Most Americans think of the Civil War as a series of dramatic
clashes between massive armies led by romantic-seeming leaders. But
in the Appalachian communities of North Georgia, things were very
different. Focusing on Fannin and Lumpkin counties in the Blue
Ridge Mountains along Georgia's northern border, A Separate Civil
War: Communities in Conflict in the Mountain South argues for a
more localized, idiosyncratic understanding of this momentous
period in our nation's history. The book reveals that, for many
participants, this war was fought less for abstract ideological
causes than for reasons tied to home, family, friends, and
community.
Making use of a large trove of letters, diaries, interviews,
government documents, and sociological data, Jonathan Dean Sarris
brings to life a previously obscured version of our nation's most
divisive and destructive war. From the outset, the prospect of
secession and war divided Georgia's mountain communities along the
lines of race and religion, and war itself only heightened these
tensions. As the Confederate government began to draft men into the
army and seize supplies from farmers, many mountaineers became more
disaffected still. They banded together in armed squads, fighting
off Confederate soldiers, state militia, and their own
pro-Confederate neighbors. A local civil war ensued, with each side
seeing the other as a threat to law, order, and community itself.
In this very personal conflict, both factions came to dehumanize
their enemies and use methods that shocked even seasoned soldiers
with their savagery. But when the war was over in 1865, each
faction sought to sanitize the past and integrate its stories into
the national myths later popularized about the Civil War. By
arguing that the reason for choosing sides had more to do with
local concerns than with competing ideologies or social or
political visions, Sarris adds a much-needed complication to the
question of why men fought in the Civil War.
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