What was served at President James K. Polk’s White House dinners? What foods graced the table of John Sevier, Tennessee’s First Governor? In Taproots of Tennessee, Lynne Drysdale Patterson answers these questions and more, exploring nearly two centuries of Tennessee foodways. Readers will discover that Tennessee taste encompasses the exquisite, such as President Polk’s French-inspired Croquettes Poulet with Bechamel Sauce and General James Winchester’s spoils-of-the-hunt Roast Goode with Wild Rice and Wild Fox Grape Stuffing, to simpler fair, including Dr. Humphrey Howell Bate’s fried pies and Alex Haley’s boyhood menu of sweet tea and Southern staples.
Patterson takes readers on a historical and culinary tour of the Tennessee Historical Commission’s seventeen state historic sites with a collection of period foods from each site and menus with updated recipes for the twenty-first century food enthusiast. Patterson’s site histories provide readers with a journey through the accounts of Tennessee’s early settlers, their homesteads, cookery, schoolhouses, stage coach stops, and religious life. Her site recipes range from historic offerings, such as peaches from General Daniel Smith’s Rock Castle State Historic Site orchard fashioned into a delectable peach pound cake-potentially shared with neighbors Andrew and Rachel Donelson Jackson-to more modern representations of historic foodways, such as Scottish-influenced Scotch Barley Soup and Scotch Egg likely eaten by Sam Houston.
From homes of Tennessee’s first families to stagecoach stops in the 1830s, from Civil War command posts to rural schoolhouses, foodies and academics alike will delight in this compendium of Southern recipes, served with a generous helping of history.
“All my work fits in my mouth,” Jo Carson says. “I write performance material no matter what else the pieces get called, and whether they are for my voice or other characters’ voices … they are first to be spoken aloud.” Following an oral tradition that has strong roots in her native Tennessee, the author of Teller Tales invites the reader to participate in events in a way that no conventional history book can.
Both stories in this book are set in East Tennessee in the mid-eighteenth century and share certain characters. The first narrative, “What Sweet Lips Can Do,” recounts the story of the Overmountain Men and the battle of King’s Mountain, a tide-turning battle in the American Revolution. “Men of Their Time” is an exploration of white-Cherokee relationships from early contact through the time of the Revolution.
Although not well known to the outside world, the stories recounted in Teller Tales are cornerstones in the heritage of the Appalachian region and of American history. In ways that will appeal to young and old alike, Jo Carson’s irreverent telling will broaden the audience and the understanding for the stories of native Americans, settlers, explorers, and revolutionaries of early America.
This richly illustrated book is the eighth of nine Classics in Southeastern Archaeology volumes based on Moore's investigations along the waterways of eastern North America.
This oversized reprint volume presents original materials from Moore's northernmost expeditions conducted in the early 1900s as he surveyed areas of potential archaeological interest in the southeastern United States. Some of the sites he found were later targeted for major excavations during the days of the WPA/CCC. Many National Register Historic Sites are today located along the rivers he explored in this work. In many cases, however, Moore's report documents sites since destroyed by river action or by lake impoundments behind hydroelectric dams or by looters.
As with all of Moore's other investigations, his thorough documentation and collaboration with other scholars advanced understanding of aboriginal peoples and fueled debate among the experts. For instance, more than 296 burials were recovered from Indian Knoll on the Green River in Kentucky. Some graves included ceremonially "killed" artifacts, dogs buried with both adults and children, and exotic materials leading to speculations concerning origins, usage, and trade networks. Stone box graves were widespread and somewhat exclusive to this area, giving rise to early assumptions regarding kinship between scattered modern Indian tribes.
Richard Polhemus has compiled a comprehensive inventory of Moore's work in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky and written a concise introduction to place the work in context. In so doing, he has made available to contemporary scholars of history, archaeology, and anthropology a trove of resource material on one of the most archaeologically rich and artifact-diverse regions in the nation.
