Wolford’s Cavalry: The Colonel, the War in the West, and the Emancipation Question in Kentucky By Dan Lee

Abstract

As the author of the second biography of Union Colonel Frank Wolford—the state’s leading spokesman against Abraham Lincoln—Dan Lee provides valuable new information, and his insights and interpretations complement Ronald Wolford Blair’s Wild Wolf: The Great Civil War Rivalry, Colonel Frank Wolford, Commander, 1st Kentucky Cavalry (2015). Both books provide new perspective on the great challenge Lincoln faced in keeping Kentucky in the Union in the face of the tremendous opposition of Kentuckians to emancipation and enlistment of black men in the Union Army. Lee’s account of the meeting of the two native Kentuckians in Washington and Lincoln’s attempt to halt Wolford’s speeches is balanced and makes for very interesting reading.