SOURCE: Ensor, Allison. “The Geography of Mary Noailles Murfree's In the Tennessee Mountains.” Mississippi Quarterly 31 (1978): 191-99.

In the following essay, Ensor offers a detailed analysis of the actual geographical areas portrayed in Murfree's book of short stories, concluding that Murfree's descriptions were often vague and general because she had not really travelled much in Tennessee.

Mary Noailles Murfree, who won such fame in the 1880's with her Tennessee mountain stories written under the name Charles Egbert Craddock, was hesitant about using actual place names in her fiction. In 1881 she wrote Thomas Bailey Aldrich, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, about the setting of her novel Where the Battle Was Fought: “The scenery described is the historic ground about Murfreesboro, but I have considered it expedient to use throughout fictitious names for the localities.”¹ Accordingly, Miss Murfree's native town (named for her great-grandfather) appears as Chattalla, and Fort Rosecrans as...