THE FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH
1859-1862
very scattered issues 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH, January 4, 1859, p. 4, c. 7

Skirts.

                Robinson & Bro., of Louisville, are manufacturing Hoop skirts on a large scale.  Their grand double extension adjustable patent bustle skirt is pronounced by all who have worn them to be superior in all respects to any ever brought before the public.
                They are made on an entirely new principle, from the best tempered watch spring steel; are very light and graceful, and the double adjustable bustle effectually prevents the clothes from breaking down the skirt or throwing it forward; and the hoops are so elastic and pliable that no change of posture will effect the shape of the skirt.
                They are also manufacturing a beautiful Lace or Net Skirt with eleven steel spring hoops that are very popular, many preferring them to the skeleton.
                Their skirts will be found at all the principal retail stores.                             [Nov. 12, 1858—2m. 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH, May 21, 1861, p. 2, c. 8
                Long May It Wave.—Our city is becoming decorated with flags—with the stars and stripes we mean—and not pelicans or rattlesnakes.  Numbers of our citizens have given the old banner to the breeze, and the fingers of fair ones are busy plying the needle, stitching together the red, white and blue.  It is truly refreshing that as the cloud hangs heavier, and the storm gathers thicker, to see the patriotism and loyalty of Kentucky grow the stronger, and witness the firm determination of her gallant sons to carry the flag, and keep step to the music of the Union.  Frankfort is all right.  Go on, ye lovers of your country, deck your house tops and your trees with the ensign of your fathers, and unite in the rallying song—
                “American freemen!  Hand to hand,
                A bulwark to guard it well shall stand—
                God save the flag of our native land.” 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH, May 21, 1861, p. 3, c. 1
                While the Seventh Regiment was in Philadelphia, a fine old Quaker lady observing that one of the band was in a state of great embarrassment for the lack of a string with which to secure the mouth of his bag of provisions, observed quietly:  “Friend, I would not give thee an implement of war, but thee shall have a string to preserve thy food.”  Then she turned partly away for an instant, and stooped down to tie her shoe, apparently, but when she rose up she handed to the blushing blower of brass a neat green band, that a moment before had been doing duty as a—a—a—well, garter. 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH, May 28, 1861, p. 3, c. 3

