Book cover of Creating a Confederate Kentucky: The Lost Cause and Civil War Memory in a Border State

Book description

Historian E. Merton Coulter famously said that Kentucky ""waited until after the war was over to secede from the Union."" In this fresh study, Anne E. Marshall traces the development of a Confederate identity in Kentucky between 1865 and 1925 that belied the fact that Kentucky never left the Union…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Creating a Confederate Kentucky as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

When I moved to Kentucky many years ago, the large Confederate memorial on a downtown street was a puzzle to me because I knew that Kentucky had been a Union state. As one historian said many years ago, “Kentucky seceded after the war was over.” Marshall’s book walks us through that process. She covers everything from politics to postwar violence to children’s literature to the resistance efforts of Kentucky’s African Americans as she explains why those Confederate memorials and monuments went up all around the state. 

If you love Creating a Confederate Kentucky...

Book cover of The Rosewood Penny

The Rosewood Penny by J.S. Fields,

2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!

The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.

On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…

Want books like Creating a Confederate Kentucky?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 99 books like Creating a Confederate Kentucky.

Browse books like Creating a Confederate Kentucky

Book cover of The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border
Book cover of Rebels on the Border: Civil War, Emancipation, and the Reconstruction of Kentucky and Missouri
Book cover of Contested Borderland: The Civil War in Appalachian Kentucky and Virginia

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,343

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like Creating a Confederate Kentucky, you might also like...

Book cover of Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman

Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman by Alexis Krasilovsky,

Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.

A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…

Book cover of Malcolm Before X

Malcolm Before X by Patrick Parr,

Malcolm Before X is about finding a way to continue moving forward after everything has been taken from you. While in prison, Malcolm Little discovered the power of reading and found a way to transform his character and become a better man. This half-biography focuses on that transformation, especially his…

5 book lists we think you will like!