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In this virtual program, Dr. Steve Nash, Associate Professor of History at East Tennessee State University, talks about many of the dynamics that emerged in Western North Carolina during the Reconstruction Era, with newly freed people gaining the right to vote, and emergence of tobacco as a cash crop to bolster local economies.

This study examines Confederate nationalism in Western North Carolina during the Civil War. Using secondary sources, newspapers, civilian, and soldiers‟ letters, this study will show that most Appalachians demonstrated a strong loyalty to their new Confederate nation. However, while a majority Appalachian Confederates maintained a strong Confederate nationalism throughout the war; many Western North Carolinians were not loyal to the Confederacy. Critically analyzing Confederate nationalism in Western North Carolina will show that conceptions of loyalty and disloyalty are not absolute, in other words, Appalachia was not purely loyal or disloyal.

"In this illuminating study, Steven E. Nash chronicles the history of Reconstruction as it unfolded in the mountains of western North Carolina. Nash presents a complex story of the region's grappling with the war's aftermath, examining the persistent wartime loyalties that informed bitter power struggles between factions of white mountaineers determined to rule. For a brief period, an influx of federal governmental power enabled white anti-Confederates to ally with former slaves in order to lift the Republican Party to power locally and in the state as a whole. Republican success led to a violent response from a transformed class of elites, however, who claimed legitimacy from the antebellum period while pushing for greater integration into the market-oriented New South.Focusing on a region that is still underrepresented in the Reconstruction historiography, Nash illuminates the diversity and complexity of Appalachian political and economic machinations, while bringing to light the broad and complicated issues the era posed to the South and the nation as a whole."--Amazon / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1116/thumbnail.jpg

Lecture Series on Abraham Lincoln at the Reece Museum

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In the spring of 1861, eager young men gathered in small towns in five southeastern North Carolina counties and enlisted in ten local companies. After spending the summer in a Wilmington training camp, these companies were combined to form the 18th North Carolina Infantry Regiment. The regiment served for a short time in South Carolina before joining the war in Virginia as a member of Gen. Lawrence Branch's brigade. The 18th North Carolina first saw combat in May, 1862, at the Battle of Hanover Court House. A month later, the unit fought in the Seven Days' Battles as part of the Army of Northern Virginia. The 18th North Carolina took an active role in the victorious campaigns of the autumn. In May, 1863, it had the misfortune to be the "friendly" unit that wounded Gen. Stonewall Jackson in the woods near Chancellorsville. At Gettysburg, the 18th North Carolina assaulted the Union center with the rest of the ill-fated soldiers in Pickett’s Charge. The regiment struggled with the army against Grant in the long campaign that culminated in the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House in April. 1865. This is the history of the 18th North Carolina from its creation to its surrender. / Master of Arts