“BRIGHT WINGS TO FLY, An Appalachian Family in the Civil War” By BRUCE HOPKINS
Wind Publications. 2006. 204 pages. ISBN 1-893239-55-1
$16.00.
Reviewed by Ibby Greer

 The title of this brilliant prequel to Hopkins’ “Spirits in the Field,” that takes us deeper into the lives of the Hopkins families of Pike County in Eastern Kentucky in the 19th century, comes from a version of the old English tune, “The Water is Wide.” “The water is wide, I can’t cross o’er, nor do I have bright wings to fly, give us a boat, which can carry two, and both shall row, my love and I…” It is an apt title, because “crossing over,” from the past to the future, from one stage of life to the next, from grief to survival, from one love to the next, from one political position to another because of change and war, is at the core of this story.
Family relationships reveal a sequence of love stories, with the author’s great-great-great grandfather Elisha Hopkins and his four wives at the center, like a massive tree whose branches are the generations of people whose stories unfold like leaves. Gradually each person’s burial place is explained, thus fulfilling Hopkins’ goal of making whole what had been torn when the family cemeteries were moved to make way for Route 460 in Pike County, the subject of his first book.

The close historic ties between Virginia and Kentucky are evident. The war drew sons from the same family into both sides, and special attention is given to the units his own ancestors fought in, the [Confederate] Tenth Kentucky Cavalry and the [Union] Thirty-ninth Kentucky Mounted Infantry. Vividly described are the importance of Saltville (VA) to both sides, the Battle of Saltville, the ridge-top skirmishes, the marauding deserters, the hunger and desperation of the women and children left alone, and the military atrocities of Union General Stephen Gano Burbridge, “still the most hated man in Kentucky.”

Several increasingly detailed maps show the home places and cemeteries of Greasy Creek. Maps show how Greasy Creek, a part of the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy, ties into the larger Kentucky and Virginia topography.

Hopkins effectively mixes his own first-person musings with third-person storytelling, flashbacks, and italicized passages that delve deeper into characters’ thoughts and memories. He demonstrates in both books a most effective combination of scholarship and memoir. The characters all were real, and he brings them back to life. Keep an eye out for two US Vice Presidents: John Cabell Breckinridge and Lyndon B. Johnson! Look for a handmade pillow, the soft center of the book’s beauty.

With “Bright Wings to Fly” Hopkins, an administrator with the school system of Pike County, has carried on the tradition of Dorcas and Rissie of not forgetting the family history. When you finish “Bright Wings,” you will want to explore Saltville, Pound Gap, Grundy, Pikeville, and Pike County. You will want to “cross over” into another era on the banks of Greasy Creek. “If that old place could talk, he thought, the stories it could tell.” It has.

Ibby Greer is a Rocky Mount author and owner of Blue Lady Bookshop and Blue Ridge Traditions. Both Hopkins books are available at Blue Lady Bookshop, blueridgetraditions.com, other area bookstores, and amazon.com.