Divided loyalties in the border state of Kentucky manifested in personal combat as much as in formal recruitment by rival armies. In this rich exploration of a duel between a pro-Confederate citizen and a Union colonel, Stuart Sanders reminds us that Kentucky's culture of honor, masculinity, and personal reputation shaped expectations of public behavior well into the Civil War.
~Aaron Astor, author of Rebels on the Border: Civil War, Emancipation, and the Reconstruction of Kentucky and Missouri
Full of big personalities confronting allegiance, honor, vengeance, and justice during the Civil War, Anatomy of a Duel prompts us to reconsider Kentucky and its place in the politics and culture of the nineteenth century. Stuart Sanders's books draw readers into illuminating moments in Kentucky history with engaging characters and new insight into complex social and political worlds through a tightly focused lens. He delivers yet again.
~Patrick A. Lewis, author of For Slavery and Union: Benjamin Buckner and Kentucky Loyalties in the Civil War
In this excellent work, Stuart Sanders offers a compelling account of the tragic consequences of the code duello against the backdrop of Kentucky's Civil War. Given the current epidemic of violence in the land, Anatomy of a Duel also makes an important contribution to the sociology of violence in America.
~James M. Prichard, author of Embattled Capital: Frankfort, Kentucky in the Civil War
With Anatomy of a Duel, Stuart Sanders makes a much needed contribution to the growing body of scholarship on Southern honor and the significant role it played in that society throughout the Civil War. By providing this excellent microhistory, Sanders gives us not only a fascinating forensic look into this particular event, but also a more complete picture of the complexity of Civil War Kentucky.
~Timothy R. Talbott, Civil War scholar and battlefield preservationist
Sanders's work is a captivating and thorough examination of the intersection of politics, violence, and issues of honor in Kentucky's Civil War era. Viewed through the people and events of one of the state's last formal duels, this study reveals not only the complex issues of Kentuckians' loyalties during the Civil War, but also the changing nature of violence in relation to men's sense of personal honor. As an exploration of the ideological issues of the war and the far-reaching effects of such acts of violence on the Bluegrass State, Sanders shows that the Metcalfe-Casto duel cast a long shadow on Kentucky's history.
~Andrea S. Watkins-Sutherland, coauthor of Kentucky Rising: Democracy, Slavery, and Culture from the Early Republic to the Civil War
Captivatingly written, author Stuart W. Sanders, explores the many political, cultural, and social landscapes of Kentucky in his book Anatomy of a Duel: Secession, Civil War, and the Evolution of Kentucky Violence.... Anatomy of a Duel provides not only an interesting historical narrative, but also contributes to a sociological history of violence in America. Looking at the role of honor and masculinity in southern culture, Sanders takes the opportunity to delve deep into the topic and its overall impact on political events and the social structure of the 19th Century.... Sanders does an excellent job of providing a well-reasoned, inclusive, and thorough interpretation of the events for the readers. With an excellent use of available primary and secondary source material, the research is both comprehensive and well documented.
~Emerging Civil War
The author reveals an enduring and devastating aspect of the Civil War that is not addressed in familiar narratives.... This duel is the hinge between the antebellum culture of honor and the surge of violence that took hold in the aftermath of the war.
~NYMAS Review
In this deeply researched book, involving many sources, Sanders uses his experience and writing ability to craft a fascinating story about how the confrontation between William Casto and Union Colonel Leonidas Metcalf illustrates the importance of the code duello in Kentucky life. This truly is a good perspective not only on dueling or violence, but on the state of Kentucky in the mid-nineteenth century, including how the population was split in supporting the Union or Confederate side (even in the same towns and counties) and how that division sometimes led to violence like in the Casto-Metcalfe duel. It is a much bigger story than just that of one of one fight or of that style of combat.
~My Civil War Obsession
Like an accomplished oil painter, Sanders layers the details of the combatants and their communities, political parties, sectional loyalties, and cultural values in successive chapters that collectively exhibit the landscape of honor, violence, sectionalism, and nationalism—in history and memory—during the late antebellum, wartime, and postwar periods in Kentucky. In so doing, Sanders accomplishes his stated purpose to use the duel to show "that Civil War violence went beyond the battlefield.... [It] had its roots in the secession crisis and explains how political and military policies could lead to bloodshed," and "that despite the carnage of the Civil War, Southern honor culture thrived in the Bluegrass State."... His book is a significant and compelling contribution to this burgeoning body of scholarship on these contested border regions during the Civil War era while also appealing to a more general audience interested in the hyperindividual and personal dimensions of the complexities that abounded in these spaces as that era unfolded.
~The Journal of the Civil War Era
In 2023, a year when senators challenged teamster bosses, congressmen shouted insults in committee hearings, and former Speakers of the House allegedly physically assaulted colleagues, Stuart W. Sanders's Anatomy of a Duel: Secession, Civil War, and the Evolution of Kentucky Violence proved timely in its exploration of the intersection of politics and violence over 150 years earlier.... Sanders uses a wide variety of primary sources that not only detail a Kentuckian perspective of the Civil War but also convey the feelings of honor and shame connected to the arrests and imprisonments that Unionists deemed necessary to protect the state from rebel subterfuge. These sources provide an excellent source base for understanding Kentucky's place in the Civil War. By adding conversations with scholarship on honor culture... Sanders demonstrates the long-term ramifications of the Civil War in Kentucky.
~Journal of Southern History