Flag Presentation in Pendleton County

                                                                                                Falmouth, Ky., May 18, 1861.
                The Falmouth Union Home Guards met to-day for the election of officers, having previously met and adopted a constitution, embodying the sentiment that we owe paramount allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, and the supreme laws of the land made in accordance therewith, and also duties to the State of Kentucky, and pledging ourselves to the mutual protection of ourselves, our country, and property, and the supremacy of the laws; also requiring each member to take the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States and that of Kentucky as a member of the Federal Union as a test of membership in the company.
                About one hundred members having enrolled their names, and taken the oath of allegiance, and having listened to patriotic and eloquent speeches by S. T. Hauser, Esq., and Hon. S. F. Swope, on motion, the company proceeded to the election of officers, with the following result:
                Captain W. A. Warner; First Lieutenant W. R. Risk; Second Lieutenant, B. F. Robbins; Third Lieutenant, John Delaney.
                The company being informed that the ladies of Falmouth were awaiting its pleasure to present it with a stand of colors, the company was formed in the court house yard, supported by Capt. Mullen’s company of State Guards, the Pendleton Grays, when it was presented with an elegant and handsome United States flag as ever floated over a company.
                Miss Nora Robbins presented the colors in behalf of the ladies, in a feeling and eloquent style, as follows:
                “GENTLEMEN OF THE UNION HOME GUARDS—In behalf of the ladies of Falmouth, I present to you this elegant and beautiful flag.
                “It has always been emblematical of our national greatness.  Its stars are typical of the thirty-four States that once formed our great, free and prosperous Union.  Little did we anticipate six months ago that our political sky would now be overcast with the dark clouds of disunion and of civil war, and that this time-honored insignia of our national freedom and greatness would be trampeled [sic] in the dust, and insulted in any portion of our free and happy country.  Little did we anticipate that an insane effort would be made by any part of our beloved country to substitute another flag with but seven stars, as a badge of revolution, treating the stars and stripes as the banner of a foreign government.  But such is the sad reality which we are called upon to witness, and the reflection would not be so gloomy did we not witness in our beloved and chivalrous State, which has always been loyal to the Union, a concerted design on the part of many, to trail the flag of the Union in the dust, and to rear in its place the flag of a Southern Confederacy.  It is this unfortunate tendency which has led to your present organization.  You feel it to be your duty, in this hour of peril and threatened ruin, to take a bold stand for your common country, and for the welfare of your beloved Kentucky.  May you never falter until all enemies are subdued from whatever quarter they may come!  And in the midst of your greatest trials and difficulties, ever bear with you the recollection that the hearts of the ladies of Falmouth are with you.  Their hearts fondly cling to the Union—the whole Union.  They, therefore, expect every Union man to do his duty.  They never expect to hear of this flag being sullied by a traitors hands, but they look for it long to display its folds to the gentle breeze—over freedom’s soil—inspiring from the depths of every patriot’s heart the sentiment
                                “May our Star Spangled Banner forever wave
                                O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
                Col. John E. Records received the colors in behalf of the company, as follows:
                “Miss Robbins—I have been selected by the Union Home Guards to receive from your hands, in behalf of the ladies of Falmouth, this elegant, beautiful and magnificent flag.  It is impossible for me to find words adequate to express my feelings or the feelings of those for whom I act.  You must look more to our actions than to our words for a full expression of the emotions of our hearts.  Well have you said that a few short months ago we could not have anticipated that to-day our beloved and once free and prosperous country, would now be darkened and prostrated by the clouds and hideous tempest of disunion and civil war; little did we anticipate that his noble flag, which has floated in triumph over so many battlefields, and which has ever commanded the respect and admiration of the civilized world, would now be trailed in the dust, and insulted by a portion of that country which owes its present greatness and influence to the very flag it now wantonly insults.  Well may you, in common with us, feel a profound interest in this subject.  In no country in the world are your rights more fully recognized and protected, than in the United States—by the legislative, judicial, and every social department.  This has been the result of the high privileges, and the pure liberty we have enjoyed, and their results a high degree of chivalry and civilized refinement.
                “You are, therefore, deeply interested as well as we, in whatever tends to destroy this liberty and this civilization, and to give us a retrograde step into barbarism.  We fully reciprocate your feelings of attachment to the Union, and we will heed your admonitions to do our duty, (though it is now in fearful danger,) yet we will not yield it up until the last plank of hope is wrested from us.—Wherever we are, and by whatever circumstances surrounded, whether in the calm sunshine of liberty, peace, and prosperity, or amid the din and clangor of arms, we will ever look back to this scene, and to this banner, and, recollecting the source whence it eminated [sic], and there will gush up from the depths of our every heart one deep fountain of sentiment and patriotism which can have vent only through the beautiful language of the poet—
                                “Flag of the free, hearts only home!
                                By angel hands to valor given;
                                Thy stars have lit this welkin dome,
                                And all thy hues were born in heaven.
                                Forever float that standard sheet!
                                Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
                                With freedoms soil beneath our feet
                                And freedom’s banner waving o’er us!”
                The exercises were concluded by the ladies singing in good style the star spangled banner, when the two companies formed into line, and marched through the village.
                On returning to the court-house a vote of thanks was unanimously tendered the ladies.
                On motion the Secretary was instructed to furnish the Cincinnati Enquirer and Frankfort Commonwealth copies of the proceedings, and request them to publish, and the other Union papers to copy them.                                                                                  A. L. Burke, Secretary. 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH, May 28, 1861, p. 3, c. 4

The Stars and Stripes.

                                                                                                                    Benson, May 17, 1861.
Editor Commonwealth:
                The stars and stripes were flung to the breeze from the top of a sixty-five foot pole, at this station, this evening.  Two patriotic ladies of this community having made the glorious old banner, with thirty-four stars, a large one in the center, representing Kentucky surrounded by her sister States in the union.  The patriotic boys ran her up the pole, and then pledged themselves, in a quart of the ardent, at the foot of the pole, to stand by that flag to the last.                                                               H. 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH, June 4, 1861, p. 1, c. 8

A Card.

