Mary Beckly Bristow
Kentucky is engaged in a see-saw battle for control between Union and Confederate forces. Refusing to secede, the state nonetheless harbors many Confederates. This month, Union forces in northern Kentucky visit the Sardis Primitive Baptist Church in Union, a congregation with Confederate sentiments. One member, Mary Beckley Bristow, comments upon these recent events:
Have just heard that our meeting house, Sardis, where yesterday [we] heard such good preaching, is tonight filled with Lincoln’s soldiers….
Heard this morning that the federal soldiers had left Union without doing any damage. I think I am thankful they did not, as it was supposed they would, arrest any of our fellow citizens, and I am glad they behaved so well that everyone seems disposed to praise them. I am very well satisfied that they are gone, and have no wish for them or any others of their stripe to return to this region any more.
Bristow’s hopes that Union soldiers will leave northern Kentucky alone are not to be fulfilled.
Source: Diary of Mary Beckley Bristow, January 8 and 9, 1862 (link)
