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.

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.