"...One of the most important compilations of
Western North Carolina Civil War history..."
-Terrell Garren, Author "The Secret of War"

Winner of Bob Terrell History Award for 2008!

Western North Carolina Historical Assocation
2009 Thomas Wolfe Literary Award
Special Recognition!

Fear in North Carolina
The Civil War Journals and Letters of the Henry Family

"...a distinctive voice and perspective on the trials and traumas of the wartime home front and its aftermath...
a remarkable chronicle of the war...which deserves the much wider readership it is now likely to reach..."
-John C. Inscoe, The North Carolina Historical Review, Oct 2008,
Author of "The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War."


Cornelia Henry waits. She waits for husband William to return home. She waits for the Yanks to stop their plundering and burning, and she waits and prays for the day when a merciful God will deliver her Country free from the years of war that have “desolated our happy land.” She waits, and all the while she diligently writes her inner most thoughts and records daily events in her journals.

Cornelia’s three journals, written between 1860 and 1868, have been described as one of the best sources for daily information on Western North Carolina during the Civil War period, and provide an intimate and very personal glimpse into the lives and activities of a struggling Confederate family.

Fear in North Carolina compiles these journals and other vintage Henry family letters and documents into a single, comprehensively indexed volume. Period photographs and illustrations are included to enhance the reader’s experience.

The journals detail the struggles of Western North Carolina inhabitants prior to secession, through years of conflict, the Confederacy’s ultimate defeat, to rejoining the Union and beyond. Included are first hand accounts of Union soldier raids, news and rumors of the battlefronts, movement of troops, activities of the newly freed slaves, bushwhackers, activities of Union and Confederate sympathizers, and descriptions of the Battle of Asheville and Asheville’s occupation by Union troops following the war’s conclusion.

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