Lincoln of Kentucky, by Lowell H. Harrison

Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 2009. Pp. xi, 305. Illus., notes, biblio., index. $19.95 paper. ISBN: 9780813192437.

Originally published in 2000, Lincoln of Kentucky by Lowell H. Harrison , author of The Civil War in Kentucky(2009), George Rogers Clark and the War in the West (2001), and many other works, takes a novel look the 16^th president, focusing on the relationship between the "Blue Grass State" and her greatest son. 

Although Lincoln left Kentucky when he was only eight, he maintained strong ties to the state.  Most of his relatives were Kentuckians, as was his wife and her family, many of his neighbors in Illinois had migrated from south of the Ohio River, and, of course, particularly during the early part of the Civil War, Kentucky required his attention on a continuing basis, a challenge that he met with extraordinary skill.  Roughly half the volume is devoted to events prior to the outbreak of the Civil War in April of 1861, which not only gives the reader a look at Lincoln's early life and Kentucky's part in it, but also throws light on the settlement and the economic, cultural, and political development of the Ohio Valley states.  Much of the balance of the volume is taken up with the critical events of the "Secession Winter" and  the first year of the Civil War, during which Kentucky's governor tried to keep the state "neutral", a status Lincoln found useful, until the intervention of Confederate forces tipped the scales in the Union's favor

A good book for those interested in Lincoln, the Secession Crisis, the first year of the war, and domestic politics during the conflict, as well as for the general student of the Civil War.

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