Browse

This is a story of greed, adventure and settlement; of causes won and lost. The book’s theme is eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century conflict and settlement in the Ohio River valley, told within the context of the national and international events that led to the American Revolution and guided Kentucky’s postwar future.“Colonel” George Croghan serves as the exemplar of Britain’s trans-Appalachian experience. The Revolution was fought in three theaters; the northern belonged to George Washington, and among his officers was Croghan’s nephew, Major William Croghan. The major joined the southern theater at the moment the Continental Army surrendered to Britain in Charleston. The third theater was the Revolution in the West, and its leader was Virginia colonel, later general, George Rogers Clark, whose vision secured the old Northwest Territory for the new nation. Taken together, the war adventures of Clark and Croghan epitomize the American course of the Revolution. Croghan and Clark arrived at the Falls of the Ohio River after the Revolutionto survey the land that served as payment for Virginia’s soldiers. Clark, however, regularly was called by Virginia and the federal government to secure peace in the Ohio River valley, leading to his financial ruin and emotional decline. Croghan, his partner and brother-in-law, remained at Clark’s side throughout it all, even as he prospered in the new world they had fought to create, while Clark languished.

The conflicts of the Civil War continued long after the conclusion of the war: jockeys and Thoroughbreds took up the fight on the racetrack. A border state with a shifting identity, Kentucky was scorned for its violence and lawlessness and struggled to keep up with competition from horse breeders and businessmen from New York and New Jersey. As part of this struggle, from 1865 to 1910 the social and physical landscape of Kentucky underwent a remarkable metamorphosis, resulting in the gentile, beautiful, and quintessentially southern Bluegrass region of today. This book explores the post-Civil War world of Thoroughbred racing, before the Bluegrass region reigned supreme as the unofficial horse capital of the world. The book uses insider knowledge of horse racing as a foundation for an examination of the efforts to establish a Thoroughbred industry in late-nineteenth-century Kentucky. Key events include a challenge between Asteroid, the best horse in Kentucky, and Kentucky, the best horse in New York; a mysterious and deadly horse disease that threatened to wipe out the foal crops for several years; and the disappearance of African American jockeys such as Isaac Murphy.