The Isle os are not nearly as well-known as the Cajuns or the Creoles or the French, but they have had an undeniable and lasting impact on this state and the south. Adaptable, resourceful, and undeniably proud, they have shaped their destinies against the odds. As their settlements failed, they rebuilt. As the governments changed from Spanish to French to American, they endured. Many campaigned in the American Revolution; they secured victory in the famous Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812; and as they began to understand the surrounding marshes, they learned to make their livings from trapping and fishing and pass on their wisdom and culture through oral tradition. They shaped the development of the state but are too often ignored, even in local history.

When the air raid alarm sounded around 7:55 a.m. on December 7, 1941, Gunner's Mate Second Class James Allard Vessels of Paducah was preparing to participate in morning colors aboard the USS Arizona. In the scramble for battle stations, Vessels quickly climbed to a machine gun platform high atop the mainmast as others descended below decks to help pass ammunition up to gunners. At 8:06, a bomb exploded and the Arizona sank. Vessels's lofty perch saved his life, but most of his shipmates were not so lucky. In Kentuckians and Pearl Harbor, Berry Craig employs an impressive array of newspapers, unpublished memoirs, oral histories, and official military records to offer a ground-up look at the day that Franklin D. Roosevelt said would "live in infamy," and its aftermath in the Bluegrass State. In a series of vignettes, Craig uncovers the untold, forgotten, or little-known stories of ordinary people - military and civilian - on the most extraordinary day of their lives. Craig concludes by exploring the home front reaction to this pivotal event in American history. Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor swept away any illusions Kentuckians had about being able to stay out of World War II. From Paducah to Pikeville, people sprang to action. Their voices emerge and come back to life in this engaging and timely history.

On January 31, 1865, Congressman Lucian Anderson from slave state Kentucky elevated principle above politics and voted for the 13th Amendment to the constitution, which abolished slavery. He gambled more than his political career; he put his life on the line. He was from Mayfield, one of the most rabidly Rebel towns in the Bluegrass State. In 1863 after Anderson was elected by Unionists - secessionists were disfranchised as traitors - Confederate raiders kidnapped him and held him for ransom. He already had received death threats and was probably the most hated citizen in Mayfield, though his father is credited with founding the western Kentucky town. During the Civil War, Anderson evolved from a conservative pro-slavery Union Democrat to an Unconditional Unionist and to a Republican. He was a Kentucky delegate to the 1864 national convention that re-nominated President Abraham Lincoln. Knowing he could not win another term, Anderson chose not to seek reelection in 1865. Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning book is about eight senators who, according to the author, exemplified Ernest Hemingway's notion of ""grace under pressure."" They endured ""the risks to their careers, the unpopularity of their courses, the defamation of their characters, and sometimes, sadly, but only sometimes, the vindication of their reputations and their principles."" Anderson was such a lawmaker.

Throughout the Civil War, the influence of the popular press and its skillful use of propaganda was extremely significant in Kentucky. Union and Confederate sympathizers were scattered throughout the border slave state, and in 1860, at least twenty-eight of the commonwealth's approximately sixty newspapers were pro-Confederate, making the secessionist cause seem stronger in Kentucky than it was in reality. In addition, the impact of these "rebel presses" reached beyond the region to readers throughout the nation. In this compelling and timely study, Berry Craig analyzes the media's role in both reflecting and shaping public opinion during a critical time in US history. Craig begins by investigating the 1860 secession crisis, which occurred at a time when most Kentuckians considered themselves ardent Unionists in support of the state's political hero, Henry Clay. But as secessionist arguments were amplified throughout the country, so were the voices of pro-Confederate journalists in the state. By January 1861, the Hickman Courier, Columbus Crescent, and Henderson Reporter steadfastly called for Kentucky to secede from the Union. Kentucky's Rebel Press also showcases journalists who supported the Confederate cause, including editor Walter N. Haldeman, who fled the state after Kentucky's most recognized Confederate paper, the Louisville Daily Courier, was shut down by Union forces. Exploring an intriguing and overlooked part of Civil War history, this book reveals the importance of the partisan press to the Southern cause in Kentucky.

When General E. A. Paine assumed command of the military District of Western Kentucky at Paducah in the summer of 1864, he encountered an unwelcoming and defiant populace, a thriving black market and an undisciplined army plagued by low morale. Outside the picket lines, armed guerrillas were pillaging towns, terrorizing citizens and even murdering the vocal few that supported the Union. Paine was assigned the impossible task to cure the district's many ailments and defend a hostile area that covered over 2,300 square miles. In less than two months, he succeeded where past commanders had failed. To the region's secessionist majority, Paine's tenure was a "reign of terror;" to the Unionist minority, it was a "happy and jubilant" time. An abolitionist, Paine supported the Emancipation Proclamation, promoted the enlistment of African American troops and encouraged fair wages to former slaves. These principled views, however, led to his downfall. His critics and enemies wanted him out. Falsified reports led to his removal from command and court martial. Paine was exonerated on all but one minor charge, yet generations of local and state historians perpetuated the Paine-the-monster myth. This book tells the true story of General E. A. Paine.

During the Civil War, the majority of Kentuckians supported the Union under the leadership of Henry Clay, but one part of the state presented a striking exception. The Jackson Purchase -- bounded by the Mississippi River to the west, the Ohio River to the north, and the Tennessee River to the east -- fought hard for separation and secession, and produced eight times more Confederates than Union soldiers. Supporting states' rights and slavery, these eight counties in the westernmost part of the commonwealth were so pro-Confederate that the Purchase was dubbed "the South Carolina of Kentucky."

The first dedicated study of this key region, Kentucky Confederates provides valuable insights into a misunderstood and understudied part of Civil War history. Author Berry Craig begins by exploring the development of the Purchase from 1818, when Andrew Jackson and Isaac Shelby acquired it from the Chickasaw tribe. Geographically isolated from the rest of the Bluegrass State, the area's early settlers came from the South, and rail and river trade linked the region to Memphis and western Tennessee rather than to points north and east.

Craig draws from an impressive array of primary documents, including newspapers, letters, and diaries, to reveal the regional and national impact this unique territory had on the nation's greatest conflict. Offering an important new perspective on this rebellious borderland and its failed bid for secession, Kentucky Confederates will serve as the standard text on the subject for years to come.