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“War at every man’s door” : The struggle for East Tennessee, 1860—1869. (Volumes I and n)

Fisher, Noel Charles, Ph.D.

The Ohio State University, 1993

Copyright ©1993 by Fisher, Noel Charles. All rights reserved.

UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106

"WAR AT EVERY MAN’S DOOR": THE STRUGGLE

FOR EAST TENNESSEE, 1860-1869

VOLUME I

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of the Ohio State University

By

Noel C. Fisher, B.A., M.A.

*****

The Ohio State University

1993

Dissertation Committee Approved by

Allan R. Millett

Joan E. Cashin Advisor Michael Les Benedict Department of History Copyright by Noel Charles Fisher 1993 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My list of debts to my advisor, Professor Allan Millett, is quite long, but I would particularly like to thank him for originally pointing me to this project, for making numerous suggestions that greatly increased my understanding of the East Teimessee war, and for encouraging me throughout the entire process. I would also like to thank Professor Joan Cashin for her close questioning of my analyses, her criticisms of style, and her valuable suggestions for further research. My thanks also go to Professor M. Les Benedict for his very helpful comments on Chapters II and VII and for his encouraging me to ask broader questions.

There were many people who made the research for this project both fruitful and enjoyable. The staffs of the Tennessee State Library and Archives, the University of Tennessee Library, the McClung Collection, the Southern Historical Collection, the Perkins Library at Duke University, the North Carolina State Archives, the Military History Institute, the National Archives, the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, and the Federal Records Center in Atlanta were all knowledgeable, friendly, and remarkably efficient. The Alumni Research Fund of the Graduate School at The Ohio State University provided generous funds for travel and research. And Barb and Jerry Ryan made my stay at Durham, North Carolina unforgettably pleasant.

My gratitude also goes to the people who encouraged me throughout this project. The Department of History, Ohio Wesleyan University, provided employment at a critical time, and Dr. Jan Hallenbeck, Dr. William Walker, Dr. Richard Spall, Dr. Deborah Van Broekhoven, and Ms. Carol Doubkin all took an interest in my work. Dr. Carl Beamer and Terry Beamer were the best of friends, and they also provided practical help, including the use of their extensive libraiy and aid with statistics.

My deepest thanks are reserved for my wife, Angela, who traveled with me, aided me in my research, supported my work, and lived every day of this project. This dissertation is as much hers as mine.

u VITA

December 11, 1962 ...... Bom - Sidney, Nebraska

1985 ...... B.S., University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska

1987 ...... M.A. in History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1986-1990 ...... Graduate Teaching Assistant, The Ohio State University

1991-1992 Instructor, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio

PUBLICATIONS

’“Prepare Uiem for My Coming’: General William T. Sherman, Total War, and Pacification in West Tennessee." Tennessee Historical Quarterly 51 (1992): 75-86.

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: History

Studies in American Military History - Dr. Allan Millett

Nineteenth Century United States - Dr. Merton Dillon, Dr. Joan Cashin

European Military History - Dr. Williamson Murray

Nineteenth Century United States Diplomacy - Dr. Marvin Zahniser

Sub-Saharan African History - Dr. Robert Baum

111 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... ii

VITA ...... iii

LIST OF TABLES...... v

LIST OF FIGURES ...... vi

INTRODUCTION...... 1

CHAPTER PAGE

I. "THE WHOLE COUNTRY IS NOW IN A STATE OF REBELLION"...... 13

II. "HEWERS OF WOOD AND DRAWERS OF WATER"... 69

in. "WAR AT EVERY MAN’S DOOR" ...... 129

IV. "THE LENIENCY SHOWN THEM HAS BEEN UNAVAILING"...... 196

V. "TO GUARD AGAINST REAL OR EVEN SUPPOSED DANGER"...... 259

VI. "I AM HEARTILY SICK OF EAST TENNESSEE"...... 328

IV LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGE

1. SECTIONAL COMPARISONS, TENNESSEE, 1860 ... 102

2. SECTIONAL DISTINCTIONS, TENNESSEE, 1860 ... 103

3. COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION...... 106

4. SINGLE REGRESSIONS, VOTE AGAINST SECESSION...... 107

5. MULTIPLE REGRESSIONS, VOTE AGAINST SECESSION...... 108

6. SINGLE REGRESSIONS, REGION AND ECONOMIC FACTORS...... 109

7. TROOP STRENGTHS, CONFEDERATE AND UNION, 1861-1865 ...... 180 LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

1. EAST TENNESSEE, 1860 ...... 16

2. LOCATION OF BRIDGES BURNED, NOVEMBER 8-9, 1860 ...... 52

3. UNION COUNTER-GUERRILLA OPERATIONS, OCTOBER 1864 ...... 333

4. UNION COUNTER-GUERRILLA OPERATIONS, MAY 1865 ...... 334

5. UNION SUPPLY LINES, 1863-1865 ...... 376

VI INTRODUCTION

The national pattern of loyalties in the Civil War period presents a more

complex picture than the simple divisions of North and South, Union and

Confederate, Blue and Gray that are commonly employed. Both before and during

the war there existed in the United States a wide belt of territory straddling the

Mason-Dixon line in which the sectional alignment was blurred and political

loyalties dangerously mixed. This divided region went beyond the border states and

such well-known anomalies as West Virginia. Northern unity was threatened by

strong Southern sympathies in the lower Midwest, while Confederate authority was

challenged by pockets of Unionism in North Carolina, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia,

and Tennessee. The danger presented by these disaffected areas has sometimes

been exaggerated, but disaffection was nonetheless significant on both sides. Under

normal conditions even severe internal differences and divisions could be ignored,

accommodated, or adjusted through the political system. But in a war that

demanded unity and commitment such divisions were very dangerous. They hampered mobilization, obstructed the operations of the government, and sometimes flared up into overt rebellion. At the same time, the stresses of the war itself accentuated these differences and widened these divisions. 2 The most intractable bastions of Southern Unionism developed in the

Appalachians, a region that diverged from the dominant Southern economic and

social patterns. This area was characterized neither by the staple crop system of

the lower South nor by the rich grain and livestock production of the upper South,

and it participated only peripherally in the institution of slavery. These regions

were by no means antislavery, and culturally they identified with the South. But

neither economic ties, nor political arrangements, nor slaveholder hegemony, nor

any other mechanism had integrated them into the Southern system. Furthermore,

the neglect that they had experienced at the hands of their state governments had

created resentments and a sense of regional separation. As the war would

demonstrate, large numbers of people in the Southern Appalachians, for a variety

of reasons, believed that their interests would best be served by remaining in the

old Union, and they strenuously resisted incorporation into the Confederacy. Thus

there emerged regions that were not only partially detached from the Confederacy

but also internally divided, and in some of these regions men and women of

conflicting political attachments engaged in a ruthless irregular struggle, battling

one another, as well as the regular enemy forces, for control.

This is a study of one of those areas, the thirty-one counties that made up

East Tennessee. Between 1860 and 1869 East Teimessee was convulsed by a little-

known, but frighteningly intense and destructive, struggle for political control. It began with the election of President Abraham Lincoln in November 1860, and it essentially ended with the collapse of Tennessee’s Reconstruction government in 3 1869. This conflict between native Unionists and secessionists was a war within a war. It was precipitated and influenced by the national war, and both the

Confederate and the Union Armies would enter this struggle and shape its outcome. Yet the war in East Tennessee also had its own causes and its own dynamics, and at times it was surprisingly detached from the conventional conflict.

Native secessionists and native Unionists possessed their own aims, and national policies did not always meet their expectations. The outcome of this war was a limited victory for the Unionist side. The loyalist faction gained clear control of

East Tennessee, drove out or intimidated much of the secessionist population, and fully participated in the Federal occupation. Furthermore, East Tennessee was effectively detached from the Confederacy, and after the war it became one of the strongholds of Republicanism in the South. The Unionists did fail, both before and after the war, to achieve their larger goal of controlling the entire state, and they suffered more than two years of Confederate occupation. Their domination of East

Tennessee, however, was unquestionable.

Like all civil wars, the American conflict generated powerful passions, hatreds, and commitments. The ferocity with which recruits on both sides fought, the burdens that the Southern population bore, the hard war policies that Union and Confederate generals adopted, and the years required to affect a reconciliation, are all testimony to the forces that sustained the American Civil War. Yet in all the accounts of campaigns and battles, army organization and mobilization, and politics and diplomacy, the savage character of the war has sometimes been 4 obscured. Too often the Civil War emerges as simply a conventional conflict between two nations rather than a cruel internecine conflict. The war in fact displayed both these faces, but the formal character of the conflict should not obscure its darker side. Likewise, while there is some consensus that beliefs played a significant role in precipitating and sustaining the American Civil War, discussions of these beliefs frequently convey little of their depth or intensity. In areas where those beliefs came into close contact, however, their vitality is obvious. In regions such as East Tennessee, the clashing ideologies, the mutual hatreds and intolerances, and the refusal of two people to live together created a brutal internal conflict frighteningly similar to the twentieth-century wars in Lebanon, Northern

Ireland, and Bosnia and Croatia.

The strongest evidence for the ideological character of this conflict is the

Unionism of East Tennessee. The loyal party in East Tennessee twice voted down secession by overwhelming majorities, created its own very effective political and military organizations, and for two years defied Confederate rule, remaining unmoved in the face of appeals to Southern loyalty, promises of protection, threats of punishment, and harsh repression. Further, at least twenty thousand East

Tennessee men out of a voting population of about forty-six thousand fled to

Kentucky to enter the Union Army, often dooming their homes to destruction and their families to poverty and persecution. Thousands more chose to live a primitive, uncertain existence in forests, mountain hideouts, and caves rather than submit to Confederate service. These Unionists had many economic grievances and 5 social resentments, but ultimately it was their ideological hostility to Confederate

rule, and their attachment to the Union, that drove them to this war.

This dissertation is designed as a political and military study of the conflict

for control of East Tennessee. Its primary focus is the aims, the motives, and the

methods of the four combatants in that struggle, the various ways in which they

interacted, and the ultimate outcome of that conflict. It begins with the formation

of opposing political attachments in East Tennessee, and it concludes with the

collapse of the radical regime. Since similar conflicts also emerged in western

North Carolina and the Highland Rim area of Middle Tennessee, I it includes

incidents from these areas when appropriate, but this remains the story of East

Tennessee. This dissertation is intended to be a detailed study of one region’s civil

war, the roles that individual men and women played in that war, the attempts by

authorities on both sides to influence the struggle, the nature of guerrilla and

counter-guerrilla warfare in East Teimessee, and the intersection of the regional

conflict with the national war. It does not propose to examine in detail the social

and economic aspects of the war in East Tennessee. These are important topics,

but they fall outside the scope of this study.

The struggle for East Tennessee passed through five phases. The first, the political, opened in November 1860 and lasted through June 1861. During this period East Teimessee Unionists and secessionists organized themselves into political factions, opposed each other in two referenda on secession, and competed for control of public opinion. After secession passed in June, the Unionists also 6 attempted legally to detach the their region from Tennessee and form a new state

that would remain in the Union.

The second phase, that of open resistance by the Unionist faction,

overlapped the first, extending from December 1860 through November 1861.

During the course of this year the Unionists established a central leadership group

and local political and military organizations, initiated contacts with the Federal

government and the Union Army, and attempted to drive out the Confederate

occupiers in a mass uprising. The failure of this uprising led to the third phase, in

which Unionists turned to somewhat less open, but more effective, means of

resistance. Unionist guerrilla bands harassed Southern troops and terrorized the

Confederacy’s supporters, while Unionist leaders retained control of many public

offices and carried on a regional government largely detached from the

Confederacy. Secessionists in turn fought back, and both secessionist guerrillas and

Confederate troops attempted to beat the Unionists into submission. In the fourth

phase, which began in August 1863 with the Federal occupation of most of East

Tennessee, the positions of the two factions were reversed, with secessionists

attempting to subvert Union rule and loyalists cooperating with the Union Army to

suppress dissent.

The final phase, Tennessee’s reconstruction period, extended roughly from

January 1865 through August 1869. Partisan violence continued throughout this period, but the focus of the struggle shifted back to the legal and political spheres.

In the first two years of reconstruction, Eastern Unionists allied with other radicals 7 to dominate the new state government and punish their secessionist enemies.

Eventually the radical government collapsed, and loyalists lost control of the state to their former enemies. In East Tennessee, however, the Unionist faction remained supreme.

The organization of this dissertation roughly follows these five phases.

Chapter One traces the two secession campaigns in Tennessee, the emergence of the Unionist political leadership, the development of local resistance organizations, and the failed uprising. Chapter Two examines the roots of East Tennessee

Unionism and discusses the causes of the violence between Unionists and secessionists. Chapter Three then explores the core of this conflict, the violent struggle between Unionists and secessionists for control. It examines the organization of the guerrilla bands, their military, political, and criminal activities, and the significance and effects of the partisan war. The dissertation then shifts to the external forces that influenced this conflict. Chapters Four and Five discuss and evaluate the attempts by Confederate and Union governments, respectively, to impose their authority and restore order in East Tennessee, while Chapter Six explores the conflict in the field between the conventional forces and the irregulars and examines the roles played by ordinary soldiers. Finally, Chapter Seven traces the continuing political, legal, and violent conflict between Unionists and secessionists during Tennessee’s reconstruction and sets out the final results of this conflict. 8 To this point most works on Civil War guerrillas have emphasized their

military operations. Two pioneering studies were Virgil Carrington Jones’ Grav

Ghosts and Rebel Raiders and Richard S. Brownlee’s Gray Ghosts of the

Confederacy. Jones’ primary aim was to demonstrate that Southern guerrillas had

effectively impeded and delayed Union operations in the Shenandoah Valley by

several months. Brownlee, likewise, devoted much of his attention to the war

between Union troops and the Missouri irregulars, though he also narrated in vivid

detail several of the Confederate raids on the Unionist population. Several

biographies and unit studies, including Virgil Carrington Jones, Ranger Mosby.

Jeffrey D. Wert, Mosby’s Rangers. Jay Monaghan, Civil War on the Western

Border. 1854-1865. Cecil Fletcher Holland, Morgan and His Raiders, and Brian

Steel Wills, A Battle from the Start: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest, filled out

the growing picture of the Confederate guerrilla campaign against the Union Army

in Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia. [1]

A few recent works have opened new perspectives on the Civil War

irregulars. In Victims: A True Story of the Civil War. Philip K. Paludan recreated

in detail one atrocity of the irregular war in North Carolina, the summary execution

of thirteen Unionist partisans by Confederate troops in January 1863. Paludan used

this incident to explore a number of topics, including the sources of the Unionist- secessionist conflict in North Carolina, the dynamics of the irregular war, and the responses of Confederate authorities and Southern troops. Paludan portrayed the

Unionist guerrilla war as an attempt to protect a community with its own traditions 9 and way of life against interference by the Confederate Government; he also argued that much of the conflict stemmed from the division between the local elite and the mountain farmers in Madison County. [2]

A second work to take an alternative approach to the guerrilla war was

Michael Fellman’s Inside War, a cultural and psychological study of the Missouri conflict. Fellman examined the attitudes and motivations of the guerrillas, their campaign against the enemy population, the effects of this terrible violence on the people of Missouri, and the ineffectual attempts of the Union command to restore order. Fellman attributed the war in Missouri to social stresses stemming from rapid economic changes. Other works in this vein include Stephen Ash’s Middle

Tennessee Society Transformed: War and Peace in the Upper South. 1860-1870. which stressed the social context of the Middle Tennessee guerrillas and portrayed them as the self-appointed defenders of the region against both Union troops and loyalist dissenters, and Paul D. Escott’s Many Excellent People: Power and Privlege in North Carolina. [3]

Numerous works on Tennessee history have also discussed the Unionist- secessionist war. Most important to this study is Charles F. Bryan’s unpublished dissertation, "The Civil War in East Tennessee; A Social, Political, and Economic

Study." Bryan traced the course of the conflict in this region, but unlike this study his primary focus was the role that political, economic, and religious institutions played in the war and the ways in which the struggle damaged, distorted, or transformed these institutions. Biographies of three East Tennessee leaders. 10 Andrew Johnson, T.A.R. Nelson, and William G. Brownlow, have explored in detail

the political conflict and the secession campaigns in East Tennessee, while two

articles, David Madden’s "Unionist Resistance to Confederate Occupation; The

Bridge-Burners of East Tennessee" and James W. McKee, Jr.’s "Felix K. Zollicoffer:

Confederate Defender of East Tennessee" have narrated several critical incidents

in the first year of this conflict. Finally, numerous works on reconstruction,

including James Patton, Unionism and Reconstruction in Tennessee, and Thomas

B. Alexander, Political Reconstruction in Tennessee, have discussed the political

struggles over the state’s future. [4] No work, however, has yet given a thorough

account of the nature of the conflict between Unionists and secessionists, the war

between the guerrillas and the soldiers in this region, or the occupation policies of

both sides, and no work has attempted to place the East Tennessee irregulars in their political and military context or relate this regional struggle to the national war. 11

NOTES

1. Virgil Carrington Jones, Gray Ghosts and Rebel Raiders, two vols. (New York: Ballentine Books, 1973); Richard S. Brownlee, Grav Ghosts of the Confederacy: Guerrilla Warfare in the West. 1861-1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968); Virgil Carrington Jones, Ranger Mosby (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944); Jeffrey D. Wert, Mosby’s Rangers (New York and other cities: Simon and Schuster, 1990); Jay Monaghan, Civil War on the Western Border (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1955); Cecil Fletcher Holland, Morgan and His Raiders (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1942); Brian Steel Wills, A Battle from the Start: THe Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest (New York: Harper-Collins, 1992).

2. Philip Shaw Paludan, Victims: A True Story of the Civil War (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981).

3. Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Stephen Ash, Middle Tennessee Society Transformed. 1860-1870: War and Peace in the Upper South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988); Paul D. Escott, Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina. 1850-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985).

4. Charles F. Bryan, Jr., "The Civil War in East Tennessee: A Social, Political, and Economic Study," unpublished dissertation. University of Teimessee, 1978; Clifton R. Hall, Andrew Johnson: Military Governor of Teimessee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1916); Robert W. Winston, Andrew Johnson: Plebian and Patriot (New York: Bames & Noble, Inc., 1969); Thomas B. Alexander, Thomas A.R. Nelson of East Tennessee (Nashville: Teimessee Historical Commission, 1956); E. Merton Coulter, William G. Brownlow: Fighting Parson of the Highlands (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1937); Steve Humphrey, That D -d Brownlow (Boone, North Carolina: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1978); David Madden, "Unionist Resistance to Confederate Occupation: The Bridge-Burners of East Tennessee," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 52 (1980), 42-53 and 53 (1981):22-39; James W. McKee, Jr., "Felix K. Zollicoffer: Confederate Defender of East Tennessee," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 43 (1971): 34-58,44 (1972): 17-40; James Welch Patton, Unionism and Reconstruction in Tennessee. 1860-1869 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina 12 Press, 1934); Thomas B. Alexander, Political Reconstruction in Tennessee (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1950). CHAPTER I

"THE WHOLE COUNTRY IS NOW IN A STATE OF REBELLION"

8 November 1861, Jacksborough, East Tennessee. Brigadier General Felix

K. Zollicoffer, politician turned soldier and now commander of the Department of East Tennessee, waits anxiously for the Union hordes rumored to be just across the border in Kentucky. For the past few months he has been increasingly burdened by the conflicting and complex demands of this inhospitable region, attempting, with his small force of inadequately armed troops, both to secure his borders and pacify a hostile population. Now in the last week he has been marching and countermarching all over this area chasing uncertain reports of massing Federal troops, and the strain is evident in his recent dispatches. The threat in his firont will soon dissolve into phantoms, but even now the enemy in his rear is massing for action. In a few hours the population that he thought had become reconciled to Southern rule will rise up and attempt to tear East

Tennessee from the hated Confederate grasp.

8 November 1861, Knoxville. Colonel William B. Wood, Post Commander at Knoxville, also sits and waits, not for invasion but for the rebellion he senses

13 14 is imminent. Unlike Zollicoffer, Wood has no illusions concerning the loyalties of this population. He knows that Unionist "Home Guard" units outnumber

Confederate forces, and he is aware of an increasing restlessness among the population in the past few weeks. He is certain that in some fashion, and soon, disaffection will boil over into rebellion, and he only hopes that the reinforcements for which he has pleaded will arrive first.

5 November, Crab Orchard, Kentucky. In spite of rainy weather, deplorable roads, and lack of men as well as everything else. Brigadier General

George H. Thomas has been pressing forward with preparations for a movement into East Tennessee, and has now reached this point, forty miles from the border.

But Brigadier General William T. Sherman, Commander of the Department of the

Cumberland, does not share Thomas' resolve. Overcome by fears for the security of the Union position in Kentucky and racked by doubts concerning the feasibility of holding East Tennessee, on this day Sherman calls off the invasion. Thomas protests but complies, and his forces will remain at Crab Orchard, unable to intervene in the events that will soon transpire,

8 November, Hamilton County, East Tennessee. Firm in their belief that even now the Union Army is on its way, three men slide through the dark woods, cautiously making their way to the wooden bridge that carries the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad across Chickamauga Creek. Nervously alert for 15 Confederate guards, they quickly douse the span with turpentine and apply their

torches. The dry wood quickly ignites, and within moments timbers are crashing

into the stream below. The war for East Tennessee has begun.

SECESSION: DEFEAT AND VICTORY

In fact, the conflict for East Tennessee had begun more than a year

previously, though until November the fighting had been confined primarily to the

political realm. The period of November 1860 through November 1861 had been

a turbulent one, bringing to East Tennessee the excitement of two referenda on

secession, occupation by Confederate forces, and growing unrest. In this period

the Unionist population of East Tennessee had twice spumed the Confederate

embrace, developed effective revolutionary organizations, and defied the

Confederate soldiers sent to overawe them. In November 1861 this resistance

movement culminated in a mass uprising against the Confederate government.

In the antebellum period Termessee’s stance toward the sectional conflict

had been characterized by moderation. Though strongly committed to Southern rights and wary of Northern intentions, Teimessee leaders tended to favor mediation and conciliation. The majority of Teimesseeans apparently supported the Compromise of 1850, and few Tennessee delegates attended a Southern convention held in Nashville in 1851 to discuss responses to that settlement.

Likewise, John Bell was one of only two Southern Senators to oppose the Kansas- 16

SULLIVAN

GREENE

SEVIER

MONROE

POLK

FIGURE 1

EAST TENNESSEE, 1860 17 Nebraska Act, and most Tennessee Congressmen consistently supported temperate positions on sectional issues. [1]

Moderation likewise prevailed in the presidential election of 1860.

Tennessee helped gave birth to the Constitutional Union Party and provided the new organization its presidential candidate, John Bell; it also gave Bell twelve of his twenty-nine electoral votes. It is true that in some ways Termessee’s voting in the election of 1860 reflected more established political habits than the state’s stance on the developing crisis. For the most part. Democrats and Whigs each carried their usual counties, and the total Democratic vote actually outweighed that of the Opposition. But the Democratic split proved the key factor, as

Stephen Douglas took enough votes from John C. Breckinridge to leave Bell a plurality. Many voters did not see the election as a referendum on the sectional crisis, and even Andrew Johnson, destined to become the staunchest of Southern

Unionists, supported Breckinridge, though reluctantly. The specter of secession was not entirely absent, however, particularly in East Tennessee. In October 1860

William G. Brownlow, editor of the Knoxville Whig, accused Breckinridge of plotting to break up the Union, and in November the Reverend Nathaniel G.

Taylor, state representative from Carter County, asserted that the consequence of

Breckinridge’s election would be civil war. [2]

The predominant reaction in Teimessee to Abraham Lincoln’s election was one of caution. Moderates and conservatives were distressed at the triumph of a

"Black Republican," but they also rejected immediate secession and favored 18 waiting to see what course the new president would take. In East Tennessee,

Brownlow’s Whig asserted that Lincoln was simply an old-line Clay Whig who

harbored no evil intentions toward the South and who, even if he desired to take

measures contrary to Southern interests, would be restrained by Congress and the

Supreme Court. Likewise, South Carolina's secession in December aroused little

sympathy. William G. McAdoo, a Knoxville Democrat who later became a

staunch secessionist, reacted to the news in this way: "God speed her. I am willing

to go with spade and pickaxe and work a month to ditch around her and float her

out into the Atlantic a thousand miles." [3]

But moderates did not monopolize the political scene in Tennessee.

Governor Isham G. Harris and a number of legislators favored separation from

the Union, and they were active and vocal. On 7 January 1861 Harris called the

legislature into special session to discuss the current crisis. In his opening address,

the governor laid out a proposed compromise on which the Southern states might unite. Central to this proposal were five Constitutional amendments designed to protect Southern interests: extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the

Pacific; a stronger Fugitive Slave Law that would include compensation for unrecoverable slaves; absolute protection for slaveholders temporarily residing in

Northern states; the preservation of slavery in Washington, D.C.; and a provision that no further amendments could be adopted concerning slavery without the consent of all slaveholding states. Harris admitted that he had little faith in the possibility of compromise, however, and stated that the only true question before 19 the legislature was whether Tennessee would stand with the North or the South.

The Governor and his allies, therefore, pressed for prompt passage of an

ordinance of secession, but moderate legislators thwarted Harris’ plan. In a

measure crisscrossed with checks and restraints the legislature authorized a

referendum for 9 February in which Tennessee voters would not only elect

delegates to a state convention to consider secession but also determine whether

or not they wished such a convention to be held at all. Likewise, while the

Tennessee lawmakers condemned the New York legislature for offering men and

arms to Lincoln to put down the impending rebellion, they also sent resolutions

to all Southern states urging them to maintain the status quo in Federal

installations. [4]

East Tennessee Unionist leaders were well prepared for this first campaign.

