Stuart Sanders

Kentucky has already made great strides protecting our Civil War battlegrounds. Thanks to not-for-profit organizations, “friends” groups, public-private partnerships, volunteers, grants, donors, the American Battlefield Trust and state and local governments, the past 25 years have been a golden age for Bluegrass state battlefield preservation.

After weeks spent at home avoiding the coronavirus, our resilience is fading. The Greatest Generation offers a lesson.

Trinity Episcopal in Danville experienced cholera epidemics, the aftermath of Kentucky’s largest Civil War battle and the 1918 flu pandemic.

On Jan. 19, 1862, Confederate troops marched northward from the Cumberland River to attack advancing Union troops. Fought west of Somerset in the fog and rain, Mill Springs became a battle marked by confusion.

Among Kentuckians injured by chemical weapons during World War I was Private Addison W. Jones, a soldier from Hopkinsville.

Three years before Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, two Kentuckians fought an affair of honor near Bardstown. In that fight, John Rowan — whose home is now My Old Kentucky Home State Park — killed Dr. John Chambers.

While current disputes about the “fastest two minutes in sports” are ongoing, at least none of the jockeys in this year's Kentucky Derby had a brawl. That’s exactly what happened 86 years ago.