The Heart of Confederate Appalachia

The trauma of war in a divided region of the Confederacy. In the mountains of western North Carolina, the Civil War was fought on different terms than those found throughout most of the South. Incursions by both Confederate and Union troops disrupted life and threatened the social stability of many communities, while internal divisions among western Carolinians themselves sparked clashes that proved as traumatic as anything imposed by outside armies. Men and women, masters and slaves, planters and yeomen, soldiers and civilians, Confederates and Unionists, bushwhackers and home guardsmen, Democrats and Whigs--all their stories are told here.