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Civil War


Union Gen. Jefferson C. Davis shoots Union Gen. William "Bull" Nelson on the steps of the Galt House
Main article: Louisville in the American Civil War
During the Civil War, Louisville was a major stronghold of Union forces, which kept Kentucky firmly in the Union. It was the center of planning, supplies, recruiting and transportation for numerous campaigns, especially in the Western Theater. While the state of Kentucky officially declared its neutrality early in the war, prominent Louisville attorney James Speed strongly advocated keeping the state in the Union. Seeing Louisville's strategic importance in the freight industry, General William Tecumseh Sherman formed an army base in the city in the event that the Confederacy advanced.
In September 1862, Confederate General Braxton Bragg decided to take Louisville, but ultimately changed his mind due to lack of backup from General Edmund Kirby Smith's forces and the subsequent decision to install Confederate Governor Richard Hawes in Frankfort. In the summer of 1863, Confederate cavalry under John Hunt Morgan invaded Kentucky from Tennessee and briefly threatened Louisville before swinging around the city into Indiana during Morgan's Raid. In March 1864, Generals Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant met at the Galt House to plan the spring campaign, which included the capture of Atlanta, Georgia.
By the end of the war, Louisville itself had not been attacked even once, even though surrounded by skirmishes and battles, including the Battle of Perryville and the Battle of Corydon. The Unionists — most whose leaders owned slaves — felt betrayed by the abolitionist position of the Republican Party. After 1865 returning Confederate veterans largely took control of the city, leading to the jibe that it joined the Confederacy after the war was over. Subsequently, in 1895, a Confederate monument was erected near the University of Louisville campus.
[edit]Reconstruction


Churchill Downs in 1901
The first Kentucky Derby was held on May 17, 1875, at the Louisville Jockey Club track (later renamed to Churchill Downs). The Derby was originally shepherded by Meriwether Lewis Clark, Jr., the grandson of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. 10,000 spectators were present at the first Derby to watch Aristides win the race.


A giant baseball bat adorns the outside of Louisville Slugger Museum in downtown Louisville
On February 2, 1876, Professional Baseball launched the National League, and the Louisville Grays were a charter member of the league. While the Grays were a relatively short-lived team, playing for only two years, they began a much longer lasting relationship between the city and baseball. In 1883, John "Bud" Hillerich made his first baseball bat from white ash in his father's wood shop. The first bat was produced for Pete "The Gladiator" Browning of the Louisville Eclipse (minor league team). The bats eventually become known by the popular name, Louisville Slugger, and the company he started, Hillerich & Bradsby, rapidly became one of the largest manufacturers of baseball bats and other sporting equipment in the world. Today, Hillerich & Bradsby manufactures over one million wooden bats per year, accounting for about two of three wooden bats sold worldwide.
On August 1, 1883, U.S. President Chester A. Arthur opened the first annual Southern Exposition, a series of World's Fairs that would run for five consecutive years adjacent to Central Park in what is now Old Louisville. Highlighted at the show was the largest to-date installation of incandescent light bulbs, having been recently invented by Thomas Edison (a previous resident of Louisville).


The Columbia Building was the tallest building in Kentucky for a decade
Downtown Louisville began a modernization period in the 1890s, with Louisville's second skyscraper, the Columbia Building, opening on January 1, 1890.[28] The following year, famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted was commissioned to design Louisville's system of parks (most notably, Cherokee, Iroquois and Shawnee Parks) connected by tree-lined parkways. Train service arrived to the city on September 7, 1891 with the completion of the Union Station train hub. The first train arrived at 7:30 am. At the time, Louisville's Union Station was recognized as the largest train station in the South.


Memorial to the 1890 tornado, on Main Street in downtown Louisville
Interrupting these developments, on March 27, 1890, a major tornado measuring F4 on the Fujita scale visited Louisville. The "whirling tiger of the air" carved a path from the Parkland neighborhood all the way to Crescent Hill, destroying 766 buildings ($2 1/2 million worth of property) and killing an estimated 74 to 120 people. At least 55 of those deaths occurred when the Falls City Hall collapsed. This is one of the highest death tolls due to a single building collapse from a tornado in U.S. history.
In 1893, two Louisville sisters, Patty and Mildred J. Hill, both schoolteachers, wrote the song "Good Morning to All" for their kindergarten class. The song didn't quite catch on popularly, and the lyrics were later changed to the more recognizable, Happy Birthday to You. This is now the most performed song in the English language.