At the begiiming of the secession crisis it was not obvious that the region would

become a Unionist stronghold, for several prominent men were actively organizing

support for secession. But in a series of meetings in November and December

Unionist leaders seized control of public opinion and confined secessionists to an

ineffective minority. In the weeks before the referendum they solidified this hold,

saturating the region with speakers and leaflets, playing on the patriotism of their

listeners, and imploring them to defend the government for which their ancestors

had fought and died against the secessionist plot. Johnson’s attacks in the Senate

on secession were widely reprinted in newspapers and pamphlets, while

Brownlow’s Whig spewed out a steady stream of vicious assaults on secessionist 20 leaders. Brownlow charged that the first state to secede, South Carolina, had been

the center of Toryism in the Revolution, and he asserted that the current radical

leaders all had Tory ancestors. He also offered the following prayer for the

secession winter:

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, in whose hands are the hearts of men, and the issues of events, not mixed up with Locofocoism, nor rendered offensive in thy sight by being identified with men of corrupt minds, evil designs, and damnable purposes, such as are seeking to upturn the best form of government on earth. Thou hast graciously promised to hear the prayers of those in a humble spirit, and with true faith-such as no Secessionist can bring into exercise-call upon Thee. Be pleased, we beseech Thee, favorably to look upon and bless the Union men of this Commonwealth . . . Possess their minds with the spirit of true patriotism, enlightened wisdom, and of persevering hostility toward those traitors, political gamblers, and selfish demagogues who are seeking to build up a miserable Southern Confederacy, and under it to inaugurate a new reading of the Ten Commandments, so as to teacn that the chief end of man is Nigger! [5]

The results of the February referendum both reflected the moderation of

Tennessee and foreshadowed the radical Unionism of the eastern counties. Anti­ secession delegates outpolled secessionists 88,803 to 24,749, while the motion even to hold a convention failed 68,282 to 59,449. West Tennessee gave a decisive majority for the convention, but Middle and East Tennessee both voted the 21 proposal down. Only three counties in East Tennessee recorded votes favorable

to a convention, and none elected secessionist delegates. [6]

The magnitude of the February victory, though immensely satisfying to

moderate leaders, obscured both the fragility of Tennessee unionism and the

potential split between the eastern counties and the rest of the state. Contrary to

the belief of Eastern leaders and Northern observers, Teimessee's vote did not

represent an unqualified rejection of secession. The loyalty of the majority of

Unionists was conditional and depended on the satisfaction of certain criteria, while voters who would remain Unionists no matter what the circumstances were

concentrated largely in the East. The danger for the anti-secession movement was that conditional Unionism rested on two unlikely contingencies: Congress devising an effective, lasting settlement of sectional conflicts; and the Lincoln

Administration avoiding an armed clash with Southern forces. [7]

Other dangers loomed as well. Leading secessionists, including Governor

Harris, did not accept the February vote as final, but continued to labor for separation. Furthermore, though the referendum campaign had helped to define the issues, public opinion was still volatile and unpredictable. What Oliver P.

Temple wrote in January was true of March and April as well: "What was then pertinent might now be considered obsolete, so rapidly are we shifting, changing, and moving forward. . . . Events as they pass appear as a dream or a phantom, yet they are solemn realities." Finally, the coalition that had defeated secession was itself very fragile. A conglomeration of Democrats and Whigs, conservatives 22 and moderates, slaveholders and yeomen farmers, it was held together only by the

common threat of secession. This diversity of interests made it difficult to agree

cn a general platform beyond preservation of the Union, and ongoing party

rivalries almost ensured infighting. [8]

The Unionist coalition that had triumphed in February began to unravel

in March. A few weeks of cooperation could not erase years of bitter party

competition, particularly when the threat that had bound the Opposition and the

Democrats together appeared to have suffered a decisive defeat, and in early

March they began to squabble over the distribution of Federal patronage in the

state. Whig office-seekers, who made up a majority of the coalition and had every

reason to expect favorable treatment from the Lincoln administration, pressed

their claims through John Bell. Bell made strong efforts on their behalf,

corresponding at length with the president and meeting with him in person.

Lincoln assumed, however, that the unionism of southern Whigs was reliable and

concluded that it would be more profitable to reward Unionist Democrats. He

therefore granted the disposition of patronage to Senator Andrew Johnson and

Representative Emerson Etheridge. Johnson, concerned with his own political

future, used his power to reward friends and supporters, strengthen his personal

following, and retain some ties to the Democratic Party. This obvious favoritism

angered and embittered Tennessee conservatives, dividing the coalition on old party lines and demoralizing Opposition voters. Even in East Tennessee, some of Johnson's choices, particularly that of secessionist John L. Hopkins as District 23 Attorney, confused and alienated Unionist forces, and several correspondents

warned Johnson that suspicions and recriminations were corrupting the coalition

and undermining Unionist unity. [9]

At the same time that the Unionist coalition was splitting internally, the

foundations upon which conditional Unionism rested were crumbling. Tennessee

leaders had joined other Upper South moderates in working for compromise, and

Senator Andrew Johnson and Representatives Horace Maynard and T.A.R.

Nelson had all proposed possible compromises, appealed to Republicans to bend

while Unionists yet dominated the upper South, urged Lincoln to avoid any

threatening moves, and worked for the passage of the Crittenden Compromise.

[10] But decisions of compromise or conflict, peace or war, rested in other hands.

Given their position as moderates in a time of extremism. Upper South Unionists

exercised little influence, and they failed to sway either Republicans or Southern

extremists. The defeat of the Crittenden Compromise and the failure of the

Washington Peace Conference dashed their hopes for a satisfactory settlement, while the attack on Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s subsequent call for troops destroyed the precarious middle ground that Upper South Unionists had occupied.

Although a few proposed the formation of a border state confederacy to separate

North and South and thus prevent war, most Southern moderates concluded that the only choices left were to fight for, or against, the South. [11]

In Middle and West Tennessee the public reaction to the news of Fort

Sumter swept away the fragile unionist barricades, and the unionist coalition, 24 already weakened by internal dissension, dissolved. Most attempts to speak

against secession were feeble and quickly suppressed, and those leaders who

wished to survive had little choice but to ride the secessionist wave. On 18 April

eleven influential conservatives, including John Bell, published a circular that

condemned Lincoln’s attempt to coerce the South and declared the Union

effectively dissolved, and others followed. A few prominent men, including

Representatives Emerson Etheridge and William B. Stokes and former Governor

William B. Campbell, refused to convert, but they were a minority and their

influence was limited. [12]

Secessionists moved quickly to exploit this shift in public opinion. Eleven

days after the fort’s surrender the Tennessee legislators again met in special

session and with a minimum of debate effectively took their state out of the

Union. Basing their actions not on the doctrine of secession but rather on the

right of revolution, the legislators passed a Declaration of Independence from the

United States and a measure for representation in the Confederate States and submitted both to a second referendum scheduled for 8 June. The state government then took a number of other steps to place Tennessee on a war footing. First, on 1 May Governor Harris appointed three commissioners to negotiate with Henry W. Hilliard, Special Confederate Commissioner to

Teimessee, concerning the terms of Termessee’s entry into the Confederacy.

Harris also authorized Southern forces to erect batteries on the Teimessee portion of the Mississippi River, began purchasing weapons, and sent W. C. Whitthom, 25 speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, to coordinate military

preparations with the Confederate War Department. Finally, on 7 May the

legislature ratified a Military League with the Confederate States and granted the

governor authority to issue commissions and raise forces for the defense of the

state. [12]

The specter of civil war dismayed and confused even Eastern Unionists,

and a minority, unable to fight against their Southern brothers, converted to

secession. But the majority held firm, and Unionist leaders, confident of a second

victory, quickly mobilized for the June referendum. [14] This campaign would

present far more hazards and difficulties than the first, however. In February the

Eastern Unionists had been part of a statewide coalition and had enjoyed the

cooperation of powerful Middle and West Tennessee conservatives. Now they

were a minority, isolated within their own region. The failure of the Unionists to

understand their situation was due to their perceptions of the secession movement.

Loyalist leaders had convinced themselves that secession in most of the South was

a conspiracy, imposed on the people by scheming, unprincipled leaders.

Spokesmen such as Temple argued that the majority of Tennesseans opposed

secession and that, if properly rallied and allowed to vote freely, would defeat the

measure on 8 June. Unionists found support for this view in reports that they received from other parts of the South and in the actions of the Tennessee legislature, which had debated secession in secret and had negotiated a military alliance with the Confederacy well before voters had even approved separation. 26 Secessionists had justified these measures as a necessary and legitimate response

to an immediate danger, but to unconditional Unionists the acts of the Tennessee

government were unconstitutional and invalid. [15]

Despite these difficulties, East Tennessee leaders, reinforced now by

Johnson, Nelson, and Maynard, launched a determined campaign. Johnson and

Nelson undertook a strenuous joint canvass of the entire region, while local

leaders worked their respective districts. Unionist rallies that turned out hundreds and sometimes thousands of supporters were held in almost every county of East

Tennessee. Waving United States flags and toting guns, loyalist voters cheered while their leaders extolled the nation of their forefathers and blasted the doctrine of secession. The stakes in this election were higher than they had ever been, and

Unionist orators did not hesitate to employ extremely harsh and inflammatory rhetoric. Speakers condemned secession as illegal, unnecessary, and destructive of the best govermnent on earth. They portrayed the Confederate government as aristocratic, and warned their hsteners that under Confederate rule they would become the minions of arrogant slaveholders. Most significantly. Unionist leaders exhorted their supporters to take up arms and die rather than lose their liberties to the slaveocracy. [16]

The June campaign was characterized by violence, intimidation, and fraud on both sides. Occurring as it did in the midst of mobilization for war, with

Confederate companies and Unionist Home Guards both organizing. Confederate troops flooding the railroads, and Southern forces camped outside Knoxville, it is 27 no surprise that tensions were high and the threat of violence ever present. At

Rogersville a Confederate captain and his company strode into a Unionist meeting

and ordered Johnson to stop speaking. Johnson immediately took the initiative

and asked whether anyone in the audience wanted him to cease. When no one

responded he went right on, while the flustered Confederates stalked out. Angry

secessionists at Kingsport, Jonesboro, and Cleveland likewise attempted to silence

Johnson and Nelson when they appeared to speak. The scene at Jonesboro was

particularly frightening:

He [Johnson] rose to speak. The crowd at once commenced booing booing until it fairly deafened you . .. They cursed him for a God Damned Traitor-told him that he was hired by Lincoln to make speeches . . . When he went to start out to Nelson’s they raised the shout-groaned and booed him out of Town . . . you never seen such a time men on horses whipping up and down the street screa.ming upon the tops of their voices you danmed Traitor you damned Traitor.

In Carter County Unionist partisans forced the secessionist county clerk to resign and threatened violence against anyone voting for secession, while in Polk County

Confederate soldiers intimidated the Unionist minority. A citizens’ committee at

Blountville requested that Johnson and Nelson not to speak there for fear of violence, a request with which the Unionists complied. Tensions were also 28 reported to be very high in Madisonville, Jasper, and many other communities.

[17]

The presence of large numbers of Confederate troops in East Tennessee

particularly created an explosive situation. Their de facto occupation of the region

well before the June referendum inflamed Unionist tempers, while Southern

soldiers viewed the Eastern Unionists as traitors to the South and allies with Black

Republicans. On 27 April two Confederate companies and a band deliberately

marched past a street comer in Knoxville where Johnson was speaking. The noise

of the band forced Johnson to halt, and as the procession neared angry Unionists

reached for their weapons. Some kind of clash appeared certain, but bloodshed

was averted when two prominent secessionists silenced the band and directed the

procession down another street. Two weeks later, Charles Douglass, a local

Unionist, got into a heated debate with Major Wright Morgan over secession.

Eventually Morgan pulled his pistol, but Douglass managed to flee to safety.

Several Confederate soldiers camped on the outskirts of Knoxville heard of the

incident and set out after Douglass, but were again turned back by Colonel David

Cummings, one of the men who had intervened previously. A few days later, however, an unknown sniper shot Douglass dead in his home. [18]

By far the most dangerous incident occurred on 5 May at Strawberry Plains, where several thousand Unionists had gathered for a rally. The farm at which they were meeting was situated close to the tracks of the East Tennessee and

Virginia Railroad, which was packed with cars carrying troops to Virginia. Just 29 after the Unionists had gathered, a train of Alabama recruits pulled out of the

Strawberry Plains depot. As it slowly passed, one soldier threw a stone at the speaker, and then other soldiers seated on top of the cars began firing at the crowd. Armed Unionists fired back, and when the train had passed they rushed the tracks and attempted to tear them up. No one in the crowd was hurt, and

Oliver P. Temple concluded that the soldiers had only meant to intimidate the

Unionists and had therefore deliberately fired over their heads. Nonetheless the incident frightened East Tennesseans and further increased Unionist resentment.

[19]

The secessionist position achieved only a limited hearing in the June campaign. Local secessionists were reinforced by speakers from other parts of the

Confederacy, including former Teimessee Governor Gustavus A. Henry, former

Mississippi Governor Henry S. Foote, and Senators William Lowndes Yancey and

John Bell, but they could not compete with the prestige and influence of Johnson and Nelson. Secessionists were most active in lower East Tennessee and along the line of the East Tennessee and Virginia and East Tennessee and Georgia

Railroads, but in many other areas Unionist sentiment was so fierce that they could hardly campaign at all. [20]

Thus supporters of the Confederacy eventually resorted to other methods.

C. W. Charleton used his position as Knoxville postmaster to hamper delivery of

Brownlow’s Whig and other Unionist literature, and he monitored the activities of the Unionists by reading their mail. Charleton and other secessionists also 30 attempted to embarrass Johnson by forging a correspondence between him and

Boston abolitionist Amos Lawrence and publishing it in the Knoxville Register.

Colonel William M. Churchwell attempted to use his Confederate troops to break up Unionist rallies, and other secessionists encouraged passing Confederate soldiers to assault Unionist leaders. [21]

In spite of the tensions and irregularities that characterized the campaign, the election itself went off quietly. The results stunned the Eastern Unionists. In their own region, the measures for independence and Confederate representation went down by a margin of more than two to one, with only six of twenty-nine counties giving majorities for separation. The Unionist vote in East Tennessee declined from about eighty percent to sixty-nine percent, but even so their second victory was decisive. In Middle and West Tennessee, however, secession triumphed by majorities of 50,000 and 23,000, respectively. The West Tennessee vote was no great surprise, but the support for secession in Middle Tennessee particularly distressed the Unionist leaders. It also aroused their suspicions. That almost twenty thousand Middle Tennesseeans could have reversed their stance in only four months seemed impossible, as did the extremely lopsided results recorded by many counties. Three Middle Tennessee counties recorded not a single vote against secession, while in twenty-two others secessionists won eighty percent or more of the total. Reports of illegal voting by Confederate soldiers, intimidation of loyalist voters, and suppression of Unionist speakers in Middle and

West Tennessee had already reached the Eastern leaders, and an examination of 31 the published returns was for them the final confirmation that the election had

been fraudulent. [22]

There is no doubt that the referendum results were distorted, for the June

campaign took place in an atmosphere that precluded normal political activities.

Effectively the government of Tennessee and two-thirds of the state had already

separated from the Union before the referendum votes were cast, and the election

itself was a mere formality. Even more distorting was the fact that the June

campaign proceeded in a state that was already at war. Thousands of men were

drilling in camps, the railroads were flooded with military transport, and the

government was erecting fortifications, issuing war bonds, and purchasing military

supplies. In such a climate, a fair campaign and an honest vote were unrealistic

expectations, and Unionists had many reasons to be suspicious and resentful.

Even friendly observers termed Knoxville a "military camp," with troops stationed

just outside town at the fairgrounds. Home Guards drilling in the streets, and

troop trains passing "day and night." [23] A special act of the state legislature

authorized Tennessee troops to vote in the district in which they were stationed,

and in Knoxville soldiers marched to the polls, company by company, to record

their votes for secession. In other places soldiers remained at the polls all day to

observe the voting and to hiss anyone with a Unionist ticket. [24] Both Unionists

and secessionists reported that at some locations the ballots were marked and lists kept of votes that were adverse to the majority position, and both sides accused the other of intimidation. [25] 32 The accusation of fraud is more difficult to evaluate. The editors of the

Johnson Papers concluded that circumstantial evidence, particularly the fact that not only the official state returns but also the official totals of several counties were simply lost, does point to irregularities. [26] A marked difference between the margin of victory in East Tennessee and the rest of the state also raises questions. Only six counties in East Tennessee recorded majorities of eighty- percent or more, while the average margin of victory was forty-nine percent.

Conversely, twenty-four of thirty-four counties in Middle Tennessee, and seven of eighteen in the West, approved secession by a margin of eighty percent or more, while the average margin of victory was seventy-eight percent and sixty-six percent, respectively. (See Appendix F.) It is likely, then, that the charges of fraud and manipulation possessed some validity. But whatever the truth, the issue is moot.

While a fair election might have increased the Unionist vote, it would not have altered the final results. As previously discussed, the majority of Teimessee loyalists were only conditionally committed to the Union, and the onset of war thus changed their stance. Further, Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee all exhibited very similar pre-Sumter alignments, and the beginning of hostilities produced similar results in all three states. [27] 33 THE UNIONISTS ORGANIZE

The political defeat suffered by the Eastern Unionists did not end the struggle, but simply shifted it to a new arena. Unionist activity after the referendum followed two sometimes parallel, sometimes conflicting courses: political maneuvering that culminated in the attempt to establish a separate state of East Tennessee; and a military resistance that climaxed in a mass uprising. To cariy out this resistance. Unionist leaders developed a variety of effective insurgent organizations. These included a central leadership group based in

Knoxville, a network of local political organizations, military companies known as

"Home Guards," communication and intelligence networks, a system of liaison with the Federal authorities, and a system for passing military volunteers into Kentucky.

The Unionist central leadership began to coalesce in November 1860.

According to his own account, Oliver P. Temple, a lawyer and holder of various political offices, returned to Knoxville on 25 November 1860 to discover that local secessionists, including future Confederate District Attorney John Crozier Ramsey,

Postmaster C. W. Charleton, lawyer and former congressman William H. Sneed, attorney John H. Crozier, physician and historian Dr. J.G.M. Ramsey, and railroad president W. W. Wallace, had seized the initiative and were attempting to swing the region’s sentiment toward separation. To that end, they had scheduled a public meeting in Knoxville for 25 November to discuss the current crisis. The news alarmed Temple, for he believed that public opinion was still volatile and 34 unformed. Temple’s concerns may have been justified, for at about this same time a public meeting in Greeneville, home of Senator Andrew Johnson and

Representative T.A.R. Nelson, had issued resolutions asserting the legality of slavery in all the territories, criticizing anti-slavery agitation, and deploring the election of a sectional president. Johnson’s proposed resolution declaring secession illegal had been voted down. [28] Thus Temple quickly contacted

Brownlow, John Fleming, and other political allies to devise a strategy for countering the secessionists.

Participants at the 25 November meeting divided into three groups.

Crozier and Charleton argued for immediate secession. Horace Maynard and

Oliver P. Temple warned against hasty action and urged that Congress be given a chance to resolve the crisis. Finally, attorneys John Baxter and W. B. Reece, both of whom would soon become strong Unionists, sketched out a middle position. They introduced resolutions that, while denying the legality of secession, asserted the right of revolution and called for a gathering of Southern delegates to agree on a common course. This moderate position apparently reflected the majority opinion and was on the verge of passing when other Unionists, fearing that any such convention would be controlled by secessionists, intervened.

Temple, Maynard, and Fleming raised a cloud of parliamentary objections that clogged the proceedings and confused many participants, and in the process managed to postpone the vote until a second meeting, scheduled for 8 December.

Unionist leaders used the delay to rally their supporters from the districts 35 surrounding Knoxville and were able to pack the second meeting with their own

supporters and push through their own platform, including resolutions that

condemned secession as illegal and unnecessary, asserted the constitutionality of

Lincoln’s election, and urged compromise and the preservation of the Union. [29]

After November this Knoxville group gradually expanded into a loose

network of regional and local leaders. These men directed the February and June

campaigns, mobilized support and shaped Unionist strategy, and ultimately

became a counterrevolutionary government. Leading members included Johnson,

Nelson, Maynard, Brownlow, Temple, attorneys Thomas D. Arnold, John Fleming,

and John Netherland, and the Reverend Nathaniel G. Taylor. [30]

This loose network assumed a more formal status at two gatherings, the

Knoxville Convention of 30-31 May and the Greeneville Convention of 17-20 June.

The May gathering, called ostensibly to coordinate strategy for the June referendum, brought 469 delegates representing twenty-seven East Tennessee and two Middle Tennessee counties to Knoxville. These men came on their own accord, but many had previously been chosen as delegates to the proposed

February convention or had been selected to campaign against secession in the current referendum. With the vote on secession yet one week away, the convention had no real agenda, and apparently its primary purpose was to solidify the Unionist front and establish a formal organization for future contingencies.

Therefore, the resolutions that were adopted and published simply repeated the established Unionist platform: that secession was illegal, unconstitutional, and 36 destructive; that its only result would be calamitous civil war; that in the existing

Confederate states secession had been achieved not by democratic processes but

by conspiracy and usurpation; and that the recent acts of the Tennessee legislature

authorizing the June referendum and establishing a military alliance with the

Confederacy were unconstitutional and therefore nonbinding. The resolutions also

praised Kentucky for its neutrality and urged Tennessee to adopt the same policy.

[31]

Seventeen days later 292 delegates again assembled in Greeneville in a

world that had totally changed. Up to this point most of the actions of the

Unionists had fallen within the safe, familiar realm of constitutional processes.

The men meeting at Greeneville, however, now confronted a situation that would

not be resolved throiigh normal political means. Even the Convention itself was

an illegal gathering that might be broken up at any time by the Confederate

authorities. These facts considerably influenced the attitudes of the men present,

particularly the more conservative delegates. Furthermore, the outcome of the 8

June election presented the Eastern Unionists with a situation for which they were

unprepared. Some delegates had been profoundly ignorant of the political

situation in the rest of the state and had been stunned by the results of the

referendum. Others had been better informed, but had been reluctant to consider what they might do if the referendum passed. But now the men of the

Greeneville Convention were called to face the crisis to which events, and their

own actions, had brought them. 37 Unlike the Knoxville gathering, the Greeneville Convention was marred by

disharmony. The first day’s proceedings split the delegates into two groups: the

radicals, led by Nelson, Thomas D. Arnold, and many members of the powerful

Business Committee; and the conservatives, headed by Temple and Baxter. The

radical position was set forth in two documents drawn up by T.A.R. Nelson, a

Declaration of Grievances and a veiy defiant and confrontational set of

resolutions. Nelson’s papers constituted a thinly veiled proclamation of rebellion.

They declared that the Tennessee Declaration of Independence and the other acts

of the Tennessee government relating to separation were unconstitutional and void, asserted that East Tennessee and the Unionist counties of Middle Tennessee would continue to constibite the true state of Tennessee within the Union, and again affirmed the unqualified allegiance of the Unionists to the Federal government. One conciliatory resolution promised that East Tennessee would remain neutral in the conflict if let alone. Others asserted, however, that if

Confederate troops were sent to East Tennessee or if Unionists were threatened the loyal population would call on the Federal government for protection, use their own resources to defend themselves, and if necessary retaliate against

Confederate forces and the secessionist population. The resolutions recommended that in preparation for this contingency every loyal county promptly raise and equip sufficient military forces for self-defense. Other radical delegates went even further and proposed that the Convention itself raise an army of at least ten thousand men and appoint John Baxter its commander. 38 Nelson presented these documents on the first day of the convention. The

Business Committee approved them with little debate, and the majority of

delegates appeared ready to vote the radical platform. But Nelson’s fiery

resolutions raised a storm among conservative leaders, who saw them as an

invitation to the Confederate government to crush the Unionist population. Their

protests launched two days of intense, often recriminatory debate between the two

groups, with the conservatives warning against the recklessness of the radical

course and Nelson’s supporters accusing the conservatives of cowardice.

In the end, caution and moderation triumphed. Much of the original

Declaration of Grievances was deemed safe and left intact, and the Convention

went on record to assert that the 8 June referendum was illegal and nonbinding,

condemn secession as misguided and destructive, and declare that secessionist

forces had already begun to oppress, assault, and murder the loyal population.

The Business Committee completely rewrote Nelson’s resolutions, however, and

in the end the Convention limited direct action to three cautious steps. First, it

appointed a committee of three to present a memorial to the Tennessee

legislature requesting that East Tennessee and the Unionist counties of Middle

Tennessee be allowed to form a separate state. Second, it authorized elections

for delegates to yet another convention to be held in Kingston in August, presumably for the purpose of organizing the new state. Finally, the convention established an executive committee of five men-Temple, Fleming, John Williams,

Connelly F. Trigg, and Abner G. Jackson-to direct Unionist affairs until the 39 Kingston Convention. In a show of formai unanimity, all but two delegates

approved the final product. A number of radicals did not in fact accede to the

conservative course, however, and after adjournment several met in secret and

pledged to raises forces to resist Confederate rule. [32]

The Greeneville Convention revealed the essential conservatism of the

Unionist leadership. The delegates at that gathering had stepped to the brink of

revolution, and then recoiled. Whigs, lawyers, and politicians who had thrived in

and were devoted to the established political system, they could not bring

themselves to abandon that system and plunge into the dark unknown of

revolution and civil war. Thus they rejected the radical course and took refuge

in the few constitutional options left to them. Their course was not unwise. It is

almost certain that if Nelson’s resolutions had passed the Confederate authorities

would have resorted to immediate, harsh repression, for no government, particularly one just inaugurated, could tolerate such insolent, threatening, and

disloyal statements from its citizens, and the armed struggle for East Tennessee would likely have begun in June rather than November. Not only constitutional restraints, but also the recognition of these facts, influenced the Greeneville delegates. It is true that the request to form a separate state was a forlorn hope.

The Tennessee legislature gave the proposal no serious consideration, and some

Unionists criticized the Greeneville delegates for their failure to take decisive action. But the possibility existed that Unionist East Tennessee could exist uneasily within the Confederacy until rescued by the Union Army, and the 40 conservative course held out the chance of escaping the horrors of repression and

civil war. [33]

Even so the possible wisdom of their course does not relieve the

Greeneville delegates from all blame. The failure of the Greeneville delegates

was not their decision to take a cautious stance, but their having inflamed the East

Tennessee population to the point of rebellion and then, at the point of crisis,

attempting to reverse direction. In the campaigns of February and June, Unionist

speakers, staking everything on a victory at the polls, had employed a rhetoric that

was dangerously harsh and inflammatory even by the standards of the antebellum

South. They had dwelt on the supposed aristocratic nature of the Confederacy

and portrayed it as a system in which a minority of rich slaveholders would exploit

and crush common, hardworking men. They had equated Confederate rule with

slavery, and portrayed secession as a plot to destroy the rights and liberties of

common free men. And they had called on the Unionist masses to fight and die

rather than submit to such bondage. [34] This rhetoric of slavery and freedom,

tyranny and liberty, was a common feature of antebellum politics and was not

dangerous in itself. [35] But when taken literally, as it was in the February and

June campaigns, it created a crisis situation. Temple admitted that more than

once Unionist leaders had to dissuade their followers from marching on Knoxville in force, and he conceded that their "zeal and indignation outran that of the speakers, and they became ready to take up arms. This feeling never abated."

