Awesome question! I've personally never read any cases of individuals being so totally isolated from the society that they were unaware of the Civil War in its entirety. That said, the South was an extremely diverse place during the war and was far from being a monolithic region all falling into line to support the Confederate government. This was even more so true in rural areas of the Appalachian mountains. This question also, interestingly, brings up the importance of the home front during the Civil War and the guerrilla warfare that often impacted these more isolated families.

While your question is broad, I would like to focus on the Shelton Laurel Massacre as a story of isolation and violence in the Appalachian mountains. In the Western North Carolina mountains (WNC), pockets of families that may traditionally fall underneath the definition of 'hill billy' lived and were aware of the conflict. While they certainly would not refer to themselves as such, they lived a lifestyle that would be commonly associated with the modern definition of hillbilly. Author Philip Paludan wrote "Victims: A True Story of the Civil War" that covers a rural mountain family that was massacred by Confederates in an infamous war crime.

Roughly two-thirds of people in 1860 were defined as rural families. The Shelton family of Madison County, North Carolina had lived in their respective part of the mountain for three generations before the Civil War started. They were able to provide enough through subsistence farming to provide for their families and sometimes made it to the market to make a few dollars. Visitors to this area of WNC wrote "Every phase of the mountaineer's life connects in some way with tradition currently received...Castaways...on some unknown island...untroubled by the growth of civilization, customs and ideas unaltered from the time of their fathers" (Paludan, 11). Paludan writes that "It [the Civil War] had come ripping into the fabric of a life whose rhythms were seldom interrupted" (5).

As the war progressed and became less popular, desertion rates increased. These deserters often fled home to help their struggling families. These individuals often became targets of Confederate war policies like forced conscription and Tax in Kind (a 10% tax on farmed goods that civilians would give CSA authorities). These deserters and policies often put more isolated families into contact with outside forces. Additionally, the guerrilla warfare that occurred brought fighting as well. Some families, like the Sheltons, became targets because of Union support in the guerrilla fighting. The closest hub for the family was in Marshall, North Carolina where salt rations were being withheld from them.

This was essentially a death sentence, as salt was used for meat preservation in the winter. This culminated in a raid in which members of the Shelton family overwhelmed guards in Marshall and stole salt and clothing. Confederate forces, while not on official orders to do such, responded by attacking and torturing civilians for information. These CSA soldiers eventually executed 13 civilians, the youngest being 13. News of this spread far relatively quickly and became an infamous part of the Appalachian Civil War history.

Some historians, like Daniel Sutherland, would argue that the homefront and guerrilla warfare that isolated communities experienced were actually turning points in the Confederate war effort similar to how Gettysburg and Vicksburg were. This guerrilla warfare spilled over and affected isolated families in different ways. So, these individuals would have been aware of the conflict, but participation or loyalty would vary from area to area. I can expand on this or answer follow up questions around lunch!

Sources:
Victims: A True Story of the Civil War by Phillips Paludan

The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War by John C. Inscoe and Gordon B. McKinney

A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War by Daniel E. Sutherland

“Setting the Stage: Antebellum and Civil War Western North Carolina.” Reconstruction's Ragged Edge: The Politics of Postwar Life in the Southern Mountains, by STEVEN E. NASH, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2016, pp. 9–27. JSTOR,

War Comes to the Hills.” Western North Carolina: Its Mountains and Its People to 1880, by Ora Blackmun, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, 1977, pp. 343–355. JSTOR,

Everyone in Appalachia knew about the Civil War. Everyone. And it is simply not true that, at that time, Appalachian folk were isolated from news about the rest of the world. Let's look at two small Appalachian communities in specific, both next door to Georgia.

First up is Cave Creek, TN, which is really just a spot on a map. There was no town, there was just a collection of farmsteads. At the time of the Civil War it was as isolated as can be, and it hasn't changed much. In 1891, a constable living in Cave Creek named Brack Smith was murdered. This eventually led to the live funeral of Bush Breazeale, which was fictionalized in the film "Get Low" (Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek). The movie was historical fiction, but the live funeral did happen, and the real reason for it was that Bush was accused of murdering Brack Smith. And one of the reasons (though not the only reason) Brack Smith was murdered was the Civil War. His family had been pro-Confederate during the war, while Cave Creek was pro-Union. Cave Creek cemetery is littered with graves of Union veterans, specifically the Union 1st Regiment Volunteer Tennessee Infantry. A lot of folks in Cave Creek served the Union, despite Tennessee being Confederate. But Smith's family was Confederate, which led to tension that lasted decades. There was tension at the time, too. Church records show members of the church there being kicked out for supporting the Confederacy was back in 1861. Folks in Cave Creek knew what was up, and that place is very much Appalachia.

