Louisville Wharf During The Civil War Years

Louisville Wharf During The Civil War Years. . , Evolving from the primitive landing of Louisville’s earliest days, the wharf had become a cobblestoned center of city life by the mid-1820s. By the 1850's, as many as 20 steamboats a day arrived and departed here. It was never more active than during the Civil War years:, ★1862 · Panic-stricken Louisvillians gathered here to board vessels bound for Indiana to escape Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s threatened attack on the city , an attack that never came., ★1865 · An enormous crowd gathered when infamous Confederate guerrilla fighter Marcellus Jerome Clark (alias Sue Mundy) was brought to Louisville to be publicly hanged on Broadway near 17th Street., ★1865 · Amid much fanfare the victorious Union General William Tecumseh Sherman landed to participate in 4th of July civic celebrations. He also witnessed a balloon ascension., ★1865 · Although Kentucky slaves were not freed until the end of this year by the Thirteenth Amendment to U.S. Constitution, at the wars end in April thousands flocked to Louisville. Alarmed city authorities asked Kentucky Military District general. John M. Palmer to return them to their masters. Instead he issued passes permitting them to leave Kentucky. During the summer at least 6,000 African Americans took the ferry from the wharf to Indiana and freedom.