War History Network members know that war studies have many aspects. They focus on the big story, who won the war or battle, the life of the individual participant and the betwixt and between, the smaller battles, and the roles of the participants. I place “War In The Mountains: The Macbeth Light Artillery at Asheville, NC 1864-65” in the betwixt and between category. It is a well-researched, detailed history of the last two years of the Civil War in western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia. Although its subtitle focuses on a relatively small Confederate artillery unit, the story is much bigger than that. While covered battles were neither major nor well-known, they did determine control of a crucial salt works and were matters of life and death for the warriors involved and the civilians in their way.
Some of the names are familiar to war Between the States buffs: James Longstreet, John Hunt Morgan, former vice-president John C. Breckinridge and future president Andrew Johnson. Country music fans will be reminded of the ballad lyrics 'Till Stoneman's cavalry came, And tore up the tracks again.” Though a war of relatively small units fighting raids, this tome provides insights into the nature of the war to those who fought it. The mountains were a region of divided loyalties, with Confederate and Union supporters trapped by the shifting tides of battle. As former Secretary of Treasury Christopher G. Memminger wrote to President Jefferson Davis “Its loyal population is all in the army. The mountains here afford strongholds to the deserters and outlaws from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.” Desertion was dangerous, both for the deserters and for those hunting them, since conscript evaders and deserters often formed armed gangs hiding in rugged areas of the mountains, fed and supplied by family members. Even surrender was perilous between uncertainty whether further Confederate resistance was still justified and vengeful, conquering Yankees.
Mountain regions may seem devoid of crucial points and peripheral to the war’s aims. Perhaps the most important campaign chronicled in this work is the repeated Union assaults on the salt works in Saltville, Virginia in late 1864. An absolute necessity for the storage of meat, access to the Confederacy’s main salt supply gave war in the mountains ai importance beyond which side controlled a town, a road or a river. Troops, largely from Kentucky, including USCT, were rushed into eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia to contest the issue. Bitter fighting over two months resulted in Union victory and destruction of the salt works, albeit after heavy casualties.
Author J. L. Askew, a great-grandson of a member of the Macbeth Light Artillery has crafted a deeply researched, and engagingly written local history of the War Between the States. The text is supplemented by a roster of the Macbeth, a bibliography, maps and photos that put faces to the names of warriors. It will be of particular interest to War History Network readers with a connection to the southern Appalachia region. For more general devotees, I recommend this for a deeper dive into the history of our great national conflict.
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