sentences:  Confederate General Braxton Bragg decided to divert Union attention away from Vicksburg and from Chattanooga, Tennessee, which was being threatened by a large Union force under Don Carlos Buell, by invading the border state of Kentucky.Kentucky, the most southern of the border states, produced cotton (in west Kentucky) and tobacco, and was the primary supplier of hemp for rope used in the cotton industry.The state was also a major slave trade center.