Kentucky's magnificent capitol building was constructed in the industrious early 20th century, considered the age of conspicuous consumption. Architect Frank Mills Andrews designed the striking 403-foot-long Beaux Arts edifice, faced with sublime Indiana limestone and Vermont granite and surrounded with 70 monolithic columns. Nearly five years of construction followed the August 14, 1905, ground-breaking, and an estimated 20,000 proud Kentuckians and dignitaries were present for the pomp and circumstance that surrounded the June 2, 1910, dedication of the $1.8-million "New Kentucky Home." Kentucky's landmark capitol building forever changed the landscape of Frankfort, its capital city, while presenting the commonwealth a monument to its progress since statehood in 1792.

As citizens of the capital city of a border state, the people of Frankfort were fated to feel the effects of the Civil War with particular harshness. There were people among the population of Frankfort who held just about every possible opinion on the critical issues of that turbulent time, and people came to the town from all across Kentucky to shape state government's part in the secession crisis and the conduct of the Civil War. Debate about the issues of the day was constant and virulent. Soldiers from both sides marched down Frankfort's streets. Union forces occupied the town, protecting Kentucky state government, during most of the war. But in 1862, Frankfort became the only pro-Union state capital captured by the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Skirmishes were fought on the streets of the town then and again in 1864 when Confederate cavalry raiders made a sudden attack on Frankfort. Rumors of impending assault and outbreaks of home-grown violence kept everyone tense for weeks on end. Young men from Frankfort joined both armies and fought in many of its decisive battles. The war's events profoundly affected Frankfort's African-American community. Everyone in Frankfort tried to get along with their lives, and the war changed the lives of everyone. This book, the product of years of thorough, ground-breaking research by one of Kentucky's most respected archivists, tells the complicated, unique, and fascinating story of Frankfort, Kentucky's small-town capital city, in the Civil War. Even the most experienced Civil War history buffs and scholars will find much here that is new.