Kentucky's motto may be "united we stand, divided we fall," but during the civil war, brother fought brother to the bitter end.
The Civil War sharply split the Bluegrass State. Kentuckians fought Kentuckians in some of the bloodiest battles of America's bloodiest war. The names and faces of the winning and losing generals of those battles are in most history books. But this book is not like most history books; it is about hidden history. Most of the stories are not found in other books. Some are proof that the Civil War was truly "a brother's war" in the home state of Lincoln and Davis. From the Graves County gun grab to pirates in Paducah to dueling gunboats on the Mississippi, this one-of-a-kind collection of little-known tales by Kentucky historian Berry Craig will captivate Civil War enthusiasts and casual readers alike.
Berry Craig serves as professor of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah, where has been on the faculty since 1989. He was a feature writer and columnist for the Paducah Sun-Democrat and Paducah Sun from 1976 to 1989, and also wrote "Kentucky Backroads," a freelance Associated Press feature column. He has written articles for the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Filson Club History Quarterly and Kentucky Humanities. He received the Kentucky Historical Society's 2001 Richard H. Collins Award for the best article published in the Register that year. In addition to his writing, he is an active speaker on the Kentucky historical circuit, generating a following with his oral overview of the Bombast, Bourbon and Burgoo writings.