Booknotes: Unconditional Unionist

New Arrival:
• Unconditional Unionist: The Hazardous Life of Lucian Anderson, Kentucky Congressmanby Berry Craig and Dieter C. Ullrich (McFarland, 2016).

At least as I recall, Berry Craig's Kentucky Confederates: Secession, Civil War, and the Jackson Purchase (2014) discussed western Kentucky politics and politicians from both sides and at great length. One of the men who struggled against the political current in the Purchase was Lucian Anderson. During the secession crisis and the war, he openly supported the Union cause at great personal risk to himself. According to the description of Craig's biography Unconditional Unionist, newly elected Congressman Anderson (in 1863) "soon received death threats and was kidnapped by Confederate raiders who held him for ransom (while he tried to convert them to the Union cause)" and voted for the 13th Amendment in 1865. "Based on newspaper articles, letters and other contemporary sources, this book provides a detailed portrait of an overlooked but significant figure of the Civil War and Kentucky history."