The perilous road is the road we walk when we choose to hate others because they are different. Here, the difference is in our beliefs and the sides we take. Chris is a boy born and bred in the Tennessee mountains. He loves his family, his mountain and his way of life. He hates Yankees.
It is not that Chris believes in slavery. His family is too poor to own slaves. In fact, he probably doesn't know of anyone who does. No, he hates the Yanks because the soldiers have invaded his mountain and forcibly taken what Chris and his family have worked hard for.
Chris had spent a season hunting deer for their skins in order to have a magnificent deerskin jacket. He had to acquire 5 deer in order to use only the choicest portions of their hides. Then he had to skin and scrape and pluck and cure and cut the hides. A neighborman knew of someone who could sew and pledged to bring the finished product back. Unfortunately, he ran into some Yankees who demanded that he hand it over.
Chris came home from watching the Yankee wagons drive through the valley only to discover that the cavalry were visiting his home. They were riding throughout the neighborhood comandeering the horses, mules and any food already harvested. His family as well as other mountain families depended upon their horses to haul lumber for firewood among other things. And without their harvest, food would be meager and they would have to rely more on the bounty of the land.
You can imagine how much Chris hated the Yanks. And then his older brother, Jethro, joins the Federal army. And his father won't do a thing about it.
The majority of the Tennessee mountain families side with the Confederates especially after the Yankees establish their authority. They don't approve of Jethro joining the Federals, and make their stance known through arson and insults. In an attempt to set himself apart from his family, Chris sets out first to be a thorn in the Federals side and second to be a Confederate spy.
Chris discovers that the Federal wagons are camped out in the valley. Chris notifies someone he believes has contacts and then waits for the Confederates to arrive and wipe the Yankees out. But then he finds out that his brother could very well be among the wagoneers …
It is only when Chris is forced to actually interact with the Yankees in order to find his brother, that he realizes they all have more in common than he expected. Heck, the Yanks even like to hunt!
Not a book I would choose to read or even recommend unless I knew I had a Civil War buff!
No comments:
Post a Comment