During the Civil War, the majority of Kentuckians supported the Union under the leadership of Henry Clay, but one part of the state presented a striking exception. The Jackson Purchase—bounded by the Mississippi River to the west, the Ohio River to the north, and the Tennessee River to the east—fought hard for separation and secession, and produced eight times more Confederates than Union soldiers. Supporting states' rights and slavery, these eight counties in the westernmost part of the commonwealth were so pro-Confederate that the Purchase was dubbed "the South Carolina of Kentucky."
The first dedicated study of this key region, Kentucky Confederates provides valuable insights into a misunderstood and understudied part of Civil War history. Author Berry Craig begins by exploring the development of the Purchase from 1818, when Andrew Jackson and Isaac Shelby acquired it from the Chickasaw tribe. Geographically isolated from the rest of the Bluegrass State, the area's early settlers came from the South, and rail and river trade linked the region to Memphis and western Tennessee rather than to points north and east.
Craig draws from an impressive array of primary documents, including newspapers, letters, and diaries, to reveal the regional and national impact this unique territory had on the nation's greatest conflict. Offering an important new perspective on this rebellious borderland and its failed bid for secession, Kentucky Confederates will serve as the standard text on the subject for years to come.
Berry Craig, professor of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah, is the author of Hidden History of Western Kentucky, True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon, and Burgoo, Hidden History of Kentucky in the Civil War, and Hidden History of Kentucky Soldiers.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
1 Kentucky's South Carolina 11
2 Armies on the Border 55
3 The Mayfield Convention 71
4 Flag Snatching and Gun Grabbing 93
5 Politics, Pirates, and More Purchase Perfidy 111
6 "Abolition Invaders" and Rebel Deliverers 135
7 Gibraltar Crumbles 167
8 Yankee Occupation 183
9 Traitors Beware 195
10 The Battle of Paducah 215
11 Still Disloyal 247
12 A Paine in the Purchase 261
13 Rebel to the End and Beyond 281
Acknowledgments 295
Notes 297
Bibliography 331
Index 341
What People are Saying About This
William C. Davis
"Berry Craig's Kentucky Confederates is an interesting and significant contribution to Kentucky history, and a thoroughly instructive object lesson in loyalty studies in one of the many micro-regions of the Civil War era. It should instantly become, and remain the standard work on the subject."
Kent Masterson Brown
"Kentucky Confederates is a masterpiece. Long overdue, it chronicles the history of a region of Kentucky that has received little or no attention by historians heretofore. It is my considered opinion Craig's book will be the definitive work on his subject for many years."
From the Publisher
" Kentucky Confederates is a masterpiece. Long overdue, it chronicles the history of a region of Kentucky that has received little or no attention by historians heretofore. It is my considered opinion Craig's book will be the definitive work on his subject for many years." — Kent Masterson Brown, editor of One of Morgan's Men: Memoirs of Lieutenant John M. Porter of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry
"Berry Craig's Kentucky Confederates is an interesting and significant contribution to Kentucky history, and a thoroughly instructive object lesson in loyalty studies in one of the many micro-regions of the Civil War era. It should instantly become, and remain the standard work on the subject." — William C. Davis, author of Lincoln's Men: How President Lincoln Became Father to an Army and a Nation