Editor Commonwealth,
                I have this moment returned from attending the annual examination of the Cadets of the Military Institute, and am authorized to say neither the Faculty or Cadets have the slightest intention of marching to Frankfort under a secession flag.  This explanation is rendered necessary by the appearance of the card of “Kentuckian” in your last issue.  The stars and stripes float from the dome of the main building of the institute.
                                                                                                                                P. Dudley,
                                                                                                                President, Board of Visitors.
                Tuesday evening, May 28, 1861. 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH, June 4, 1861, p. 3, c. 1

The Treasonable Plot Confessed.

                The people have long been warned that there existed in Kentucky, and throughout the South, a treasonable organization known as the Knights of the golden Circle, the primary object of which is the dissolution of the American Union, and the establishment of a Southern Confederacy.  The existence of such an organization, with such purposes, has all along been stoutly denied by the secession organs, and the people have been told by them that the Knights of the Golden Circle were engaged in no movement inimical to the public liberty.  The whole secret is now at last fully developed, and the people of Kentucky are advised from the highest source that they stand in the presence of a secret, oath-bound organization, whose aim is to sever their connection with the Federal Union.
                It will be remembered that in the Legislature, whose session has just closed, resolutions were offered looking to an exposure of the secret designs of the “Knights of the Golden Circle.”  The Legislature adjourned before the exposure was effected, but the Louisville Courier, of the 29^th inst., contains a letter from Gen. Geo. Bickley, President of the Knights of the Golden Circle, addressed to the Kentucky Legislature.
                Now what is the grand aim and end of the Knights of the Golden Circle?  Let General Bickley answer.  In the letter aforesaid he says:
                                “There are now nearly eight thousand (K. G. C.’s) in the State, distributed through every county, and the organization is growing daily in favor and importance, and the work will be pushed with the utmost vigor UNTIL THE TRI-COLORED FLAG OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES FLOATS IN TRIUMPH FROM THE DOME OF THE CAPITOL AT FRANKFORT.”
                If this does not open the eyes of the people nothing will.  If this voluntary exposure of the infamous designs of the Knights of the Golden Circle does not array against them, in solid phalanx, every loyal Kentuckian, then we are much mistaken.  Arouse, Kentuckians, and place your heels upon an organization which boldly and defiantly announces its purpose to take from the dome of the State Capitol the glorious star spangled banner, and place in its stead the “tri-colored flag of the Confederate States.”  We tell these valiant Knights that when they dare come to the capital for such a purpose, every Union man, woman and child in Franklin county will welcome them “with bloody hands to hospitable graves.”  Such an organization should not exist in this State, and deserves to be swept from the face of the earth.  And yet the Secessionists of Kentucky are defending and sustaining it.  The “thugs” of Baltimore may now hide their diminished heads.  Kentucky has within its borders a band of “thugs,” who will not stop until they precipitate her people into revolution, civil war, and anarchy. 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH, March 4, 1862, p. 3, c. 3

The Saxton Band.

                The ladies have met with another grand success in their efforts to raise money for the benefit of the sick soldiers.  The Saxton Band, from Lexington, who so generously volunteered their services to aid the ladies of Frankfort in their benevolent efforts to relieve the sick and suffering soldiers, attracted a large audience at the Capital Hotel on Thursday evening, and delighted everybody by their superior music, vocal and instrumental, and by the introduction of much laughable comedy, that made the heart lighter even if the sides had to ache for it.
                This Band will, we hope, meet with encouragement and liberal patronage wherever it may go.  In addition to its great merits as musicians, it has the still greater merit of being devoted to the “Red, White, and Blue;” and can sing the Star Spangled Banner in a style that brings out the old flag in all its glory. 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH, March 4, 1862, p. 3, c. 8

Colonization Notice.

