Kentucky Confederates: Secession, Civil War and the Jackson Purchase by Berry Craig (review)

Kentucky Confederates studies the Civil War in an overlooked western part of the commonwealth called the Jackson Purchase. Named for the seventh president who acquired the area from the Choctaw in 1818, the fourteen counties huddling around Paducah thrived in the antebellum period because of the town’s ties to western Tennessee and along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Berry Craig, emeritus professor at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, has written numerous books on the region’s history. In this tome, he argues that the Purchase strongly supported secession while the rest of the state resisted it. Indeed, it was called “Kentucky’s South Carolina.” As such, this portends to be an important study of a unique part of the Civil War.

In some ways, it is. Craig covers the area’s experiences from the late 1850s until 1865 in thirteen chapters. He starts with the late antebellum period, in which he claims the Purchase actually increased its connections to slavery while the practice was waning in the rest of Kentucky. He deftly identifies the region’s political figures and factions. Dominated by proslavery Democrats, the Purchase inevitably backed secession when the war began. The next five chapters deal with the neutrality period of mid-1861. Its populace, he believes, chafed under the state’s refusal to take sides. Many of its leading figures went so far as to meet in Mayfield in late May to discuss separating the region from Kentucky. His thorough discussion of this unique affair is one of the book’s highlights and deserves merit. Craig then covers the tense period when neutrality slowly eroded. Isolated from the Confederacy but menaced by Union troops led by Ulysses S. Grant, the Purchase’s secessionists fought a losing battle for control of the area. The last chapters deal with the federal occupation. Craig demonstrates the area’s commitment to the rebel cause. He points to the hardline conservatism of the few Unionists, while the majority continued to fight. Plagued by guerrillas and traitors, federal commander Eleazer A. Paine imposed policies so harsh that he was later court-martialed for them. The author amply sustains his thesis that the Purchase was contested territory throughout the war.

Yet, the book disappoints in many ways. The primary research is fine, including many public and private sources. Craig’s use of newspapers is particularly noteworthy, but he could have used some charts when discussing election returns and population figures. Also, the whole book contains turgid writing. Craig quotes long passages from his sources in almost every paragraph. His sentences run-on constantly, repeat words, and some even lack a clear introduction and conclusion. Moreover, there is not a single map anywhere in the book. The whole work could have used a thorough polishing.

The more serious flaw is the lack of engagement with the secondary literature. Craig merely cites some of the new works that have emerged on the Border States and on Kentucky in particular in recent years. He uses Aaron Astor’s Rebels on the Border frequently but mostly as evidence to support his argument. Anne Marshall’s Creating a Confederate Kentucky likewise appears at the end to perform the same function. This shortcoming reduces the usefulness of the work considerably. The reviewers’ quotations on its back cover indicate that this will be the standard work on the Civil War in the Jackson Purchase. This may be so, but the book could have shed more light on the contested allegiances in heavily divided Kentucky. As such, it amounts to little more than local history.