[36] 41 In these circumstances the conservative platform of the Greeneville

Convention was absurd. After being convinced that Confederate rule was tantamount to slavery, how could Unionists now acquiesce in it? Yet this was exactly what the conservative resolutions asked them to do. Unionist leaders had led their followers to the point of revolution, and were now attempting to reverse that tide. It is no surprise that they failed. For there were other men in East

Tennessee who did not shy away from the prospect of bloodshed, and after the

Greeneville Convention control of the resistance would shift increasingly from the

Knoxville lawyers into the hands of local radicals.

Unionists made one last, quixotic attempt to reverse the secession of

Tennessee by recapturing control of the state government in the August 1861 elections. Hoping to appeal to a broad segment of moderate and conservative sentiment, loyalist leaders rejected William G. Brownlow's bid for the governorship and instead nominated William B. Campbell, a former popular governor who had breasted the secessionist tide. Campbell recognized that the cause was hopeless, however, and withdrew, leaving another former Whig governor, William H. Polk, to take his place. The Unionist strategy failed miserably, and the gubernatorial election was a repeat of the June referendum, with Polk w in n in g East Tennessee but losing disastrously in the rest of the state.

But Unionists enjoyed greater success in the congressional elections. In each of the three districts making up the eastern region, a Unionist candidate running avowedly for the United States Congress opposed a secessionist candidate for the 42 Confederate Congress, In the First and Second Districts the loyalist candidates,

Nelson and Maynard, won so decisively that even secessionists conceded defeat.

In the Third District both candidates claimed victory, but it is likely that the

Unionist George Bridges won the majority of votes. The victory of these Unionist candidates was symbolically important, but it had practical results as well.

Confederate patrols captured Nelson and Bridges before they could escape

Tennessee, but Maynard, as well as Senator Johnson, slipped out successfully and kept the East Tennessee cause constantly before the Lincoln administration. [37]

After 8 June the struggle for East Tennessee shifted from the political to the military sphere. Within East Tennessee local radicals organized and drilled military companies, attempted to acquire weapons and equipment, and initiated contacts with the Union army in Kentucky and with the Lincoln administration.

In turn. Federal forces began sending aid to the Unionists and made plans to invade the region. At the same time, the Confederate government launched a campaign to convert the Eastern Unionists to the Confederate cause.

The mobilization of Unionist forces was primarily a decentralized process.

The same conditions that allowed the Union and Confederate governments rapidly to recruit thousands of men were equally adaptable to the formation of irregular forces, for given the existence of a rudimentary militia structure, a leaven of trained officers, and ready availability of firearms, rough forces could be organized in a few weeks. Even so, some central coordination did occur. For example,

William G. McAdoo noted in August that the Sevier County Home Guard 43 emerged a few days after John Fleming visited the county, though McAdoo also

believed that Willie Homer, a brick mason, was the principle organizer. Likewise,

as noted above, after the Greeneville Convention at least eight delegates met to

concert their mobilization efforts. [38]

Several incidents in the summer and fall of 1861 revealed the extent of this

Unionist mobilization. On 6 July reports spread that a Confederate force had

entered Bradley County. According to accounts from both sides, within a few

hours seven hundred to one thousand Unionists had assembled, most carrying some type of weapon. On 15 August Confederate troops were rushed from

Knoxville to Kingston in response to reports that three hundred armed Unionists had gathered. In Hancock County rival Unionist and secessionist Home Guards, each numbering two hundred or more, gathered in nearby camps and created a dangerous standoff that Confederate officers resolved only with great difficulty.

In Hamilton County perhaps five hundred Unionists gathered at the farm of

William Clift. They had originally come there to prepare for their escape to

Kentucky, but soon so many had arrived that Clift established a formal camp, complete with rude fortifications and wooden camion. In July R. A. Crawford reported to Nelson that 1800 Unionists were drilling in Greene County and that most already had guns and ammunition. They had sent a trunk of sulphur and saltpetre to Knoxville to exchange for gunpowder, but Confederate authorities had intercepted the shipment. Likewise, Samuel Bush informed Johnson that the

Unionists of Fentress County were preparing to fight, but that they were short of 44 arms and were requesting one thousand rifles or muskets from the Federal government. [39]

Admittedly, these Unionist companies possessed relatively little military power, for they lacked proper training, leadership, and equipment, and they could not stand up against regular troops. But their obvious military defects do not negate the remarkable magnitude of the mobilization or the threat that they posed to Confederate control. Furthermore, while thousands stayed in East Tennessee to resist Confederate rule there, hundreds more slipped through the mountain passes out of the state to swell the ranks of the Union Army then forming in

Kentucky.

Confederate policy in the summer of 1861 considerably aided the Unionist mobilization. As discussed in Chapter Four, Governor Harris and President

Jefferson Davis feared that repression might prove counterproductive and therefore agreed on a conciliatory policy toward the wayward East Tennesseans.

Believing that the Unionists could yet be won to the Southern cause, Davis appointed Felix K. Zollicoffer, former assistant editor of the Nashville Republican

Banner, commander of the Department of East Tennessee. Zollicoffer shared the hopes of his superiors and attempted wholeheartedly to woo the dissenters. He issued conciliatory proclamations, punished Confederate soldiers guilty of depredations, refused to shut down Brownlow’s paper or suspend the August elections, and allowed Unionists to carry on an extraordinary amount of rebellious activity. Zollicoffer’s leniency dismayed East Tennessee secessionists and even 45 many of his own officers, but he held firm, believing that patience and forbearance

would eventually bring results. [40]

Even if he had desired, however, the East Tennessee commander had little

chance of suppressing all resistance. Zollicoffer had fewer than ten thousand men,

most poorly armed and inadequately trained, and he had to concentrate them at

a few key points, particularly Knoxville and the passes on the Tennessee-Kentucky

border. Thus many counties in East Teimessee remained untouched by

Confederate authority until after the November uprising. Finally, much Unionist

activity remained hidden. The mountains and valleys, coves and forests of East

Tennessee provided innumerable secret places that even the most vigilant

Confederate surveillance would have missed.

Tensions between Unionists and Confederate troops remained high

throughout the summer and fall of 1861. In August wild rumors spread among

Confederate troops stationed outside Knoxville that Unionists had poisoned their

food supply and that twenty men had already died. When a troop train crashed

on 19 August and killed five Mississippi soldiers, many Confederates blamed

Major S. Temple, brother of Oliver and superintendent of the railroad, and

asserted that two weeks previously Major Temple had been spotted leaving

Brownlow’s house very late at night. H. C. Watterson, a Hawkins County secessionist, feared that his son’s regiment would be trapped by Unionists in

Knoxville "somewhat like a Missouri regt. near St. Louis was not long since." In

August also John Lillard wrote that in Fentress County Unionist partisans had 46 ambushed a small Confederate party and had left one man for dead, while

Confederates in Scott County reported that three Unionists had jumped a dispatch rider and almost killed him. [41]

Unionists suffered from Confederate violence in turn. When a Knoxville

Unionist got drunk and publicly gave three cheers for Lincoln, several Mississippi soldiers chased him down and beat him up. Shortly thereafter, other Mississippi troops attempted to hang a Unionist guilty of a similar indiscretion, but were stopped by an officer. Four Southern soldiers in Fentress County also beat up an outspoken Unionist. The most serious incident occurred in Knoxville on 28

October. According to Unionist accounts, several Confederate soldiers, after drinking too much, became destructive, and when local officials and citizens attempted to restrain them a fight resulted. Post Commander Colonel William B.

Wood, who believed the alternate version that several Unionists had attempted to beat up his men, brought two companies into Knoxville to apprehend them.

Wood threatened to bum down any building in which the Unionists were found, but fortunately for Knoxville the men had already fled. [42]

While the East Tennessee Unionists mobilized, the Lincoln Administration and the Union command, under pressure from Johnson and Maynard to rescue their loyal constituents, slowly formulated plans for the invasion of the region.

They were prodded into action in September, when the Reverend William B.

Carter, an influential Unionist from Carter County, met with President Lincoln,

Secretary of War Simon Cameron, and Major General George B. McClellan to 47 present a plan for removing Confederate forces from East Tennessee. Carter suggested that Unionists could prepare the way for a Northern invasion by destroying nine key bridges on the railroads connecting East Tennessee with

Georgia, Virginia, and Middle Tennessee. This sabotage would cut East

Tennessee off from Confederate reinforcements, while an accompanying mass uprising would tie down forces in the region. Under these conditions Union troops could easily take and hold East Tennessee. McClellan favored the plan as a diversion for his impending Virginia campaign, and Lincoln, for both political and strategic reasons, was anxious to return East Tennessee to the Union. In the last week of September, therefore, Lincoln issued orders for a movement into East

Teimessee to cut the railroad, and Carter left Washington with at least twenty-five hundred dollars for his operations and the belief that he had a firm commitment for an invasion. [43]

Union officers in Kentucky attempted to execute Lincoln’s orders with increasing frustration and pessimism. At Camps Nelson and Dick Robinson the process of organizing, training, and equipping the troops went slowly forward.

Lincoln sent former navy captain Samuel P. Carter, Reverend Carter’s cousin, to

Kentucky to assist in organizing the recruits from East Tennessee, while Senator

Johnson, at the repeated entreaties from Brigadier General William Nelson, attempted to secure for the invading force the weapons, ammunition, and equipment that it lacked. Part of a shipment of five thousand muskets intended for the Kentucky Home Guards was also set aside for East Tennessee. And even 48 the private sector contributed to the organizing effort when a group of Boston merchants headed by Amos Lawrence raised $1750 to transport arms to the

Unionists. [44]

William B. Carter slipped back into East Tennessee in late October, accompanied now by William Cross of Scott County and David Fry of Greene, both now captains in the Union Army. The three men quickly recruited six other group leaders who would in turn select their own saboteurs. Carter assigned each group one or two bridges and selected the night of November 8 for the operation.

Confederate authorities, though generally aware that secret activity among the

Unionists had increased and that threats against the railroads had been made, apparently had no specific knowledge of Carter’s plan and failed to provide adequate guards for all the bridges. [45]

Carter was acting on the assumption that the Union invasion was imminent.

He sent messages to Thomas on 22 and 27 October, stressing the desperation of the Unionists and urging the commander to act quickly. Thomas did not receive these notes until 4 November, however, and apparently he sent no reply. Carter therefore did not fully realize that Union plans were changing, though he may have guessed that fact. Sherman’s initial acceptance of the East Tennessee campaign had been reluctant, and his doubts had grown considerably since.

Fearful of the possibility of a joint invasion of Kentucky by Zollicoffer and Major

General Albert Sidney Johnston, increasingly overwhelmed by his responsibilities, and close to a breakdown, Sherman could not face the risks that an invasion of 49 East Tennessee entailed. The territory in which Union forces would have to

operate was particularly rugged, and the lack of water and rail transportation

made supplying even a small force difficult. Furthermore, the forces available for

the invasion were sadly inadequate, and there was no guarantee that even if Union

forces captured East Tennessee they could hold it for long. All the regiments in

eastern Kentucky were below strength, and all lacked weapons, equipment, and

transportation. Efforts to supply the insurgent forces in East Tennessee had fared

even worse. Johnson had to return the $1750 to Lawrence because there was no way to get weapons into East Tennessee, and only a few muskets of the Kentucky

shipment that had been diverted had made it across the border, [46]

Thomas was more resolute than Sherman. Accompanied by both Maynard

and Johnson, by late October he had marched six regiments to Crab Orchard, forty miles from Cumberland Gap, and had sent patrols almost to the border. But

Sherman’s doubts won out, and on 5 November he ordered Thomas to remain where he was. Johnson frantically implored Sherman to proceed with the invasion and threatened to lead the East Tennessee troops himself, but he could not dispel

Sherman’s fears. Thomas also protested the order and urged Sherman to reconsider. Sherman could not be moved, however, and on 8 November, only a few hours before the bridges would be burned, he ordered the invasion postponed indefinitely. Sherman would rescind this order a few days later, but by then it was too late for the Eastern Unionists. [47] 50 Despite the stalled Union advance, Carter carried out his part of the plan.

The reasons for Carter’s persistence are not clear. It is possible that he was

unaware of events in Kentucky and was relying on the arrangements made in

Washington. It is equally likely that Carter suspected that Union plans had

changed and was gambling that an uprising would force an invasion. Whatever

the case, the results, though short of Carter’s expectations, were impressive. The

East Tennessee partisans destroyed five of nine bridges: the Hiwassee River

Bridge in Bradley County, the Lick Creek Bridge near Greeneville, the Holston

River Bridge in Sullivan County, and two spans over Chickamauga Creek near

Chattanooga. Transportation on three different railroads, the East Tennessee and

Virginia, the East Tennessee and Georgia, and the Western and Atlantic, was

disrupted. Unionist bands also destroyed telegraph lines at numerous points,

temporarily isolating the main Confederate force at Cumberland Gap and cutting

Knoxville off from Nashville and Richmond.

Various mishaps preserved the remaining four bridges. Two Unionists rode to Bridgeport, Alabama to break the Memphis and Charleston Bridge spanning the Tennessee River but could not penetrate the large guard detail there.

Likewise, insurgents found the Watauga River Bridge in Carter County and the

Tennessee River Bridge near Loudon too heavily guarded to approach. The greatest disaster occurred at the Holston River bridge near Strawberry Plains.

Thirteen men got onto the bridge but were then surprised by a single guard. In the ensuing struggle two Unionists were wounded, and the group, having lost both 51 their matches and their nerve, gave up the attempt. Considering the nature of the

operation, however, attempting as it did the simultaneous destruction of bridges

spread along 270 miles of track and employing untrained men, even its partial

success was remarkable. [48]

The news of the bridge-bumings and the rumor that a Federal army had

entered East Tennessee quickly spread and sparked a mass revolt. By the

morning of 9 November thousands of Unionists had assembled at various points.

At least four hundred appeared near Strawberiy Plains to threaten the bridge

there. Over one thousand gathered at Elizabethton, where they organized

themselves into military units, elected officers, and established a rudimentary

supply system. Four to five hundred insurgents were reported in Cocke County

and a similar number at Washington, Hancock, Meigs, and Sevier. At least three

hundred men gathered at Clift’s farm in Hamilton County, and one panicked

Confederate reported that seventy-five Federal soldiers had also been seen.

Confederate authorities at Loudon reported threats against the bridge there, while

terrified secessionists in Greeneville pleaded for protection against the Unionists

gathering in that area. Unionist bands also mobilized in Johnson, Scott, Morgan,

Campbell, and other counties. Citizens in the border areas of North Carolina and

Georgia, frightened by the uproar, begged for protection. As the Post

Commander at Knoxville summarized: "The whole country is now in a state of rebellion." [49] 52

SUtUVA

COCKB

MONHOC

90LK.

X - Bridges Destroyed * - Bridges Missed

FIGURE 2

LOCATION OF BRIDGES BURNED, NOVEMBER 8-9, 1860 53 The November uprising revealed the extent of the Unionist mobilization

and the effectiveness of their communications network. It also demonstrated their

unpreparedness for combat. For example, although the Unionists at Strawberry

Plains faced only a company of Confederate regulars and a few secessionist

volunteers from Knoxville, they were unable to capture and destroy the bridge

there. In most other counties Unionist bands dispersed after exchanging a few

shots with Confederate troops. The insurgents at Elizabethton held out for over

a week and repulsed several Confederate assaults, but this is the only instance in

which the partisans made a determined stand. The Unionists simply could not

remain in the field for more than a few days, nor could they face even poorly

trained Confederate regulars. The uprising was meant to support a Federal

invasion, and when that invasion failed to materialize open rebellion collapsed.

[50]

It will never be known how many Unionists were privy to Carter’s plan.

Temple placed the figure at three hundred, while a Confederate officer from East

Tennessee asserted that fewer than five hundred were involved in the conspiracy.

Temple, Brownlow, and other leaders denied having advanced knowledge. Logic supports a low number, for any large conspiracy would have almost guaranteed

Confederate discovery. The magnitude and rapidity of the Unionist mobilization might suggest that the plot had actually embraced several thousand persons, but the Unionists had already proven their ability to mobilize quickly. [51] 54 Historians of Tennessee have debated at length the details and the effects

of the bridge-bumings. Temple considered them a terrible mistake because of the

repression they brought, and other Unionists were angry with Carter for

attempting such a dangerous scheme. [52] The outcome certainly did not benefit

the Unionist population. The sabotage partially halted transportation on the

railroads, but Colonel Danville Leadbetter reported on 13 November that some

trains were still running, and it appears that the line was fully reopened by

January 1862. [53] The uprising created vast confusion and terrified both

Confederate authorities and East Tennessee secessionists, but rather than

loosening the Confederate grip on East Tennessee it led to a hardening of

Confederate policy. Claims by historians that the bridge-burnings turned opinion

in East Tennessee against the Unionists are false, however, as is the assertion that

loyalists and Confederates peacefully coexisted before 8 November. Unionists were actively and openly resisting Confederate mle, while Confederate troops were already persecuting Unionists. The bridge-bumings brought the conflict into the open, but they did not create it. [54]

Although Federal forces did not arrive, the Confederates did. The uprising jolted the state government and the East Tennessee command out of their leniency, and within days reinforcements were pouring into East Tennessee. The continued threat of a Union invasion forced Zollicoffer to hold most of his forces on the border, but he sent one regiment to strengthen the defenses at Knoxville.

Brigadier General William H. Carroll brought two regiments from Memphis, and 55 four additional regiments came from Middle Tennessee and Georgia. On 13

November the War Department placed Colonel Danville Leadbetter in charge of

the defense of the East Tennessee railroads, and he immediately strengthened

guard details on the bridges. [55]

Confederate forces suffered from a number of handicaps that might have

limited their effectiveness. Some units were armed only with country rifles and

shotguns, and some reported having no powder or ammunition. Furthermore, they

had to cover a great deal of territory, for at least fifteen of East Tennessee’s

counties reported outbreaks, and frequently the resistance would flare up again

after Confederate forces had moved on. Finally, due to the destruction of the

telegraph lines communications among Confederate commanders were uncertain.

Zollicoffer in particular was cut off, and for several days the Department

Commander could not effectively direct the movement of his forces. [56]

In spite of impediments, Confederate troops moved quickly and

energetically to crush the uprising. Carroll placed the city of Knoxville under

martial law, controlled all access into and out of the town, and sent his forces to

conduct a house-to-house search for weapons. Confederate forces attacked and

dispersed camps of Unionists in Carter, Sevier, Cocke, Greene, Scott, Johnson,

Bradley, Washington, McMinn, Rhea, Morgan, and Knox Counties, while

Zollicoffer deployed some of his forces to seal off the passes into Kentucky. The

Unionists were trapped between Confederate forces in lower and upper East

Tennessee, and many were captured attempting to flee the state. When the 56 largest Unionist concentrations had been broken up, Confederate troops fanned

out into the countryside, confiscating weapons and seizing and imprisoning known

leaders and men found in arms. Many Unionists spent days hiding in cellars,

caves, or in the woods to avoid capture. Confederate officers also tried and

executed five men for bridge-burning, detained hundreds of other Unionists in

Knoxville, and sent numerous leaders and dozens of men charged with

involvement in the bridgeburnings to military prisons in other states. Even after

all the propaganda and exaggerations have been stripped away, it is clear that the

weeks following the uprising were in fact a "reign of terror." Confederate

authorities and East Teimessee secessionists panicked, and that panic led to harsh

repression and many ill-advised actions. [57]

By the middle of December Confederate commanders could report that the

uprising had ended. They had dispersed all large groups of armed Unionists,

arrested a number of leaders, driven Unionist organizations in most counties

underground, and detained or driven from the state hundreds of Unionist

partisans. While Confederate forces successfully suppressed large-scale rebellion,

however, the local resistance organizations remained intact. On 29 November

J.G.M. Ramsey asserted that, despite their defeat. Unionists would revolt again if given a chance. Likewise, on 24 December Leadbetter reported that the

Confederate hold on the upper counties was tenuous and that a second outbreak could occur at any time. The failure of the uprising and the Confederate crackdown did not end the Unionist resistance, but rather pushed it In a different 57 direction. The East Tennessee Unionists suffered greatly from the events of

November, and they would attempt no more massive uprisings. Instead, they would operate in smaller bands, and would by their harassment make the continued Confederate occupation a nightmare. Unionist defiance would ebb and flow in the remaining twenty months of Confederate occupation, but it would never dry up. The end of large-scale resistance simply inaugurated a new phase in the struggle for East Tennessee, a phase that pitted Unionist guerrillas against secessionist bands and Confederate occupying forces in an unrestrained war of ambush, murder, terror, and destruction. [58] 58

NOTES

1. Paul H. Bergeron, Antebellum Politics in Tennessee (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1982), pp. 103-47; Mary Emily Robertson Campbell, The Attitude of Tennessee Toward the Union (New York: Vantage Press, 1961), pp. 34-103; Joseph H. Parks, "The Tennessee Whigs and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill," Journal of Southern History 10 (1944): 308-330; Basha Ruth Webb, "Attitude of Members of Congress of Tennessee on the Slavery Question, 1820-1855," unpublished thesis. University of Tetmessee, 1931.

2. Bergeron, Politics, pp. 162-66; Campbell, Attitude, pp. 104-35; Stanley J. Folmsbee, Robert Corlew, and Enoch L. Mitchell, History of Tennessee. 4 vols. (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1960), vol. 2, pp. 23-28; Daniel Crofts, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), pp. 81-89; Knoxville Whig. August 11,1860; William G. Brownlow, Sketches of the Rise. Progress, and Decline of Secession (Philadelphia: n.p., 1862), pp. 191-207; Thomas W. Humes, The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee (Knoxville: Ogden Brothers & Company, 1888), pp. 80-81.

3. Campbell, Attitude, pp. 134-44,154-55; Folmsbee et. al., Tennessee, pp. 28-30; Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 90-102; William Davis to "Cousin Mary," Greeneville, December 19, 1860, Mary Arm Covington Wilson Letters, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Knoxville Whig. November 17,1860; William G. McAdoo Diary, November 9, November 12,1860, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

4. Campbell, Attitude, pp. 158-63; Folmsbee et. al., Tennessee, pp. 31-32; Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 144-53.

5. Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 90-91, 102-104, 144-153; Campbell, Attitude, pp. 171-75; Oliver P. Temple, East Tennessee in the Civil War (Cinciimati: The Robert Clarks Company, Publishers, 1899), p. 166-79; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 90-92; Joseph C.C. McDannel to Andrew Johnson, Knoxville, December 29,1860, Mortier F. Johnson to Andrew Johnson, Tellico Plains, December 31, 1860, 59 Richard M. Edwards to Andrew Johnson, Cleveland, January 2, 1862, Leroy P. Graf and Ralph Haskins, eds,, The Papers of Andrew Johnson. 9 vols. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1967), vol. 4, pp. 102, 107-08, 119-20; Knoxville Whig. January 12, 1861; Brownlow, Secession, pp. 28-30.

6. Campbell, Attitude, pp. 175-79,288-90; Folmsbee, Tennessee, pp. 31-32; Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 146-47, 149-52.

7. Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 130-36, 195.

8. James Welch Patton, Unionism and Reconstruction in Tennessee (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934), p. 7; Temple, East Tennessee, p. 133; J. Milton Henry, "The Revolution in Tennessee, February 1861 to June 1861," Tennessee Historical Quarterly 18 (June 1959): 104-13; Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 153-54, 164-94.

9. Henry, "Revolution," pp. 104-113; Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 262-73, 277-83, 296-97, 327; Blackstone McDannel to Andrew Johnson, Greeneville, March 18, 1861, John C. McGaughy to Andrew Johnson, Knoxville, March 28,1861, Robert M. Barton to Andrew Johnson, Russelville, April 4, 1861, Charles A. Rice to Andrew Johnson, Knoxville, April 5, 1861, Richard M. Edward to Andrew Johnson, Cleveland, April 8,1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 404-05,437-38,459- 61, 466-68, 469-70.

10. Thomas B. Alexander, Thomas A.R. Nelson of East Tennessee (Nashville: Tennessee Historical Commission, 1956), pp. 68-69, 71-74; Campbell, Attitude, pp. 167-70; Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 334-40; Horace Maynard to Oliver P. Temple, Washington, D.C., January 29, 1861, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville.

11. Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 323-30; Folmsbee et. al, Tennessee, pp. 32-33, 37-38, 41;; Campbell, Attitude, pp. 190-96.

12. Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 323-30; Folmsbee, Tennessee, p. 33-34, 36; Patton, Unionism, pp. 7, 16-17.

13. Folmsbee, Tennessee, pp. 32-33, 37-38, 41; Campbell, Attitude, pp. 194-99; Patton, Unionism, pp. 18-19.

14. Oliver P. Temple to T.A.R. Nelson, Knoxville, April 18, 1861, N. M. Heche to Nelson, Union, April 24,1861, J. M. Anderson to Nelson, Beaver Creek, June 15, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville. 60 15. J. S. Hurlbut, History of the Rebellion in Bradley Countv. East Tennessee (Indianapolis: Downey & Brouse, 1866), pp. 38-39,46-49; John Lellyet to Andrew Johnson, Knoxville, January 23, 1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 184- 85.

16. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 179-204; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 100- 02; Alexander, Nelson, pp. 76-83.