A second place worth looking at is Cades Cove, also in TN (EDIT: not in NC lol). Most people know it because it is a popular historical site, but back then it was just a typical rural Appalachian community. It was also pro-Union, and after the war, in 1865, a Confederate supporter who lived there named Daniel Foute was dragged behind a horse all the way to Knoxville. This killed him, obviously, but it shows how divided Cave Creek was during the war. They too knew what was up, and were very much in the heart of Appalachia.

How did these folks know? Because rural Appalachia was not a backwater then. Rural Appalachia only became a backwater AFTER the Civil War. In fact, the war largely caused it. Before the Civil War, Tennessee was socially and economically prominent. The state produced three Presidents before the war but none after (sorry, Al Gore). Then the war came, and more battles were fought there than any state other than Virginia. It had the most Union volunteers of any Southern state, and a high number of Confederate volunteers. It tore the state apart. In 1850 it led the nation in hog production, but by 1930 it had declined by about sixty percent. The overall Tennessee economy declined each of the three decades after the war. Before the Civil War, Tennessee was a modern state. After the war, it remained the same while the rest of the country advanced. The economic devastation of the war is what caused many places in Tennessee and rural Appalachia to become backwaters. But even then, these folks were not isolated. Many people in Cave Creek served in the World Wars. Appalachia became an economic backwater, but they never stopped getting the news, and they never stopped being part of the larger society of America. The notion that they have been isolated is, and always has been, a misconception.

Sources:

Cades Cove: A Southern Appalachian Community, by David Dunn (this is FANTASTIC)

Vengeance and Justice: Crime and Punishment in the 18th Century American South, by Edward Ayers

Uncle Bush's Live Funeral, by Scott Seeke

[Edit: TL;DR, seclusion, or the archetype of the purely independent mountaineer, is largely a myth. Even the most isolated people in the mountain South were connected to the "outside world" on a regular basis.]

Yeah, you would know... news traveled faster than you might think. Even the most isolated people were still connected. Of those people that perhaps didn’t have newspaper subscriptions, or correspondence with the “outside world,” nearby social centers (even in the most rural areas) such as churches and especially gristmills were places to gather and gossip. Let’s say you’re a relatively impoverished hillbilly... you’re still likely to be traveling and connecting with outsiders due to the nature of the mountain economy. You might pass a traveler while driving hogs and learn of your state’s secession, or while taking apples to market, encounter a recruiting sergeant. Let’s say you’re somewhat of an outlaw moonshiner... again, you or one of your cronies will likely have visited the local mill to grind the corn for your mash. Mills were often the site of elections, politicking, country fairs, and militia musters, and of course by extension “milling” around of locals. Let’s say you were a slave in the southern Appalachians— they, too had more mobility than you might expect, again due to the nature of the economy, the lower numbers of slaves there, and the “hiring out” system that spread skilled workers (blacksmiths, joiners, etc.) around the mountain hamlets. And though fears of slave insurrection were less intense than, say, the South Carolina lowcountry, slaveholders in the mountains were very much attuned to the national crisis and of course couldn’t feasibly hide the war from their slaves. And, in the case of the Eastern Cherokees in the mountain South (mostly in North Carolina), some of them did not speak English but were still very aware of their state’s secession convention and the unfolding implications. In general, news did travel more than you might expect, and certainly by the time the Confederate government extended a more heavy-handed grasp even in its peripheries (in the form of tax-in-kind, conscription, etc.), yes, the reality of secession and wartime pressures would have been acutely felt even for your most podunk “hillbilly”.

Sources: I’ll direct you especially to the scholarship of John Inscoe: The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War (with Gordon McKinney as co-editor) & Mountain Masters: Slavery and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina

Edit: while Inscoe focuses mostly on WNC, he illustrates the interconnectivity across the mountains to GA and other states.

