New Perspectives on Civil War–Era Kentucky ed. by John David Smith (review)

Reviewed by: New Perspectives on Civil War–Era Kentucky ed. by John David Smith Michael D. Robinson (bio) New Perspectives on Civil War–Era Kentucky. Edited by John David Smith. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2023. Pp. 360. Cloth, 30. 00; paper, 20. 00. ) Kentucky has long fascinated, and confounded, Civil War–era scholars. Defying easy categorization, the Bluegrass State and its people are a study in paradox. The border state's antebellum leaders craved a peaceful solution to the slavery controversy; yet, once the war began, Kentucky suffered major battles and brutal guerrilla warfare. A strong attachment End Page 394 to slavery undergirded the state's powerful Unionism, yet much of that Unionism evaporated once the Civil War escalated into a war against bondage. Kentucky's loyalty technically exempted the state from Republican Reconstruction policies, yet white Kentuckians' pervasive racism left the African American population as vulnerable as Black people in the former Confederate states after the war. These, and many other Kentucky contradictions, are explored in New Perspectives on Civil War–Era Kentucky. Editor John David Smith commissioned ten experts on the Bluegrass State to contribute to this volume, which covers diverse topics ranging from the legacy of Henry Clay to the persistence of Black political activism in the aftermath of the Civil War. Throughout, the authors remind the reader of Kentucky's strategic importance and its rich complexity. The essays originally appeared in the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, but this book provides scholars with convenient access to the collection and includes an expanded introduction from John David Smith and an afterword by Benjamin Lewis Fitzpatrick. The introduction offers a penetrating overview of important works on Civil War–era Kentucky that have appeared since the initial publication of these essays during the Civil War sesquicentennial. As Smith indicates, the essays in this volume "underscore the high quality and vibrancy of today's scholarship on Kentucky and the Civil War and Reconstruction era" (5). Two of the essays focus specifically on Kentucky before the Civil War. James C. Klotter examines the outsized impact of Henry Clay's political mind-set on the Bluegrass State. He concludes that Clay's conservative nationalism steered the Kentuckian to accept compromises on the slavery issue to keep the Union together despite his own preference for gradual emancipation. Clay's approach lingered well after his 1852 death, leading many Kentuckians to try "harder than most to find some kind of last- minute compromise" that would stave off civil war (43). Failing to prevent the start of war in 1861, Kentucky nevertheless remained loyal, which doubtlessly influenced the allegiance of the other border states, a critical factor in the eventual success of Federal forces. Luke E. Harlow investigates the religious dimensions of Kentucky's proslavery Unionism and finds that, like Henry Clay, most white residents in the Bluegrass State wished to preserve the Union as it was in 1860. Harlow demonstrates that Kentuckians' religious convictions led them to perceive the slavery controversy as a binary of orthodoxy and heresy. Kentucky evangelicals branded abolitionists as radical heretics whose activism endangered not only the Union, but the entire racial order of America. The bulk of the essays in this collection explore the various effects the actual war had on Kentucky and its people. Aaron Astor stresses how the End Page 395 actions of enslaved persons, which included escaping and enlisting in the Union army, served as the essential catalyst that undermined the conservative Unionist mind-set of most white Kentuckians. With his emphasis on the agency of enslaved persons, Astor challenges the reader to understand the erosion of proslavery Unionism in the Bluegrass State as a reaction to local circumstances. Christopher Phillips labels the efforts of Federal military authorities to prosecute the war in occupied Kentucky as a "dominion system. " The system included administering loyalty oaths, implementing martial law, and seizing the property of disloyal Kentuckians to combat guerrilla activity in the state. Phillips demonstrates how Union military officials applied the hard hand of war early and often in Kentucky. Anne E. Marshall has scrutinized the diaries of several Kentucky young women who endured the hardships of war and finds that, regardless of their allegiance. . .