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t is sometimes said that Kentucky joined the South after the Civil
War, and many books have been devoted to studying the influence of
the war and its aftermath on the Commonwealth. But less is known
about the decades before the Civil War. In Generations of Hope:
Kentucky, 1800-1865, James Ramage and Andrea Watkins explore this
crucial but often overlooked period, finding that that the early
years of statehood comprised an era of great hope and progress.
Ramage and Watkins demonstrate how Kentuckians looked outward,
strongly supporting their country in the War of 1812 because they
viewed the United States in a global context and wanted it to
succeed on the world stage. Kentucky was perceived by the rest of
the nation to be a leader among the states. Henry Clay, of course,
was one of the great political figures of the era, but several
other Kentuckians were candidates at the national level. Kentucky
was a state of immigrants who brought their culture and world
outlook with them, along with an optimism based on the idea that
their region would participate fully in the advances of the day in
science, culture, politics, education, and economics. Progress also
included military advances, and the authors investigate the
development of ideas about service and patriotism in a military
context. The authors devote much attention to Kentuckians' complex
views on slavery and its impact on the state. Indeed, the analysis
of the Civil War is enhanced by understanding the context of the
previous sixty years. Drawing upon a wealth of primary and
secondary sources, Generations of Hope promises to be a fresh and
definitive account of Kentucky's early years. This project is a
co-publication with the Kentucky Historical Society.
When John Wesley Hunt came to Kentucky in 1794, his plan was to
open a general store in Lexington. A canny judge of business
opportunity, he soon expanded his activities and became one of the
responsible figures of Kentucky banking and finance. In another
kind of venture, he imported fine stallions from the East,
significantly improving the bloodlines of thoroughbreds and
trotters in the Bluegrass. John Wesley Hunt tells the story of
Hunt's business exploits against the background of life in frontier
Lexington. James A. Ramage reveals how his innovative solutions to
the financial problems of the frontier gave rise to the prosperity
and culture of Lexington in the nineteenth century
"The first full biography of the famous Confederate cavalry
leader from Kentucky. It provides fresh, unpublished information on
all aspects of Morgan's life and furnishes a new perspective on the
Civil War. In a highly original interpretation, Ramage portrays
Morgan as a revolutionary guerrilla chief. Using the tactics of
guerrilla war and making his own rules, Morgan terrorized federal
provost marshals in an independent campaign to protect Confederate
sympathizers in Kentucky. He killed pickets and used the enemy
uniform as a disguise, frequently masquerading as a Union officer.
Employing civilians in the fighting, he set off a cycle of
escalating violence which culminated in an unauthorized policy of
retaliation by his command on the property of Union civilians. To
many southerners, Morgan became the prime model of a popular
movement for guerrilla warfare that led to the Partisan Ranger Act.
For Confederates he was the ideal romantic cavalier, the "Francis
Marion of the War," and they make him a folk hero who was
especially adored by women. Discerning fact from folklore, Ramage
describes Morgan's strengths and weaknesses and suggests that
excessive dependence on his war bride contributed to his declining
success. The author throws new light on the Indiana-Ohio Raid and
the suspenseful escape from the Ohio Penitentiary and unravels the
mysteries around Morgan's death in Greeneville, Tennessee. Rebel
Raider also shows how in the popular mind John Hunt Morgan was
deified as a symbol of the Lost Cause.
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