In November, KHS proudly launched a new version of the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary. More colloquially known as CWGK, the project has been a KHS staple since 2010.
KHS launched CWGK as a result of both professional experience and significant national events. For several years before 2010, KHS collaborated with the University Press of Kentucky (UPK) to publish collections of documents from select twentieth-century Kentucky governors. Another pivotal factor in the creation of CWGK was the Civil War Sesquicentennial, which marked the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the conflict from 2011 to 2015. In light of this national commemoration, KHS aimed to seize the opportunity by developing new resources and offering a broader interpretation of Kentucky's role in the Civil War.
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The experiences of Kentuckians were essential to the project. The print volumes from UPK only published a highly selective set of approximately one hundred documents that exemplified that governor’s term in office. No set of one hundred documents could accurately capture Kentucky’s experience. Both the Sesquicentennial and the complexity of Kentucky’s wartime experience demanded something more ambitious.
CWGK was the result, a project built to use the governor’s office, not the governors themselves, as a lens to explore a society in conflict. What did KHS want to capture with that lens? Ordinary Kentuckians—men and women, free as well as enslaved, Unionists or Confederates—all who tried to survive as civil strife consumed the state.
During the war, Kentucky’s five governors (Unionists Beriah Magoffin, James F. Robinson, and Thomas E. Bramlette, as well as the Confederates George W. Johnson and Richard Hawes) sat at the intersection of military mobilization, the ramifications of irregular violence, civil and criminal concerns for the state’s citizens, as well as the uneven process of emancipation in Kentucky. The papers that crossed their desks revealed how Kentuckians navigated the war's stupendous and ordinary moments.
To make the lives of all Kentuckians accessible in CWGK, KHS followed two parallel approaches. First, they digitized and transcribed thousands of documents. Second, they started building a network of biographies for every person, place, and organization mentioned within the documents. With over 10,000 documents transcribed and freely available to the public, the edition provides a foundation to explore the words and struggles of Kentuckians during the war.
Across 3,000 of those documents, KHS staff have built over 17,000 biographies that serve as launching points for deeper discovery, adding basic information about an individual, military organization, or location to the document. While these biographies only offer a glimpse of a person’s life around the Civil War, they serve as an excellent piece to help users contextualize the document they are reading.
On the surface, beyond the cosmetic changes to the site, much of CWGK has remained the same. It provides access to more than 10,000 documents and 17,000 researched biographies. Each document page still shows a scan of the original image alongside a transcription of the document. CWGK has maintained teaching materials and digital exhibits for educators that provide context about the experiences of Kentuckians during wartime.
Left: Image of actual correspondence betwenn Benjamin F. Blankenship to James F. Robinson. The complete 4-page text reads:
Hon James F Robinson Esqr
Gov of the commonwealth of Kentucky
Dear Sirhaveng prepaired pay rolls for all the companys of this batalion with Exception of Co D commanded by Capt J B Spurlock I hasten to send them up and at the same time to report Said Spurlock for disbanding his company before his mens time were out a portion of his mens time are out and some have served 2 months and some but one and he is gone from this place probably for frankfort with some kind of a report I know not what but one thing I Do know that is he Mr Spurlock [...]Capt[...]of this batalion have been trying to create discord in this batalion ever since they were attached to it
[Page 2]
and I- have reseived a nother company in place of Said Co D that is other officers but partly the same men they held the Election on the 13th inst and James J Howard was duly Elected Capt of said Compay and William Gross 1st Lieut I Certify to the fact and ask commissions for the Same and Said J B Spurlock suspended from office I remainyour Very humble servant
B F Blankenship Maj comd
1st Harlen co bat Ky Sg
we the undersigned certify that the above statements are true
A Powell Capt co B
Abner Lewis 1st Lieut co A
J C Perkins Capt co C
Henry Day Capt co F
William Dixon QM[Page 3]
N, B, Thoes men under Capt Spurlock that have not served more than 1 & 2 months have Drawn Clothing and are Gone by his orderB F Blankenship
[Page 4]
Field & Staff
B. F. Blankenship
Major Harlan Co
Militia
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Most of the changes to the site were made with the goal of improving discoverability, or, in other words, helping users navigate the site more easily. These include:
- The ability to keyword search within documents as well as within the 17,000 annotated biographies.
- Landing pages for People, Places, and Organizations, which now list every single biography created by CWGK in alphabetical order.
- Under the lefthand image viewer, in addition to meta-data, each annotated document provides a list of all the biographies that appear within the edition.
- CWGK enhanced their download options, now providing a single PDF with the transcription, as well as a separate option to download the XML code.
These changes are not the only ones to come to the edition. As the project team continues to work on the new site, they will introduce additional elements and materials. These include subject tags that will connect thematically similar documents together; new digital exhibits that will explore the history of the United States Colored Troops, as well as the importance of flags to Civil War regiments; more interpretive essays on various aspects of Kentucky’s Civil War history; and plenty of other things that KHS staff have not thought of yet.
During the war, George C. Hallet, an attorney, judge, and officer from western Kentucky, unwittingly penned the reason for CWGK’s existence. Opening his plea to recruit more soldiers, Hallet argued that “[t]he history of this stupendous rebellion is yet to be written and to be written in all truthfulness, the future historian must look to the public archives among which he will find the evidences of outrages committed on both sides.”
Hallet wasn’t wrong. To understand the Civil War, historians, educators, genealogists, and the public need historical documents that help contextualize the conflict, in all its stupendous glory and manifold horrors. When KHS developed CWGK, they did so to bring Kentucky’s war and its archive to the public. With a new site, improved features, and soon-to-be-added materials, the future of that accessible, digestible archive is at hand.
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