Thrilling Adventures of Daniel Ellis

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Summary: True Civil War drama in the East Tennessee mountain region.
Review: Daniel Ellis was a Unionist East Tennessean during the Civil War. An exiled fugitive for participating in bridge burning, he took to guiding escaped prisoners, southern deserters, slaves, and all manner of refugees through the mountains to the Union lines. He eventually became captain of Company A in the 13th Regiment, Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry, U.S.A.

"Thrilling Adventures" is Ellis' memoir, recounting the brutal hardships he had to endure during his years on the run. Written shortly after the war, it is tainted by his still-burning fury toward the Confederacy. The book has been criticized for perceived exaggerations, but its true excesses are in its narrative style, full of classical allusions and long-winded melodrama -- elements long since gone out of fashion.

Given its faults in narrative and Ellis' understandable lack of objectivity, the book is an accurate account of life in southern Appalachia during the Civil War. The region in that era is receiving increasing attention, most notably in Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain (which acknowledges Ellis' Thrilling Adventures) and Cameron Judd's Mountain War trilogy...