The length of the Civil War in Bartow County, Georgia, is very real to the author because he grew up white in Bartow County amidst an unrelenting exaltation of the “Lost Cause” of the Confederacy. He dedicates this book to his wife and to Kenneth W. Noe, the professor who first acquainted him with the complexities of Civil War history, especially at the edges of the Southern Mountains. Hebert is now a history professor at Auburn having previously worked for the state of Georgia in Historic Preservation. He beings this book with a chapter on ante-bellum Bartow County from 1830-1860, and follows chapters on the War with chapters on Reconstruction. “Keith Hebert has thoroughly mined the primary source record in one Georgia county to uncover a complex story of divided community identities, shifting economic tides, wartime destruction, and deep social change. Even more, Hebert has helped clarify the difference between the Appalachian and Southern Civil War experiences.” – Aaron Astor.
Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2017. 282 pages with and Index, Notes, Appendix, tables, and maps. Hardback with pictorial cover