Splitting the Appalachians in the Civil War

When Luke, my main character in Uprooted by War, realizes he's not going to be able to stay out of the Civil War, he chooses to travel into Eastern Tennessee to join the Union army. Many men from Western North Carolina did this - about 5,000 of them before the fighting was over. Many more were quietly Union sympathizers. Historians who study the era often cite the low rate of slavery there as the main reason for this. However, the independent attitude of the mountain people and the fact that they valued liberty, freedom, and rights likely figured in as well.

 At the same time, about 20,000 men from the region would end up fighting for the Confederacy, but the huge majority of these would be conscripted. Only about 8,000 would volunteer for the Confederate army, and most of these came around the beginning of the war. The total population of Western North Carolina was about 68,000 at the time. An example of the lackluster support for the Confederacy can be seen in Wilkes County, who had the largest white population of any county in Western North Carolina but had the lowest enlistment rate at 2.7%.

General Samuel P. Carter was sent to Tennessee on special duty from the War Department by request of then Senator Andrew Johnson (who would become the Vice President in Lincoln's second term) to organize and train Union troops. He was a native son who had been born in Elizabethton, Tennessee.  Luke became part of his brigade for training after he'd gone to Tennessee to enlist. What would follow was a long, hard war that left very few feeling truly victorious.

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