om the harassing
consideration of dangers at which they shuddered. Nine men out of ten,
will shrink from making up their minds upon a difficult question, and
yet will accept, with joy, a determination of it, however paltry and
inconclusive, from any one who has the nerve to urge it. A great many
Union men, who would have earnestly opposed a concurrence of Kentucky in
the action of the seceding States, if for no other reason than that they
regarded it as "a trick of the Democratic party," and yet as obstinately
opposed the policy and action of the Government, thought they perceived
in "neutrality" a solution of all the difficulties which embarrassed
them. A few of the more sagacious and resolute of the leaders of the
Union party, who were perhaps not incommoded with a devotion to their
State, their section, or to the "flag," but who realized that they could
get into power only by crushing the Democratic party, and knew that in
the event of Kentucky's going South, the Democratic party would dominate
in the State, these men saw in this policy of neutrality the means of
holding Kentucky quiet, until the Government could prepare and pour into
her midst an overwhelming force. They trusted, and as the sequel showed,
with reason, that they would be able to demoralize their opponents after
having once reduced them to inaction. The Kentuckians who wished that
their State should become a member of the Confederacy, but who saw no
immediate hope of it, consented to neutrality as the best arrangement
that they could make under the circumstances. They knew that if the
neutrality of Kentucky were respected--a vital portion of the
Confederacy, a border of four or five hundred miles would be safe from
attack and invasion--that the forces of the Confederacy could be
concentrated for the defense of the other and threatened lines, and that
individual Kentuckians could flock to the Southern army. They believed
that in such a condition of affairs, more men would leave Kentucky to
take part with the South than to enlist in the service of the
Government.

Some time in the early part of the summer, General S.B. Buckner,
commanding the Kentucky State-guard, had an interview with General Geo.
B. McClellan, who commanded a department embracing territory contiguous
to Kentucky--if, indeed, Kentucky was not included by the commission
given him in his department. General Buckner obtained, as he supposed, a
guarantee that the neutrality of Kentucky wou