This work examines the lives of Rhea and Meigs Counties, Tennessee women and children during the Civil War. Several newspaper articles from The Athens Post are included, detailing county meetings and other significant events, as well as a collection of letters and diaries written by families of soldiers. An index to full-names, places and subjects adds to the value of this work. Rhea and Meigs Counties in lower east Tennessee were at one time all one county, even though the Tennessee River ran between the two halves. The people in both are closely related and families share both sides of the river. This collection of V. C. Allen's newspaper clippings about various events and persons in the Confederacy were collected first-hand by his own experience during the conflict. Included here are the rosters of the various units from these two counties and biographical sketches of many of the leaders of the units. Examples from this volume: Rev. G. W. Callahan entered the army as a private in Captain Darwin's company. He was a Methodist minister, belonging to the Holston Conference. He was a man of ability, and was appointed Chaplain of the Sixteenth Tennessee Battalion on the Staff of Colonel John R. Neal, and made an efficient officer, commanding the respect of the battalion, and was known as 'a fighting parson.' Rev. Callahan is still living [1908], and a minister of the Western North Carolina Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

The Civil War in Southern Appalachian Methodism addresses a much-neglected topic in both Appalachian and Civil War history—the role of organized religion in the sectional strife and the war itself. Meticulously researched, well written, and full of fresh facts, this new book brings an original perspective to the study of the conflict and the region. In many important respects, the actual Civil War that began in 1861 unveiled an internal civil war within the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South—comprising churches in southwestern Virginia, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, and a small portion of northern Georgia—that had been waged surreptitiously for the previous five decades. This work examines the split within the Methodist Church that occurred with mounting tensions over the slavery question and the rise of the Confederacy. Specifically, it looks at how the church was changing from its early roots as a reform movement grounded in a strong local pastoral ministry to a church with a more intellectual, professionalized clergy that often identified with Southern secessionists. The author has mined an exhaustive trove of primary sources, especially the extensive, yet often-overlooked minutes from frequent local and regional Methodist gatherings. He has also explored East Tennessee newspapers and other published works on the topic. The author’s deep research into obscure church records and other resources results not only in a surprising interpretation of the division within the Methodist Church but also new insights into the roles of African Americans, women, and especially lay people and local clergy in the decades prior to the war and through its aftermath. In addition, Dunn presents important information about what the inner Civil War was like in East Tennessee, an area deeply divided between Union and Confederate sympathizers. Students and scholars of religious history, southern history, and Appalachian studies will be enlightened by this volume and its bold new way of looking at the history of the Methodist Church and this part of the nation.