Kentucky Fighting Men, 1861-1945

Kentuckians by the thousands have fought in all of the American wars of the industrial age. Fathers, sons, and brothers from the Bluegrass State spilled each other's blood in countless Civil War battles and skirmishes. Over the next century their descendents bore arms on the seven seas, the Far Western frontier, in the Caribbean and Philippine islands, and in China. In every imaginable military capacity Kentuckians took part in both world wars of the twentieth century, serving not only as soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, but also as OSS irregular-warfare specialists, medical doctors, and military governors of conquered enemy territory.

Highlighted in this absorbing book are representative individual Kentuckians, who are featured within the overall context of the American military experience from the Civil War through World War II. Human vignettes and illuminating anecdotes are woven into the fastpaced narrative, a colorful account that points up the heroism, ennui, tragedy, ghastly horror, absurdity, and infinite variety of warfare and military life. In these pages are first-hand accounts of Civil War fighting at Perryville and chickamauga, navy life on the China Station in 1900, aerial duels over the Western Front in 1918, the Fall of Bataan and the Death March, submarine warfare and amphibious assaults in the Pacific, tank battles during Bulge, and infantry combat with Kentucky's national guard soldiers in the liberation of the Philippines. One Kentuckian even witnessed the devastation of Nagasaki by an atomic bomb! Profiled here are such Kentucky heroes as Willie and Sandlin and Samuel Woodfill, and there are perceptive appraisals of certain prominent Kentucky-born leaders ranging from Albert Sidney Johnston and John Bell Hood in the Civil War to Willis A. Lee, Jr., and Simon B. Buckner, Jr., in the Second World War.

Richard G. Stone, Jr., professor of history at Western Kentucky University, is also the author of A Brittle Sword: The Kentucky Militia, 1776-1912.