17. Robert W. Winston, Andrew Johnson. Plebian and Patriot (New York: Bames & Noble, Inc., 1969), pp. 195-96; Alexander, Nelson, pp. 76-83; W. M. Stakely to Carrie Stakely, Madisonville, April 27, 1861, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; W. H. Churchwell to Colonel Landon Carter Haynes, Jonesboro, May 6,1861, A. E. Jackson to Colonel Landon Carter Haynes, Jonesboro, May 17,1861, John C Gaut to T.A.R. Nelson, Cleveland, May 26, 1861, Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; L. F. Johnson to Andrew Johnson, Blountville, May 6, 1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, p. 476; David Sullins, Recollections of an Old Man: Seventy Years in Dixie (Bristol: The King Printing Company, 1910), pp. 192-95; Elkenah D, Roder to Andrew Johnson, Bristol, March 20, 1861, Johnson Papers. vol. 4, pp. 418-19; William A. Sorrell to Judge James S. Havron, Jasper, May 8, 1861, Havron Collection, Small Collections, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Mary Caldwell to "Callie," Madisonville, May 14, 1861, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

18. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 154-56; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 100, 347; Brownlow, Sketches, pp. 55-58.

19. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 192-95; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 120-21; Brownlow, Sketches, pp. 277-79.

20. Lloyd Paul Stryker, Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage (New York: MacMillan & Company, 1929), p. 79; R. M. Fisher and 9 others to T.A.R. Nelson, Athens, May 17, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 81-85, 102; Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 233-36; Brownlow, Sketches, pp. 208-09; Joseph H. Parks, John Bell of Tennessee (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950), p. 389; E. Merton Coulter, William G. Brownlow. Fighting Parson of the Highlands (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1937), p. 126.

21. [C.W. Charleton] to Amos A. Lawrence, Knoxville, May 15, May 23, June 6, 1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 476-77; Barry Crouch, "The Merchant and the Senator: An Attempt to Save East Tennessee for the Union," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 46 (1974): 53-75; Colonel William W. 61 Churchwell to Secretary of War L. P. Walker, Knoxville, May 25, 1861, Copies of Letters Sent to the Confederate Secretary of War and President Davis, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Coulter, Parson, p. 159.

22. Folmsbee, Tennessee, pp. 34-35; Campbell, Attitude, pp. 205-07, 291- 94; Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 342-44; Alexander, Nelson, pp. 83-85; The Tribune Almanac and Political Register (New York: The Tribune Association, 1862); Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 205-223; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 103-05; Brov^ow, Sketches, pp. 222-23; W. R. Henly to T.A.R. Nelson, Washington, B.C., May 8, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Robert Johnson to Andrew Johnson, Nashville, April 29, 1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 474-76.

23. Tlie process of mobilization can be traced in Orders, East Tennessee Brigade, 1861, Order Book of Assistant Adjutant General David M. Key, Brigadier General William R. Caswell, Teimessee Volunteers, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives. See also Colonel Henry M. Doak Memoir, pp. 8-11, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; James A. Caldwell to "Callie," Madisonville, June 5, 1861, E.T. Hall to Martha Hall, Knoxville, May 26, 1861, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; J.G.M. Ramsey to Robert Ramsey, Knoxville, April 28, 1861, May 17, 1861, Ramsey Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Martha Hall to Carrie Stakely, KnoxviUe, June 18, 1861, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

24. Brigadier General Richard Caswell, Order No. 33, Knoxville, June 5, 1861, Orders, East Teimessee Brigade, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives; David M. Key to Lizzie Key, Knoxville, June 10, 1861, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.

25. W. G McKinly to Newton Lillard, Decatur, June 10, 1861, Lillard Papers, Teimessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; George Ryan to Andrew Johnson and Emerson Etheridge, Xenia, Ohio, August 24, 1861, Johnson Papers. vol. 4, pp. 693-94; H. C. Thompson to Andrew Johnson, [Nashville], April 28, 1862, Johnson Papers, vol. 5., pp. 346-47; Amanda McDowell Bums and Lela M. Blakenship, Fiddles on the Cumberland (New York: Richard Smith Co., 1943), pp. 40-42, 49-50; Rebel C. Forrester, Glory and Tears: Obion County. Tennessee. 1860-1870 (Union City: H. A. Lanzer, 1966), p. 25.

26. Johnson Papers, vol. 4, p. 487, note 2.

27. Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 164-94. 62 28. Charles W. Charleton to Andrew Johnson, Knoxville, December 19, 1860, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 51-52; Hans L, Trefousse, Andrew Johnson: A Biographv (New York: Norton, 1989), pp. 128-29; Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 147-49.

29. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 147-49; William G. McAdoo Diary, November 30, December 12, December 20, 1860, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

30. For sketches of these men, see Oliver P. Temple, Notable Men of Tennessee from 1833 to 1875 (New York: The Cosmopolitan Press, 1912).

31. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 340-43; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 103-15, 347-55; Campbell, Attitude, pp. 201-04; Charles F. Bryan, Jr., "A Gathering of Tories: The East Tennessee Convention of 1861," Tennessee Historical Quarterly 39 (1980): 27-48.

32. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 343-65,565-73; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 115-19, 347-55; Alexander, Nelson, pp. 84-87; Campbell, Attitude, pp. 207-09; Bryan, 'Tories," p. 27-48; Temple, Notable, p. 104; G. L. Ridenour, TTre Land of the Lake: A History of Campbell County. Tennessee (LaFollette, Teimessee: LaFollette Publishing Company, Inc., 1941), pp. 57-58.

33. For defenses of the conservative course, see Temple, East Teimessee. pp. 354-60, and B. Frazier to T.A.R. Nelson, Knox County, June 15, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville. For criticisms, see J. J. Jones to T.A.R. Nelson, Harrison, June 8, 1861, and John Murphy to T.A.R. Nelson, Taylorsville, July 14, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

34. David M. Key to Lizzie, Loudon, May 6, 1861, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; George C. Rable, "Anatomy of a Unionist: Andrew Johnson and the Secession Crisis," Tennessee Historical Quarterly 32 (1973): 349-50; Knoxville Whig. January 12, 1861; Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 173-75. See also Chapter Two, pp. 97-105.

35. Bruce D. Dickson, Jr., Violence and Culture in the Antebellum South (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979), pp. 178-93; John Hope Franklin, The Militant South. 1860-1861 (Cambridge: Bellmap Press of Harvard University Press, 1956), pp. 131-33.

36. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 156-57. For a similar description of Nelson’s oratory, see A. E. Jackson to Colonel Landon Carter Haynes, Jonesboro, 63 May 17, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

37. Brownlow, Sketches, pp. 224-44; Campbell, Attitude, pp. 185-89, 210- 12; William G. Brownlow to William B. Campbell, Knoxville, May 6, 1861, William B. Campbell Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; George Bridges to T.AR. Nelson, Athens, July 10, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; R. M. McEwen to Oliver P. Temple, Nashville, July 12,1861, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville. For the captures of Nelson and Bridges, see Chapter Four pp. 234-35.

38. Temple, Notable Men, p. 104; Ridenour, Campbell, pp. 57-58; William G. McAdoo Diary, August 18, 1861, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

39. William G. Swan to President Jefferson Davis, Knoxville, July 11,1861, OR II, I, p. 828; Hurlbut, Bradley, pp. 61-62; General James B. Rains to his wife. Camp Fisher, August 15, 1861, James E. Rains Letters, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Thomas Doak Edington Memoir, p. 11, Teimessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; David M. Key to Lizzie, Knoxville, July 30, 1861, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Temple, Notable Men, pp. 95-96; Hurlbut, Bradley. pp. 68-77; James W. Livingood, A History of Hamilton County. Tennessee (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1981), pp. 157-61; Milton P. Jarnagin, "Reminiscences of the War," pp. 4-8, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Robert A. Crawford to T.A.R. Nelson, Greeneville, July 18, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Samuel S. Bush to Andrew Johnson, Louisville, July 15,1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 580-581.

40. See Chapter Four, pp. 226-32.

41. David Campbell Scales to "William," Knoxville, August 10,1861, Scales and Campbell Family Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; John F. Milhollin to "Eve," Knoxville, August 1, 1861, John F. Milhollin Letters, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; WiUiam G. McAdoo Diary, August 20, 1861, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; H. Watterson to William Watterson, Hawkins County, June 7, 1861, Watterson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; John Lillard to his father, Fentress County, July 12, 1861, John Lillard to his wife, August 13, 1861, Lillard Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; G. M. White to Carrie Stakely, Camp Rowan, 64 August 13, 1861, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

42. William G. McAdoo Diary, August 23, 1861, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; George W. Keith to Andrew Johnson, Monticello, Kentucky, July 12, 1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 560-61; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 131-32.

43. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 370-77; Jesse C. Burt, Jr., "East Tennessee, Lincoln, and Sherman," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 34 (1962): pp. 3-25 ; David Madden, "Unionist Resistance to Confederate Occupation: The Bridge Burners of East Tennessee," East Teimessee Historical Society Publications 52 (1981): pp. 25-27; Francis F. Mckiimey, Education in Violence (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1961), pp. 113-17; "President Lincoln’s of a Plan of Campaign-1861--undated," OR 52, 1, pp. 191-92.

44. Samuel P. Carter Memoirs, pp. 141-51, Special Collections, University of Temiessee Library, Knoxville; William Nelson to Andrew Johnson, Cincinnati, July 11, July 16, July 17, July 25, 1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 557-58, 586-88, Montgomery Blair to Andrew Johnson, August 8,1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 673-74; Charles C. Anderson, Fighting by Southern Fédérais (New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1912), p. 36; Amos A. Lawrence to Andrew Johnson, Boston, June 25, 1861, July 3, 1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 514, 539; Crouch, "Senator," pp. 53-75.

45. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 370-77; Madden, "Resistance," pp. 27-28; J.G. Burrfield, "Statement Relating to the Union Men who was Enlisted to Burn the Railroad Bridges at Union Sullivan County Tennessee. Under Special Orders from General George H. Thomas Nov 1861," Samuel Mays Arnell Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Alexander, Nelson, p. 77.

46. Burt, "East Tennessee," p. 12; Madden, "Resistance," pp. 28-29; William B. Carter to Brigadier General George Thomas, Morgan County, October 22, 1861, Carter to Thomas, Kingston, October 27,1861, OR 4, pp. 317, 320; Andrew Johnson to Amos A. Lawrence, Washington, D C., July 26, July 31, 1861, Lawrence to Johnson, Boston, August 2, August 9, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 599, 654-55, 660, 674.

47. Burt, "East Tennessee," p. 12; Andrew Johnson to William T. Sherman, Camp Dick Robinson, October 30, 1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 5, pp. 29-30; McKinney, Education, pp. 117-19; Lloyd Lewis, Sherman: Fighting Prophet (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1958), pp. 195-98. 65 48. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 380-85; Madden, "Resistance," pp. 30-34; Burt, "East Tennessee," p. 18; J. G. Burrfield, "Statement," Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Abraham Jobe Diary, pp. 131-32, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Jacksborough, November 9, 1861, Zollicoffer to Cooper, Jacksborough, November 11, 1861, Colonel William B. Wood to Cooper, Knoxville, November 11, 1861, "Statement Furnished Colonel Wood by Messrs. Wiseman and Fain," Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives.

49. Daniel Ellis, Thrilling Adventures of Daniel Ellis (New York: Harper & Row, 1867), pp. 28-30; Jobe Diary, pp. 132-34, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Samuel W. Scott and Samuel P. Angel, Historv of the Thirteenth Regiment. Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry. U.S.A. (Knoxville: n.p., 1903), p. 81; Colonel William B. Wood to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, November 11, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives; Brigadier General William H. Carroll to General Albert Sidney Johnston, Knoxville, December 5, 1861, OR 52, 2, pp. 228- 29; John L. Hopkins to "W.H. Sneed, John H. Crozier, Mag. C. William, Genl. Zollicoffer, or Col. Wood," Chattanooga, November 11, 1861, Zollicoffer to Lieutenant Colonel William Mackall, Montgomery, November 20,1861, Operator S.B. Stuart to Wood, Charleston, November 10, 1861, Smith and McCreary to Gillespie and Key, Charleston, November 12, 1861, C. Wallace to Wood, Athens, November 10, 1861, Maj. L.J. Cannon to Wood, Loudon, November 10, 1861, Brigadier General Felix Zollicoffer to Brigadier General William H. Carroll, Jacksborough, August 12,1861, J.D. McCarey, William Bogle, and A.G. Robertson to William H. Sneed, Greeneville, November 13,1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives; Henry J. Clark to Secretaiy of War J u d ^ P. Benjamin, Raleigh, November 16, November 18,1861, OR 52,2, pp. 209- 10; Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin to Henry T. Clark, Richmond, November 21,1861, OR 52, 2, p. 214; Governor Joseph E. Brown to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Milledgeville, November 17, 1861, OR I, 52, 2, p. 209; Zollicoffer to Cooper, Jacksborough, November 14,1861, OR 4, p. 243; Carroll to Benjamin, Knoxville, December 7, 1861, OR II, 1, p. 852; Carroll to Major General Albert Sidney Johnston, Knox^nlle, December 17, 1861, OR 52, 2, p. 232. For the Post Commander’s quote, see Colonel William B. Wood to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, November 11, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives. 66 50. Temple, East Tennessee, p. 387; Ellis, Adventures, pp. 28-30; Abraham Jobe Diary, p. 134, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Colonel Danville Leadbetter to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Greeneville, November 28, 1861, OR 7, pp. 712-13; Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Lieutenant Colonel William Mackall, Montgomery, November 20, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25,1861, Record Group 109, National Archives.

51. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 400-01; H. C. Young to D. M. Currin, Knoxville, December 19, 1861, OR 7, pp. 777-79.

52. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 400-01; James T. Shelby to Andrew Johnson, Somersett, Kentucky, December 28,1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 5, pp. 84- 85.

53. Robert C. Black III, The Railroads of the Confederacv (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952), p. 69; Colonel Danville Leadbetter to General Albert Sidney Johnston, Bristol, November 13, 1861, OR 52, 2, p. 207; Burt, "East Tennessee," p. 23.

54. Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 400-01; Wilma Dykeman, The French Broad (New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc., 1955), p. 89; Stephen C. Byrum, McMinn County (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1984), p. 36.

55. Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Colonel William B. Wood, Jacksborough, November 9, November 10, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25,1861, Record Group 109, National Archives; Brigadier General William H. Carroll to Secretaiy of War Judah P. Benjamin, Memphis, November 12, 1861, OR 45, 2, p. 206; David Bodenhamer Memoirs, pp. 1-3, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Richard R. Hancock, Hancock's Diarv: Or. A Historv of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalrv (Nashville: Brandon Printing Company, 1867), p. 77; James W. McKee, Jr., "Felix K. Zollicoffer: Confederate Defender of East Tennessee," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 44 (1972): 19; Colonel Danville Leadbetter to General Albert Sidney Johnston, Bristol, November 13, 1861, OR 52, 2, p. 207; Leadbetter to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Greeneville, November 28, 1861, OR 7, pp. 712-13.

56. Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Colonel William B. Wood, Jacksborough, November 12, 1861, Captain John B. McLain to Wood, Union, November 12, 1861, Lieutenant Colonel E. J. Gallaway to Wood, Athens, November 14, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at 67 Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives; Brigadier General William H. Carroll to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Memphis, November 12, 1861, OR 45, 2, p. 206; Carroll to Major G ener^ Albert Sidney Johnston, Knoxville, December 17, 1861, OR 52, 2, p. 232.

57. Colonel William B. Wood to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, November 11, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives; Brigadier General William H. Carroll to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Knoxville, November 26, 1861, OR 7, pp. 704-05; Carroll, "Proclamation," December 11, 1861, OR 7, p. 760; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 135-37, 152-53, 308; Post Commandant, Knoxville, General Orders No. 5, November 13, 1861, Samuel Powell III Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; Lieutenant A. P. Wiggs to Colonel William B. Wood, n. p., n. d.. Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives; Martha Hall to Carrie Stakely, Knoxville, November 13, 1861, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Hurlbut, Bradlev. pp. 96-97, 225; Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Colonel W. L. Stratham, Jacksborough, November 14,1861, Zollicoffer to Cooper, Jacksborough, November 14,1861, Orders and Letters Sent, General Felix K. Zollicoffer, August 1861-January 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives; Colonel Danville Leadbetter to Cooper, Greeneville, November 28, 1861, OR 7, pp. 712-13; Ellis, Adventures, pp. 29-30; Scott and Angel, Thirteenth Regiment, pp. 92-93; Carroll to Governor Isham G. Harris, Chattanooga, November 14, 1861, Papers of the Governors, Isham G. Harris, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Captain G. W. McKenzie to "Major Commanding," Smith’s Cross Roads, November 15, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14- November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives; Zollicoffer to Lieutenant Colonel William Mackall, Jacksborough, November 17, 1861, Orders and Letters Sent, General Felix K. Zollicoffer, August 1861-January 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives; Wood to Zollicoffer, Knoxville, November 10, 1861, Commissioner Robert B. Reynolds to Wood, Knoxville, November 14, 1861, Wood to Benjamin, Knoxville, November 20,1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25,1861, Record Group 109, National Archives; M. B. Stewart to Richard Stewart, November 21, November 24, December 15, 1861, Lillard Family Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Abraham Jobe Diary, pp. 134-35, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville. The phrase "reign of terror" comes from Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 152-153. For a more complete account of the Confederate suppression of the uprising, see Chapter Four, pp. 240-45. 68

58. J.G.M. Ramsey to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Knoxville, November 29, 1861, OR 7, pp. 721-22; Colonel Danville Leadbetter to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, December 24, 1861, OR II, 1, p. 859. CHAPTER II

"HEWERS OF WOOD AND DRAWERS OF WATER"

Unionism was a widespread phenomenon in the South in late 1860 and

early 1861. In every state that eventually joined the Confederacy organizations

emerged to oppose those calhng for separation, and in all states that held a

referendum on the question a portion of the population opposed at least

immediate secession. In the lower South it is unclear whether these opposition

organizations were actually opposed to secession or whether they simply disagreed

with the immediate secessionists concerning the timing and process of separation.

In the upper South, however, opposition to secession, though short lived, was

clearly fundamental. Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina all defeated initial

attempts at secession in February 1861, and all developed Unionist parties with

widespread support. At the same time, even Unionism in most of the upper South

turned out to be a weak movement. It failed to develop a viable platform, and

it largely dissipated with the beginning of hostilities. [1]

The Unionism of East Tennessee, therefore, was an unusual sentiment,

comparable only to that found in West Virginia. It was of course related in some way to the broader Unionist movements of the Upper South. East Tennesseeans

69 70 cooperated with leaders in other parts of the state, and they employed many of the

same arguments against secession. The Unionism of East Tennessee did not

collapse in the wake of Fort Sumter, however, and it was strong enough to

withstand all Confederate attempts to suppress it. Loyalism in East Tennessee

was also not simply a variant of the dissent in the Confederacy that became

widespread after 1863. It is true that the resistance in the East looked something

like disloyalty in other areas, and many of the grievances that created opposition

to the Confederate government, such as conscription and taxation, also intensified

the resistance in East Tennessee. But the Unionism in this region was not simply

a product of the war or of Confederate policies. It was an ideological

commitment that emerged as early as December 1860, and it reflected a wholesale

rejection of the Confederacy.

The purpose of this chapter is to attempt to answer two related questions.

First, what factors separated East Tennessee from the rest of the South and led

a majority of the population there to oppose secession? Second, why did the

conflict between Unionists and secessionists in East Tennessee became so

uncompromising that it led the two factions to threaten, kill, and drive out persons who had taken the opposite stance? This chapter will first review interpretations of the Unionism of East Tennessee advanced by other historians. It will then focus on one factor that has not received sufficient attention, the republican ideology that was fundamental to Unionist arguments against secession, and will examine possible links between this ideology and the social, economic, and 71 political structure of antebellum East Tennessee. Finally, this chapter will

examine the roots of the violent conflict between the Unionist and secessionist

factions of East Tennessee. Two qualifications should he noted at this point.

First, a great deal of work has already been done on the topic of Unionism and

secession in Tennessee, and this chapter will therefore refer frequently to the

interpretations of other historians. Second, the conclusions presented in this

chapter are tentative. The economic, social, and political structure of antebellum

East Tennessee has not been thoroughly studied, and without a clear

understanding of the region’s development it is difficult to explain fully its

Unionism.

HISTORICAL INTERPRETATIONS

The causes of East Tennessee’s loyalty have received more attention than perhaps any other topic in the region’s history, and numerous historians have

offered a variety of thoughtful explanations. Two of the first were the Unionist scholars Thomas William Humes and Oliver P. Temple. In his Loval

Mountaineers of Tennessee. Humes drew three conclusions concerning the stance taken by the Eastern counties. First, he asserted that Unionism in East Tennessee was a popular movement and not a sentiment created by the leadership. Second,

Humes attributed this movement to a powerful tradition of devotion to and service of the United States that had begun with the Battle of King’s Mountain and had continued through every one of the nation’s other conflicts. Finally, Humes 72 pointed out that the "mountaineers" of East Tennessee had little interest in either

slavery or cotton, and therefore did not share the sectional concerns of

Southerners elsewhere. [2]

Temple’s explanation of East Tennessee’s Unionism was similar to Humes’,

though more complex. Temple agreed that, after early 1861 at least. Unionism

was a mass movement, and like Humes he attributed East Tennessee’s rejection

of secession to its strong nationalism. At the same time. Temple asserted that the

East Teimessee leaders had played a critical role in focusing the sentiments of the

population and organizing a movement that would enable the predisposition

toward Unionism to survive and then triumph. Temple drew a sharp contrast between the Unionist leadership in Middle Teimessee, which had acquiesced in secession, and that in the East, which had stood firm even amidst the public excitement over Fort Sumter. Temple also suggested two other factors as causes of East Tennessee’s rejection of secession. First, he asserted that there was a close link between Unionism and the dominance of the Whig party in East

Tennessee, and in some passages even suggested that Whiggery and Unionism were synonymous. Second, Temple believed that slavery played some role in influencing the voting on secession in East Tennessee. He conceded that slaveholding was by no means a reliable predictor of a person’s stance on secession and pointed out that several large slaveholders were among the strongest supporters of the Union. But in other passages Temple suggested that areas of slave concentrations tended to vote secessionist, and several times he referred 73 significantly to the power of the "slaveholding oligarchy" in other parts of the

South and its lack of influence in East Tennessee. [3]

Humes and Temple, therefore, suggested four factors as causes of East

Tennessee’s Unionism: Whig affiliation, nationalism, the relative lack of slavery, and leadership. Historical studies in the twentieth century have tended to repeat these interpretations, though some new elements have been added. The authors of a standard history of Tennessee, Stanley J. Folmsbee, Robert E. Corlew, and

Enoch L. Mitchell, attributed East Tennessee’s Unionism to its sense of isolation from the slaveholding South and its feeling of being a sectional minority. Thomas

Perkins Abernathy traced the Unionist stance of East Teimessee to four factors: party influence, the effective guidance provided by Unionist leaders, the desire of

East Tennesseans to escape the political dominance of Middle Tennessee, and the hatred that Andrew Johnson and other Unionists had for the slaveholding elite.

Thomas B. Alexander conceded that economic and geographic factors played some role in East Tennessee’s rejection of secession, but he agreed with Temple that without the decisive guidance provided by Nelson and others the Unionist impulse would never have survived. James Patton, conversely, offered on interpretation based on class, arguing that urban dwellers and the wealthy tended to support the

Confederacy while persons living in poorer nonslaveholding regions generally clung to the Union. Wilma Dykeman adopted this same interpretation, while also asserting that it was the character of the mountain dwellers, particularly their desire for independence and isolation, that led them to oppose secession. [4] 74 Two of the more intriguing studies of secession and Unionism in Tennessee

are Eric Lacy’s Vanquished Volunteers and Ralph Wooster’s The Secession

Conventions of the South. Lacy conceded that geography, slavery, and leadership

provided partial explanations for the loyalism of East Tennessee. He pointed out,

however, that the issue of secession divided the different sections of East

Tennessee from one another. While only one county in upper East Tennessee,

and none in the middle, supported secession, five of ten counties in lower East

Tennessee did so. Lacy attributed this division to disagreements among the

sections over funding for internal improvements in the antebellum period and to

vicious competition among different political factions. Since the Unionist

movement was identified with upper East Tennessee leaders such as T.A.R.

Nelson, Lacy argued, the lower counties had difficulty supporting it. [5]

Wooster’s study examined in detail the legislative votes on secession and

the selection of delegates to secession conventions in each of the eleven

Confederate states. In his chapter on Tennessee, Wooster concluded that the legislative vote revealed no clear correlation between support for secession and either wealth or slaveholding. But in the polling for delegates to a proposed convention in February 1861, Wooster found that counties choosing secessionist delegates tended to have a higher percent of slaves in the population and a greater per-capita wealth. He also demonstrated that while traditionally Whig counties split fairly evenly on this issue, Democratic counties overwhelmingly supported secession. At the same time, Wooster conceded that the most obvious 75 dividing factor in the popular voting on secession was geography. In the February

referendum, East Teimessee, the river counties of West Tennessee, and the

Highland Rim counties of the Middle region all opposed even holding a

convention to discuss the issue; in the June vote, likewise, the clearest split was

between East Tennessee and the rest of the state. Finally, Wooster’s study

revealed a disagreement between the leadership and the population of several

East Tennessee counties over the secession issue. In May 1861 the legislative

delegations from nine East Tennessee counties voted for separation, while four

other counties split and one abstained. Only fifteen delegations, therefore, clearly

opposed secession. But in the June referendum twenty-three East Tennessee

counties gave majorities against separation, and only six supported the move. [6]

The most effective synthesis of these interpretations was that produced by

Charles F. Bryan in his unpublished dissertation, "East Tennessee and the Civil

War: A Social, Economic, and Political Study," and in a 1980 article, "A Gathering of Tories: The East Tennessee Convention of 1861." Bryan concluded that

Unionism in East Tennessee was the product of multiple factors: an economy that varied from that found in much of the rest of the South, a geographic isolation intensified by the lack of transportation, a corresponding sense of detachment from the rest of the South, a resentment concerning the loss of political dominance to Middle Tennessee, the dominance of the Whig Party, and the desire of East Tennessee’s leaders to establish a separate state. Bryan also asserted that, while there may have been some tendency for slaveholders and the wealthy to 76 vote for secession, no clear correlation existed between the votes on this issue and

either of these factors. [7]

The most thorough and sophisticated study of secession and Unionism in

the upper South is Daniel Croft’s Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists

in the Secession Crisis. Crofts concluded that the most important factors

influencing the popular voting on secession in Tennessee were, first, slaveholding

and then party affiliation, with areas that supported John Bell in the 1860

presidential election tending to vote Unionist and areas that supported John C.

