A young Mennonite passes the memorial to Confederate President Jefferson Davis while riding his bicycle on U.S. 68 west last month in Fairview, Ky. DANNY VOWELL/ASSOCIATED PRESS Visit the Photo Place

Division over identity in Kentucky goes back to Civil War

By ROGER ALFORD

Date published: 12/5/2005

Part of an occasional series on the changing Southern culture.

ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

FAIRVIEW--From across the country they come, Civil War buffs drawn by a towering monument that marks the birthplace of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Many of the same people who ride the elevator up the 351-foot-tall spire at Fairview also will visit a quaint one-room log home about 100 miles away near Hodgenville, a replica of the cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born.

Having supplied native sons as presidents and soldiers to both the Union and Confederacy, Kentucky remains very much a state divided, wrestling with its regional identity perhaps more than any other.

It all comes back to the Civil War, when Kentucky was a slave state that didn't secede and was officially neutral. The symbols of that straddling are all around, with 72 Confederate memorials in Kentucky and just two to Union soldiers. And to this day, whether people consider themselves Southerners or not depends on whom you ask.

"I have no other aspirations than to live what my heritage is," said David "Butch" Chaltas, a schoolteacher in Appalachian Kentucky who portrays Gen. Robert E. Lee in Civil War re-enactments. "I feel very blessed to be a Southerner. With no animosity toward anybody, I just love our heritage."

Chaltas, commander of the Whitesburg chapter of Sons of Confederate Veterans, said people who live in the mountains of Kentucky are decidedly Southern and are proud of traits like friendliness toward neighbors and hospitality to visitors, which have been passed down through generations.

"It's something that we cherish and something that we still live," he said. "If we don't live it, we've lost our identity."

Lindin Lairson, commander of Nicholasville camp of The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, said he has found that most Kentuckians identify with the South. That, he said, is based on the receptions his Boys in Blue receive during public appearances.

"We've gone into a lot of towns that are very pro-Southern," he said. "If the Confederates are there with us, we usually get boos, and cheers for them."

Lairson said that's despite the fact that far more Kentuckian soldiers joined the Union than the Confederacy during the Civil War. He said the state's loyalties changed for no reason other than geography and because of romantic notions about Southern gentility.

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Date published: 12/5/2005