Pariah

Abstract

The fluidity and complexity of postwar politics in Kentucky culminated in an alliance between returning Confederates, Democrats, and a growing number of Conservative Unionists. These ascendant politicians embraced a pro-Confederate narrative of the war that used the demonization of Burbridge and his policies as one means to consolidate power. The victims of Burbridge’s executions were reinterred with grand public funerals and imposing monuments; Burbridge’s efforts to gain a federal appointment or to help others who sought them earned him the wrath and strident opposition of Kentucky’s politicians and editorialists; and association with Burbridge was used to tar Republicans and the postwar policies aimed at helping the former slaves secure their freedom.