WAR IN THE MOUNTAINS:
The Macbeth Light Artillery at Asheville, NC 1864-1865
By J. L. Askew
War studies are multifaceted, as illustrated by War in the
Mountains: The Macbeth Light Artillery at Asheville, NC 1864-1865, a
well-researched, detailed chronicle 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 wider. And while the battles covered in the book involved
relatively small units fighting raids that 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. Thus, this tome provides keen 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.” Indeed, the region 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 and who were reliant on family members for food and supplies. Moreover, surrender to Union forces was perilous, because of the uncertainty about what might happen to them should Confederate resistance retake the region or should conquering Yankees become vengeful.
The battles that occurred in mountain regions may not seem
crucial or seem only peripheral to the war’s aims, but an important campaign
chronicled in this work involves the repeated Union attacks in late 1864 on the
Confederacy’s main salt supply works in Saltville, Virginia. Access to salt, an absolute necessity for the
storage of meat, rendered this campaign more important than Confederate or
Union control a town, a road, or even a river.
Troops -- largely from Kentucky, including the USCT -- were rushed into
eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia to contest the issue. Bitter fighting over two months resulted in
Union victory and the destruction of the salt works, albeit after heavy
casualties.
Some of the persons covered in the book are familiar to Civil War 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.”
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 this aspect of the Civil War. The text is supplemented not only by a roster
of the Macbeths and photos that put faces to the names of warriors, but also a
bibliography and maps. His work will be
of particular interest to Round Table readers with a connection to the southern
Appalachia region. For more general
Civil War history devotees, I recommend it for a deeper dive into the history
of our great national conflict.
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Jim Gallen is a St. Louis, Missouri attorney. He is Chairman of the Military History Club of the Missouri Athletic Club (https://www.mac-stl.org), a member of the St. Louis Civil War Round Table (https://civilwarstlmo.org/), a member of the Ulysses S. Grant Camp of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (https://www.grantcamp.org/) and a Freelance Writer and Senior Contributor to War History Network (Home - War History Network).
