The American Civil War helped produce a number of Kentucky political figures. For many years it was a perquisite to have Civil War service to be seriously considered a viable candidate for public office. ill all but the few Republican dominated counties of the Commonwealth, being a Confederate veteran was considered a sure way to win an election.

For half a century, from 1868 until World War I, association with the Confederate cause dominated Kentucky politics. Local and state officials proudly displayed their faded and frayed Confederate uniforms and flags at public gatherings. Democratic political rallies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were not complete without at least one Confederate veteran who would mount the speaker's stand and hold forth on the "mystical ties" of tradition and comradeship that was a part of the "Lost Cause" of the South. One of the most popular and requested orators in Kentucky was former Confederate General and Southern hero, Bennett H. Young.

Bennett Henderson Young was born May 25, 1843, in Jessamine County, near the county seat of Nicholasville. He was the son of Robert and Josephine Henderson Young. The Young family was originally from North Carolina. John Young, a veteran of the American Revolution and the grandfather of Bennett Young, settled in Brunswick County, Virginia where he married Nancy Raymond. Nancy Raymond Young died giving birth to a son also named John.

In 1789 John Young Sr. moved with his son to Fayette County, Kentucky. The elder John Young married Cynthia McCullough. The couple's youngest son, Robert married Josephine Henderson in 1831 and fathered Bennett H. Young. Robert Young had moved to Nicholasville in Jessamine County where he established a hat factory and bought land.

Bennett H. Young later would recall his happy childhood on his father's Jessamine County farm. He later attended Bethany Academy and was enrolled at that institution when the Civil War began in April 1861. After the news of the bombardment of Fort Sumter reached Bethany Academy, the students began to take sides. One group of students raised the American flag over the roof of the Academy building in an act of defiance to those students who supported the Confederacy. Young and his friends supported the Southern cause and demanded the United States flag to be lowered until a Confederate flag could be raised along its side. The American flag remained, and an infuriated Young got a ladder and climbed up to take the flag down. A pro-Union student pulled the ladder out from under Young, and the two boys began to fight. Soon the other students took sides and an all out brawl took place. The fighting did not end until the American flag was taken down.

In September 1861 Young enrolled in Centre College in DanvilIe. In the year he attended Centre, Young joined a literary society. He was not proficient in mathematics, but enrolled the next year for his final year of a two-year degree. However, in October 1862, he was stricken with typhoid fever and sent home. His academic career was over. The Civil War was raging, and Young wanted to get into the conflict on the side of his beloved South. .

In the winter of 1863 Bennett H. Young joined the Eighth Kentucky Cavalry that came under the command of General John Hunt Morgan (1825-1864). In February 1863 Young and a Confederate force of some 750 men under the command of Major Roy S. Cluke made a daring raid into Central Kentucky. This was one of many military exploits in which Young participated during the course of the Civil War. He later recalled the horrors of watching young men die terrible deaths from wounds inflicted by shot and shell.

Young continued his military service with Morgan's men. He was with John Hunt Morgan on his raids into Indiana and Ohio, and on July 26, 1863, Morgan and Young and a number of Confederate raiders were captured and sent to prison. Young eventually was taken to Camp Douglas in Illinois where he later escaped to Canada. On Oct. 19, 1864, Young and a group of Confederate soldiers raided the town of St. Albans, Vermont, taking $90,000 from a local bank. Young ordered his men to set fire to the town by throwing bottles of "Greek Fire" (a concoction of naphtha, sulfur and quicklime), on the buildings along Main Street. Fortunately for the town, Young's "Greek Fire" failed to do much damage. Young's raid was the northernmost invasion of Confederate forces in federal territory during the Civil War.

After the St. Albans raid, Young and his men made for the Canadian border where they asked for asylum from the British authorities. They were arrested and later tried and acquitted for violating Canada's neutrality. Canada, as part of the British Empire, was neutral in the American Civil War. Young and his men were freed on a technicality.

After his release from a Canadian jail, Young decided that he could not return to Jessamine County where he would be arrested for treason. Instead, he opted to go to England and Ireland where he studied law. In 1868 Young was at last free to return to Kentucky without fear of arrest. He decided to move to Louisville and practice law. Young married Mattie R. Robinson in 1866. After her death, he married Eliza T. Sharp in 1895. The couple had two children. By the time Young was 30 he was considered one of the best lawyers in the Commonwealth.

Young participated in several business ventures during the 1870s and 80s. One of his most ambitious business schemes was the formation of the Presbyterian Mutual Insurance Fund. While the company attracted a number of investors, heavy debt forced the concern to declare bankruptcy in 1888.

In 1890 Young was elected as a delegate to the Kentucky constitutional convention. His legal expertise and knowledge of the Constitution was widely respected. In 1889 Young wrote a guide to Kentucky's constitutions. His work, "The Three Constitutions of Kentucky" was published by The Courier Journal in August 1890, one month before the delegates were to meet to design the fourth and present constitution.

Young's role in creating the present constitution was great. He pushed for a commission to curb the power of the railroads, particularly the L&N. His reasons for this action were not entirely altruistic. Young wished to safeguard his interests in the Louisville Southern Railroad.

Thoughout the convention, Young also fought for the control of toll roads and bridges. He bitterly attacked the legislature for creating the huge number of counties in the state. Young insisted that only in a case of "pressing" need should the legislature contemplate the creation of any more counties. He felt that special interests were behind the drive to establish more and more political divisions.

Young's stand on controlling monopolies brought him into friendship with one of Kentucky's most controversial politicians, William Goebel (1856-1900). Many conservatives in the state considered Goebel and Young as radical and dangerous.

In 1900 Young became caught up in the struggle to unseat Republican governor, William S. Taylor, and replace him with Democrat, William Goebel. The election of 1899 was hotly contested and Kentucky verged on civil war over who was really governor of the state. Young hurried to Frankfort to advise Goebel and his followers. After Goebel's assassination on Jan. 30, 1900, and Taylor's ousting from office, Young became an advisor to Gov. Beckham. Young's influence and reputation continued to grow in the early years of he twentieth century. It was said that he had tried more cases in Kentucky than any other lawyer and that his knowledge of the courts since the Civil War was "second to none."

The remainder of Young's public activities were devoted to numerous activities. He collected and preserved Kentucky History and its artifacts. He wrote numerous articles and books. He wrote a history of Jessamine County and made a number of studies on the Civil War. He was instrumental in promoting the history of the Confederacy and was a major influence in obtaining support for the monument to Jefferson Davis in Fairview, Kentucky. His leadership of the United Confederate Veterans Association and his devotion to the history of the Southern cause gained him the honorary title of commander-in-chief for life of the association.

By 1918 Young's health was beginning to decline. On Feb. 3, 1919 Young grew very weak. He died that afternoon. The outpourings of grief and respect for him attested to the high regard that the people of Kentucky had for their "Southern Cavalier" of Jessamine County.

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