Kentuckians in Gray: Confederate Generals and Field Officers of the Bluegrass State (review)

Kentuckians in Gray represents a departure from other biographical compilations focused on Civil War generals. This volume effectively describes the experiences of Kentucky natives making a choice to serve the Confederate cause while their home state eventually maintained an official allegiance to the Union. Professional and familial relationships were strained, and often severed, as a result of the decision to serve in the Confederate military. Men such as Joseph Shelby were actively courted by both sides while others, personified by George B. Crittenden, entered the Confederate service only to be confronted by their own flesh and blood serving as Union generals. Allardice and Hewitt selected descriptions demonstrating the virtually singular desire of all Confederate Kentuckian generals to return their home state to its appropriate station as being aligned with the Southern cause. Though the biographical descriptions primarily focus on their individual subjects, the common theme underlying these separate entries is that service in the Confederate army did not equate to disloyalty to Kentucky. Confederate affiliation is portrayed in a complex manner affecting a multitude of personal and professional loyalties.

This work represents a significant addition to the existing literature on Confederate generals. Building on works such as the six volume series The Confederate Generalproduced by William C. Davis, this volume engages in a deeper analysis of the personal and military exploits of Kentucky's Confederate generals. The biographical entries taken as a whole provide a strong sense of how these men worked together to achieve critical Confederate military goals as well as the rivalries that developed regarding specific command assignments. Factors such as an almost universal disdain for Confederate General Braxton Bragg's command decisions and a general desire to maintain a Confederate military presence in Kentucky permeate almost all of the contributions to this volume. Though some of the biographical entries focus on their subject's military successes to the exclusion of poor decisions, the majority of the descriptions provide a balanced assessment of each general's strengths as well as weaknesses. In a departure from works such as Ezra J. Warner's Confederates in Gray, this volume provides a full picture of each subject in terms of both antebellum and postwar life activities. The contributing authors develop a real sense of how many of the men profiled worked towards both constructing Lost Cause ideology and re-establishing antebellum political structure within the South after their military careers with the Confederate nation ended. Beyond generally citing the Official Records, the contributors to this volume generally rely upon secondary source material. This condition does not weaken these biographical descriptions nor detract from the purpose of preserving the contributions made by Kentuckians to the Confederate cause.

The tendency to focus on the Civil War in the eastern theater relegates action in the western theater to a secondary status. Since the majority of Kentuckians serving as Confederate generals plied their trade in the West, their contributions to the cause can be overlooked. Kentuckians in Grayis effective in addressing this issue. This work leaves the reader with a sense of both the personal struggles these men faced in choosing to serve the Confederate cause as well as the hardships associated with military operations in the western theater. Allardice and Hewitt have selected contributions exemplifying the unique nature of Kentuckians engaged in service to the Confederate military. Overall, this volume provides a thorough and thought-provoking examination of men who "often ignored the wishes of family, the influence of friends, and the dictates of economic self-interest" (3) to enlist in the Confederate army.