Breckinridge generally favoring secession. Together these two factors explained

a little over fifty percent of the vote in the February referendum and about sixty

percent in June. Yet Crofts tempered these conclusions with three observations.

First, he cautioned that the split in Tennessee between slaveholders and

nonslaveholders was not statewide, but rather tended to be by community or area, with nonslaveholders in regions with high slave concentrations tending to support secession. Second, Crofts agreed with Wooster that, in the June referendum at least, the most obvious dividing factor in Tennessee may have been geography, with counties in the East overwhelmingly voting Unionist and a large majority of counties in the other two sections favoring secession. Finally, he conceded that such factors as state sectionalism, class hostilities, and leadership might have influenced voting on secession. [8]

The list of possible factors contributing to the Unionism of East Tennessee, therefore, is rather long, including the region’s small interest in slavery, geography. 77 economic structure, class divisions, leadership, state sectionalism, and party

affiliation. The first four of these will examined later in this chapter; the

remainder can be discussed here. Leadership played only a secondary role in the

formation of East Teimessee’s Unionism. It is probably true that particular

leaders significantly influenced the vote on secession in some areas. Thousands

of Democrats in upper East Tennessee voted Unionist, a phenomena that

contemporary observers attributed to the influence of Andrew Johnson, while

another Unionist spokesman, Emerson Etheridge, was credited with carrying three

counties for the Union in West Teimessee. There is also no doubt that the

Unionist leaders of East Teimessee decisively outmaneuvered their opponents,

built an effective organization, and conducted two skillful campaigns against

secession. But the leadership interpretation contains at least three flaws. First,

it emphasizes the instances in which the efforts of Unionist leaders succeeded, while ignoring the many failures. Second, it overlooks the mutual influence between leaders and followers. Leaders may shape public opinion, but at the same time the views of voters set the limits within which leaders may operate.

Johnson, Nelson, and others may have crystallized the views of their followers and enabled them to act effectively, but they could not have spoken out as they did if public opinion had been as hostile as it was in Middle and West Tennessee.

Third, even though the Unionist movement in East Tennessee suffered the loss of its most prominent leaders in the summer and fall of 1861, it carried on without pause throughout 1862 and 1863. Therefore, while the role of leadership cannot 78 be discounted, the Unionist movement does require a more comprehensive

explanation. [9]

State sectionalism, likewise, is an interpretation with some validity but

several flaws. The geographic division of Tennessee into West, Middle, and East

is a central fact in Tennessee history. East and Middle Teimessee originated as

separate enterprises, the Watauga settlement of 1768 and the Cumberland venture

of 1775, and continued to function independently for two decades. After

statehood was achieved, separate political factions in East and Middle Teimessee

fought for control, while business interests in the two sections also competed for

preeminence. Both these campaigns were won by Middle Tennessee, a fact that

Eastern leaders greatly resented. By the middle of the antebellum period

sectionalism in Tennessee was manifested in many different ways. The

constitution of 1834 separated the state into three "grand divisions" for purposes

of taxation, appropriations, and some political appointments. Most religious

denominations established three conferences in Tennessee, one for each division.

The railroad lines, also, did not link the state together, but rather tied each section to markets and transportation centers in neighboring states. [10]

The political dominance of Middle Tennessee created particular resentment in the East. From the state’s founding to the first decade of the nineteenth century East Tennessee controlled state politics, electing a majority of governors, dominating the state legislature, and monopolizing at least one Senate seat. In

1812 a major redistricting shifted control of the legislature to Middle Tennessee, 79 however, and in 1819 the state capital moved permanently from Knoxville to

Nashville. The subsequent political decline of East Tennessee was lengthy and

painful. Between 1819 and 1853 not a single Eastern candidate reached the

governor’s chair, and after 1840 East Tennessee also lost its exclusive claim to one

Senate seat. Two defeats late in the antebellum period particularly angered

Eastern leaders: John Netherland’s loss to Isham G. Harris in the 1857

gubernatorial election, and the refusal of the state legislature in both 1851 and

1853 to award a United States Senate seat to T.A.R. Nelson. East, Middle, and

West Tennessee also fought bitterly over funding for internal improvements, and

these contests became so divisive that in the early 1840s both East and West

Tennessee petitioned for separate statehood. [11]

The tradition of separateness in East Tennessee stretched back to the famous State of Franklin movement in the 1780s. In December 1784 settlers from

Washington, Greene, and Sullivan Counties, then part of North Carolina, met in a convention to discuss their relations with the mother state. Angered by the refusal of North Carolina to cede its western lands to the Continental Congress and its perceived neglect of their interests, the settlers passed resolutions that proclaimed the three counties a separate state and petitioned Congress for admission. Despite rejection by both Congress and North Carolina, the self­ constituted State of Franklin attempted to govern itself for the next five years. It is true that due to lack of support in Congress, threats from Native American groups, and internal divisions, Franklin began to decline in 1786, and by 1789 it 80 was dead. Nonetheless, the idea that East Tennessee, perhaps in conjunction with

neighboring areas in North Carolina, Virginia, and Middle Tennessee, should

constitute a separate state did not die. In both 1841 and 1843 bills were

introduced in the Tennessee legislature to allow the Eastern counties to detach

themselves and form a new state, and these bills received the support of, among

others, Andrew Johnson and William G. Brownlow. Likewise, in both 1861, when

secession carried in Tennessee, and in 1866, when East Tennessee began to lose

control of the reconstruction process, proposals for a separate state again

circulated among Unionists there. As Charles F. Bryan pointed out, most of the

East Tennessee leaders were old enough to have witnessed, and suffered from, the

decline of their region’s political power. Likewise, the formation of a new state would have particularly attracted Whig politicians, for such a move would have enabled them to escape their minority status in Tennessee. [12]

The sectional argument exhibits a number of weaknesses, however. First, many West Tennesseans resented the dominance of Middle Tennessee just as much as Eastern voters did, and they also called for a separate state in 1843. In

1861, nonetheless, fourteen of eighteen counties in the West gave large majorities for secession. By the same token, western North Carolina had also fought bitterly with the rest of the state in the antebellum period over internal improvements, taxation, and representation, yet when the fighting started the majority of counties in this area voted for secession and sent thousands of soldiers into the

Confederate Army. Second, as Crofts concluded, the impact of sectional issues, 81 particularly the debate over internal improvements, had actually declined in

Tennessee since the 1840s. Several hundred thousand dollars in state

subscriptions had helped build the East Tennessee and Virginia and East

Tennessee and Georgia Railroads, and both East and West Tennessee had

received sizable amounts of money in the 1850s for river clearance and other

improvements.

The argument that a separate state appealed to political interests in East

Tennessee also encounters difficulties. Several Democratic leaders, particularly

Andrew Johnson, were critical in the fight against secession, yet a separate state

would have offered them few political gains. Furthermore, while considerations

of political power may have influenced the Unionist leadership, this issue probably

would have had much less appeal to the rank and file. Finally, while there is no

doubt that the sectional impulse was strong in East Tennessee, that impulse

should be seen more as a symptom than a cause. Both resistance to secession and

the idea of a separate state were reflections of other factors. [13]

The evidence for the relationship between party affiliation and voting on

secession is quite strong. Most of the leaders of the Unionist movement were

Whigs, while almost every secessionist spokesman in East Tennessee was a

Democrat. Furthermore, contemporary observers agreed that Democrats tended

to be associated with secession and Whigs with Unionism. In February 1861

Blackstone McDaimel, a keen political observer from Greeneville, urged Andrew

Johnson to reject a particular applicant for Knoxville postmaster, for "if any 82 Democrat gets the appointment, the office will still be under the control of the

little squad of infernal disunionists we have here." In June another loyalist

reported that old party conflicts were creating problems for the Unionist

movement, for some voters identified resistance to secession with the Whig party.

Brownlow traced the roots of the Unionists back to the old Whig Party of Henry

Clay and Daniel Webster, and Nelson also saw a close link between Unionism and

Whiggery. Finally, several Confederate officers stationed in East Tennessee

concluded that voters there had split along old party lines, [14]

It is rather more difficult to explain why such a connection between party

affiliation and stance on secession should exist. The debate over the identity and

characteristics of Whig and Democratic voters in the South is long-standing and

inconclusive, and historians have also had difficulty accounting for party loyalties

in Tennessee. Alexander concluded that such factors as wealth, slaveholding, and commercial ties had only a moderate effect on voting behavior and asserted that local issues and individual leadership were more important. Abernathy, conversely, argued that economic factors, particularly commercial interests, were the most important factor dividing Whigs from Democrats. According to his interpretation, the Whig Party tended to be strongest in areas that would benefit most from the development of transportation and banking, particularly in towns and along lines of communication, while Democratic concentrations were found in the back country and among small farmers, Crofts similarly concluded that the 83 primaiy factor dividing Whigs from Democrats in the upper South was whether

or not an individual expected to benefit from the economic policies of the Whigs.

[15]

The most thorough studies of voter behavior in antebellum Tennessee are

Frank Lowrey’s "Tennessee Voters During the Second Two-Party System, 1836-

1860: A Study in Voter Consistency and in Socio-Economic and Demographic

Distinctions" and Paul Bergeron’s Antebellum Politics in Tennessee. Lowrey

found no correlation between party preference and either slaveholding or wealth.

He concluded, rather, that the most significant factor determining party affiliation

in Tennessee was residence. Whigs tended to be dominant among town-based

groups and in more economically developed areas, while the Democrats controlled

rural areas not undergoing significant economic change. Consequently, Lowrey

also discovered party distinctions based on occupation: in Middle and West

Tennessee, farmer-planters were more likely to be Whigs, and in all regions

merchants, lawyers, and other professional or urban groups gravitated toward the

Opposition. Finally, Lowrey identified two significant trends in the antebellum period. First, after 1854 new voters in West Tennessee tended to join the

Democratic Party, while in East Tennessee this group favored the Opposition.

Likewise, after 1854 merchants, lawyers, and other urban professionals made up an increasingly large percentage of the Whig Party in East Tennessee, but tended to drift out of Whig ranks in West Tennessee. Lowrey attributed these trends to the increasing influence of national issues on voting in Tennessee. Thus, new 84 voters and commercial groups in East Tennessee were increasingly repelled by the

State Rights stance of the southern Democracy, while the same groups in West

Tennessee were attracted by this position. [16]

Bergeron’s conclusions were very similar to those of Lowrey. Bergeron

agreed that residence, rural or urban, was the most important dividing factor in

the Second Party System in Teimessee. He also found a connection between

occupation and party affiliation, but though he agreed that professionals, except

in West Tennessee after 1854, were more likely to vote Whig, he asserted that

farmer-planters were more likely to be Democrats. But like Lowrey, Bergeron

concluded that such economic factors as wealth, slaveholding, landholding, and

land values had little impact on voter behavior. [17]

These studies, then, provide only limited assistance in explaining the link

between Whiggery and Unionism. One could postulate that urban groups and

professionals considered themselves more likely to benefit from the economic

policies of the United States government than from those of the Confederacy, and

this was in fact an argument advanced by some East Tennessee leaders. One

could also postulate that Whigs were more conservative and thus less likely to

support such a drastic step as secession. The failure to find a clear link between economic and social factors and party affiliation, however, complicates any attempt to account for the link between party loyalty and stance on secession. 85 UNIONISM AND REPUBLICANISM

In 1967 Bernard Bailyn published Ideological Origins of the American

Revolution, a work that substantially altered historical interpretations of the

American Revolution. In this work, Bailyn advanced the concept of republican

ideology as an explanation for the revolt of the American colonies against Britain.

He demonstrated that by the 1760s the majority of American colonists had

adopted the ideology of the radical Whigs in Britain and had made it the

foundation of their political philosophy. As described by Bailyn, the central tenet

of this ideology was that those who possess power will always desire to acquire

more, and that it is thus the natural tendency for power to become concentrated in fewer hands. From this belief the Whigs drew two conclusions: that power must be dispersed widely in the state, and that free men must always be vigilant to protect their rights and liberties against the incursions of power. [18]

Other historians subsequently applied the concept of republican ideology to different eras in American history. Gordon S. Wood explained the development of government in the early United States from the framework of republicanism, while Roger H. Brown linked the declaration of war against Britain in 1812 to concerns that the republican experiment had failed. And Mills Thorton explained the strong support that the yeomen of north Alabama gave secession by their republican concerns about Federal intervention in local institutions. [19] 86 Republican ideology also influenced the views of the Unionists of East

Tennessee, and perhaps more than any other factor explains their fierce resistance

to secession. In numerous speeches and writings Unionist leaders argued that

Confederate rule was a threat to their status as free white men. Their loss of

political rights would strip them of their independence, and loyalist spokesmen

deliberately invoked the image of slavery to portray their future status in the

Confederacy. Andrew Johnson referred to Confederate President Jefferson Davis

as a tyrant and warned that "the people of Tennessee are to be handed over to the

Confederacy like sheep to the shearers . . ." In other passages Johnson fiercely

asserted that "whatever they may do... they never can, while God reigns, make

East Tennessee a land of slaves." Likewise, William G. Brownlow, after describing

the supposed aristocratic inclinations of South Carolina, concluded that "these are

not the people to head a Confederacy for Tennesseans to fall into. . . . Let

Tennessee once go into this Empire of Cotton States, and all poor men will at

once become the free negroes of the Empire." William Randolph Carter, historian of the First Tennessee Cavahy (Union), explained the resistance to secession as a response to Harris’ attempt to "sell" Tennessee to the Confederacy:

"The loyal people of East Tennessee . . . determined never to submit to this attempt to take away their liberty, destroy the government, and foster the yoke of slavery upon them. ...in the language of Patrick Henry, it was ‘Give me liberty or give me death.’" [20] 87 Unionist leaders, then, rallied their followers by equating Confederate rule

with tyranny and charging that if secession passed the common people would lose

their liberties. Whether Nelson, Brownlow, Johnson, and others really believed

their own charges will never be known, though there is no reason to think

otherwise. What is clear is that thousands of Unionists found the republican

rhetoric so convincing that they not only voted against secession but also took up

arms against the Confederate government. In June fourteen loyalists from Clinton

reported to former Governor William B. Campbell that "while King Harris is

drilling his men for the purpose of awing, intimidating, and finally coercing us into

subjection to him and his associated tyrants, we as Free men, are rubbing up our

Riffles . . . and drilling for the purpose of defending ourselves, and protecting our

liberties, and dying if need be . . ." Another Unionist urged Nelson to "tell him

[Nelson’s son] to go among the hills and the valleys of Carter and Johnson and

rouse the people to stand firm for their rights . . . Surely it is impossible that the mountaineers of East Tennessee will ever succumb to the So. Ca. traitors-to the minions of King Cotton." The secessionist David Key complained that Nelson and

Johnson had convinced "our backwoods yeomamy" that if secession passed the

Confederacy would "elect a King to rule over them and grind them into powder."

[21]

Yet Republicanism provides only a partial explanation for Unionism. The question that remains is why East Tennesseans were so fearful of Confederate rule. Three related answers are inunediately apparent. First, many East 88 Tennesseans despised the large slaveholders who, they believed, dominated not

only their state but also most of the South, and they did not wish to live under a

government controlled by this group. Second, the manner in which secession was

accomplished in Tennessee seemed to confirm the charges of political corruption

and in fact triggered the republican fears of the Unionists. Finally, East

Tennessee did not share the economic and social structure of the Deep South, and

many Unionists expressed fears that the Confederate government would create a

political economy detrimental to the interests of this region.

As several biographers have noted, resentment of the so-called Southern

aristocracy was particulary characteristic of Andrew Johnson. Johnson made his

political career championing the rights of the common man and attacking

privilege, and examples of his resentment are not difficult to find. In an 1845

campaign speech Johnson lashed out at the local elite of northern East Tennessee

as "an upstart, gulled headed, iron heeled, bobtailed aristocracy, who infest all our

little towns and villages." Similarly, in another address Johnson dismissed

Southern Rights leaders as "an illegitimate, swaggering, bastard, scrub aristocracy."

These views of the Southern elite contributed to Johnson’s stance on secession.

In his speeches to the Senate in the winter of 1860-1861 Johnson portrayed the

national crisis as a contest between democracy and aristocracy, while in remarks

made in Nashville in March 1862 he stated that he was "for a government based

on rule by industrious, free white citizens, and conducted in conformity with their wants, and not a slave aristocracy." And in an 1863 speech on emancipation 89 Johnson charged that "many men have been afraid and alarmed even to speak

upon the negro question when the large slave-holders were about. Some of you

have been deprived of your manhood so long upon this question, that when you

begin to talk about it now, you look around to see if you are not over heard by

several of your old masters." [22]

As other historians have shown, Johnson was not the only Unionist leader

to express such sentiments. Brownlow was particularly vicious in his attacks on

the Southern elite, whom he dismissed as "descendants in direct line from some

old foreigners who had been sold out upon shares to pay their passage to this country . .. who had taken their start in life by peddling upon pins and needles, by spading up gardens for other people, or by entering other people’s lands, and, by hook or crook, securing their titles." Like Johnson, Brownlow’s views of the southern leadership contributed to his opposition to secession. In December 1860 the editor charged that the impending war would be fought by "the honest yeomanry of these border states, whose families live by their hard licks, four-fifths of whom own no negroes and never expect to own any," while "the purse-proud aristocrats of the Cotton States" remained at home. He concluded, therefore, that

East Teimesseans "can never live in a Southern Confederacy and be made the hewers of wood and drawers of water for a set of aristocrats and overbearing tyrants . . ." Horace Maynard condemned secession as "the uprising of the few against the many; the assertion of the rights of property in disregard of personal rights," and in March 1862 he warned Tennessee slaveholders that there were 90 many "who see in the slave an element of danger to themselves and their children;

who see in slavery a broad, inaccessible platform upon which, at their ease, repose

a class enjoying a monopoly of social and political distinction." And Oliver P.

Temple described the Confederacy as "a splendid aristocracy of slaveholders" and

argued that such a government would inevitably threaten the status of the

common people, for "large slaveholding communities were always inimical to non-

slaveholding men." [23]

It is important to note that the Unionist leaders were not abolitionists.

Brownlow had gone to Philadelphia to debate slavery with an abolitionist there,

and he continued to support the institution until some time in 1862. Brownlow,

Nelson, Johnson, and Temple all owned slaves, as did other prominent Unionists.

There is also little sign of any broad antislavery sentiment in East Tennessee. A

few historians claimed that there existed in East Tennessee an anti-slavery

tradition and cited as evidence the publication of three abolitionist papers (the

Manumission Intelligencer, the Emancipator, and the Genius of Universal

Emancipation! in Jonesborough and Greeneville in the 1820s, the existence of a

few manumission societies in the same period, and the support that some East

Tennessee delegates gave gradual emancipation at the constitutional convention

of 1834. But all antislavery activities seem to have ceased in East Teimessee by

the early 1830s. As Charles F. Bryan demonstrated, numbers of Unionist

delegates at the Knoxville and Greeneville conventions were slaveholders, and the topic of slavery was never discussed at these meetings. What the Unionists 91 resented, instead, were the perceived privileges of the slaveholders and their threat to nonslaveholders. [24]

Not only the leadership, but also less prominent loyalists, voiced such resentments. In June 1861 one man from Harrison expressed his apprehensions concerning "the oppressions and degrading exactions that will no doubt be attempted to be imposed by the Rebel leaders in Tenn .. ." In November 1861 another Unionist looked forward to the time when East Tennessee would be

"unpolluted by the tread of those who wear the chains of King Cotton, or cling to a supercilious and would be aristocracy." And M.B.L. Sevier predicted that the

Confederate government would raise taxes, restrict the suffrage, and suppress free speech.[25]

Fears of secession were partly linked to views of political practices in other parts of the South. East Tennessee Unionists were convinced that once secession passed the political structure of states such as South Carolina would be imposed on the whole Confederacy, and they would thereby lose the right to vote and hold office. They concluded, therefore, that in the Confederacy they would be second- class citizens and at the mercy of the large slaveholders. East Tennesseans found confirmation of these fears in the way in which secession had been achieved, pointing to Governor Isham G. Harris’ supposed attempts to undermine the results of the February referendum, the decision of the legislature to pass the ordinance of secession itself rather than authorize elections for a state convention, the establishment of the Military League with the Confederacy almost a month 92 before secession had officially passed, and supposed fraud in the June vote, including illegal voting by Confederate soldiers. In the eyes of the Unionists, these irregularities were simply manifestations of the corruption against which they must fight. [26]

Finally, East Tennesseans feared that in such areas as taxation, trade, and internal improvements the interests of the plantation south would override their own. Brownlow asserted that "we have no interest in common with the Cotton

States. We are a grain growing and stock raising people, and we can conduct a cheap government, inhabiting the Switzerland of America." Nelson was careful to point out that the Confederate Constitution prohibited both a protective tariff and national aid for internal improvements, and Temple asserted that one of the reasons for opposition to secession in East Tennessee was the supposed

Confederate preference for free trade and other policies that would hurt this region. And even A. W. Howe, a Greeneville conservative hostile to the Unionist movement, worried that "the Hemp, Rice, Sugar, and cotton planters of the extreme South, will want free ports, and will want revenue raised by taxation," and would thereby destroy the interests of the manufacturing sector. [27]

These statements reveal a sense both of economic differences and of class conflict. The question of whether East Tennessee was economically distinct will be discussed below; the question of class differences can be examined here.

Studies of other areas of the South have concluded that class hostilities did influence views on secession. Philip Shaw Paludan asserted that in western North 93 Carolina the wealthy tended to support secession more than the poor. Crofts likewise asserted that class resentments over taxation, representation, and internal improvements from the antebellum period tended to reemerge in the debates over secession, and Paul D. Escott’s study of North Carolina also revealed that secession and the war brought class conflicts into the open. Many yeomen women in North Carolina objected to secession because of fears that the burdens of the war would fall most heavily on their families, and numerous studies of dissent in the Confederacy have similarly pointed to disparities in wealth as well as inequalities in the costs of the war as primary causes of the lack of Southern unity.

Conversely, John C. Inscoe concluded that class conflict in western North Carolina was quite minimal, and argued that the majority of yeomen as well as slaveholders supported secession. [28]

Several contemporary observers also concluded that the question of secession divided East Tennesseans along class lines. Humes, for example, asserted that in East Tennessee secessionists tended to be found "among the rich and persons of the best social position." Confederate Colonel Samuel Doak observed that the majority of "the lower class" took the Union side, while in

February 1864 a Methodist minister in Chattanooga reported that "the rich are rebels the poor are ignorant but beginning to be loyal." There is some reason to question such assertions, however, for most were made by secessionists who were attempting to portray the Unionist party as a movement of ignorant, inconsequential men. [29] 94 The most thorough study of class relations in Tennessee is Fred Arthur

Bailey’s Class and Tennessee’s Confederate Generation, a work based on questionnaires sent by the Tennessee Historical Society to Civil War veterans in the early twentieth century. Bailey’s study revealed that the evidence concerning class issues in Tennessee is very mixed. On the one hand, members of the elite were far more likely to return to military service after release from a Northern prison and to be with an active command at the war’s end than small slaveholders, nonslaveholders, or the poor. On the other hand, responses to questions concerning "perceptions of work done by slaveowners and nonslaveowners,"

"perceptions of economic opportunity," and "perceptions of political advantages of slaveowners," revealed only moderate differences among the four groups.

Furthermore, Bailey concluded that there was less awareness of class conflict in

East Tennessee than in any other region of the state, though the fact that he studied only the responses of Confederate veterans limits the validity of this conclusion. Thus, the strength of class differences and hostilities in antebellum

Tennessee and the extent to which these were linked to support for or opposition to secession is a question that requires further study. [30]

THE ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF EAST TENNESSEE

Both geographically and economically East Tennessee was relatively isolated from the rest of the South. The institutions that were deemed to define 95 the South, particularly slavery and staple crop agriculture, were largely absent

from this region, and East Teimessee was also relatively poor in comparison with

other parts of the Confederacy. These distinctions may have contributed significantly to the development of the region’s Unionism. By many other measures, however. East Tennessee was little different from the surrounding regions, and certainly Unionists such as Nelson and Brownlow identified themselves as Southerners. John Inscoe’s study of western North Carolina, a region economically and socially similar to East Teimessee, concluded that most persons in this area were integrated into the economy of the South and firmly commited to Southern institutions such as slavery. [31]

East Tennessee lies within the Southern Appalachians (or Southern

Highlands) and has thus been viewed as a mountain region. This designation requires clarification, for East Tennessee actually divides into three distinct geographical sections. The first are the counties on the North Carolina border, which lie within the Unaka Mountain Range and are characterized by a rugged and heavily wooded terrain. In most of this area the soil is poor and agricultural potential limited, but the resources in timber and ores are rich. The second section, the Greater Valley of East Tennessee, is a part of the Greater

Appalachian Valley and comprises about half the territory of the region. The counties in this section contain the richest land in East Tennessee, though the terrain is actually quite diverse, with level fields and good land intermixing with steep ridges and rolling hills. The third section, the Cumberland Plateau, includes 96 the western counties of East Tennessee as well as the eastern counties of Middle

Tennessee. This region has many similarities to the first, for while parts are level and productive, much of this area is cut with ridges that limit agricultural pursuits.

In this region also are found some of the most isolated and undeveloped counties in East Tennessee, particulary Scott, Morgan, and Cumberland. East Tennessee, therefore, exhibits great variations in terrain, climate, soil quality, and agricultural potential, not only from section to section, but also within each division. [32]

Agriculture in East Tennessee was highly diversified and devoted mostly to food crops, with wheat being the most important. Wheat growing was a particular characteristic of East Tennessee, and the valley counties such as

Sullivan, Hawkins, Greene, and Hamilton produced large surpluses of this commodity for the market. East Tennessee farmers also raised considerable quantities of corn, beef, and pork, some for consumption and some for the market, as well as less typical crops such as oats, hay, fruit, honey, and silkworms.

Agricultural practices also varied widely. Farms in the valley counties were well developed and intensively cultivated, and some farmers bred quality livestock and employed advanced agricultural practices. Conversely, in the mountain counties most of the land was in pasture and timber, and farmers depended heavily on unfenced grazing. In East Tennessee, therefore, farms ranged all the way from small subsistence plots to large market enterprises. [33]

The urban population in East Tennessee was very small. The two largest towns, Knoxville and Chattanooga, had about three thousand and 1,500 inhabitants 97 respectively in 1860. Most of the other important towns, such as Athens,

Cleveland, Greeneville, and Kingston, had fewer than one thousand residents.

