Southwest Virginia's Railroad: Modernization and the Sectional Crisis in the Civil War Era
by Kenneth W. Noe
University of Alabama Press, 2003
Paper: 978-0-8173-5064-2 | eISBN: 978-0-8173-9216-1
Library of Congress Classification HE2771.V8N64 2003
Dewey Decimal Classification 385.09755709034
ABOUT THIS BOOK
A close study of one region of Appalachia that experienced economic vitality and strong sectionalism before the Civil War
This book examines the construction of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad through southwest Virginia in the 1850s, before the Civil War began. The building and operation of the railroad reoriented the economy of the region toward staple crops and slave labor. Thus, during the secession crisis, southwest Virginia broke with northwestern Virginia and embraced the Confederacy. Ironically, however, it was the railroad that brought waves of Union raiders to the area during the war
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