(14) Manassas to Appomattox (Longstreet), p. 112.
(15) West Virginia was admitted as a State in April, 1863, with forty-eight counties, but Congress consented, by an act approved March 10, 1866, that the counties of Berkeley and Jefferson should be added.—Charters and Cons., Par II., p. 1993.
CHAPTER V Union Occupancy of Kentucky—Affair at Green River—Defeat of Humphrey Marshall—Battles of Mill Springs, Forts Henry and Donelson —Capture of Bowling Green and Nashville, and Other Matters
The State of Kentucky, with its disloyal Governor (Magoffin), also other state officers, was early a source of much perplexity and anxiety at Washington.
The State did not secede, but her authorities assumed a position of neutrality by which they demanded that no Union troops should occupy the State, and for a time also pretended no Confederates should invade the State.
It was supposed that if Union forces went into Kentucky her people would rise up in mass to expel them. This delusion was kept up until it was found her Legislature was loyal to the Union and civil war was imminent in the State, when, in September, 1861, both Union and Confederate armed forces entered the State.
General Robert Anderson was (August 15, 1861) assigned to the command of the Department of the Cumberland, consisting of the States of Kentucky and Tennessee.
Bowling Green was occupied, September 8th, by General Simon Bolivar Buckner, a native Kentuckian, formerly of the regular army. It had been confidently hoped he would join the Union cause. President Lincoln, August 17th, for reasons not given, ordered a commission made out for him as Brigadier-General of Volunteers, and placed in General Anderson's hands to be delivered at his discretion.( 1)
Buckner decided to espouse the Confederate cause while still acting as Adjutant-General of the State of Kentucky. The commission, presumably, was never tendered to him.
Changes of Union commanders were taking place in the West with such frequency as to alarm the loyal people and shake their faith in early success.