These towns served largely as commercial and government centers for the

surrounding rural areas, and were made up of shops, newspaper offices, saloons,

churches, other establishments such as tailor shops and livery stables, and the

county court house. Despite its small urban population, however, the

manufacturing sector in East Teimessee was growing rapidly. Much of this

production was limited to basic processing, particularly grain mills, iron and

copper works, lumber mills, and alcohol distilleries, but there was also a growing

number of more specialized establishments, particularly in Knoxville. [34]

One factor that particularly hindered the economic development of East

Tennessee was the lack of transportation. The East Tennessee and Georgia, East

Tennessee and Virginia, and Western and Atlantic Railroads gave the valley counties excellent access to Virginia, Georgia, Middle Teimessee, and other areas, but these lines had been in operation less than ten years. For regions not fortunate enough to lie along the railroads, transportation remained a serious problem. The Tennessee, French Broad, Holston, and Watauga Rivers provided local movement of goods, but numerous obstructions on the Tennessee River impeded shipping on a large scale and limited access to the South's major river systems and ports. Finally, unlike Middle Tennessee the Eastern counties had not been able to construct a usable network of roads, and in many areas people and goods still moved by wagons along trails. [35] 98 A comparison between East Tennessee and the rest of the state reveals

many ways in which this region was both similar to and different from other parts

of the South. The most thorough study of antebellum rural Tennessee is Blanche

Henry Clark’s The Tennessee Yeomen. 1840-1860. After an examination of four

representative counties in East Tennessee, ten in Middle, and four in the western

section, Clark discovered that by many measures the structure of rural East

Tennessee differed little from that of the other two sections. This was particularly

true for two characteristics, land holdings and farm size. In every county that

Clark studied the largest category of landholders was the group owning between

101 and 200 acres, and in every section the percentage of landholders falling into the middle categories (51-100 acres, 101-200, 201-300, and 301-400) was very similar. Likewise, in every county except Greene the largest group of farmers cultivated one to fifty acres of land, and in eveiy county except Fayette the majority cultivated two hundred acres or less. Even at the upper end of the scale, sectional distinctions are not consistent. The two counties with the highest percentage of farms over five hundred acres, Fayette and Haywood, were found in West Tennessee, but two East Tennessee counties, Hawkins and Greene, had more farms over five hundred acres than all but two of the ten Middle Tennessee counties. A similar study conducted by Frank and Harriet Owsley reached the same conclusions. [36]

An examination of the census figures for all eighty-four counties confirms these assertions. In East Tennessee the percentage of farms five hundred acres 99 or larger, the percent of improved acreage, and the capital invested in

manufacturing per free inhabitant were all comparable to that found in Middle

and West Tennessee. (See Table One.) In other areas the differences between

East Tennessee and the rest of the state are more evident but still moderate. East

Tennessee suffered from a relatively higher level of landlessness, while land

values, measured both by dollars per acres and by total farm value, were lower.

But all these areas participated in the corn and livestock agriculture common to

the South, and all followed similar practices. It is also important to note the wide

variations within each region. Land values in East Tennessee ranged from below

two dollars per acre in the mountain counties of Cumberland, Morgan, and Scott

to thirteen dollars per acre or more in the valley counties of Bradley, Greene,

Jefferson, Knox, and Washington, while the percent of improved acres varied from

a dismal 4.3 in Morgan to a respectable 44 in Greene. Likewise, in Middle

Tennessee land values varied from a low of five dollars to a high of thirty-three

dollars per acre, while in West Tennessee they ranged from four to nineteen

dollars. (See Appendix B). [37]

There were, nonetheless, four related characteristics that set East

Tennessee apart from other regions: the relative lack of staple crops, the lower percentage of slaveholders and slaves in the population, and lower levels of wealth. Seventeen of East Tennessee’s thirty-one counties grew no cotton at all in 1860, and most of those that did produced only minuscule amounts. Only one county in East Tennessee, Monroe, exceeded the state mean of 3.66 bales per 100 farm, and no other Eastern county came close. By contrast, only three other

counties in the rest of the state, DeKalb, Jackson, and Overton, produced no

cotton. Production of tobacco was only moderately higher. Every county in the

East did plant at least a small amount of this crop, but the mean of twenty-seven

pounds per farm was dwarfed by the figures of 525 pounds in Middle Tennessee

and 1052 in the West. East Teimessee farmers apparently turned to wheat as a

substitute market crop, but that commodity could not compare with cotton or

tobacco as a moneymaker. (See Appendix A.) The lack of a high-value money

crop had at least three effects on East Tennessee. First, it took away much of the

incentive, as well as the ability, for acquiring slaves. Second, it kept wealth and

income levels well below those found in other areas of the South. Third, it

diverted agriculture into different pursuits and created an economic structure

different from that found in surrounding areas. [38]

Equally sharp sectional differences are revealed in the other three areas.

The peculiar institution played only a minimal role in the society and economy of

East Tennessee. In only three of East Tennessee’s counties did slaveholders make up fifteen percent or more of the population, and in none did they constitute more than twenty percent. By contrast, twenty of Middle Tennessee’s thirty-five counties, and fourteen of eighteen in the West, had slaveholder populations above twenty percent, while ten exceeded forty percent. Overall, in East Tennessee slaveholders made up only about one-tenth of the population, compared with about a quarter in Middle Tennessee and one-third in the West. The figures for 101 planters and slaves as a proportion of population follow a similar pattern. The

disparities in wealth are equally striking. The aggregate wealth (personal plus real

property) per capita in East Tennessee in 1860 was $454. By contrast, per capita

aggregate wealth in Middle and West Tennessee was two and three times as great,

$934 and $1243 respectively. In no county in East Tennessee did per capita

wealth rise above $750; the highest, Jefferson County, was $730. Conversely,

fourteen of thirty-five counties in Middle Tennessee, and twelve of eighteen in the

West, exceeded $750, and many exceeded this figure several times. (See Table II

and Appendices D and E.) [39]

All these figures must be interpreted carefully. Both land values and wealth, for example, are a product of multiple factors, and their significance

should not be exaggerated. Land values reflect not only soil quality and

agricultural potential but also demand, population density, transportation facilities,

capital availability, and other factors. As the Owsleys demonstrated, landholding was less crucial in East Tennessee than in other sections, for in many areas farmers could rely heavily on grazing stock on public land. Likewise, wealth in the antebellum South was closely tied to slaveholding and may reveal very little about income levels or standard of living.

In an essay on the yeomen regions of the South, Eugene Genovese asserted that in the late antebellum period the economy of East Tennessee, West Virginia, and similar areas "was being integrated into that of the neighboring free states to produce a qualitatively different social setting," and that this partly explained these 102

TABLE 1

SECTIONAL COMPARISONS, TENNESSEE, 1860

EAST MIDDLE WEST STATE

LAND VALUES ($ PER ACRE) 8.51 14.54 12.16 11.82

FARM VALUES ($ PER FARM) 2772 3261 3433 3117

PERCENT IMPROVED ACREAGE 28.27 33.55 31.41 31.14

PERCENT FARMS 500 ACRES OR MORE 1.00 1.01 2.24 1.27

CAPITAL INVESTED IN MANUFACTURING PER CAPITA 21.50 16.33 8.66 16.61 103

TABLE 2

SECTIONAL DISTINCTIONS, TENNESSEE, 1860

EAST MIDDLE WEST STATE

COTTON (BALES PER FARM) 0.25 3.45 9.93 3.66

TOBACCO (POUNDS PER FARM) 27 525 1052 454

WHEAT (BUSHELS PER FARM) 97 51 46 66

PERCENT OF SLAVEHOLDERS 10.26 25.85 32.24 21.50

PERCENT OF PLANTERS 0.33 1.89 3.57 1.68

PERCENT OF SLAVES 8.53 22.72 30.83 19.22

AGGREGATE WEALTH ($ PER CAPITA) 454 934 1243 823 104 region’s resistance to secession. This short examination of the economy of East

Tennessee reveals only limited evidence for Genovese’s assertion. The manufacturing sector in East Teimessee was still small, and the patterns of landholding were comparable to those found in the rest of the state. Furthermore, transportation systems, including railroads, water, and roads, linked East

Tennessee not with Northern states but rather with Georgia, Virginia, Middle

Tennessee, and North and South Carolina. On the other side. East Tennessee grew almost no staple crops, and in some areas its production more closely resembled that of Northern farms than Southern. Perhaps most importantly, its labor system was different. Participation in slavery was minimal, and there are indications that by 1860 the free labor ideology had begun to take hold. Again, the exact nature of East Tennessee’s economy, and its effect on attitudes toward secession, requires more thorough study. [40]

QUANTITATIVE EXAMINATION

This discussion of the economic and social characteristics of East

Tennessee has suggested several possible explanations for the region’s Unionism.

One method of examining these further is by statistically comparing economic and social factors with the votes against secession in the June 1861 referendum. The first step in this process was to select twelve factors from the 1860 census: percent of slaveholders, planters, and slaves in the population, aggregate wealth per free 105 inhabitant, land value (dollars per acre), total farm value, improved acres, farm

size, capital invested in manufacturing per free inhabitant, and production of

cotton (in bales) tobacco (in pounds) and wheat (in bushels) per farm. Means for

these data were then calculated for each of Tennessee’s eighty-four counties.

The next step was to determine the coefficients of correlation among these

twelve characteristics. Tlie results are shown in Table Three. It will be seen that

a number of these factors are closely related. The percent of slaveholders in the

population, for example, is highly correlated with the percent of planters, the

percent of slaves, and wealth, while land values are also linked with wealth. This

study, therefore, identified all correlations greater than .750 and removed one of

the factors. The result was that only seven characteristics were retained. Two

new factors, region (East, Middle, West), and voting for John Bell in the 1860

presidential election, were then added. The final step was to calculate the

regressions between the votes against secession in the June 1861 referendum and

these characteristics. Regressions were determined first for each single factor and

then for combinations of factors. The results are given in Tables Four and Five.

The most significant single factor influencing the voting against secession was region, which by itself explained about fifty-five percent of the vote. The second most significant factor was slaveholding, forty-two percent, while the third was the vote for Bell, twenty-two percent. Taken together, these three factors explain about seventy-five percent of the vote against secession in Teimessee, though since there appears to be some connection between slaveholding and 106

TABLES

COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION

SLAVEHPLANT WEALTH LANDIMPR

PLANT .883

WEALTH .907 .888

LAND .647 .442 .756

IMPR .636 .443 .630 .789

FARM .643 .562 .832 .878 .632

LFARM .675 .812 .788 .388 .445

MANUF .020 .038 .020 .043 -.061

COTTON .337 .437 .371 .045 .053

TOBAC .288 .155 .154 .159 .122

SLAVES .918 .845 .857 .581 .527

LFARM MANUF COTTONTOBACCO SLAVES

MANUF .081

COTTON .414 .004

TOBAC -.073 .100 -.105

SLAVES .649 .012 .327 .271

FARM .630 .154 .146 .070 .622 107

TABLE 4

SINGLE REGRESSIONS, VOTE AGAINST SECESION

R-SQ

SLAVH 41.8%

LAND 15.0%

LFARM 7.9%

MANUF 0.0%

COTTON 6.1%

TOBACCO 2.4%

WHEAT 6.5%

REGION 54.9%

VOTE FOR JOHN BELL 22.3% 108

TABLES

MULTIPLE REGRESSIONS, VOTE AGAINST SECESSION

R-SQ

COTTON, TOBACCO, WHEAT 14.1%

SLAVEH, LAND, LFARM 44.0%

SLAVEH, LAND, LFARM, COTTON, TOBACCO 43.9%

SLAVH, COTTON, TOBACCO, WHEAT 44.3%

SLAVH, REGION 62.3%

SLAVH, VOTE FOR JOHN BELL 66.3%

REGION, VOTE FOR JOHN BELL 63.0%

SLAVH, REGION, VOTE FOR JOHN BELL 74.3% 109

TABLE 6

SINGLE REGRESSIONS, REGION AND ECONOMIC FACTORS

R-SQ

SLAVH 36.5%

LAND 5.9%

LFARM 7.1%

MANUF 0.0%

COTTON 13.1%

WHEAT 32.1%

VOTE FOR JOHN BELL 7.9% 110 region this figure must be used with caution, (See Table Six) There was almost

no relationship between crops grown and voting on secession; likewise, no other

economic factor, either in isolation or in combination with other characteristics,

explains a significant percentage of the voting in Tennessee. These results

compare very closely with those presented by Daniel Crofts. Crofts did discover

a stronger link between voting in the 1860 presidential election and voting on

secession, but this variation may be due to the fact that he used slightly different

voting figures and more sophisticated statistical methods.

Statistical testing, then, provides evidence for two common interpretations

of East Tennessee’s Unionism, the absence of a strong slaveholding interest and

the dominance of the Whig Party. It also suggests that one characteristic that set

East Teimessee apart, the lack of staple crop production, had little to do with the

region’s opposition to secession. Finally, these results reveal the impact of

geographical divisions on the voting on secession. Something beyond either

economic or political factors, either geography or state sectionalism or a separate sense of identity or something else, set East Tennessee apart from other regions.

CAUSES OF THE VIOLENCE

The antebellum South possesses a reputation as an unusually violent place.

Historians have asserted that murder rates were higher in the Southern states than in other parts of the country, that assault cases were more common than any other I l l type of criminal offense, and that crimes of violence were punished less severely than property crimes. They have also dwelt on the various interesting forms that this violence took, including duels, gouge fights, feuds, and vigilante justice.

Whether the nineteenth-century South was actually more violent than the western frontier or Northern cities is uncertain, but there is no doubt that acts of violence were common. [41]

Historians have also advanced a number of explanations for the prevalence of violence in the South. Edward L. Ayers blamed violence on an ill-defined sense of honor, the weaknesses and inefficiencies of the justice system, and extensive family ties that tended to involve large numbers of people in any given conflict. Bruce Dickson suggested that violence reflected the widespread mistrust of others, the felt need to defend one’s family against outside threats, and the perception of violence as an acceptable means of resolving disputes and preserving order in society. Clement Eaton traced mob violence in the South to the frontier tradition, high rates of illiteracy, the supposed emotionalism of rural inhabitants, and fears of abolitionist activity and slave uprisings. And John Hope Franklin saw violence as a response to supposed threats to the Southern way of life, the perceived responsibility of individuals to defend their families and themselves, and the lack of effective law enforcement mechanisms, which created a sense of insecurity. [42]

The most sophisticated interpretation of Southern violence was that developed by Bertram Wyatt-Brown. The central concept in Wyatt-Brown’s 112 scheme was honor, which he defined as having three dimensions: an inner sense

of personal worth, an external assertion of that worth before others, and an

acceptance of one's claim by the public. Maintaining one’s honor demanded

adherence to a recognized code of behavior; it also might require defense of one’s

reputation. Wyatt-Brown concluded that honor could lead to violence in a

number of different ways, including the need to respond to an insult or a denial

of one’s honor, defend one’s family, take revenge for an insult, compete for place

in society, and uphold community values against threats or deviations. [43]

Finally, observers of the Southern Highlands have noted the prevalence of

violence in the mountain areas and have suggested a number of probable causes.

Thomas William Humes portrayed the East Tennessee mountaineers as unrestrained, quick to prove their bravery, and devoted to personal liberty even

at the expense of social order. Horace Kephart, a journalist who came to western

North Carolina in the early twentieth century, pointed to the indifference of mountaineers to violence and human life, their intense suspicions and fear of betrayal, their tendency to cling to grudges and to plot revenge, the lack of law enforcement, and the clan system, which he explained as a legacy of frontier conditions. Emma Miles, another observer in the early twentieth century, likewise accounted for violence in the mountains by the acceptance of violence as natural, the lack of institutional and community ties, the uncertainties of justice, and the

"perverted family affections" that accompanied the clan system. John C. Campbell 113 similarly pointed to the many failures of the justice system and to the belief that

if necessary people had the right to enforce the laws themselves, [44]

There is, then, considerable evidence that the antebellum South, including

the mountain regions, was accustomed to violence well before the Civil War. It

should also be noted that in both the South and the North violence was not an

uncommon companion to politics. Elections were so violent in North Carolina in

that in 1823 the voting period was reduced from three days to one. Violence was

also common in Kentucky, and on occasion one party would take possession of the

polling places and prevent the other from voting. In Philadelphia in the 1840s

Irish and nativist factions frequently resorted to force in their attempts to control

the Democratic Party. Election riots were also common in American cities during

this period. In 1857 nativists in Washington, D. C. attempted to seize control of

the polls and had to be suppressed by units of United States Marines, and

Louisville, New Orleans, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore were

also frequently racked by violence at election time. [45]

On a broad basis, then, the culture of violence that existed in the South

may partially explain how the political contest between Unionists and secessionists

was transformed into a war. However, the extent to which these interpretations

apply specifically to East Tennessee is uncertain. Assertions about the character

and attitudes of Southern mountaineers, for example, are based largely on the

observations of a small number of authors in the early twentieth century and are not necessarily reliable. The validity of interpretations based on clan and family 114 is also uncertain. It is not clear whether feuding was even an established

phenomena in the Southern mountains before the war. Richard Maxwell Brown

and James C. Klotter both assert that it was, but Philip Shaw Paludan concluded

that there was little evidence on either side. Scattered references to family feuds

in East Tennessee before the war do exist, but whether feuding was actually

common requires further study. [46]

One factor that does appear to be particularly useful in explaining the

violence in East Tennessee is the nature of politics in the antebellum period.

Political contests in this region tended to be personalized and frequently marred

by slander and violence. Perhaps this was because the leadership circle was so

small, or because party institutions were not developed enough to make political

contests objective and impersonal, or because the culture tolerated this vicious

partisanship. Whatever the case, political contests tended to generate tremendous

personal hostilities and resentments. Thus, to the extent that Unionists and

secessionists tended to divide along old party lines, their conflict was fueled not

only by national issues but also by memories of victories and defeats, insults and attacks, and hatreds generated by fierce political competition. When the war came, the two sides not only supported opposite governments, but also used this opportunity to throw off the restraints of peacetime and take revenge on old enemies.

Several contemporary observers noted the role that personal resentments played in the East Tennessee conflict. David Anderson Deaderick asserted that 115 many of the arrests carried out in the fall of 1861 were done "at the instigation of

a personal enemy." M. A. Hoges attributed his confinement in November 1862

to "the fact that old partisan prejudices have not yet been dissipated," and both

Robertson Topp and H. R. Austin reported to President Jefferson Davis that

"party prejudices" and "personal animosities" were driving the conflict in East

Tennessee. Oliver P. Temple stated that "at all times, and perhaps this was

natural under the circumstances, our worst and most implacable enemies were old

political leaders, and a few of the officers from our own section," while Brigadier

General Felix K. Zollicoffer, Major General Edmund Kirby Smith, and Major

General Sam Jones all agreed that much of the bitterness in this region was due

to party conflicts and the desire of secessionist politicians to take revenge on their

old enemies. [47]

The nature and the course of these old political conflicts, and the way in

which they carried over into the war, are most visible at the upper levels of East

Tennessee society. One of the chief targets of secessionist animosity was William

G. Brownlow, editor of the Knoxville Whig. Brownlow’s career as a

controversialist was long in developing. After his conversion to Christianity at a

Methodist camp meeting he spent several years as a circuit riding preacher, and he appears to have carried out his duties faithfully. But Brownlow’s true calling lay not in tending the flock but in theological debate and politics, as he demonstrated this talent in a series of written exchanges with the Presbyterian

Frederick A. Ross and the Baptist J. R. Graves over a variety of theological issues 116 and in debates over slavery. Brownlow did not simply dispute with his opponents;

he attempted to intimidate and humiliate them so severely that they would never

dare contest with him again. Rather than concentrating on the issues, Brownlow

attacked his opponent’s character, employing every insult, rumor, half-truth, or lie

that served his purposes. Such methods were common at this time, but Brownlow

developed the arts of innuendo and slander to a high art form. He possessed a vicious wit and a keen sense of the public mood, and he employed these weapons effectively against his many opponents. [48]

Brownlow’s political career began in 1839, when he resigned his pastorship, moved to Elizabethton, and founded his first newspaper, the Elizabethton Whig.

Brownlow moved his sheet to Jonesborough the following year, and there he made his first prominent enemy, future Confederate Senator Landon Carter Haynes.

Brownlow and Haynes had actually encountered one another in 1839, when they had supported opposing candidates for the First District United States House seat, and that campaign, an exceptionally personal and vicious one, had left many grudges. Thus when Haynes became editor of the Democratic Jonesborough

Sentinel Brownlow launched his first newspaper war. He opened the campaign by accusing Haynes, among other things, of having stolen other student’s speeches at Washington College and passed them off as his own. Haynes in turn suggested that Brownlow was illegitimate, and from that point the mutual slanders grew increasingly vicious. Then the conflict took a new turn. On the evening of 2

March an unknown assailant fired on Brownlow while he was seated in his house. 117 Brownlow rushed out and fired back, and shortly thereafter he accused Haynes of

the assassination attempt. Two months later Brownlow waylaid Haynes on the

streets of Jonesborough and began beating him with his cane. Haynes in turn

pulled out his pistol and shot Brownlow in the leg. After this encounter Brownlow

held nothing back, and his paper soon supplanted the Sentinel as the dominant

press in the area. [49]

In 1849 Brownlow moved his paper to Knoxville and quickly acquired

several more powerful enemies. He had published in advance his intention to

challenge, and perhaps drive out, Knoxville’s two existing papers, the Whig

Register and the Democratic Sentinel. Brownlow’s reputation for ferocity preceded him, and both papers, fearing his competition, laid plans to destroy the new enterprise. The Register was funded by an influential group of businessmen, including John Crozier, William G. Swan, William H. Sneed, and Thomas W.

Humes, and this group collected $6,000 specifically for the purpose of fighting off

Brownlow’s challenge. For some reason Brownlow shipped his press in care of

Crozier, who, rather than arranging for transportation of the crates to Brownlow’s office, left them on the docks. Fortunately for Brownlow a friend discovered his shipment and rescued his equipment, but this incident immediately soured relations between the old and new presses in Knoxville. In one of his first editions

Brownlow accused the Register’s supporters of secretly planning to burn his office and destroy his equipment, and he and several friends stood guard at the Whig’s offices for several nights. It is not clear whether the accusations were based on 118 solid evidence or were simply a stunt, but they further damaged relations between

the papers. Tensions became so high that Knoxville’s leaders eventually called a

town meeting to discuss ways to end the feuding. [50]

As in Jonesborough, Brownlow eventually won this newspaper war. The

Sentinel collapsed, and the Register converted to a Democratic press. The last

skirmish came in the early 1850s when William G. Swan attempted to establish a

second Democratic sheet, the Southern Citizen. After some written sparring with

the editor, Brownlow came to Swan’s house one night, brandished a pistol, and

challenged him to a duel. Swan declined, a fact that Brownlow triumphantly

published. Eventually Swan’s enterprise fell, and by the late 1850s Brownlow’s

Whig had become the largest paper in East Tennessee. Even then Brownlow

continued to spar with the Register’s latest editor, James Sperry, whom he

referred to as "a scoundrel, debauchee, and coward" and whose paper he dismissed

as a sheet with "but a limited circulation, and no character for anything but lying- whilst it is understood that its editor is a man of bad morals, bad associations, and

the tool of the worst class of men in Knoxville." [51]

Brownlow’s enemies were not confined to journalistic rivals. In 1856 the

Knoxville branch of the Bank of Tennessee suspended specie payments, and two prominent businessmen, J.G.M. Ramsey and Major Thomas C. Lyon, were appointed trustees to examine the bank’s accounts and repay depositors. The two men moved slowly, and eventually Brownlow and George W. Ross filed suit against the bank’s former president, William W. Churchwell, to recover depositors’ 119 funds. At the same time, Brownlow used his paper to accuse the trustees of

incompetence, of repaying their friends first, and of fraud, Churchwell hired John

Crozier to defend him. Brownlow and Ross won their suit in Knox County

Chancery Court, and the state Supreme Court upheld that ruling. The onset of

secession prevented Brownlow and Ross from actually collecting any of the

judgement, but Brownlow had managed to acquire the enmity of the future

secessionist leaders Churchwell, Ramsey, and Crozier. [52]

It is no surprise, then, that many of the men with whom Brownlow had

quarrelled were most conspicuous in calling for a harsh policy against Unionists

in general and Brownlow in particular. Kirby Smith admitted that he acquired the

enmity of "Judge Swan and that whole clique of politicians" because he "could not

be made a tool of and that I would not lend myself as an instrument to their party

and personal prejudices." Robertson Topp, likewise, blamed many of the arrests

of Unionists on the influence of District Attorney John Crozier Ramsey, Swan,

John Crozier, and Postmaster C. W. Charleton. Samuel Doak believed that

Brownlow had actually considered shifting his support to the Confederacy, but was

put off by Crozier, Swan, and John Crozier Ramsey, who wanted him for an

enemy. And it was Ramsey, reportedly after consultation with Crozier and Sneed, who attempted to indict Brownlow for treason in October 1861, arranged for his

arrest in December, and urged that he be executed or at least imprisoned until the end of the war. In turn, when the Union Army returned in 1863 Brownlow 120 appears to have been influential in securing treason indictments against several

of these men, [53]

Thus one of the factors contributing to the ferocity of the Unionist-

secessionist conflict in East Tennessee was the personalization of political conflicts in the pre-war period. When the question of secession divided East Tennesseans into opposing factions they could not forget their histories, and the memories of the past entered into and warped public policy. What made the East Teimessee war so deadly and uncontrollable was the fact that Unionists and secessionists were not fighting an anonymous force; rather, they were fighting people whom they knew and against whom they might have personal resentments. In another way, also, institutional weaknesses helped produce this vicious conflict. The violence in East Tennessee was not channelled through an established institution such as the military, and guerrilla bands had no discipline or tradition to guide their conduct. Furthermore, both political and social institutions, as well as such factors as community restraints and ethical standards, broke down before the intensity of the conflict. The East Tennessee war, then, was a conflict with few rules and few restraints. 121

NOTES

1. William L. Barney, The Secessionist Impulse: Alabama and Mississippi in 1860 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974); Michael P. Johnson, Toward a Patriarchal Republic: The Secession of Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977); J. Mills Thornton III, Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama. 1800-1860 (Baton Rouge: û)uisiana State University Press, 1978); Ralph Wooster, The Secession Conventions of the South (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962); Daniel W. Crofts, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989).

