Perhaps more than any other citizens of the nation, Kentuckians held conflicted loyalties during the American Civil War. As a border state, Kentucky was largely pro-slavery but had an economy tied as much to the North as to the South. State government officials tried to keep Kentucky neutral, hoping to play a lead role in compromise efforts between the Union and the Confederacy, but that stance failed to satisfy supporters of both sides, all of whom considered the state's backing crucial to victory.
President Abraham Lincoln is reported to have once remarked, "I hope to have God on...
Perhaps more than any other citizens of the nation, Kentuckians held conflicted loyalties during the American Civil War. As a border state, Kentuck...
Charles Frederick Gunther Bruce S. Allardice Wayne L. Wolf
Charles F. Gunther is a Yankee ice peddlar who is trapped in the South at the outbreak of the war. Presented here are two years of diaries of Gunther's experiences working on the steamboat Rose Douglas, ferrying Confederate troops and supplies. After the war, Gunther makes a fortune in the candy business across the street from Marshal Field's in Chicago, becomes a premier collector and preserver of Civil War artifacts and Lincoln memorabilia, endows the Chicago history Museum with its Civil War collection, and goes on to hold political office as an alderman and City Treasurer of Chicago. In...
Charles F. Gunther is a Yankee ice peddlar who is trapped in the South at the outbreak of the war. Presented here are two years of diaries of Gunther'...
