This summer’s meeting will be held at the American Quilters Museum at 215 Jefferson Street in Paducah on July 30th. The speaker will be John Robertson, a longtime Jackson Purchase Historical Society member and author of numerous publications on Kentucky history, with a specialized emphasis on persons and events in Paducah. His topic will be on the letters of Jennie Fyfe who came to Paducah in early 1864 to work at the Marine Hospital. She was an eye witness to Nathan Bedford Forrest’s raid and the “Reign of Terror” under General E. A. Paine. The Fyfe family correspondence is located…

On June 24, 1861, the Inspector General of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Simon Bolivar Buckner, orders Captain Lloyd Tilghman and six companies of the State Guard to Columbus to preserve the neutrality of the state and to guard the western river port. Tilghman resigns in protest and returns to Paducah to recruit men for the southern cause. Captain Benjamin Hardin Helm assumes command and sets up a camp near Columbus. The camp quickly dissolves, however, and accomplishes little to preserve neutrality. By the end of the month, Tilghman is regularly sending new recruits to Camp Boone on the Kentucky-Tennessee border.…