2. Thomas William Humes, The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee (Knoxville: Ogden Brothers, 1888), pp. 6, 30-34, 77-79.

3. Oliver P. Temple, East Tennessee and the Civil War (Cincinnati: The Robert Clarks Company, Publishers, 1899), pp. 80-120, 162-66,174, 218-335, 536- 64.

4. Stanley J. Folmsbee, Robert E. Corlew, Enoch L. Mitchell, Historv of Tennessee. 4 vols. (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1960), vol. 2, pp. 23-38; Thomas Perkins Abernathy, From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1932), pp. 329-345; Thomas B. Alexander, Thomas A.R. Nelson of East Tennessee (Nashville: Tennessee Historical Commission, 1956), pp. 68-89; James Welch Patton, Unionism and Reconstruction in Tennessee (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934), pp. 51-52; Wilma Dykeman, The French Broad (New York and Toronto: Rinehart & Company, Inc. 1955), p. 77.

5. Eric Russell Lacy. Vanquished Volunteers: East Tennessee Sectionalism from Statehood to Secession (Johnson City: East Tennessee State University Press, 1965), pp. 129-130, 184-89.

6. Ralph A. Wooster, The Secession Conventions of the South (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), pp. 177-89. 122 7. Charles F. Bryan, "East Tennessee and the Civil War: A Social, Political, and Economic Study," unpublished dissertation. University of Tennessee, 1978, pp. 6-73; Charles F. Bryan, "A Gathering of Tories: The East Tennessee Convention of 1861," Tennessee Historical Ouarterlv 39 (1980): 27-48.

8. Daniel W. Crofts, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), pp. 164- 187, 191-194, 342-345.

9. Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 30-34, 133-34. See also Thomas Perkins Abernathy, "The Origin of the Whig Party in Tennessee," Mississippi Valiev Historical Review 12 (1925-26): 510; William G. McAdoo Diary, October 12,1861, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; J. B. Galbreath to W. H. Watterson, Carterville, June 11, 1861, Watterson Family Papers, McCIung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

10. Abernathy, Frontier, pp. 1-32, 181-93; Mary Emily Robertson Campbell, The Attitude of Tennesseans Toward the Union (New York: Vantage Press, 1961), p. 35; Mary S. Carroll, "Tennessee Sectionalism, 1796-1861," unpublished dissertation, Duke University, 1931, pp. 120-23, 190, 355.

11. Robert E. Corlew, A Short History of Tennessee (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1967), pp. 108-09,136-37,141; Paul H. Bergeron, Antebellum Politics in Tennessee (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1982), pp. 41- 42, 66, 112-13; Alexander, Nelson, pp. 41-46; Stanley J. Folmsbee, Sectionalism and Internal Improvements in Tennessee (Knoxville: East Tennessee Historical Society, 1939), pp. 147, 184-85, 196-97, 212-221.

12. Abernathy, Frontier, pp. 67-90,310; Folmsbee et. al., pp. 149-172; Eric Russell Lacy, "The Persistent State of Franklin," Tennessee Historical Ouarterlv 23 (1964): 321-32; Samuel Cole Williams, History of the Lost State of Franklin (New York: The Press of the Pioneers, 1933); Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson: A Biography (New York: Norton, 1989), p. 45; William G. Brownlow, Sketches of the Rise. Progress, and Decline of Secession (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1862), p. 157; Carroll, "Sectionalism," pp. 418-28; Campbell, Attitude. p. 175. For proposals for a separate state, see Campbell, Attitudes, p. 175; D. C. Trewhitt to L. C. Houk, Harrison, May 23, 1866, Houk Family Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; W. B. Reese to Oliver P. Temple, n.p., April 21, 1866, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Bryan, "East Tennessee," pp. 43-48.

13. Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 37-44,49-54; W. D. Cotten, "Appalachian North Carolina: A Political Study, 1860-1869," unpublished dissertation. University of 123 North Carolina, 1954, p. 87; Bergeron, Politics, p. 66; Folmsbee et. al., Tennessee. pp. 371-400.

14. Blackstone McDannel to Andrew Johnson, Greeneville, February 16, 1861, James W. Harold to Andrew Johnson, Greeneville, January 27,1861, Joseph R. Armstrong to Andrew Johnson, Rogersville, February 11, 1861, 9 vols., TTie Papers of Andrew Johnson (Knoxville: University of Teimessee Press, 1967), vol. 4, pp. 294-96,188-90,271; Brownlow, Secession, pp. 19-20; Coulter, Brownlow. pp. 110-29; Alexander, Nelson, p. 19-22; Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Colonel William B. Wood, Camp Buckner, October 30, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14- November 25, 1861, record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Cassie, Knoxville, July 22, 1862, Kirby- Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Major General Sam Jones to Secretary of War George Randolph, Knoxville, October 4,1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

15. Arthur C. Cole, The Whig Party in the South (Washington, D C.: American Historical Association, 1913); Charles Grier Sellers, Jr., "Who Were the Southern Whigs?", American Historical Review 59 (1954): 335-46; Carl N. Degler, The Other South: Southern Dissenters in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), pp. 95-96; Abernathy, Frontier, pp. 303-08; Alexander, Nelson, pp. 19-21; Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 44-47. See also Bergeron, Politics: Brian G. Walton, "The Second Party System in Teimessee," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 43 (1971): 18-33.

16. Frank Mitchell Lowrey, "Tennessee Voters During the Second Two- Party System, 1836-1860: A Study in Voter Consistency and in Soci-Economic and Demographic Distinctions," unpublished dissertation. University of Alabama, 1973.

17. Bergeron, Politics, pp. 32-34, 148-56.

18. Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967).

19. Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic. 1776-1787 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1969); Roger H. Brown, The Republic in Peril: 1812 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964); J. Mills Thornton III, Politics and Power in a Slave Society: AJabama. 1800-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978). 124 20. Robert W. Winston. Andrew Johnson. Plebian and Patriot (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1928), pp. 194-95, 60-61; Knoxville Whig. January 12, 1861; William Randolph Carter, History of the First Regiment of Tennessee Volunteer Calvary in the Great War of the Rebellion (Knoxville: Gant-Ogden, 1902). pp. 14- 15,19; Horace Maynard, "To the Slaveholders of Tennessee," July 4,1863, Horace Maynard Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville. For a discussion of the relationship between republicanism, race, and the concept of independence, see Stephanie McCurry, "The Two Faces of Republicanism: Gender and Proslavery Politics in Antebellum South Carolina," Journal of American History (78): 1245-64.

21. D. Young to Governor William B. Campbell, Clinton, June 3, 1861, William B. Campbell Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; C. M. Melville to T.A.R. Nelson, Washington, D. C., May 9, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; David M. Key to Lizzie, Loudon, May 6, 1861, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; George Leondermilk to his nephew, Medora, April 17, 1864, Boren Family Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville. See also James Henry to T.A.R. Nelson, Louisville, June 2, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Amanda McDowell Burns and Lela M. Blakenship, Fiddles on the Cumberland (New York: Richard S. Smith Company, 1943), pp. 181-82.

22. Trefousse, Johnson, p. 61; Winston, Johnson, p. 50; Lloyd Paul Stryker, Andrew Johnson: A Studv in Courage (New York: MacMillan & Company, 1929), pp. 86-87; Clifton R. Hall, Andrew Johnson: Military Governor of Termessee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1916), pp. 91-92. See also Hall, Johnson. pp. 20-31, 220-21; Trefousse, Johnson, pp. 53-54; Winston, Johnson, pp. 164-65; I^Roy P. Graf, "Andrew Johnson and the Coming of the Civil War," Termessee Historical Ouarterlv 19 (1960): 208-21.

23. Knoxville Whig. February 20, 1864, December 22, 1860, January 26, 1861; Temple, East Tennessee, p. 558. See also Patton, Unionism, pp. 74, 80-82; Campbell, Attitudes, pp. 129, 174; Horace Maynard, "How, By Whom, and for What the War Was Begun," March 20, 1862, Horace Maynard Papers, Special Collections, University of Termessee Library, Knoxville; Temple, East Tennessee. p. 309.

24. For slaveholding by Unionists, see Trefousse, Johnson, p. 45; Coulter, Brownlow. pp. 79-80; Brownlow, Secession, pp. 7, 37, 105-13; Alexander, Nelson. pp. 47-48; Oliver P. Temple, Notable Men of Termessee from 1833-1875 (New York: The Cosmopolitan Press, 1912), p. 9; Bryan, "Tories," pp. 38. For East 125 Tennessee’s antislavery tradition, see Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 85-95, 111-13; Degler, Other South, pp. 79-81; Merton Dülon, "Three Southern AntiSlavery Editors: The Myth of the Southern Antislavery Movement," East Teimessee Historical Society Publications 42 (1970): 47-56.

25. J. J. Jones to Andrew Johnson, Harrison, June 15, 1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 486-87; C. M. Melville to Johnson, Washington, D.C., November 29,1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 5, p. 38; M.B.L. Sevier to T.A.R. Nelson, Jonesborough, June 18,1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

26. Knoxville Whig. January 12, 1861; Temple, East Tennessee, p. 558; Hall, Johnson, p. 28. See also Chapter One, pp. 34-37.

27. Alexander, Nelson, pp. 76-83; Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 557-58; A. W. Howe to T.A.R. Nelson, Greeneville, April 14, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville. See also Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 92-101, 106-11.

28. Philip Shaw Paludan, Victims: A True Story of the Civil War (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981), pp. 56-58; Crofts, Reluctant, p. 132,154-55; Paul D. Escott, Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina. 1850-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), pp. 32-53; Victoria E. Bynum, Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Albert Burton Moore, Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1924), pp. 129-30; Stephen F. Ambrose, "Yeomen Discontent in the Confederacy," Civil War Historv 8 (1962): 259-68; John C. Inscoe, Mountain Masters: Slavery and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989).

29. Humes, Mountaineers, p. 91; "Sketch by Colonel Henry M. Doak," p. 68, Henry M. Doak Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; A. Holman to Bishop Matthew Simpson, Chattanooga, February 1, 1864, Matthew Simpson Correspondence, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

30. Fred Arthur Bailey, Class and Termessee’s Confederate Generation (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987).

31. Inscoe, Masters. 126 32. Folmsbee et. al., Tennessee, pp. 5-11; Blanche Henry Clarke, The Tennessee Yeomen. 1840-1860 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1942), pp. 13, 22-26; John C. Campbell, The Southern Highlander and His Homeland (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1921).

33. Eighth Census of the United States, vol. II, Agriculture.

34. Eighth Census of the United States, vol. m . Population, vol. I, Manufactures; Coulter, Brownlow. pp. 85-86.

35. Folmsbee et. al., Tennessee, vol. 1, pp. 371-400; Abernathy, Frontier. pp. 153-58; Thomas Perkins Abernathy, "The Origins of the Whig Party in Teimessee," Mississippi Valiev Historical Review 12 (1925-26): 512-13; Coulter, Brownlow. pp. 86-89; Campbell, Highlanders, pp. 46-48.

36. Clark, Yeomen, pp. 8-9, 26-68; Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley, "The Economic Structure of Rural Tennessee, 1850-1860," Journal of Southern History 8 (1942): 161-82.

37. Eight Census of the United States, vol. I, Manufactures, vol. II, Agriculture.

38. Eight Census of the United States, vol. H, Agriculture; Campbell, Attitudes, p. 26.

39. Eight Census of the United States, vol. m . Population; Clark, Yeomen. pp. 9-20; Crofts, Reluctant, pp. 42-43; Campbell, Attitudes, p. 17-19; Coulter, Brownlow. p. 85; Stephen Ash, Middle Tennessee Society Transformed. 1860-1870: War and Peace in the Upper South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), pp. 5, 8; Patton, Unionism, pp. 4-5, 22; Dykeman, French Broad, p. 78; J. Merton England, "The Free Negro in Antebellum Tennessee," Journal of Southern Historv 9 (1943): 37-58.

40. Eugene D. Genovese, "Yeomen Farmers in a Slaveholding Democracy," Agriculture History 49 (1975): 331-42; Folmsbee et. al., Tennessee, vol. 1, pp. 371- 400; Abernathy, Frontier, pp. 153-58; Abernathy, "Origins," pp. 512-13; Coulter, Brownlow. pp. 86-89; Campbell, Highlanders, pp. 46-48.

41. Edward L. Ayers, Vengeance and Justice: Crime and Punishment in the Nineteenth-Centurv American South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); Bruce D. Dickson, Jr., Violence and Culture in the Antebellum South (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979); John Hope Franklin, The Militant South. 1860-1861 (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1956); Ill Bertram Wyatt-Brown, "Community, Class, and Snopesian Crime: Local Justice in the Old South," in Orville Vernon Burton and Robert C. McCathy, Jr., Class. Conflict, and Consensus: Antebellum Southern Community Studies (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1982), pp. 173-206. For a discussion of violence on the old Southwest frontier, see Joan E. Cashin, A Family Venture: Men and Women on the Southern Frontier (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

42. Dickson, Violence, pp. 3-20, 50, 70, 90-98, 103, 109-12, 186-87; Ayers, Vengeance, pp. 14,112-15,159,263-65; Clement Eaton, "Mob Violence in the Old South," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 29 (1942): 351-70; Franklin, Militant. pp. 36-37, 87-90.

43. Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).

44. Humes, Mountaineers p. 27; Horace Kephart, Our Southern Highlanders (New York: Outing Publishing Company, 1913), pp. 129-30, 192-93, 205, 267-75, 308, 322-53; Emma Bell Miles, The Spirit of the Mountains. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1975), pp. 57-58, 71-75; Campbell, Highlanders, pp. 103-04.

45. Richard P. McCormick, The Second American Party System (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), pp. 190, 201, 211-12; Michael Feldberg, "The Crowd in Philadelphia History: A Comparative Perspective," in Roger Lane and John J. Turner, Riot. Rout, and Tumult: Readings in American Social and Political Violence (Westprot, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1978), p. 141; Michael Wallace, "The Uses of Violence in American History," in Lane and Turner, Riot, pp. 21-22. See also Franklin, Militant, pp. 43-44.

46. Richard Brown, Strain of Violence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975); James C. Klotter, "Feuds in Appalachia: An Overview," Filson Club History Ouarterlv 56 (1982): 310; Paludan, Victims, pp. 20-21.

47. David Anderson Deaderick Journal, December 30, 1863, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; M. A. Hoges to T.A.R. Nelson, Knoxville, November 23,1862, T.A.R Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Libraiy, Knoxville; Robertson Topp to Robert Josselyn, Memphis, October 26, 1861, Copies of Letters Sent to Confederate Secretary of War and President Davis, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; H. R. Austin to President Jefferson Davis, Richmond, December 28,1861, OR 7, p. 729; Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Colonel William B. Wood, Camp Buckner, October 30, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at ïùioxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, record Group 109, 128 National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Cassie, Knoxville, July 22, 1862, Kirby-Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Major General Sam Jones to Secretary of War George Randolph, îôioxville, October 4, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Temple, Civil War, pp. 412-13; Sullins, Recollections, pp. 262-63. See also Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 122, 188-89; Dykeman, French Broad, p. 78; Horace Maynard, "To the Slaveholders of Tennessee," July 4, 1863, p. 17, Horace Maynard Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville

48. Brownlow, Secession, pp. 16-21; Coulter, Brownlow. pp. 1-34, 53-83; Steve Humphrey, That D -d Brownlow (Boone, North Carolina: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1978), pp. 1-17.

49. Coulter, Brownlow. pp. 36-40; Humphrey, Brownlow. pp. 18-23, 60-64; James Bellamy, "The Political Career of Landon Carter Haynes," unpublished thesis. University of Tennessee, 1982; Patton, Unionism, pp. 78-79.

50. Patton, Unionism, pp. 79-80; Coulter, Brownlow. pp. 46-48; Humphrey, Brownlow. pp. 17-18, 99-102.

51. Coulter, Brownlow. pp. 48-49; Brownlow, Secession, pp. 214-17; Knoxville Whig. August 31, 1860.

52. Humphrey, Brownlow. pp. 143-46; Ruth Osborne Turner, "The Political Career of William Montgomery Churchwell," unpublished thesis. University of Teimessee, 1954.

53. Robertson Topp to Robert Josselyn, Memphis, October 26, 1861, Copies of Letters Sent to Confederate Secretary of War and President Davis, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Cassie, Knoxville, July 22, 1862, Kirby-Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Colonel Henry M. Doak Memoirs, p. 65, Henry M. Doak Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Coulter, Brownlow. pp. 160, 180; Humphrey, Brownlow. p. 245; Brovmlow, Secession, pp. 138-39; 180-207, 280-305, 361-62. See also William G. McAdoo Diary, July 5, 1862, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; R. H. Hodsen to Oliver P. Temple, Nashville, October 23, 1861, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Patton, Unionism, pp. 64- 65; Bellamy, "Haynes," p. 62. CHAPTER n i

"WAR AT EVERY MAN"S DOOR"

Four different forces-native Unionists, native secessionists, the Confederate government and the Confederate Army, and the Lincoln administration and the

Union Army-would carry on the struggle for control of East Teimessee. These last two actors, through their occupation policies and through military operations, would influence the character and the outcome of this struggle. The core of the

East Teimessee war, however, was the conflict between the East Tennesseans themselves. The war was rooted in this region; it began, and ended, here; and always the central question was which faction, secessionist or Unionist, would rule.

The conflict for control of East Tennessee was complex and multifaceted.

It was fought out in the economic, intellectual, and social arenas as well as the political and military, and it employed nonviolent as well as violent means. The editor who stirred up partisan passions or encouraged resistance to the occupying forces, the representative who pressured his government to adopt a harsher policy against dissent, the farmer who burned his neighbor’s barn, and the bushwhacker who ambushed an enemy scout were all parts of the same struggle. The nonviolent elements of this conflict have been, or will be, discussed in other

129 130 chapters. The focus of this chapter, however, is the various ways in which

Unionists and secessionists used violence to achieve their ends.

Much of this violent struggle was carried on by organized groups of men and sometimes women known as "guerrillas" or "bushwhackers." Guerrillas have assumed an increasingly prominent role in Civil War lore and history, but most studies have emphasized only their paramilitary activities. More recent works, such as Michael Fellman’s Inside War. Stephen Ash’s Middle Tennessee Society

Transformed, and Paul D. Escott’s Many Excellent People: Privilege and Power in North Carolina. 1850-1900. have shifted the emphasis to their political and social roles, but the term "guerrilla" still conjures up a mysterious, militarily unorthodox, daring figure such as John Singleton Mosby. [1] But the guerrillas of

East Tennessee varied enormously. Both Unionists and secessionists did form permanent paramilitary bands who engaged primarily in military actions such as ambushes and raids, and these organizations represented a significant threat to the conventional forces. Military operations were only one concern, however. East

Tennesseans directed at least as much violence against their civilian enemies: neighbors, prominent men, and sometimes even family and friends in the opposite party. The purpose of this violence was to silence, expel, or eliminate persons loyal to the other side, and its end was political control. This sometimes unorganized, sometimes apparently shapeless violence was the most striking, and the most horrible, phenomenon of the East Tennessee war. It ate through this region like gangrene, feeding on accumulated atrocities, resurrecting old 131 grievances and feuds, twisting and distorting all aspects of East Tennessee society, and poisoning even the conventional forces in this area.

This chapter divides the violence in East Tennessee into three spheres: military, political, and criminal. The first included operations related to the conventional war, such as attacks on enemy communications and troops and aid to friendly regulars. The second sphere refers to the intimidation, harassment, and murder of persons with the wrong political views. Finally, the third sphere, criminal, included such actions as theft and assault that did not always possess a military or political significance but that were nonetheless a common feature of guerrilla operations. These distinctions are valid and important, for different guerrillas did have different aims, and their operations did vary. At the same time, such distinctions are somewhat artificial and distorting. Many guerrilla bands engaged in all three types of actions, depending on the circumstances.

Furthermore, all three stemmed from the same causes and conditions, and they all shaped the outcome of this struggle. Finally, while the distinction between violence motivated by political ends and violence originating in personal grievances is not unimportant, the participants themselves did not always separate the two. The conflict in East Tennessee was inherently ambiguous, both militarily and morally, and the violence can therefore best be understood not as a set of clearly defined categories but rather as a spectrum, with much overlapping and much blurring. 132 Guerrillas left few records of their own activities, and thus most of the information concerning them comes from accounts by outsiders, particularly Union and Confederate soldiers, civilian observers, and victims of guerrilla attacks.

Much of this evidence is distorted or fragmentary, and it leaves out much that the historian would like to know. Despite their ubiquitous presence in East

Tennessee, few observers, military or civilian, bothered to comment at length on the motives, organization, or aims of the guerrillas. Perhaps the guerrillas were not a phenomena that required much explanation, for they grew naturally out of

East Tennessee society and the conditions of the war.

ORGANIZATION OF GUERRILLA BANDS

One of the immediate difficulties in any study of Civil War guerrillas is that of definition. No consensus yet exists concerning where the line between guerrilla warfare and regular operations should be drawn, or what exactly constituted a guerrilla. At least two classification schemes are possible. First, guerrillas can be defined by status, i.e., as self-constituted units with no official recognition or standing. They did not appear on the military rolls, and they were not under the authority of regular officers. The advantage of this definition is its simplicity and clarity. Its weakness is its failure to include the large number of units, such as

Mosby’s Forty-Third Battalion and the other Confederate "Partisan Ranger" companies, that were formally enlisted but that adopted irregular methods. An 133 alternative definition, then, is by behavior or mode of operation. Under this

scheme, guerrillas were combatants who did not fight openly or conventionally,

concealed their identities, made war on civilians as well as enemy soldiers, and

frequently violated the laws of war. This classification lacks the clarity of the

other method, but it reflects the ambiguities of the actual military situation as well

as the views of most regular officers, and it is the one adopted by this chapter.

Thus, not only self-constituted bands, but also several Confederate and Union

Home Guard companies and a handful of regular units, are all considered combatants in the East Termessee war.

Secessionist and Unionist bands possessed a number of common features.

Most were made up of men from a small, defined area and were based in a particular county. This characteristic reflected the political and military traditions of antebellum America. Like regular companies at the begiiming of the war, guerrilla bands coalesced around a figure of some local prominence: a state representative, a justice of the peace, a lawyer, a wealthy landowner, or simply a man respected for his superior physical or mental attributes. For example,

William Clift, a Unionist leader, was a large landowner and merchant in Bradley

County, while many of the Unionist companies that emerged in the summer of

1861 were organized by delegates fi"om the Greeneville Convention. Not all guerrilla leaders were respectable, of course; many, particularly in the latter years of the war, were simply the most ruthless, forceful, and desperate men in the area who attracted others like themselves. For example, "Champ" Ferguson, a 134 particularly notorious secessionist bushwhacker from the Sparta area, was known before the war primarily for his physical strength and his skill in stealing horses.

[2]

Unionist and secessionist bands exhibited few dissimilarities in their basic organization. But the context in which they operated was quite different.

Unionist bands constituted the military arm of what was actually a comprehensive counterrevolutionary movement. Attempts to organize a separate state in 1861 had failed, but Unionists subsequently established extralegal political and military structures that accomplished the same end. Unionists continued to hold most local offices in East Teimessee, serving as justices of the peace, sheriffs, mayors, and militia officers, and to a considerable extent they managed to defy, or ignore.

Confederate authority. Most Unionist bands operated within this overall political structure, and their purpose was to perpetuate Unionist control by suppressing the secessionist population and frustrating Confederate attempts to impose their authority. Conversely, secessionists, because of their minority status, were unable to establish such a comprehensive movement. Their aims were to make the

Federal occupation as difficult as possible and terrorize the Unionist population, but they were more fragmented and isolated than their enemies and thus functioned far more as isolated units. [3]

This discussion raises the question of regional versus local organization.

In her work on Southern dissent, Georgia Lee Tatum asserted that in East

Termessee, as in other regions of the South, resistance was embraced under a 135 large organization known as the Heroes of America. [4] According to Tatum this

organization had secret oaths, signs, and passwords and engaged in various acts

of resistance, such as encouraging desertion, evading conscription, hiding escaped prisoners, and agitating for a negotiated end to the war. There is no doubt that such an organization existed in Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, or that it played some role in channeling opposition to Confederate rule. But Tatum’s suggestion of a highly organized, closely knit, effective regional organization in

East Tennessee, a picture based largely on the vague testimony of Confederate officers and on circumstantial evidence, seems to be unwarranted. This study has uncovered no evidence that the Heroes of America played a significant role in the

Unionist resistance. Taken together, the Unionist military bands and political organizations did make up a loose regional network, and there is evidence of effective ties among different counties. At the same time, the organization, the activities, and the leadership of the Unionist guerrillas remained predominantly local.

Not all bushwhackers in East Tennessee were residents of the area. As the war progressed, an increasing number of bands were made up in part or in whole of deserters from the regular armies. By 1863 desertion had reached epidemic proportions in the Confederate Army, and many who abandoned their service fled to the more inaccessible regions of the South, including East Tennessee and western North Carolina. Union deserters, most of whom were from units stationed in the region, were fewer in number, but they also constituted a serious 136 menace. To protect themselves and to survive, many deserters banded together,

while others drifted into civilian bands. Their subsequent careers as bushwhackers

varied. According to some accounts deserter bands were primarily interested in

survival and if left alone would not bother soldiers. Other deserters continued the

war, blit on their own terms, primarily by terrorizing civilians. Whatever course

they took, however, deserters were a danger to civilians and soldiers alike, for they

lived by theft and refused to recognize any authority. [5]

The relationship between the East Tennessee guerrillas and the regular

Confederate and Union Armies is a story of contradictions. Officially, and

sometimes in fact, authorities on both sides condemned irregular warfare, even by

their supporters, and sought to curb it. Both sides also classed guerrillas as

criminals or worse, refused to recognize bushwhackers as legitimate combatants,

and attempted to distance themselves from the irregulars as far as possible. But

unofficially both Confederate and Union authorities turned to irregular methods when it suited their purposes, and both sanctioned, or even organized, a number of regular units that were essentially guerrilla bands. Several Confederate units, particularly, operated in a grey area. They were carried on Confederate rolls, but much of the time they acted independently and irregularly, persecuting Unionist families, plundering their homes, and sparring with Unionist guerrilla bands.

