Musings of a 19th Century American Historian: Rebels at Rest in Lexington: The Todds, a Couple Notable Rebels, & Kentucky's Basketball Baron

The gates to Lexington Cemetery on Main Street

Despite being a native who lived nearly 26 years in the great Commonwealth and an avid Kentucky fan, I have only occasionally visited Lexington. More often than not, my visits took me to the University of Kentucky's campus for research--to grab journals (Journal of East Tennessee History!) and books that the University of Louisville's library did not carry and to nap in the library's cozy surroundings. Last weekend I had an opportunity to visit again on my way back to Knoxville, and this time I decided to see two sites I had always wanted to see--Rupp Arena and Mary Lincoln's childhood home. What I hadn't expected to do, however, was to visit Lexington Cemetery. But had it not been for a segment on UK talk radio (the hosts had spent the previous weekend searching for Kentucky legend Adolph Rupp's grave), I wouldn't have thought to go in the first place. I figured I would do some quick research and see any other "big" historic names that may be buried there as well. I was astonished to see several folks I wouldn't mind visiting. What follows is a collection of some of my photos.

The Todd family plot, Section F (sits alongside Main Avenue)

When Abraham Lincoln entered the Senate race against Stephen Douglas in 1858, months before the famous Lincoln-Debates, he referred to the nation, which was splitting over the issue of slavery, as "a house divided." This biblical metaphor could be used to describe the situation in which many families, especially those among the border states, found themselves in 1860-1861.

The Todd family plot, Section F.

It is certainly fitting when discussing Mary Todd Lincoln's Lexington, Kentucky family. Mary was born into a slaveholding family, many of whom chose to support the Confederacy during the Civil War, even though Kentucky, a slave state, struggled to remain neutral at a time in which states were compelled to choose between their allegiance to the United States or an allegiance to a new "nation" on which slavery stood as its cornerstone. During the war, Mary's stepmother and eight of her thirteen siblings supported the Confederacy, some of those siblings donning Confederate gray.

Mary's father, Robert (left) and her mother Elizabeth (right)

Mary's parents are both buried at Lexington Cemetery. Her mother, Elizabeth "Eliza" Ann Parker Todd died when Mary was seven years old (Lincoln also lost his mother when he was young, at the age of nine). Elizabeth died as the result of complications following the birth of her seventh child, George, who survived. She was buried next to her sixth child, Robert, who died at 14 months of age.

Mary's father, Robert Smith Todd, who had remarried (Elizabeth Humphreys Todd), was a prominent Kentucky Whig and a state senator. In the summer of 1849, he decided to run for political office; however, he collapsed suddenly on July 7 while on the campaign trail and fell ill as a cholera epidemic swept through central Kentucky. The doctors could do little for him and he began finalizing his will. He managed to live more than a week before passing away quietly on July 16.

John C. Breckinridge, Section G

Nearby, one can find several prominent Rebels. John Cabell Breckinridge, United States Vice President, the Southern Fire-Eating Democratic challenger in the 1860 presidential election, a Confederate commissioned officer, and Secretary of War for the Confederate States of America.

John C. Breckinridge

Across the street from Breckinridge is the so-called "Thunderbolt of the Confederacy," Kentucky cavalryman John Hunt Morgan. Morgan was killed by Union forces in Greeneville, Tennessee during the Civil War, but buried in Richmond, Virginia in the summer of 1864. Morgan, who had garnered a lot of attention in the press for his summer 1863 raid into northeastern Ohio, which had caused great anxiety among Union officials, was a marked man. The raid proved to be the furthest northern incursion by Confederate military forces during the Civil War (smaller operations by former Confederates and secret service operations were conducted as far north as Vermont); however, Morgan's raid proved a futile, sideshow of the war. His younger brother Thomas H. Morgan was also killed in action and was first buried in Lebanon, Kentucky in 1863. Both brothers' remains were re-interred in the same grave in a double ceremony in April 1868.

John Hunt Morgan

The Duke, Morgan, and Hunt family plot, section C

John Hunt Morgan grave, Section C

Basil W. Duke

An additional Rebel of interest includes Basil Wilson Duke who is also buried next to Morgan. Duke was Morgan's second in command, becoming commanding general of the cavalry after Morgan's death. Duke and his men protected the Confederate president Jefferson Davis as he fled Richmond in early 1865 as Union forces closed in. Duke later served Kentucky in the United States House of Representatives after the war.