                An Expedition will sail from Baltimore City, on May 1^st, 1862, for Liberia.  The Kentucky State Colonization Society will send Free Colored Persons, residing in Kentucky, on their application to the Society, to Liberia by that expedition.  They will be sent without charge to themselves.  Also, Executors of Estates in Kentucky, having in charge servants freed to be sent to Liberia, can send them to Liberia in the same Expedition, May 1, 1862.  Address
                                                                                                                Rev. A. M. Cowan,
                                                                                Agent Ky. State Col. Society, Frankfort, Ky. 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH, March 4, 1862, p. 4, c. 2

Letter from Bowlinggreen.

                                                                                                Bowlinggreen, Feb. 19, 1862.
. . . Immediately the command “forward to Bowlinggreen,” was given, and the whole of the force in the rear started off with a yell, the bands playing “Dixie.”  We had then sixteen miles to march, the first two hours we made ten miles and a half inspired by the occasional sound of a cannon; after that, every person we met said that the rebels had all gone, and there was no chance for a fight, consequently the men began to flag, and the remainder of the march was very tedious. . . .
                The rebels burned the Depot and Round House, and large quantity of provisions, and a great many houses in town, but we captured a sufficient amount of provisions of certain kinds to last our whole division forty or fifty days.  Some kinds of provisions are very scarce, such as coffee, tea, and bread.  Coffee was selling here at one dollar per pound, boots at twenty dollars a pair, and many other articles in like proportion. . . .
                The first day out, when we had arrived at Horse Cave, I saw a young lady standing in a door waving a Union flag about four feet long, (which, I suppose, she had had hid away for many long months,) and a yell could be heard from one of the line to the other.  It was the first Union flag we had seen on the road.  The whole country looks desolate, and nearly all the houses vacant, but I understand the citizens are moving back since we came down.
                Bowlinggreen is a perfect wreck, and it will be a long time before it regains its once prosperous condition.  I can see that it was once a beautiful place, containing many very handsome houses. 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH, April 15, 1862, p. 1, c. 7

Romantic Incident.

                A correspondent of the Hardin County Republican gives the following interesting incident which occurred during the transit of the 82d regiment to the “seat of war.”
                “At one place along the road where we stopped to take on coal and water, in incident occurred which impressed me as worthy of notice.  From a desolate looking hovel stowed away among the rocks a quarter of a mile up the hillside came running down to the train like a gazelle, the most perfect specimen of mountain maiden innocence and beauty it has ever fallen to the lot of the undersigned to look upon.  This specimen was a young girl of about fifteen unsophisticated years.  She came dancing up to the train, out of breath, with her hair all adrift and exclaiming; “hurray for the soldiers, hurrah for the soldiers!”  Our friend who was setting near me humming “the girl I left behind me,” observing her animated and patriotic style, protruded his head from the car window and responded, in his usual poetical way, “bully for you, my gal, you must like the soldiers.”  “You may bet your life on that,” said she, “and,” she continued, “I only wish I was a man or a boy, I’ll bet I’d go to the war.”  “Well,” said Goitbutes, “why don’t your daddy and brothers go?”  “They are all gone,” she replied, “and I’ve a notion to get on the cars and go a part of the way anyhow.”  “Come along, then, my mountain beauty,” said our friend, “I’ve a place in my buzzum left vacant, and you can just drop in, take possession and begin darnin’ my socks.”  She started for the cars, but just as she got over shoe-top in trying to cross the gutter, the bell rang, away went the train with our disconsolate friend, and the sweet bundle of woodland patriotism and purity commenced retracing her steps along the rocky path on the hillside.  Our friend, Goitbutes, has not been fit for duty since, and keeps his mess awake half the night talking in his sleep about the girl he saw at the water station.” 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMONWEALTH, April 15, 1862, p. 2, c. 6

Catching Snipes in Bags--How to Do It.

