The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border

Most Americans imagine the Civil War in terms of clear and defined boundaries of freedom and slavery: a straightforward division between the slave states of Kentucky and Missouri and the free states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas. However, many of the border states had much more ambiguous identities - and political loyalties - than most people would assume.

In The Rivers Ran Backward, historian Christopher Phillips sheds light on the tempestuous regional identities of the "Middle Border" states during the Civil War. Far from forming a fixed and static boundary between the North and South, the border states experienced fierce internal conflicts over their political and social loyalties. Debates raged at every level, from the individual to the state, in parlors, churches, schools, and public meeting places, among families, neighbors, and friends. White supremacy and widespread support for the legalization of slavery pervaded the "free" states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, which had much closer economic and cultural ties to the South, while Kentucky and Missouri tended to identify more as western than southern during the first half of the nineteenth century. Ultimately, the Civil War proved to be the strongest determining factor in shaping the states' identities, leaving an indelible imprint on the way in which residents thought both of themselves and other Americans.

The Rivers Ran Backward reveals the complex history of the border states as they struggled with questions of loyalty, neutrality, racial politics, and secession - even as the Civil War threatened to tear the nation apart. In this work, Phillips shows that the Civil War was more than a conflict pitting the north against the south and one that reshaped American regionalism.