This is the story of the Civil War in Knoxville, Tennessee - a perpetually occupied, bitterly divided southern town. Tracy McKenzie documents the loyalties of more than half of the townspeople, identifies complex patterns of individual decisions, and explores the agonizing personal decisions that the war made inescapable. "No other community in the Confederate South was perceived to be as much of a Unionist stronghold as was Knoxville, Tennessee. Yet it defies such easy categorization, as Tracy McKenzie demonstrates in this richly detailed portrait of an Appalachian populace that remained sharply divided throughout the Civil War and beyond. He not only provides an insightful case study of antebellum and wartime loyalties and the range of forces that shaped them; he also tells a very human story of people at war, and infuses it with an often palpable sense of drama and even suspense."--John C. Inscoe, University of Georgia