 of the existing 36 states. Kentucky is not one of them.
(Note from Linda Blackford: Here’s the embarrassing part. Although national ratification of the 13th Amendment meant Kentucky was bound to the federal law, Kentucky did not itself ratify it until 1976. As always, thank goodness for Mississippi. It did not ratify until 2013. )
This story was originally published June 13, 2024 at 7:00 AM.