The election of 1860 put to rest a tumultuous decade of legislative contest over the institution of slavery—even as it set in motion events that led directly to its demise by civil war. While some scholarship tends to minimize the role of slavery in the secession of the Southern states in the early 1860s, Dwight Pitcaithley’s Tennessee Secedes: A Documentary History takes the opposite approach, examining the many factors that both fueled and complicated Tennessee’s unique journey toward secession in 1861.
Organized chronologically by source and speaker, Tennessee Secedes presents a selection of primary sources from December 1860 through the summer of 1861, inviting students to examine the arc of Tennessee’s secession march. Pitcaithley introduces proclamations, declarations, addresses, resolutions, proposed constitutional amendments, and other materials from Tennessee legislators, members of Congress, and delegates to the East Tennessee Convention. These sources highlight the political divisions apparent in the Volunteer State during this season of unrest. While many other Southern states saw little support for Unionism in the early 1860s, Tennessee stood in stark contrast, with a large and vocal population that ardently opposed secession.
Complete with appendices featuring 1861 election returns, communications from the Tennessee Congressional Delegation of the Thirty-Sixth Congress, and a timeline for Secession Winter—as well as questions for further discussion—Tennessee Secedes is an invaluable resource for students of the Civil War and Tennessee history, offering an insightful analysis of Tennessee’s uncertain path to the Confederacy in the summer of 1861.
A one-of-a-kind reference book, Tennessee Tragedies examines a wide variety of disasters that have occurred in the Volunteer State over the past several centuries. Intended for both general readers and emergency management professionals, it covers natural disasters such as floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes; technological events such as explosions, transportation wrecks, and structure fires; and societal incidents including labor strikes, political violence, lynchings, and other hate crimes.
At the center of the book are descriptive accounts of 150 of the state’s most severe events. These range from smallpox epidemics in the eighteenth century to the epic floods of 1936–37, from the Sultana riverboat disaster of 1865 (the worst inland marine accident in U.S. history) to the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Included as well are stories of plane crashes, train wrecks, droughts, economic panics, and race riots. An extensive chronology provides further details on more than 900 incidents, the most complete listing ever compiled for a single state. The book’s introduction examines topics that include our fascination with such tragedies; major causes of death, injury, and destruction; and the daunting problems of producing accurate accountings of a disaster’s effects, whether in numbers of dead and injured or of economic impact. Among the other features are a comprehensive glossary that defines various technical terms and concepts and tables illustrating earthquake, drought, disease, and tornado intensity scales.
A work of great historical interest that brings together for the first time an impressive array of information,Tennessee Tragedies will prove exceptionally useful for those who must respond to inevitable future disasters.
“On the day that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, was assassinated, Tennesseans worried about the weather,” Carole Bucy writes. Indeed, the war that began in Europe in 1914 was unimaginably remote from Tennessee—until it wasn’t.
Drawing on a depth of research into a wide array of topics, this vanguard collection of essays aims to conceptualize World War I through the lens of Tennessee. The book begins by situating life in Tennessee within the greater context of the war in Europe, recounting America’s growing involvement in the Great War. As the volume unfolds, editor Michael E. Birdwell and the contributors weave together soldier narratives, politics and agribusiness, African American history, and present-day recollections to paint a picture of Tennessee’s Great War experience that is both informative and gripping.
An essential addition to the broader historiography of the American experience during World War I, this collection of essays presents Tennessee stories that are close to home in more than just geography and lineage. By relating international conflict through the eyes of Tennessee’s own, editor Michael E. Birdwell and the contributing authors provide new opportunities for academics and general readers alike to engage with the Great War from a unique and—until now—untold perspective.