In one of his sketches of "Egypt"--which means Southern Illinois--Hazel Greene, Esq., gives the following account of a snipe hunt:
                The Egyptians have a custom of "taking the green ones a sniping,"--id est, sniping those who are from the East, and who are not posted with reference to all things practiced within the American Egypt. No matter how well a man may be educated, or how great may be his accomplishments, or how polished his manners--he is a green one in their estimation, unless he knows all about the ways of the woods. The Egyptians have a custom of sniping them, did we say? Very well, sniping them is the word; and now we will commence in a roundabout way to tell how it is done.
                "A fine evening this," said a native bursting into our presence.
                "Very."
                "Nice night for snipes, I kinder think."
                "Snipe! Are they plentiful in this region?"
                "Plenty! Golly, I'd tell a man they was! Why, sir, no longer ago nor last week, me and two other fellows, we went out and cotch four bag-fulls."
                "Caught them! Why, how upon earth did you manage it?" said he, looking foward to a new item for Wilkes' Spirit.
                "Yes, cotch 'em; and we done it easy enough. Drove them into the bags, sir--drove same as you'd drive quails into a net. Four or five of us going out to catch a lot tonight. See how it's done if you feel like going with us."
                Of course we felt like going; how could we feel otherwise.
                A little after dusk found us on our way to the snipe swamp, all anxious for the sport. Our company was made up as follows: Six Egyptians, John Anderson Augustus Javer, from New York city, now visiting an Egyptian relative;
                Hazel Green, Esq. author of "A Tour of the American Egypt," and two empty sacks.
                "Here's the place--keep still," said the Egyptians, when we had reached the edge of a marsh about two miles from the village. "Now, you two fellers what don't know how to drive, you hold open the bags, while we as knows goes into the swamp and drives 'em out."
                The "two fellers" referred to were John Anderson Augustus Javer from New York city, and your narrator. Of course we were willing to assist in the sport as much as we could, and so they stationed us at favorable points about one hundred yards apart, instructed us how to hold the sacks open, with their expanded mouths near the ground, and desired us to remain unmovable and silent, and to keep constantly puffing away with light cigars, in order that the fire would show and attract the snipe into the sacks. We confess that after having taken several philosophical views of the matter, we did not exactly like what was going on; but we held the bag nevertheless.
                Having arranged us to their liking, the six Egyptians struck out on their drive. Away into the swamp went they, hissing and shewing, and shaking bushes with a right good will for a few minutes, then all became silent. And silence reigned awfully supreme for at least half an hour, not a leaf rustled, not an overhanging branch scraped against his fellow, and--
                            "The ticking of my watch boys,
                            Was all the sound I heard."
                Pretty soon I heard a voice, "Hello, Green!”
                "Aye, aye, sir."
                "Caught any snipe yet?"
                This was from John Anderson Augustus Javer. To make sure we got up and shook the bag, after which we felt warranted in replying:
                "No! Nary snipe; but I think the contemptible snipes have caught us."
                And so they had--at least such was our conclusion on coming together and holding a council of war. We were indeed sold, and with feelings none the best in the world, we slung our sacks up into the fork of a sapling and rolled out for home. It is needless to add that we found the six Egyptians already there, and that they laughed heartily while we didn't, not being able ourselves to see where the laugh came in. 

FRANKFORT [KY] COMMONWEALTH, April 15, 1862, p. 3, c. 3
                Thousands of persons have read with astonishment the accounts that historians give of the conduct of a large number of women in Paris during the reign of terror throughout France.  The women are said to have been fiercer and more bloodthirsty than even the fiercest and most bloodthirsty of the men.  The she-devils had more of the spirit of hell than the he-devils.  They were loudest in their clamors for “blood!”  “blood!” “blood!” and every morning they thronged around the guillotine, some of them taking their knitting or their sewing with them and sitting all day to behold the heads of the victims rolling into the executioner’s basket.
                Many of our people have supposed that the accounts of these things must surely be fictitious or exaggerations.  They have felt themselves unable to conceive that woman’s nature could become a thing so utterly revolting.  But, if they will look and listen in this region at the present time, they will find that they have no further reason for incredulity or skepticism.  The bitter and ferocious spirit of thousands of rebel women in Kentucky, Tennessee, and other States, is scarcely, if at all, surpassed by that of the female monsters that shrieked and howled for victims in the French revolution.
                                                                                                                                 [Lou. Journal.