Introduction: the geography embodied: loyal westerners in war and peace
The progeny of Jamestown: racial construction and western identity on the Dixie frontier
The boundary between contending nations: border war and restraints on western unity
The war fattens on the blood of western men: the limits of practical abolitionism on slavery's western border
The great brotherhood of the west: the demise of the antebellum west and the construction of the loyal west
Was it for this you fought?: retreat from Reconstruction, the new white supremacy in the loyal west
Never checked
always victorious: the heyday of the loyal west
Solely to suppress the rebellion: commemorating conservative unionism in the loyal west
Epilogue: no more shall the winding rivers be red: reconciliation and the passing of the loyal west.