Two generations have passed since the publication of Wilma Dykeman’s landmark environmental history, The French Broad. In Through the Mountains: The French Broad River and Time, John Ross updates that seminal book with groundbreaking new research. More than the story of a single river, Through the Mountains covers the entire watershed from its headwaters in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains to its mouth in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The French Broad watershed has faced new perils and seen new discoveries since 1955, when The French Broad was published. Geologists have learned that the Great Smoky Mountains are not among the world’s oldest as previously thought; climatologists and archaeologists have traced the dramatic effects of global warming and cooling on the flora, fauna, and human habitation in the watershed; and historians have deepened our understanding of enslaved peoples once thought not to be a part of the watershed’s history. Even further, this book documents how the French Broad and its tributaries were abused by industrialists, and how citizens fought to mitigate the pollution.
Through the Mountains also takes readers to notable historic places: the hidden mound just inside the gate of Biltmore where Native Americans celebrated the solstices; the once-secret radio telescope site above Rosman where NASA eavesdropped on Russian satellites; and the tiny hamlet of Gatlinburg where Phi Beta Phi opened its school for mountain women in 1912.
Wilma Dykeman once asked what the river had meant to the people who lived along it. In the close of Through the Mountains, Ross reframes that question: For 14,000 years the French Broad and its tributaries have nurtured human habitation. What must we start doing now to ensure it will continue to nourish future generations? Answering this question requires a knowledge of the French Broad’s history, an understanding of its contemporary importance, and a concern for the watershed’s sustainable future. Through the Mountains fulfills these three criteria, and, in many ways, presents the larger story of America’s freshwater habitats through the incredible history of the French Broad.
“Benjamin Franklin Cooling has produced a triumphant third volume to his definitive study of Tennessee and Kentucky in the Civil War. Like his first two volumes, this one perfectly integrates the home front and battlefield, demonstrating that civilians were continually embroiled in the war in intense ways comparable to and often surpassing the violence experienced by soldiers on the battlefield. The impacts of armies, guerrillas, and other military forces on civilians was continual, terrifying, and brutal in nearly all parts of the Confederacy’s Heartland.” —T. Michael Parrish, Linden G. Bowers Professor of American History, Baylor University
“Cooling’s scholarship is indeed sound and based on extensive research in a variety of original sources that range from manuscript collections to newspapers, with an exhaustive list of secondary sources. His work represents the first new interpretations of this important part of the war in decades.” —Archie P. McDonald, Regent’s Professor and Community Liaison, Stephen F. Austin State University
In two preceding volumes, Forts Henry and Donelson and Fort Donelson’s Legacy, Benjamin Franklin Cooling offered a sweeping portrayal of war and society in the upper southern heartland of Kentucky and Tennessee during the first two and a half years of the Civil War. This book continues that saga as Cooling probes the profound turmoil—on the battlefield, on the home front, within the shadow areas where lawlessness reigned—that defined the war in the region as it ground to its close.
By 1864 neither the Union’s survival nor the South’s independence was any more apparent than at the beginning of the war. The grand strategies of both sides were still evolving, and Tennessee and Kentucky were often at the cusp of that work. With his customary command of myriad sources, Cooling examines the heartland conflict in all its aspects: the Confederate cavalry raids and Union counteroffensives; the harsh and punitive Reconstruction policies that were met with banditry and brutal guerrilla actions; the disparate political, economic, and sociocultural upheavals; the ever-growing war weariness of the divided populations; and the climactic battles of Franklin and Nashville that ended the Confederacy’s hopes in the Western Theater. Especially notable in this volume is Cooling’s use of the latest concepts of “hybrid” or “compound war” that national security experts have applied to the twenty-first-century wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—a mode of analysis that explores how catastrophic terrorism and disruptive lawlessness mix with traditional combat and irregular operations to form a new kind of warfare. Not only are such concepts relevant to the historical study of the Civil War in the heartland, Cooling suggests, but by the same token, their illumination of historical events can only enrich the ways in which policymakers view present-day conflicts.
In chronicling Tennessee and Kentucky’s final rite of passage from war to peace, To the Battles of Franklin and Nashville and Beyond is in every way a major contribution to Civil War literature by a masterful historian.
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