See also: John Finger, Eastern Band of Cherokees, 1819-1900

The Local Color literary movement of the late 19th c. popularized the idea that people living in the Appalachians were isolated, strange creatures, cut off from the rest of the country, speaking strange dialects. This was later echoed in various films and cartoons, with Bugs Bunny and Abbott & Costello interacting with comical bearded characters, waving their comical antique rifles at each other, never trimming their beards or getting the other shoulder strap replaced on their overalls.... The caricature is still around, Snuffy Smith is still in print.

But no: there were roads and commerce. Not as many and not as much as in the better-developed north, but people and news traveled in and out, politicians campaigned, people voted. Nobody living in the southern mountains could have easily escaped knowing about the conflict brewing over slavery and knowing when the war came. The highlanders ( which included the "nickajacks" or hillcountry people) couldn't grow cotton, and did not benefit from the boom in the cotton industry that poured money into the lowland plantations. If they held slaves, they tended to be servants- not something , in other words, that was of great economic importance. And so at the outset they tended to resist secession. Because slaves were counted in the apportioning of votes, they were outvoted by the large slave-owning areas. But they did not necessarily go along: some fought for the Union. Not sure about the numbers, but the 1st Alabama Cavalry had many men from Tennessee and some from Georgia, was on the Union side in Sherman's March to the Sea. Some areas tried to keep away from the Confederacy: Winston County, Alabama tried to become a free republic on its own.

Mountains also mean mountain passes, which meant the Appalachians had very important gateways leading from the eastern US to the Western. It should not be surprising then that the earliest battle was over securing key railroad route through the Virginia mountains, at Phillipi, and later in 1862 the Union would attack the Confederates over control of the Cumberland Gap (...and would hold it for a few months.) The Battle of Philippi of 1861 was more of a skirmish, but it was the first in a whole series of scattered conflicts over what's now West Virginia, over control of the railroads and roads like the Staunton to Parkersburg Turnpike. Hampered by awful terrain, bad weather, and sometimes amazingly inept officers, they tended to be miserable, chaotic affairs ( like the Battle of Rich Mountain) . Romney ( on another turnpike) changed hands many times.

Not that the division was geographically neat and simple. There was a real mix of opinion over secession and slavery, and that difference of opinion meant there were armed guerillas on both sides, sniping at regular troops, or sometimes ( like MacNeil's Rangers) kidnapping them. Western Virginia had the plurality of votes to stay in the Union, but it still contributed perhaps 18,000 soldiers to the Confederacy. And there were later repercussions: the famous Hatfield-McCoy feud was partially started in the War, when Devil Anse formed the Logan Wildcats in support of the Confederacy, and the McCoys went with the Union.

So, the short answer would be: yes, you would know there was a war, would have seen it coming. Likely it would be in your vicinity, and you'd be awfully lucky to avoid it.

W. Hunter Lesser: Rebels at the Gate

This is a great question, and perhaps more complex than it appears. The notion of Appalachian isolation, in a true sense, has been the subject of much debate. Cratis Williams and Wilma Dunaway each contend, to one extent or another, that our idea of complete or mostly complete isolation in Appalachia is, very generally speaking, false. This misapprehension may, perhaps, be laid at the feet of the exploitative media practices which emphasized the idea of an isolated and fundamentally backward Appalachian region through ‘local-color’ pieces and, eventually, film and television for profit. Whatever the reason for the trope, it is quite likely that it is, at best, an exaggeration and over-generalization of the actual state of the region. Dunaway argues that Appalachia has been economically connected to the world (meaning national and international trade) from settlement on. Williams outright states that the average Appalachian homestead was no more isolated than any other frontier settlement. By the time we reach the 19th century, we can be fairly confident that, with some few exceptions, the region was not as isolated as it has been portrayed. We can safely say that parts of the region were more isolated than others - even if the character of that isolation was relative rather than absolute throughout most of the region.

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However, this raises an important question: Appalachia is huge! Even limiting it to the mountains of the former confederate South means dealing with a daunting level of diversity. So, where are we talking about? Since you asked about the more isolated hills of Georgia, I’ll address that. But, be aware that what is true of Northeast Georgia is not necessarily true of other parts of the region.

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When we speak of the more isolated parts of Appalachian Georgia during the war, we must really discuss Northeast Georgia. The Northwestern part of the state was both more well connected to urban confederate centers (like nearby Chattanooga and Atlanta) and saw a great deal of direct action. I think that we can agree that the central and southern parts of the state, despite also seeing various amounts of action during the war, are neither geographically nor culturally part of Appalachia (difficult as the boundaries of the region can be to define). So, I’ll confine my answer to the Northeast (think: the region near the Ocoee and Oconee rivers that includes Fannin county, Copper Hill, Dahlonega, Helen [of cabbage patch fame], and still more rural locales).

