Tennessee Trails and Tales or Sevierville Civil War Heritage

Tennessee Trails and Tales led Bummer into an amazing realm of Sevierville Civil War Heritage. Eastern Tennessee and the folks of the Smoky Mountains have been the focus of the “old guy,” on location in order to investigate, research and satisfy a gnawing hunger for the realities of a time and place 150 years ago. In an effort to separate fact, fiction and myth, Bummer and Data Miner, immersed themselves in local libraries, newspapers, historical societies, cemeteries, battlefields and museums. Interviewed historians, whose age gave a relevance to their tales and spoke with many locals whose memory of oral history shed light on the mystery of the residents and their Civil War mindset and life style. Most of the time, the tales and the myths were more fascinating than the lack of documentation and evidence of historical fact.

The tale of this Tennessee trek by the gruesome twosome and the information gathered, cannot be categorized into simply people, events and timeframe. It all explodes and mushrooms into a tremendous ball of confusion that evolves into the fabric of the locals and their uniqueness, family, isolationism, oneness with the environment and of course money, water, religion, power and politics.

Eastern Tennessee was a bastion of Union support during the Civil War. Bummer’s blood kin either fled to Kentucky to enlist in the Federal Army or remained on the home front in order to protect family and neighbors. Some joined stealthy militia raiders that would attempt to disrupt the Confederate hold on the community. Bummer has often related that all seemed to be kin, in one way or the other, a fact that was verified by church, bible, marriage and death records. Occasional documentation revealed that families were divided by the Rebel in the Woodpile, but this was the exception rather than the rule. Some of the headstones carried the C.S.A. inscription in the local graveyards, but the most conspicuous referenced a Union allegiance.

The Smoky Mountain region of Tennessee doesn’t lend itself to set piece conflict, its terrain is more suitable for guerrilla warfare, encompassing hit and run tactics and terror. Both Union and Confederate sympathizers utilized this strategy with tragic results during the Civil War and continued this policy for years after the national conflict had ended.

One of the local historians that Bummer and Data Miner were fortunate to spend an afternoon interviewing, related that nearly all historic consequence in Eastern Tennessee revolved around water and politics. Whoever controlled the river trade and commerce became wealthy and wealth equated to political muscle. In Eastern Tennessee, politics was the root cause or cure, dictated through church, family, friends and local community.

Another outspoken Tennessee academic that shared her tribal wisdom, spoke of how many of the secluded Smoky Mountain folk, didn’t want any truck with the politics of the Civil War. They were more concerned with their day-to-day survival and the serenity of the mountain paradise they called home. This Smoky Mountain savant, went to great lengths detailing homesteads, churches, graveyards and the life styles of families that resided in mountain seclusion during the civil conflict. In addition, she declared that many of the most remote families that currently reside in the mountain wilderness, maintain their independent nature and have no interest in state or national policy or politics. They would rather just be left alone. Bummer and Data Miner applauded this analysis.

Tennessee Trails and Tales or the Sevierville Civil War Heritage of this “old guy” resulted in finding the legacy of Sevierville Sam, his sweet young love Sue, the homestead of Josie Mae and Rhoda Belle, what became of Mountain Michael, where they hung Knoxville Nate, who was Pinkney and why Tennessee Tom and prosperous family vanished from Sevierville history. Eastern Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains are surely a magical world full of future tales and mysteries that Bummer and the Data Miner will revisit daily.

Bummer is Back