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PROCLAMATION.
DIVISION HEAD QUARTERS,
Mill Springs, Kentucky, January 6, 1862.
To the People of Kentucky:
When the present war between the Confederate
States and the United States commenced, the
state of Kentucky determiner to remain neutral. -
She regarded this as her highest interest, and bal¬
ancing between hope for the restoration of the Un¬
ion, and love for her Southern sisters-, she declared
and attempted to maintain a firm neutrality.
The conduct of the United States government
towards her, has been marked with duplicity, false¬
hood and wrong. From the very beginning, the
President of the United States, in his messages,
spoke of the chosen attitude of Kentucky with
open denunciation, and on the one hand treated it
with contempt and derision, while on the other hand
* he privately promised the people of Kentucky that*
it should be respected. In violation of this pledge,
but in keeping with his first and true intention, he
introduced into the state, arms, which were placed
exclusively in the hands of persons known or be¬
lieved to be in favor of coercion, thus designing
to~€ontrol the people of Kentucky, and to threaten
the Confederate States. Then the government of
the Confederate States, in self-defence, advanced
its arms into your midst, and offers'"you their assis "
tance to protect .you from the calamity of North-
j&rn military occupation.
By the administration of your State govern¬
ment, Kentucky was being held to the United,
States, and bound at the feet of Northern tyranny.
That government did not rest upon the consent of
your people. And now having thrown it off, a new
government has been established, and Kentucky
admitted into the Southern Confederacy. Can
Kentuckians doubt which government to sustain?
To the South you are alfied by interest, by trade, by-
geographyjby similarity of institutions, by the ties
of blood, and by kindred courage. The markets of
the North do not invite your products—your State
is, to the centre of its trade, society and laws, but
a distant province, despised for its customs and*
institutions—your heroic lineage forbids associa¬
tion in affhs with their warriors of Manassas,
of Leesburg and of Belmont; and your former de¬
votion to the Union must intensify your hatred to¬
wards that section which has, in its abolition cru¬
sade, broken to pieces the Constitution, and which
is now vainly endeavoring to destroy the liberty of
the Southern States!
At first you mav have been deceived as to the
purposes of the North. They talked of restoring
the Union. Do you not see that it is hopelessly
lost in the storm of war, and that while the rotten
govern ment of the North is shaking over its ruins,
the South has erected out of them a new, power-
ful and free constitutional republic! And now in¬
deed the mask is thrown off, and you find the North
through its President, and Secretary of War, and
public journals, and party leaders, giving up the
claim of Union, and proclaiming Tiie Extinction
of Slavery and the Subjugation of the SouTiif
Can you join in this enterprise? The South wou'd
never in any event consent to a reconstruction.
She is contending with unconquerable spirit, with
great military power, with unbroken success, for
constitutional freedom and for her own national
government. Where is your spirit of other days,
that you do not rush to her victorious standard;
Shall the sons of Te nnessee, Virginia, Mississippi
and other Southern states, with whom you have
gathered the laurels on other battlefields, win them
ail in this war of Independence, while you are in¬
active and lost in slothful indolence? May the
proud genius of my native Kentucky forbid it,
*Th these mountains, where freedom and patri¬
otism stir the human heart, can you sleep with the
-t' -e .fiOm-.o mo,' rinj
— cars?
True, you have refused to bear the arms and wear
the livery of Northern despotism. Their base
hirelings have been among you, but have not se¬
duced you into their ranks. Will you stay at
home and let noble bands of soldiers, armed in
your cause as in their own, pass on to battlefields
on your ov< n soil, consecrated by no deed of your
valor?
Having assumed command of the forces of the
Confederate States on Cumberland River, in
South-eastern Kentucky, I make this appeal to
you. You are already assured that we come a-
mong you as friends and brothers, to protect you
in your persons, liberties and property, and only to
make war against the invaders of your home and
"our common enemies. I invoke you to receive us
as brothers, and to come to our camp and share
with us the dangers and the honor of this struggle.
Come to these headquarters, as individuals or in
companies, and you will be at once accepted and
mustered in with pay and arms from the govern¬
ment of the Confederate States. At first m any
Kentuckians entered the armv of the J" outh for
the great cause it supports; now this has become
the cause of Kentucky, and it is your duty to'es¬
pouse it. Duty and honor unite in this call upon
you. Will you join in the moving columns ol the
South, or is thespiiitof Kentucky dead?
GEORGE B. CRITTENDEN,
Major General.
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