From 1861 to 1865, the border separating eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia was more than just a geographic marker -- it represented a major ideological split, serving as an "international" boundary between the United States and the Confederacy. The loyalties of those who lived in this mountainous region could not be so easily divided, and large segments of the population remained neutral or vacillated in their support. Location and a wealth of resources made the region strategically important to both sides in the conflict, and both armies fought for control. In Contested Borderland, Brian D. McKnight shows how military invasion of this region led to increasing guerrilla warfare and how regular armies and state militias ripped communities along partisan lines, leaving wounds long after the official end of the Civil War.
Brian D. McKnight is a teaching fellow of history at the University of Virginia's College at Wise. His work has appeared in numerous books and journals, including the Historian, the Smithfield Review, and Ohio Valley History.
A revealing and richly diverse account of the war in this too-neglected pocket of the South. - Daniel E. Sutherland, editor of Guerrillas, Unionists, and Violence on the Confederate Home Front
