Pellissippi State hosts ‘Mountain Rebels’ author

Nearly 150 years after the attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, that launched the War Between the States, the effects of the Civil War still linger in East Tennessee.

According to Todd Groce, author of “Mountain Rebels: East Tennessee Confederates and the Civil War, 1860-1870,” East Tennesseans were drawn into a war that few sought or wanted.

Groce will share his views on the war and its aftermath in a presentation at Pellissippi State on December. 7 at 11:50 a.m. The discussion is in Room 151 of the Alexander Building. The Groce presentation is free and open to the public.

The speaker is one of six authors whose work is being showcased as part of Pellissippi State’s Common Academic Experience. Because this year’s Common Academic Experience centers on David Madden’s book “Sharpshooter,” the college is hosting several activities related to the Civil War.

While East Tennessee typically has been identified as a bastion of Union support, says Groce, it was also home to many Confederate partisans who embraced the cause until the bitter end.

“East Tennesseans who sympathized with the Confederacy eventually suffered for their decision and were driven from their homes by a hostile and vengeful Unionist majority,” he said. “So thousands of folks, out of fear for their lives, simply fled the area, which contributed to the postwar economic decline of the region.”

“Mountain Rebels” has been lauded as filling a void in Southern history, Civil War history and Appalachian studies. It is now in its fourth printing.

Groce has been president and CEO of the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah since 1995. Prior to that, he taught history for three years at the University of Tennessee and was executive director of the East Tennessee Historical Society in Knoxville.

Question and Answer With Todd Groce

Pellissippi State: Why did you write this book?

Todd Groce: The book began as my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Tennessee. I’ve always been interested in the Civil War, and when I started looking into what happened in East Tennessee, I found that despite the popular view of the region’s solid Unionism, when the war began there were a lot of Confederates—perhaps a third of the population—and they simply disappeared after the war.

That puzzled me. Then one day in the late 1980s, I was reading an essay by Samuel Cole Williams written 50 years earlier, in which he stated that the Confederate leadership of East Tennessee had been neglected compared to the Unionist and that it would be a great research topic for someone. That’s when the light went on. The idea of exploding the myth of East Tennessee’s solid Unionism was exciting to me.

Pellissippi State: How is the Civil War relevant today?

Todd Groce: We live every day with the choices made by the men and women who fought the Civil War. The decision to fire on Fort Sumter and dozens of others like it dramatically changed our nation. Union victory meant the end of slavery in America and that the Constitution and the Union—that is, the government of the United States—would be preserved.

When the war began, many in Europe said that it proved republics don’t work, that the people cannot rule themselves; without a king and a ruling class, the ship of state will simply run aground, they said.

Abraham Lincoln would have said that by putting down the secessionist insurgency, the American people had proven their ability to govern themselves. In other words, republican government—“government by, for and of the people,” as Lincoln phrased it—could work. That was an enormous accomplishment for our country, one that affects every American today.

Pellissippi State: What can be learned from history? Why should people care about what’s in the past?

Todd Groce: There are many reasons why history is important. First, history puts events into context. It inspires us and gives us confidence. What was one of the first things we said after the 9/11 attack? Almost immediately we began to compare it to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. We told ourselves, “We have been here before, and we met a similar crisis. We can do it again.”

We also study the past so that we can create a better future. If we are to make wise choices about how to solve the problems of our world, it is crucial to understand how that world was created.

History gives us a sense of perspective on what it means to be an American. Our democracy cannot flourish without an understanding of how it has evolved over time.

And finally, a common sense of the past is one of the great unifiers in a country made up of immigrants. We come from different nations, but we share the same symbols and past as Americans. And that makes our system work.