The story of Asaph Perry

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HIGH TOWER STORY LINE
Opening The Perrys Antebellum Forsyth A Yeoman's World War

The outbreak of war in 1860 once again worked to transform Forsyth and Cherokee counties. With patriotic vigor, most able-bodied males in both counties volunteered their services to the Confederate army, including Lewis Perry who served in the 43rd Georgia Infantry Regiment Company I. The company, known as Zollicoffer Guards, saw significant action in the Western theater including Vicksburg and Atlanta.

After the war, Lewis Perry settled back into the life of a small farmer, this time in Cumming, the Forsyth county seat - 5 miles to the east of High Tower. At 50, Lewis and his second wife Melissa had two more children, bringing the total to 8 (6 by his first wife Martha). Lewis Perry would live to the age of 85, dying in 1900 in a place transformed by events and technology - a place that his grandson Aspah would call home.

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Learning the story

Teaching about the Civil War occupies a central place in the culture of United States history teaching. Countless resources are available to enhance instruction on the Civil War, but we believe one of the best is the Valley of the Shadow from the Virginia Center for Digital History. The Valley website is an on-line collection of materials relating to two communities - Franklin County, Pennsylvania and Augusta County, Virginia - before, during, and after the American Civil War. The materials include letters and diaries, newspapers, images, maps, census records, and military records. Although the Valley of the Shadow is not an interpreted resource in the manner of a secondary text, the archive intends to raise questions related to conventional research on the Civil War. The archive explores the Civil War in the context of the people who made up the communities of Franklin and Augusta as a mechanism for challenging these conventional historical interpretations.

Two specific resources should be of particular value for teachers. The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities is a powerful multi-layered presentation of a study of two communities near the Mason-Dixon Line which shows that slavery created critical differences. The second resource is a collection of instructional materials for making use of Valley resources.