Prize-winning author Noel Fisher eloquently describes the violence and derpredations of the Civil War on the people who lived in and near the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee and western North Carolina. The book describes hard fought battles, the actions of bushwackers, guerrillas, deserters, and home guards, and the devastating impacts on mountain families. Includes extensive index and notes.
Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau played host to some of the most dramatic military maneuvering of the Civil War. As Federal forces sought to capitalize on the capture of Nashville, they moved into a region split by the most vicious guerrilla warfare outside Missouri. The bitter conflict affected thousands of ordinary men and women struggling to survive in the face of a remorseless war of attrition, and its legacy continues to be felt today.
Rebels on the Border offers a remarkably compelling and significant study of the Civil War South's highly contested and bloodiest border states: Kentucky and Missouri. By far the most complex examination to date, the book sharply focuses on the "borderland" between the free North and the Confederate South. As a result, Rebels on the Border deepens and enhances understanding of the sectional conflict, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. After slaves in central Kentucky and Missouri gained their emancipation, author Aaron Astor contends, they transformed informal kin and social networks of resistance against slavery into more formalized processes of electoral participation and institution building. At the same time, white politics in Kentucky's Bluegrass and Missouri's Little Dixie underwent an electoral realignment in response to the racial and social revolution caused by the war and its aftermath. Black citizenship and voting rights provoked a violent white reaction and a cultural reinterpretation of white regional identity. After the war, the majority of wartime Unionists in the Bluegrass and Little Dixie joined former Confederate guerrillas in the Democratic Party in an effort to stifle the political ambitions of former slaves. Rebels on the Border is not simply a story of bitter political struggles, partisan guerrilla warfare, and racial violence. Like no other scholarly account of Kentucky and Missouri during the Civil War, it places these two crucial heartland states within the broad context of local, southern, and national politics.
This special expanded third edition of Horace Kephart's classic work on the people of Southern Appalachia has been completely re-typeset and includes a new introduction by writer George Ellison. This edition also includes eight articles written by Horace Kephart and published after the previous edition on such topics as moonshiners, rifle-making, mountain culture, and the proposed Great Smoky Mountains National Park. All told, readers will find over 100 pages of new material not included in any of the book's previous editions.
Often considered merely a repository of archaic or even Elizabethan English, the language of southern Appalachia represents a distinctive American dialect that is both conservative and innovative. This dictionary marks the first comprehensive, historical record of the traditional speech of this region. Focusing on the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee and western North Carolina, it features more than six thousand names, usages, meanings, and folk expressions that are found in the region, exemplified by more than fifteen thousand documented quotations.
These beautiful mist-shrouded mountains can, and often do, turn deadly... Volume I of Into the Mist depicts men and women in extreme situations, struggling to survive against brutal and often deadly adversity. Through the book's 13 chapters, Into the Mist readers will: -Piece together the events leading to a tragic encounter between an elementary school teacher and two black bears in the park's backcountry. -Share in the heroic response of the park's rangers in the face of brutal weather events, including the March 1993 "Storm of the Century," and their successful efforts to rescue hundreds of stranded visitors and ultimately prevent loss of life and limb. -Experience a lone hiker's final moments as he succumbs to bitter cold without benefit of a shelter as wind-driven snow piles ever higher on the trail. -Learn how the body of a murdered Jane Doe discovered in a park stream leads to a cross-country hunt for her killer. -A bonus appendix lists the park's leading causes of death and most dangerous places.
About 50 aircraft have crashed in the Great Smoky Mountains. This book details all known incidents and rescue efforts from 1920 to 2000, including those that occurred within the area before the establishment of the park in 1934. Stories are based on official documents, newspaper archives, and interviews with survivors, family members, and eyewitnesses. B & w photos are included. Wadley is a lieutenant colonel in the Tennessee Civil Air Patrol who serves as a mission coordinator and trainer in the Smoky Mountains. McCarter served as a backcountry ranger in Great Smoky National Park for 20 years. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR.
It's no surprise that fatalities occur every year in Great Smoky Mountains National Park due to the sheer number of visitors--more than ten million annually! In these cautionary tales, Bradley recounts deaths and other unfortunate incidents that have resulted from accidents and human folly, including bear attacks, swift water disasters, and mysterious disappearances. Armchair travelers and park visitors alike will be fascinated by the dangers lurking in America's most visited national park and will be better informed about what to do and what not to do the next time they enter its gates.
