Book Review

Mountain Rebels, a finely crafted account of the unhappy experiences of east Tennessee's secessionists, skillfully delineates the complexities of sectional loyalties in the Appalachian South and the failure of the Confederate government to fuse all its citizens into a new nation. Firmly rooted in archival research and a wide range of works on southern Appalachia, W. Todd Groce's study portrays a region embroiled in conflicts over economic development, political power, and regional identity.

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Groce's explanation of the division of loyalties in east Tennessee is superior to any previously published. He asserts that the completion of the rail line linking east Tennessee with Virginia and Georgia in the 1850s revolutionized the region's economy and politics. Farmers near the railroad shifted more land to the production of wheat, a profitable cash crop, and new merchant firms sprang up to market the region's commodities. Enjoying increased revenues, east Tennesseans expanded their cultivated acres, purchased more slaves, and increased spending on manufactured goods. Groce argues that, when the nation divided, those east Tennesseans who had benefited from the railroad and those who had expanded their business and family ties throughout the South took the side of the Confederacy. Unionists tended to reside in rural areas where the economy remained stagnant, to be older, and to vote Whig; secessionist leaders tended to reside in towns along the railroad or in rural areas enjoying an economic resurgence, to be younger, and to vote Democratic.

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