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Bright Wings to Fly: An Appalachian Family in the Civil War
Bright Wings to Fly An Appalachian Family in the Civil War Author:Bruce Hopkins In 2003, Bruce Hopkins uncovered more than his ancestors' bones when his family cemetery was moved for road construction. As a result of that experience, Hopkins wrote Spirits in the Field which introduced the reader to nearly 200 years of his family history, and which was, in microcosm, a history of the coalfields of Eastern Kentucky. I... more »n Bright Wings to Fly Hopkins returns to the Civil War era for the first of a trilogy that deals with three great periods of Eastern Kentucky history. Bright Wings tells of the struggles of mountain families, broken and in poverty, as they attempt to deal with and recover from losses that had been unimaginable prior to the Civil War. In the next two books, Hopkins will deal with the coming of the great coal camps and the impact of industrialization on mountain life, and conclude with the dangers facing the very soul of the mountaineers as the last "easy" coal is removed and the scourge of mountaintop removal inches its way across the coalfields. Throughout all his books, however, the ghosts of his ancestors watch as their descendants struggle with the realities of a modern age in a region that has been aptly described as a "national sacrifice area."« less