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Kentucky Confederates: Secession, Civil War, and the Jackson Purchase

Online ISBN:
9780813151441
Print ISBN:
9780813146928
Publisher:
University Press of Kentucky
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Kentucky Confederates: Secession, Civil War, and the Jackson Purchase

Berry Craig
Berry Craig
Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky
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Published online:
21 May 2015
Published in print:
15 September 2014
Online ISBN:
9780813151441
Print ISBN:
9780813146928
Publisher:
University Press of Kentucky

Abstract

Dubbed “the South Carolina of Kentucky,” the Jackson Purchase was Kentucky's only pro-Confederate region during the Civil War. Secession sentiment was so strong that in 1861, while Kentucky was officially neutral, leading politicians and influential citizens met in Mayfield and considered a regional military alliance with Tennessee or secession from Kentucky to form a Confederate state with West Tennessee. In addition, the Purchase was Kentucky's only region that furnished more soldiers to the Confederacy army than to the Union forces. Between 1861 and 1865, nearly 5,000 Purchase men donned Rebel gray while approximately 850—white and African American—opted for Yankee blue. Statewide, between 90,000 and 100,000 Kentuckians—white and African American—fought for the Union, and between 25,000 and 40,000 took up arms for the Confederacy.

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