After the end of the Second Civil War in 1934, the Smoky Mountains contained one of the largest pockets of resistance on the eastern side of the Mississippi. The Appalachians at large were incredibly poor and dependent on mining and subsistence farming to survive, and so Communist rule was if not welcomed then at the very least tolerated across most of the region. However, the general hostility of the residents of the Smoky Mountains to any and all outside rule, as well as the dearth of mining settlements and its extremely rough terrain made it a pointed exception to this rule, and many Blue Army forces in the southeast retreated into the mountains to wage an insurgency against the Chicago government.
The region was and is incredibly difficult to traverse, with hundreds of thousands of square miles of dense forest, rugged mountains and dizzying cliffs intercut with narrow, rocky valleys that were connected at best by dirt roads and more often nothing at all. The region was also prone to heavy rains that would wash out anything less than black tar, and massive fog banks that would descend with little warning and reduce visibility to a few feet. Thanks to these harsh conditions, insurgents were able to survive years of determined offensives against them and raid in force into the surrounding hills and valleys, wrecking infrastructure, waylaying convoys and killing anyone suspected of helping government forces. At the peak of the counter-insurgency in 1946, 150,000 soldiers and hundreds of aircraft were committed against at most 7,500 fighters. Fighting in the region mostly ceased after the death of Colonel Alvin York at the Battle of Laurel Bend in 1949, and by the official declaration of victory in 1955 less than 500 insurgents were left in the region, most of them lying low in isolated hollows in the heart of the mountains.
For the next decade and a half, the Smokies were a forgotten backwater. Many who had fled the region due to the insurgency returned, but the economy remained poor due to official mismanagement and general neglect. Many seeking a simpler life away from modern society moved into the region both legally and illegally, some of them even reducing themselves to hunter-gatherers in the mountain. There had always been communities of primitives in the mountain, some of them having existed since colonial times and bearing weapons reflecting this, but it was during this period they began to first attract official attention. The Blue Army remnants also began to grow in strength, forsaking the previous strategy of harassment in favor of organizing for a grand counter-insurrection. Their strength was bolstered with new recruits and foreign advisors, and by the mid-60s their general commander, Calvin Ward, had entered into personal correspondence with President Westmoreland in San Juan. The discovery of this correspondence in 1966 would ultimately lead to the destruction of these Blue Army cells.
The death of President Thompson in 1965 had thrown the upper echelons of the Party into chaos, and after a year and change of turmoil Gus Hall emerged triumphant. However, Hall’s internal position was quite weak, and many regarded him as being President merely because of his skill at backroom dealing and not because of any real qualification. Standing as he did in the shadow of the war hero Thompson, he decided that the best way to secure his position was with military victory. American guns and money began finding their way into the hands of more and more rebels in Africa and Asia. The discovery of the Ward-Westmoreland Note in December 1966 catapulted the Blue Army to the top of Hall’s list. After all, what better manner of cementing his hold on power than by crushing the last counterrevolutionaries on the mainland?
By May 1967, fighting in the Equatorial Federation had calmed to the extent that the 101st Airborne Division was able to be transferred back home. Task Force Weyand was put together in the following weeks, its headquarters at Knoxville, consisting of the 101st, the 7th People’s Legion Division of Tennessee and the 3rd Peoples’ Legion Division of North Carolina. The national government had no little difficulty wrangling the local governments into working together to support the counter-insurgency. The governor of the Peoples’ Territory of Tennessee, Benjamin “Buck” Borah was in particular opposed to this, not wanting national soldiers poking around in his territory and claiming that his local forces could handle it alone. He was eventually overruled, and by the end of June all forces were in position.
On 4 July, the governments of the Peoples’ State of Dixie and the Peoples’ State of Carolina issued a joint motion cordoning off several hundred thousand miles of land along their shared border. This belt, called the Total Exclusion Zone, encompassed most of the Smokies as well as several towns and settlements in its periphery. All law-abiding citizens were expected to vacate the TEZ within the next six weeks, and anyone who departed it unarmed would be let go, no questions asked. Anyone who remained within the Zone after this deadline had passed would be considered an insurgent and would be sent to a labor camp for reeducation at best or simply shot. Thousands of refugees spilled out in all directions, many of them Blue Army soldiers sent to set up new cells in outlying areas, and the Peoples’ Territories involved were forced to scramble to set up camps to deal with them all. With local resources effectively diverted, General Weyand eagerly awaited the expiration of the deadline, moving air cavalry up to staging bases so the offensive could begin at first opportunity.
At midnight on 13 August, the deadline expired, and the first helicopters took off on search-and-destroy missions….
