Neither was it able to gain the whole support of Kentucky's citizens; its jurisdiction extended only as far as Confederate battle lines in the Commonwealth, which at its greatest extent in 1861 and early 1862 encompassed over half the state.

However, Union General Don Carlos Buell ambushed the inauguration ceremony and drove the provisional government from the state for the final time.

The majority coalition of Bell and Douglas supporters was seen as a solid moderate Unionist position that opposed precipitate action by extremists on either side.

[3] Governor Magoffin called a special session of the Kentucky General Assembly on December 27, 1860, to ask the legislators for a convention to decide the Commonwealth's course in the sectional conflict.

"[5] The Unionists, on the other hand, were unwilling to surrender the fate of the state to a convention that might "in a moment of excitement, adopt the extreme remedy of secession.

[7] The assembly did, however, send six delegates to a February 4 Peace Conference in Washington, D.C., and asked Congress to call a national convention to consider potential resolutions to the secession crisis, including the Crittenden Compromise, proposed by Kentuckian John J.

[12] Historian Wilson Porter Shortridge made the following analysis: These elections demonstrated that a majority of the people of Kentucky were opposed to secession, but they could not be interpreted as an approval of the war policy of the Lincoln administration, as was quite generally done at the north at that time.

Unionists, on the other hand, struggled to find a way to move the large, moderate middle to a "definite and unqualified stand with the Washington government."

The maneuvering between the two reached a decisive point on September 3 when Confederate forces were ordered from Tennessee to the Kentucky towns of Hickman and Columbus.

The next week, the assembly officially requested the assistance of the Union and asked the governor to call out the state militia to join the Federal forces.

[20] Scott County farmer George W. Johnson chaired the committee that wrote the convention's final report and introduced some of its key resolutions.

[22] By the third day, the military situation was so tenuous that the entire convention had to be moved to a tower on the campus of Bethel Female College, a now-defunct institution in Hopkinsville.

"[23] The delegates proposed a provisional government to consist of a legislative council of ten members (one from each Kentucky congressional district); a governor, who had the power to appoint judicial and other officials; a treasurer; and an auditor.

[27] On November 21, the day following the convention, Johnson wrote Confederate president Jefferson Davis to request Kentucky's admission to the Confederacy.

[29] For reasons unexplained by the delegates, Dr. Luke P. Blackburn, a native Kentuckian living in Mississippi, was invited to accompany the commissioners to Richmond, Virginia.

[27] Though Davis had reservations about circumvention of the elected General Assembly in forming the Confederate government, he concluded that Johnson's request had merit, and on November 25, recommended Kentucky for admission to the Confederacy.

[12] He asserted his belief that the Union and Confederacy were forces of equal strength, and that the only solution to the war was a free trade agreement between the two sovereign nations.

[31] During the winter of 1861, Johnson tried to assert the legitimacy of the fledgling government but its jurisdiction extended only as far as the area controlled by the Confederate Army which at its height was over half the state.

[32] Much of the provisional government's operating capital was probably provided by Kentucky congressman Eli Metcalfe Bruce, who made a fortune from varied economic activities throughout the war.

[12] Following Ulysses S. Grant's victory at the Battle of Fort Henry, General Johnston withdrew from Bowling Green into Tennessee on February 7, 1862.

"[12] Governor Johnson, despite his presumptive official position, his age (50), and a crippled arm,[36] volunteered to serve under Breckinridge and Colonel Robert P. Trabue at the Battle of Shiloh.

[39] During the summer of 1862, word began to spread through the Army of Tennessee that Generals Bragg and Edmund Kirby Smith were planning an invasion of Kentucky.

[39] The legislative council voted to endorse the invasion plan, and on August 27, Governor Hawes was dispatched to Richmond to favorably recommend it to President Davis.

[41] Having lost Louisville, Bragg spread his troops into defensive postures in the central Kentucky cities of Bardstown, Shelbyville and Danville and waited for something to happen, a move that historian Kenneth W. Noe called a "stupendously illogical decision".

[37] Bragg had been disappointed with the number of soldiers volunteering for Confederate service in Kentucky; wagon loads of weapons that had been shipped to the Commonwealth to arm the expected enlistees remained unissued.

[44][45] Desiring to enforce the Confederate Conscription Act to boost recruitment, Bragg decided to install the provisional government in the recently captured state capital of Frankfort.

[38] Displaced from their home state, members of the legislative council dispersed to places where they could make a living or be supported by relatives until Governor Hawes called them into session.

Scant records show that on December 30, 1862, Hawes summoned the council, auditor, and treasurer to his location at Athens, Tennessee for a meeting on January 15, 1863.

[50] Another major blow was Davis' 1864 decision not to allow Hawes to spend $1 million that had been secretly appropriated in August 1861 to help Kentucky maintain its neutrality.

However, in the summer of 1864, Colonel R. A. Alston of the Ninth Tennessee Cavalry requested Governor Hawes' assistance in investigating crimes allegedly committed by Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan during his latest raid into Kentucky.