Customer Reviews

Mountain Rebels: East Tennessee Confederates 1860-1870

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The former Executive Director of the East Tennessee Historical Society, present Executive Director of the Georgia Historical Society, has provided an excellent study on the East Tennessee Confederates. In this scholarly, balanced work, Todd Groce details why so many Knoxville and other East Tennessee business men who sided with the South wound up as post-war business leaders in Atlanta, Savannah and other Georgia cities. The area suffered because of this "brain drain" until the South's Marshall Plan (the TVA) arrived in the 1940s. It is interesting that the ET farmers largely sided with the North, while the more "cosmopolitan" businessmen, who had traveled to Baltimore and Philadelphia to buy goods, became Confederates. The complexity of the issue demanded this study. Perhaps no other part of the nation was so delayed in the "healing process" Lincoln had planned as was East Tennessee. Historian Groce's ten years of research bears fruit. Recommended!

I grew up hearing about the exploits of my family during the civil war and have gone to battlefields and stood in the very spots where my ancestors fought. Because of that it has always just burned me up when I hear someone say that East Tennessee's population all supported the Union during the war. Unfortunately, history is often over simplified that way and is often taught that way in our schools. Fortunately, there are people like Todd Groce to debunk these silly myths.

In this fine book, Groce points out that there were numerous Confederates in East Tennessee and that they suffered more for their cause than did most other southerners. From the first rumblings of secession to the redemption of Tennessee in 1870, Groce introduces his readers to numerous men and women from this region who gave their all for southern independence. Numerous maps, pictures, and tables help to drive the author's points home in a very clear manner. He takes particular care to clarify his theory that merchants and professional people were the leading Confederates in the region and carefully explains why he thinks this class had such strong southern sympathy. He also points out that slave owners were almost equally divided in their sympathy proving that at least in East Tennessee slavery played little part in the choice of sides. Also in this book you will find out about the unfair treatment of East Tennessee Confederates by Jefferson Davis and his government and that among the last to remain with President Davis on his flight into Georgia were General Vaughn's East Tennessee troops. Groce also goes too great lengths to expose the vile treatment of the regions defeated Confederates after the war.

The only element lacking from this book was any mention of Longstreet's winter in East Tennessee. The reaction of the citizenry when Burnside occupied Knoxville is well covered and is telling. However, the same might be said for the local reaction to Longstreet if it were covered.

Still, this is an excellent volume and helps plug a gapping hole that has long existed in Civil War scholarship. A strong work about an interesting subject.