Abstract:
Western North Carolinians, listening to the fury of public argument over the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, hear distinct echoes of a similar, equally heated controversy that swirled up from the recesses of mountainous Madison County in 1863. In Madison County's Shelton Laurel 13 civilians, kneeling alongside Shelton Laurel creek, were shot by a Confederate firing squad commanded by Lt. Col. James A. Keith for suspicion of burglary and pillaging a Confederate depot at Marshall, the county seat.