Appalachian Memory

Book excerpt: In Appalachian Memory: A Survivor's Tale Harvey Campbell recalls his growing up years before, during, and after the Civil War. Young Harvey's life turns upside down when his well-to-do family leaves their comfortable life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to establish a logging company, in the wild mountains of southeastern Kentucky. Added to this uprooting, an older brother makes his life more miserable with ridicule, insults, and other abusive treatment. But young Harvey finds consolation in the annual steamboat trips the family makes to visit family in Pittsburgh and in his new friendship with Evan, the son of a neighbor. Together they explore the mountainsides and become close friends despite their families' choosing opposite sides in the slavery dispute. As the conflict over slavery brings destruction, chaos, divisions and death to Harvey's family, his friendships, his Kentucky homeland, and his nation, Harvey's own loyalties are tested, and he must choose between standing with his family or with his heart. His efforts to seek revenge for the injustices he feels turns into a long journey through mountains, towns, and cities from Kentucky through Virginia to Washington D.C, and even to Chicago. Harvey's saga lets us see Civil War history through the eyes of an everyday teenage soldier plunged into its midst, including the battles of Lynchburg, Monocacy, and Fort Stevens, and the Camp Douglas Prison in Chicago. All along this extended journey he meets interesting people-some seek to take advantage of his youth and inexperience, but most give him a helping hand. Fortunately, in the midst of all these difficulties he finds someone to love. When the war ends, Harvey returns to his family's logging business in Kentucky, but finally he realizes he must become independent and strikes out on his own. Eventually he builds his own house in Tennessee, where seventy years later Harvey's great-granddaughter Maggie Martin, the main character in Appalachian Daughter will be born. Harvey has finally become a man-an Appalachian mountain man. Appalachian Memory: A Survivor's Tale is a story of survival-of the wilderness, of Civil War, of family conflict, of sickness and injury, of death and grief-but it is also a story of adventure, friendship, loyalty, bravery, determination, hope, and love.