The Civil War in Appalachia: Collected Essays ed. by Kenneth W. Noe and Shannon H. Wilson (review)

The Brier, gathering the lesson of his grandfather's behavior, learns "to live his life at a tilt,/ alone with a little truth." The final stanza suggests, but does not declare, that "little truth": Either he, or someone else, would eventually pull away the ignorance, the misunderstanding like lifting rotten boards with a crowbar, and let the light ofday in on the truth. Someone would send word. Or, failing that, his coffin would ride level between two stones. This poem about a small injustice becomes a commentary on Truth, the way it always "finds the light ofday." Miller has used here what he uses best: real and complex people, people who are not so much cruel as they are fallible and sometimes ignorant. He uses domestic metaphors: tools, the houses we grew up in, and rotting timber. These are fitting instruments for a poet, and in the best of Miller's poetry he uses them skillfully and unobtrusively. -Mary Jo Thomas The Civil War in Appalachia: Collected Essays. Noe, Kenneth W. and Shannon H. Wilson, eds. Knoxville: University ofTennessee Press, 1997. 284 pages. Illustrations. $40.00. Through the publication ofan increasing number ofquality books on the Civil War era, the University of Tennessee Press has attained an envied position ofleadership among Southern state university presses. This handsome, excellently illustrated, well-edited work adds to that growing prestige. In recent years historians ofthe Civil War, seeking to view the conflict through different lenses, have begun to look beyond battles, generals , and politicians to the effect ofthe conflict on the homefront. Sometimes labeled the "New Social History," these works significantly expand ourhistorical knowledge by analyzing and evaluating the roles ofwomen— black and white—as well as the economic and social impact of war and devastation on families of both races. The Civil War in Appalachia contributes in a significant way to this growing trend. In a heart felt but thought-provoking introduction the editors point out the shortcomings of Civil War historians who speak no more ofWest 68 Virginia after the battles of Rich Mountain and Philippi in 1861 or who find no compelling reason to make an Appalachian connection when discussing the region's four major battles. This work, the editors hope, will not only correct such interpretations by placing Appalachian conflict into the mainstream ofCivil War history but also stimulate additional research which will reach fruition in a comprehensive history ofAppalachia's Civil War. While the eleven original essays in this volume concentrate on the Southern mountains at war, several writers carry their story into the postwar era by discussing the effect ofthe conflict on later generations. Readers of AppalachianHeritagewill be especiallyinterested in co-editorShannon H. Wilson's informative essay, which focuses on the roles ofBerea College and Lincoln Memorial University in post-Civil War Appalachia. Five of the essays cover EastTennessee andWestern North Carolina topics; Northern Alabama, Western Maryland, and Northwestern South Carolina are not represented. Collectively, these eleven essays explode once and for all the myth ofa monolithic mountain Unionism and will, hopefully, drive that idea from textbooks. The essays also reveal that mountaineers, whether opting for the Union or the Confederacy, acted from a multiplicity of complicated motives. Consequently, no consensus emerges as to why Appalachians chose one side or the other. Taken as a whole, however, these studies describe a complex matrix of loyalties remarkably similar to the experiences ofinhabitants ofnon-Appalachian borderstates: family connections, localism, geography, role models such as businessmen and planters, and traditions ofdissent harking back to the American Revolution. The Civil War in Appalachia is a major step toward placing the region in its proper context during a crucial part of American history and required reading for anyone interested in the region. -Marion B. Lucas Appalachian Coal Mining Memories: Life in the Coal Fields of Virginia's New River Valley . Mary B. La Lone. Blacksburg, Virginia: Pocahontas Press, 1997. 391 pages. $25.00. Coal and the lives of those who mine it continues to bring forth varied views. Some commentators stress the dangers ofthe mines and the tyranny ofthe coal camps; others emphasize the rewards ofthe work and the sense ofcommunity in those towns. It is a discussion that will not go...