Ashe County's Civil War by Martin Crawford

Reviews Author Related Links To Order		Ashe County's Civil War: Community and Society in the Appalachian South
		by Martin Crawford
		264 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
		Cloth ISBN 0-8139-2033-7 • $59.50
		Paper ISBN 0-8139-2034-5 • $22.50
		Distinguished from traditional historical narrative by its balanced portrayal of wartime experiences both at home and on the battlefield and flavored by its vivid portrayal of a divided Appalachian community, Ashe County's Civil War: Community and Society in the Appalachian South breaks new ground in Southern social, political, and economic history. Martin Crawford contends that the experiences of Ashe County's men and women during the Civil War era were shaped as much by their membership in the wider American society as by uniquely local factors. Through a thoughtful blending of family correspondence, local and state historical documents, and the broader news of the divided country, Crawford re-creates the lives of Ashe County's citizens. Among them are teenager Selina Howell, whose suicide draws the reader into an intimate portrayal of kin and community dynamics, and Tom Crumpler, the young lawyer-politician who made the ultimate sacrifice for a cause he initially opposed. These people and their stories bring to life the very human side of the Civil War, carrying Crawford's narrative well beyond ordinary social history.
		Reviews
		"This is a remarkable community study. . . . Crawford reveals much about the dynamics of nineteenth-century Appalachia and the South and the way in which, at the most intimate level, the Civil War impacted its inhabitants. This is not only a major contribution in Appalachian studies; it also ranks with the best of southern community studies." —John C. Inscoe, coauthor of The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War "This is the kind of local, intimate portrait that has a measurable impact on the way we view regional history and thus ground contemporary issues." —Georgia Historical Quarterly "A thorough and judiciously argued study that adds greatly to our understanding of the Civil War's impact in the southern mountains." —Journal of American History
		The Author
		Martin Crawford is Reader in U.S. History in the School of American Studies at Keele University, Staffordshire, England, and the author or editor of several publications, including William Howard Russell's Civil War: Private Diary and Letters, 1861-1862, and American Nineteenth Century History.
		Related Links


		Ashe County's Civil War: Community and Society in the Appalachian South by Martin Crawford 264 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 Cloth ISBN 0-8139-2033-7 • $59.50 Paper ISBN 0-8139-2034-5 • $22.50
		http://www.upress.virginia.edu/books/crawford.html
		Revised 11/26/08