Kentucky, the Bluegrass State

An 1861 cartoon criticizing Kentucky Gov. Beriah Magoffin’s policy of neutrality between North and South
(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/05/06/opinion/disunion_kentucky_cartoon/disunion_kentucky_cartoon-jumbo.jpg)

For a today's presidential candidate the key is Ohio. It hasn't been always like that. For President Lincoln, the key was the Bluegrass State, the Commonwealth of Kentucky: the most Southerner of the Union states, up to the point to consider that there were three actors in the Civil War: the Unionists, the Confederates, and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. No wonder Lincoln famously said in 1861, I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky.

Well, the key wasn't only Kentucky, of course. It was also Maryland, as it was also Virginia. Each one chose its side. For each one it was not an easy choice.

Aaron Astor is is the author of the forthcoming book Rebels on the Border: Civil War, Emancipation and the Reconstruction of Kentucky and Missouri. He is teaching history at Maryville College in Tennessee, and besides that he knows Scottish accents, southern slang, hillbilly, South Side of Chicagoan. If you'd like to understand a bit more the complex situation that was in the months before the Civil Wat started and in the first months of the war, the delicate balance between North and South, you should read Aaron Astor's op-ed on today's NY Times

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/bluegrass-blues-and-grays/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=thab1

(A Life in Books)