Stuart W. Sanders is the author of five books, including Perryville Under Fire: The Aftermath of Kentucky’s Largest Civil War Battle, The Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky, Maney’s Confederate Brigade at the Battle of Perryville, Murder on the Ohio Belle, and Anatomy of a Duel: Secession, Civil War, and the Evolution of Kentucky Violence. Sanders has written for a wide range of magazines, journals, and anthologies and his guest columns about Kentucky history have appeared in more than fifty newspapers across the region. He is the former executive director of the Perryville Battlefield Preservation Association and now serves as the Director of Research and Publications for the Kentucky Historical Society.
Anatomy of a Duel: Secession, Civil War, and the Evolution of Kentucky Violence
During the Civil War, when thousands of soldiers were slaughtering one another on battlefields across the nation, Union Colonel Leonidas Metcalfe fought a formal duel with William T. Casto, a pro-Confederate civilian. The two duelists used rifles at sixty yards, and only one of them walked away. Anatomy of a Duel: Secession, Civil War, and the Evolution of Kentucky Violence, explores why Metcalfe and Casto engaged in this affair of honor, how the duel is tied to the secession crisis, and how this fight represents a compelling turning point in Kentucky history.