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To begin, you’ll want to remember that a more rural area with the sort of ridge and valley topography that is characteristic of Northern Georgia was not well suited to the mass agriculture projects which may initially come to mind when thinking about the confederate south - meaning that large plantations (with many slaves) were not the economic drivers that they were in areas with flatter terrain. When one considers this, as well as the rurality of the region and the hostility with which confederate draft officials were often met there, it is little wonder that residents of the region were less likely to be directly involved in, or materially supportive of, the war (in a large sense) than other Georgians. That isn’t meant to imply that the area was ignorant of the war nor that the people who lived there were uniformly opposed to it. Rural counties in the Northeast still supplied troops and (a smaller amount of) war material to the confederate army. (Though, at a guess, it seems more likely that they were more often supplying those goods that they did send to their fellow Georgians rather than the larger confederate forces given Governor Brown’s tendency to put Georgia and her needs before those of the confederacy.)

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In short, it is probably safe to make the general claim that most of the average residents of rural Northeast Georgia were aware of the war and were, collectively via county governments, involved in supporting the war. It is impossible to prove the negative and say that there were no communities or individual households, in either Northeast Georgia or the more broadly constructed Appalachian South, which were ignorant of the conflict. However, given the engagement of even these rural areas on the county and municipal levels, it seems very very unlikely that you would find large pockets of such ignorance of either the war or the area’s secession.

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Thanks for the great question! For good arguments about Appalachian connections to international trade (and therefore a refutation of the notion of a more absolute regional isolation), Dunaway’s The First American Frontier is a good read. Likewise, just about anything you find by Williams is worth reading, though his The Southern Mountaineer In Fact And Fiction, and the excerpted “Who Are The Southern Mountaineers?” are great (if more than a bit dated now). A good bit of follow up reading on the war in Northeast Georgia should probably include Sarris’ A Seperate Civil War.

While there certainly could have been some isolated individual who didn't know that the war was going on, in general the Civil War was hard to miss, even in the most remote of locations.

From a macro standpoint, Appalachia, even in its most remote of areas, still had importance during the war. In the first half of the war, Lincoln was constantly pressing his generals in the west to act and maneuver in East Tennessee, particularly in the corridor between Chattanooga and Knoxville. This region was perceived as being fervently loyal to the Union, and Lincoln wanted the area wrested from Confederate control as soon as possible. The war touched what is now West Virginia in some of the earliest actions of the war (such as Rich Mountain) and large swaths of Kentucky in late 1862. Plus, raiding was common in Southwest Virginia and Northern Alabama throughout the war. Active operations reached Northwest Georgia by late 1863, and the hills in mountains in the region became important parts of the campaigns.

From a micro standpoint, it would have been extremely unlikely for someone not to know the war was going on. Newspapers were incredibly prevalent during the era (Oswego County, NY - a quasi-rural area north of Syracuse had at least 7 active newspapers in 1863), and war coverage was obviously an important part of their daily or weekly output.

There was also the matter of military service. Men from Kentucky enlisted in the Confederate army early in the war, and men from what became West Virginia likely did too. However, Kentucky stayed in the Union and West Virginia became a part of it officially in 1863. These states likely sent troops to the front via the draft, as did every Union state in 1863 and on.

The states loyal to the South are a whole different story. By 1862, Confederate service was compulsory for all adult men, with few exceptions. The CS Armies were so hard up for manpower that even the most remote of regions would not have gone unnoticed. This would not have gotten any better as the war went on, and Confederate home guards would regularly sweep rural areas in search of deserters or men on ending furlough.

This does not even begin to discuss problems with inflation of scarcity of staples, which are more out of my area of expertise.

In short, it would be hard for the war to go unnoticed, even if being under a rebel government wouldn't have a major impact on one's life.

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Bradley County, Tennessee isn't exactly the most isolated place in Appalachia but I think you may find this book(History of the Rebellion in Bradley County, East Tennessee[1866]) very interesting if you're looking for an example of how people in the region would have experienced and dealt with the war.

https://archive.org/details/historyofrebelli00hurl/page/n11