Divided Loyalties in Kentucky

Like many other unpublished Civil War nuts I suspect, I always have book ideas swirling around in my head on neglected subjects that never actually get off the ground. One of my favorites is a history of the first year of the war in Kentucky, roughly from Sumter through Johnston's retreat from Bowling Green. However, knowing that my not doing a project is no loss to Civil War scholarship, I'm always glad to find someone else crossing something off my wish list. While James Finck's Divided Loyalties: Kentucky's Struggle for Armed Neutrality in the Civil War (Savas Beatie, May 2012) covers a slightly different time period (November 1860 - November 1861), there is more than enough overlap to capture my interest.

I do wish authors and publishers would come up with a more original title phrase than "divided loyalties" when describing areas of the South with particularly contested civilian populations. It is almost as overdone as the "thunder" of so many campaign and battle histories.