The Loyal WestA free region deeply influenced by southern mores, the Lower Middle West represented a true cultural and political median in Civil Warera America. Here grew a Unionism steeped in the mythology of the Loyal West a myth rooted in regional and racial animosities and the belief that westerners had won the war. Matthew E. Stanley's intimate study explores the Civil War, Reconstruction, and sectional reunion in this bellwether region. Using the lives of