Jonathan Sarris kept his rapt audience well entertained with his “comparative analysis” of two counties in northern Georgia during the war. Beginning with a “vignette” describing an officer walking through a village with his troops, confronting angry townspeople who wanted them out of their village, the soldiers left within a month in the area. “Decidedly not pacified” was the judgment of the officer as he left. It could have been, said Mr. Sarris, the Balkans in 1990 or even Vietnam in 1968. The town was located in the mountains of northern Georgia where allegiances were divided and “confused”. The people of Fannin (a portion of which borders North Carolina) and Lumpkin counties, in Appalachia, fought what Mr. Sarris termed the “inner war”; a war not visited by Ken Burns “Civil War”. Soldiers from these counties fought for hearth and home on a local level. It was a brutal guerilla war, divided along community lines, exacerbated by many deserters (and draft dodgers) who flocked to the area to “lay low” (to avoid service). Mr. Sarris cited the case of the Woody brothers, in which pro-Confederate Josiah testified against his brother John Wesley for being pro-Union. John was acquitted and later fled to East Tennessee to join the Union army. Class divisions appeared to be a contributing factor in the strife as Lumpkin County, supposedly more pro-Confederate than it’s neighbor to the northwest and thought to be more “cosmopolitan”, viewed Fannin County as full of simple “mountaineers” who were responsible for all the atrocities committed (civilians tortured, houses and barns burned) in northern Georgia. In short, Mr. Sarris brought to light the fact that the Civil War was fought not only on the Virginia fields but also in the fields along the Blue Ridge mountains.

There was an interesting article in the Star-News recently (September 27) in described The Museum of the Confederacy’s idea to expand their collection to Fort Monroe, Virginia. That army base is due to be closed and they are looking for ideas for the area. The Museum at present has only enough room to display about ten percent of its collection, so the move would not only open up more items for public viewing, but would likely increase tourism to the area. It certainly looks like a “win-win” situation for both parties! The Museum has also mentioned two other possible sites, Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg Battlefields. In any event, the Museum hopes to have an “off-campus” location up and running by 2011, the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War.