Paducah, Kentucky in the context of "Nashville, Tennessee"

The Tennessee River is a 652 mi (1,049 km) long river located in the southeastern United States . Flowing through the Tennessee Valley in the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of French Broad and Holston rivers at Knoxville, and drains into the Ohio River near Paducah, Kentucky. It is the largest tributary of the Ohio, and drains a basin of 40,876 sq mi (105,870 km).

Its tributary, the Little Tennessee River, flows into it from Western North Carolina and northeastern Georgia.

The Cumberland River is a major waterway of the Southern United States. The 688-mile-long (1,107 km) river drains almost 18,000 square miles (47,000 km) of southern Kentucky and north-central Tennessee. The river flows generally west from a source in the Appalachian Mountains to its confluence with the Ohio River near Paducah, Kentucky, and the mouth of the Tennessee River. Major tributaries include the Obey, Caney Fork, Stones, and Red Rivers.

Although the Cumberland River basin is predominantly rural, there are also some large cities on the river, including Nashville and Clarksville, both in Tennessee.

Kentucky was a southern border state of key importance in the American Civil War. It officially declared its neutrality at the beginning of the war, but after a failed attempt by Confederate General Leonidas Polk to take the state of Kentucky for the Confederacy, the legislature petitioned the Union Army for assistance. Though the Confederacy controlled more than half of Kentucky early in the war, after early 1862 Kentucky came largely under U.S. control. In the historiography of the Civil War, Kentucky is treated primarily as a southern border state, with special attention to the social divisions during the secession crisis, invasions and raids, internal violence, sporadic guerrilla warfare, federal-state relations, the ending of slavery, and the return of Confederate veterans.

Kentucky was the site of several fierce battles, including Mill Springs and Perryville. It was the arena to such military leaders as Ulysses S. Grant on the Union side, who first encountered serious Confederate gunfire coming from Columbus, Kentucky, and Confederate cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest proved to be a scourge to the Union Army in western Kentucky, even making an attack on Paducah. Kentuckian John Hunt Morgan further challenged Union control, as he conducted numerous cavalry raids through the state.

Southern Illinois is a region of the U.S. state of Illinois comprising the southern third of the state, principally south of Interstate 70. Part of downstate Illinois, it is bordered by the two most voluminous rivers in the United States: the Mississippi below its connection with the Missouri River to the west and the Ohio River to the east and south, with the tributary Wabash River, extending the southeastern border. Some areas of Southern Illinois are known historically as Little Egypt. Although part of the Midwest, certain areas of Southern Illinois more closely align culturally with neighboring parts of the Upland South (i.e. Kentucky, Tennessee, Southern Indiana, and Missouri).

Southern Illinois' most populated city is Belleville at 44,478. Other principal cities include Alton, Centralia, Collinsville, Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Godfrey, Granite City, O'Fallon, Harrisburg, Herrin, West Frankfort, Mt. Vernon, Marion, and Carbondale, where the main campus of Southern Illinois University is located. Residents may also commute to St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Evansville, Indiana; and Paducah, Kentucky. The region is home to Scott Air Force Base, a major military installation.