These units included Captain William Bledsoe’s Company F of the Fourth

Tennessee, Colonel John M. Hughes Twenty-Fifth Tennessee, Colonel Fielding

Hurst’s Sixth Tennessee, and several partisan ranger companies. Numerous 137 complaints of their behavior reached Confederate authorities, and both Major

General Edmund Kirby Smith and Major General Sam Jones urged that the

ranger units be disbanded. Nonetheless these forces were never effectively

disciplined. [6]

Union authorities were equally culpable. Major General Ambrose

Burnside did refuse the request of a band in the Holston Valley for authority to ransack the homes of secessionists and drive off their stock, but other Union officers supplied guerrilla bands with ammunition, and in September 1863

Burnside himself commissioned "Tinker Dave" Beattie to "waylay the roads," harass Confederate communications, and attempt to hinder Confederate movements in the northwestern corner of the theater. [7]

Most significantly, the Union command officially organized three regiments for irregular warfare that were commanded by former Unionist guerrilla leaders.

In May 1862 Brigadier General George W. Morgan gave William Clift a colonel’s commission and sent him into Scott and Morgan Counties to organize a partisan unit and "annoy the enemy’s rear." Chft had been a leader in the Unionist resistance from the beginning. He had played a prominent role at both the

Knoxville and Greeneville Conventions as a member of the influential Business

Committee. In the summer of 1861 his farm had become a gathering place for

Unionists preparing to escape to Kentucky, and this camp had twice been broken up by Confederate troops. After the failure of the uprising Clift, joined by a few followers, had fled to Kentucky. 138 Initially Clift enjoyed considerable success in his task. He established

himself in Scott County and managed to gather and organize at least four hundred

recruits. In July and early August this unit, now designated the Seventh Tennessee

Infantry, made three attempts to ambush enemy detachments in Morgan and

Anderson Counties, but each time Clift failed to locate his target. Despite these failures Clift attracted the attention of Confederate authorities, and in mid-August

Major General Edmund Kirby Smith sent three hundred cavalry and a regiment of infantry to destroy his unit. Clift suffered a severe defeat in the ensuing encounter, but he remained in Scott County and eventually rebuilt his regiment.

In October 1862 Clift joined with other irregulars in harassing Confederate forces retreating from Kentucky, and shortly thereafter he reported several victories against secessionist guerrillas. But in late 1862 or early 1863, Clift retired into

Kentucky with his unit and remained there until the August 1863 invasion. [8]

The other irregular regiments were the work of Major General John M.

Schofield. Schofield believed that the tenuous Confederate hold on North

Carolina offered numerous opportunities for Union raids, and in Februaiy 1864 he authorized George Kirk to recruit men from the mountains of East Tennessee and North Carolina for partisan operations. Kirk had also been a delegate at the

Unionist conventions. After the uprising he had turned to guiding groups of

Unionist escapees to Federal camps in Kentucky and made his name as a skilled pilot. Like Clift, Kirk attracted many followers, and by July he had enough men to make up a regiment, the Second North Carolina Mounted Infantry (Union). 139 A second regiment, the Third North Carolina Mounted Infantry (Union), was later added. Kirk’s first expedition proved a disappointment. In June 1864 Schofield sent Kirk to disrupt the railroad between Salisbury and Greensboro. Kirk failed even to reach the Salisbury area, and his only accomplishments on this expedition were the dispersal of a camp of young Confederate recruits and the destruction of a small train. Schofield subsequently suggested to Kirk that he could "render more effective service by organizing the element of North Carolina hostile to Jeff

Davis into a series of scouting companies that would protect each other, interrupt as much as possible the communications of the enemy, destroy his supply depots and bring in such information as may be useful to us." Kirk continued to operate in this irregular capacity until the end of the war. He enjoyed a few victories over the weakened Confederate forces in North Carolina and over secessionist guerrillas, but his men also spent much time plundering and terrorizing secessionists. By 1865 Kirk had became one of the most notorious and hated of the irregular leaders, though he had also made some contributions to the Union victory in this region. [9]

There were other guerrilla bands that enjoyed official status. Both

Confederate and Union authorities established local self-defense units known as

Home Guards. These companies were organized for legitimate purposes, but some soon degenerated into partisan bands. Daniel Ellis claimed that in

September 1864 the Confederate Home Guard of Johnson County, in an attempt to drive out Unionist families, killed eleven men and burned many homes. 140 Conversely, theft became so common among several Unionist companies that

Federal authorities had to disband them. [10]

MILITARY OPERATIONS

The military operations of the East Tennessee guerrillas differed little from those of other Civil War irregulars. They fell into three different groups: attacks on communications, attacks on enemy troops, and aid to friendly troops. The material influence of the partisans on the operations of the Confederate and

Union armies, though significant, was limited, but guerrillas did come to be, both practically and psychologically, an omnipresent menace that was felt by commanders and troops alike.

All forms of communication in the American Civil W ar-the railroad, the telegraph, the steamship, the wagon train, and the courier line-were fragile and difficult to protect. In East Tennessee the November uprising particularly demonstrated the vulnerability of railroad and telegraph networks and the potential effectiveness of guerrilla disruption. At the same time, the Unionist revolt drove Confederate authorities to increase the security of their rail lines and other communications. The Union forces that entered East Tennessee in 1863 were also accustomed to protecting their communications, and they also devoted a considerable part of their forces to this task. On both sides these measures 141 generally proved effective. Small posts, though frequently helpless against cavalry raids, were normally sufficient to ward off guerrilla attacks.

Even so, scattered acts of sabotage did occur throughout the war. In

October 1862 a Confederate officer reported from Blain’s Cross Roads that

Unionist guerrillas had intercepted their mail from Kentucky. In September 1863

Captain John Shrady wrote that a guerrilla attack on the East Tennessee and

Georgia Railroad had shut down the line between Knoxville and Chattanooga for two weeks. Southern guerrillas tore up the track near Dechard and burned a train in March 1864, and in April 1865 others derailed a train near Morristown and burnt the engine and thirteen cars. Union soldiers in East Tennessee also frequently complained that their supply trains had been cut off and destroyed by guerrillas. Perhaps the most brazen act of this type occurred in July 1864, when

"Champ" Ferguson’s secessionist band raided two Union corrals near Kingston, made off with over five hundred horses and mules, and eluded the Federal pursuit. [11]

In addition to these specific reports, officers and men on both sides made frequent general references to guerrilla activity, and there is little doubt that both

Confederate and Union authorities took the bushwhacker threat seriously. In July

1862 Confederate Major General Edmund Kirby Smith received information that

Unionists, in conjunction with Federal soldiers dressed as civilians, were preparing to bum the bridges at Loudon and Strawberry Plains. Kirby Smith believed the threat to be real, and he instructed his subordinates there to take precautions. In 142 May 1863 Major General Simon B. Buckner warned the garrison at Mossy Creek that bushwhackers were assembling to destroy the bridge there; that same month,

Major General Dabney Maury predicted a second uprising in the event of a Union invasion: "... as soon as the [Federal] Army enters they will doubtless become active allies; and our Rail Road and telegraph lines will cease to be of use to us."

In July 1863, the presidents of the East Tennessee and Virginia and East

Tennessee and Georgia Railroads sent an angry letter to President Jefferson Davis that complained of "the immense labors and privations we have undergone amidst a population of vindictive Tories" and demanded to know whether the government would continue to protect their lines. And Davis himself attributed raids on the railroad in upper East Tennessee in September to 'Tories and a few hundred of

Burnside’s cavalry." [12]

Union officers also felt the menace of secessionist guerrillas. In December

1863 Major General O. O. Howard wrote from Athens that "parties of guerrillas infest this whole country..." In January 1864 Lieutenant Colonel M. S. Patterson reported that bushwhackers had been sighted at Madisonville, "probably trying to capture trains steal horses & etc.," and in December the telegraph operator at

Sweetwater requested that a guard be sent for protection against the large number of guerrillas in that area. A trooper with the Fifteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry stationed in Chattanooga recorded in June 1864 that "constant trouble is being experienced on the Railroad from guerrillas. Communications are interrupted almost every day and trains destroyed." And Captain Shrady concluded that it was 143 not safe to send money by the Adams Express Company, for "guerrillas every once in a while make a dash upon the road." [13]

The East Tennessee guerrillas acquired an equally formidable reputation as a menace to the occupying troops themselves. In August 1862 Colonel Alex

Wallace warned his wife not to allow their son to attempt to follow the

Confederate expedition into Kentucky, for "our rear will be harassed by Tories and bushwhackers making it unsafe for persons alone or small parties to follow us." In November 1862 James Bennett McCrey admitted his concerns about marching from Knoxville to Murfreesborough "through a mountain region infested with bushwhackers." These fears were justified, for on this march McCrey discovered the body of a soldier recently ambushed. Captain Stephen Whitaker wrote from Carter’s Depot that "the people here they are nearly all Lincolnites or

Toryes it is dangerous to go eny distance from camp," and in January 1864 a

Confederate officer stationed near Bristol complained that he had to take six soldiers as an escort when he delivered messages to Confederate foraging parties.

Union soldiers recorded similar uneasy feelings; for example, D. F. Beatty wrote from Elk River that he and other soldiers only left camp in groups of ten or more because of Confederate guerrillas. [14]

Tlie fears that Confederate and Union soldiers had for their safety were fully justified. The terrain of much of East Tennessee was tailor-made for sniping and ambushes, and partisans took full advantage of the dense woods, narrow trails, and high cliffs to waylay enemy regulars. Attacks were swift and hidden, and 144 regulars learned to dread the crack of rifles from the roadside. In August 1862

Thomas Hall reported that a Tennessee soldier had been bushwhacked just outside their camp near Chattanooga, and in March 1864 J. C. Gruar wrote that

Unionist guerrillas near Blountville had recently ambushed two small groups of soldiers. Colonel Henry M. Doak remembered that on a march to Wild Cat,

Kentucky Unionist guerrillas shot down the soldier next to him. Bushwhackers from East Tennessee and Kentucky also harassed Kirby Smith’s forces on their retreat from Kentucky in October 1862, and one Confederate cavalryman remembered that his unit suffered four or five ambushes before reaching safety.

[15]

Numbers of Union soldiers also lost their lives to secessionist irregulars.

In December 1863 southern guerrillas ambushed a supply train near Sparta and killed eight guards from the Ninth Pennsylvania Cavalry. Ssecessionists shot two soldiers foraging near Motley’s Ford in February 1864, and in the summer of that year twenty-five men sent to rescue an officer captured by guerrillas near

Wilsonville were themselves ambushed and lost one man killed. And in October

1864 guerrilla sniping forced two companies of the Fifteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry scouting a side road near Rogersville to give up their patrol and rejoin the full regiment. Such attacks continued almost to the end of the war. Bushwhackers raided a small post and a forage train near Dandridge in January 1865 and came away with supplies and six soldiers as prisoners, and in February secessionists twice attacked Union pickets near Greeneville. [16] 145 For the most part, East Teimessee guerrillas could carry out nothing more

ambitious than these hit and run attacks, and they had to confine their targets to

small groups such as forage parties and scouts. But in a few areas bushwhackers

were sufficiently numerous and well armed to challenge the conventional forces

for control. One example on the Unionist side were the bushwhackers in Scott

and Morgan Counties. In November 1861 Unionist partisans there attacked a

Confederate company sent to arrest a man carrying communications to Kentucky and forced Colonel William B. Wood to send a second company in support. The

Unionists remained quiet for the next few weeks, but in early 1862 they began driving out southern supporters and burning their homes. Kirby Smith sent three entire regiments to restore order, and this action brought on one of the largest engagements of this war. In a scene reminiscent of the Battle of Concord, Colonel

John C. Vaughn, the expedition commander, reported that on the entire march from Kingston to Huntsville his men suffered guerrilla sniping "from inaccessible points." Then at Montgomery the Unionists concentrated and attempted to block the Confederate march, forcing a skirmish that lasted half an hour. Vaughn claimed to have killed fifteen partisans and taken seven prisoner, but he admitted losing five killed and twelve wounded. [17]

On the other side. Federal forces suffered greatly from secessionist bands in the Sparta area, a mountainous region that bred far more than its share of guerrillas. The most notorious guerrilla band in East Tennessee, that led by

"Champ" Ferguson, originated here, and Ferguson, in combination with other 146 leaders such as William Bledsoe, John Hughes, and William Dunbar, ruled White,

Overton, and Putnam Counties, suppressing the Unionist population and living off the country. Ferguson also frequently struck into East Teimessee; in February

1864, for example, his band raided the courier line between Washington and

Sulphur Springs, killed two soldiers, and took one prisoner. [18] Union commanders made at least two major efforts to regain control of this area. In late

November 1863 Major General Ambrose Burnside sent the entire First Tennessee

Cavalry and part of the Ninth Pennsylvania Cavalry to break up secessionist bands at Sparta. The expedition commander. Colonel John Brownlow (son of William

G. Brownlow), billeted his force in town and began patrolling the area.

Secessionist guerrillas accepted this challenge, and on 30 November and again the following day they ambushed his scouts, killing four. Brownlow was unable to respond to the first attack, but he received immediate intelligence of the second and sent his entire force in pursuit. In the running engagement that ensued,

Brownlow claimed to have killed ten and wounded perhaps twice that many bushwhackers. Brownlow’s force left Sparta on 7 December, however, leaving the

Confederate bands intact. In February, therefore. Major General George Thomas sent Colonel William B. Stokes’ Fifth Tennessee Cavalry to continue this campaign. Stokes was vain and ambitious, and he subsequently reported several brilliant engagements. But others were not so sanguine. In May Thomas, apparently dissatisfied with Stokes, ordered him back to Nashville, and in July

Major Thomas H. Reeve reported that the operations of Ferguson and others had 147 made the cavalry based at McMinnville afraid to scout. Secessionist bands continued to contest the Sparta area until the war’s end. [19]

Loyalist partisans operating alone frequently hampered the operations of

Confederate regulars. Unionists realized, however, that their best hope for deliverance lay in the Union Army, and much of their energies went into aiding the Federal forces. Unionist partisans established communications, recruiting, and escape networks by which they passed information of Confederate movements on to Union authorities in Kentucky, gathered men for Union service, and piloted them into Northern lines. Unionists also sought aid from Federal authorities, smuggled in Northern newspapers and letters from East Teimessee refugees, gave warning of Confederate raids, and provided an alternate postal service to the suspect Confederate system. After 1863 secessionists furnished similar types of assistance to the Confederate Army, though on a smaller scale.

One of the most effective roles that the Unionist population played was sending information concerning Confederate dispositions and movements to Union commanders. Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer commented on the difficulty of making any movement unnoticed in East Tennessee, and Kirby Smith concluded that "East Tennessee is more difficult to operate in than the country of an acknowledged enemy." [20] Many soldiers also complained of Unionist spying.

In November 1861 Alexander Coffee, after describing how Zollicoffer had marched all over the Kentuclcy border in an attempt to locate the Union Army, blamed the general’s misfortunes on Unionist activity: "That is a great drawback 148 on us, the people of this country are almost all of them at heart against us and our enemy is informed of all our movements and we deceived . . [21] Franklin

Gaillard had similar worries about an impending movement from southwest

Virginia to Cumberland Gap in November 1863, for "the section through which the movement would be made is full of Tories who would quickly give information of our movements." [22] Occasionally Unionist partisans also attempted directly to impede Confederate movements. In October 1862 Tennessee and Kentucky bushwhackers dropped trees across roads in an attempt to slow Kirby Smith’s retreat, and Unionists in Sevier County used the same method in January 1864 to try to block the movement of troops from Sevierville to Madisonville. [23]

The Federal Army took full advantage of Unionist assistance. When

Federal cavalry under Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter raided East Tennessee in December 1862, officers employed one-hundred fifty "mountaineers," many of them Home Guards, to watch the roads and scout enemy movements. Similarly, when the Army of the Ohio invaded in force in August 1863 Burnside directed his subordinates to employ loyal citizens at all key points to scout the country and provide warning of enemy concentrations. Captain Shrady remembered that

Union officers had no trouble acquiring information about the location of enemy forces, and another soldier reported that on a march near Tazewell "the people were all Union and warned us as to the most dangerous points, telling us of a road much safer than the main one." [24] 149 Confederate troops also enjoyed some partisan aid. On occasion "Champ"

Ferguson acted as a guide for Morgan’s cavalry. James McCrey remembered that in June 1863 Ferguson joined them on a march near Livingston and steered them around a bushwhacker ambush. Likewise, in March 1862 Kirby Smith accepted forty volunteers under "Captain" W. C. Eblen to scout Roane County and the surrounding area for enemy movements. [25]

In two instances Unionist aid may have significantly contributed to Federal successes in East Tennessee. The first case involved the fate of an army. In

September 1863 the Army of the Ohio entered East Tennessee and occupied much of the region. But in November a Confederate corps under Lieutenant

General James Longstreet moved up from Chattanooga, drove Union forces into

Knoxville, and besieged them there. Union supplies were low, and for over a week soldiers lived on quarter rations. But loyalists in Knox, Cocke, and Sevier

Counties came to the Army’s assistance. Longstreet, misled by faulty maps, had failed to cut navigation on the branch of the French Broad River that flowed into

Knoxville, and for several nights Unionist citizens sent down rafts loaded with provisions. Longstreet then attempted to cut off these shipments, but warnings from a local woman enabled Federal officers to protect their supply line. It is true that the siege did not last long; it is also true that the news of an advancing Union force under Major General William T. Sherman would have forced Longstreet to break off the siege in any case. Nonetheless, Unionist aid did alleviate the suffering of Union troops, and this incident reveals both the advantages accruing 150 to Federal forces from operating among a friendly population and the handicaps

that Confederates forces faced. [26]

The second incident concerns the death of John Hunt Morgan. After his

escape from the Ohio Penitentiary, Morgan took command of Confederate forces

in East Tennessee and southwest Virginia. This small force, mostly cavalry,

regularly sparred with Federal troopers and managed to keep much of upper East

Tennessee in Confederate hands. On the night of 3 September three regiments

of Union cavalry rode into Greeneville where Morgan was staying. Morgan was

aware of their arrival and attempted to hide, but a Federal trooper eventually spotted him and shot him down, ending the career of one the Confederacy’s famous raiders. According to many accounts, including those of Colonel John

Brownlow, Lieutenant Edward J. Brooks of the Tenth Michigan Cavalry,

Lieutenant John Johnson of the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, and Provost

Marshal General Samuel P. Carter, it was the information brought by a Unionist woman from Greeneville, Sarah Thompson, that enabled Union cavalry to locate and kill Morgan. Thompson’s husband had served Federal troops as a courier but had eventually been captured and executed as a spy by some of Morgan’s men.

A few months later Morgan and some his cavalry rode into Greeneville, came to

Thompson’s house, stole a quantity of food, and insulted her. In retaliation she rode to Bull’s Gap and persuaded John Brownlow’s First Tennessee Cavalry and two other regiments to return with her, setting off the engagement that took

Morgan’s life. [27] 151 There is little evidence concerning the workings of the Unionist

communications system, though its effectiveness is abundantly clear. William

Randolph Carter, official historian of the First Tennessee Cavalry (Union), stated

only that "the secret means to escape to the Union lines was termed ‘the

Underground Railroad’ and the secret network of communications, ‘the Grapevine telegraph.’" Another Unionist historian, William Humes, asserted that Unionists rode regularly into Kentucky to carry information to Union officers and to bring back Northern papers. As in other parts of the South and the North, many women in East Teimessee became spies and messengers and played a critical role in the loyalist network. Sarah Thompson claimed that on several occasions

Unionist pilots brought packets of letters for her to distribute to her neighbors, and Daniel Ellis, one of the most famous of these pilots, remembered carrying several such packets. Numerous Confederate soldiers complained of the activities of these messengers, and one claimed that most of the couriers were Unionist women. Secessionists also referred to such the Unionist system; in 1864, one woman wrote that "the Union people have always been able to keep up a clandestine system of mails and letter writing in our counties, and it looks as if we might do the same . . ." [28]

Conversely, when Federal forces entered East Teimessee, Confederate partisans attempted to establish their own communications. In January 1864

Major General John G. Foster, District Commander, reported that "the Rebels are well organized and being active in some portions of this state. They have 152 regularly organized mails passing through some of the counties." And in June

1864 Major General John M. Schofield arrested and banished one woman, Anna

Lane, for carrying mail through Federal lines. [29]

Beyond these general descriptions there is little evidence available to answer such questions as who carried the messages, how messengers were able to travel unobserved, whether they had other means of passing information, how they were able to spread news so quickly, or how extensive and formal these systems were. It is likely, however, that East Teimesseans simply made use of skills and methods that they had already developed in this difficult region. Observations by the journalist Horace Kephart, who came to East Tennessee in the early twentieth century to study the region and its people, support this conclusion. Concerning communications among the mountaineers, Kephart wrote: "There is no telegraph, wired or wireless, but there is an effective substitute. It seemed as though, in one night, the news traveled from valley to cove, and from cove to nook, that I was investigating the moonshine business, and that I was apparently ‘safe’." [30] Even more suggestive is Kephart’s detailed account of the practices of one East

Tennessean:

Our mountaineers habitually note every track they pass, whether of beast or man, and "read the sign" with Indian-like facility. Often one of my companions would stop, as though shot, and point with his toe to the fresh imprint of a human foot in the dust or mud of a public road, exclaiming: "Now I wonder who that feller was. ’Twa’n’t (so- 153 and-so), for he hain’t got no square- headed bob-nails; twa’n’t (such-a-one), cause he wouldn’t be hyer at this time o’day"; and so he would go on, figuring by a process of elimination that is extremely cunning, until some such conclusion as this was reached, "That’s some stranger goin on to Little River .. . and he’s footin hit as if the devil was after him -I’ll bet he’s stabbed some bod and he’s runnin’ firom the sheriff." Nor is the incident closed with that; our mountaineer will inquire firom neighbors and passers by until he gets a description of the wayfarer, and then he will pass the word along. [31]

Far more visible is the Unionist escape system that passed thousands of recruits out of East Tennessee into the Federal Army in Kentucky. This network was one of the first manifestations of Unionist resistance, and it began to take shape almost immediately after Tennessee ratified the ordinance of secession.

Dozens, perhaps hundreds of persons participated in this system at one time or another by providing shelter and food, warning of Confederate patrols, pointing out safe roads and fords, ferrying escapees across rivers, and hiding refugees from

Confederate pursuers. Central to the escape network, however, were the pilots, the men who organized groups of recruits and guided them safely out of East

Tennessee. Some pilots were Union officers, typically East Tennesseans who had themselves escaped, joined the Union Army, and then returned as recruiters, while others were civilians. Whatever the case, piloting was an extraordinarily hazardous duty, and the best pilots became heroes in this conflict. Thomas 154 Spurgeon, who claimed to have made thirteen trips and brought out over one thousand men, became widely known as the "Red Fox" for his exploits, and he was subsequently featured in several Unionist histories. [32]

Two particularly famous pilots, one representative of each group, were

David Fry and Daniel Ellis. Fry, an influential Unionist from Greene County, was involved in a series of escapades. He left East Tennessee in the summer of 1861, arrived at Camp Dick Robinson, and received a commission as a captain. He then returned to East Tennessee with William B. Carter, organizer of the bridgebumings, and led the band that destroyed the Lick Creek Bridge. After the uprising failed Fry organized a group of followers and led a number of raids against secessionists in East Tennessee and western North Carolina. When

Confederate troops pursued Fry and other loyalists to the Laurel Valley of North

Carolina in April 1862, Fry attempted to lead his followers to Kentucky. But a

Confederate patrol intercepted them, and after being threatened with execution

Fry found himself in a Confederate military prison in Atlanta. Eventually he escaped to participate in another ill-fated adventure, the Andrews Railroad Raid, from which he eventually returned to East Tennessee. [33]

Daniel Ellis was a farmer and wagon maker from Carter County. He had helped bum the Holston River bridge in Sullivan County, had joined the Unionist encampment near Elizabethton, had been captured by Confederate forces, and had then escaped. He began piloting in August 1862 and continued almost to the end of the war. Ellis’ fame came partly from self-promotion, particularly his 155 account of his experiences, Thrilling Adventures of Daniel Ellis, which he

published in 1867. At the same time, Ellis deserved recognition, for he made at

least fifteen trips and brought out well over one thousand men with almost no

losses. Like Fry, Ellis was involved in numerous other activities. He occasionally

led attacks on secessionists or Confederate troops in his area, and in 1865 he

received a commission as a captain and served for a short time with the conventional forces. [34]

Most escapes to Kentucky followed a similar pattern. They began with the news that a pilot would soon arrive to lead an expedition. This information would be cautiously circulated among men who might be interested, and eventually they would establish a rendezvous, usually a remote site after sundown. At the appointed time and place the escapees would gather, and if all went well the pilot would appear and they would set out. In the first months of the war escapees frequently traveled in large groups in the belief that their numbers would protect them from Confederate forces. This tactic often resulted in capture, however, and by 1862 most escapees instead relied on secrecy and stealth. Whenever possible pilots led their charges along the most deserted paths and through the roughest terrain where Confederate cavalry could not follow, and they often traveled by night and rested by day. In emergencies escapees might stop at houses known to be safe for shelter and food, but this was a risky practice. The most dangerous points in the journey occurred when groups had to cross roads, rivers, and open valleys, for Confederate troops heavily patrolled such points along known routes 156 of travel. Most captures apparently occurred at these spots, and they were a great

test of the pilot’s skill, for he had to make the crossing at exactly the right time.

Sometimes refugees could use ferries operated by trusted men, but much of the

time they simply had to ford streams and rivers. Finally, if all went well escapees

would cross the last Tennessee mountain range, step across the border into

Kentucky, and make their way to an army camp, where they would find food,

shelter, and a chance to recover before enroUing in Federal service. [35]

This was the ideal scenario. Even with the aid of an experienced pilot,

however, a successful escape from East Tennessee was an extraordinarily

dangerous and difficult task, for weather, terrain, and Confederate patrols might

all impede safe movement. Escapees frequently traveled in snow, ice, or rain, and

had to cross several rivers and creeks before reaching safety. Lighting a fire was usually considered too dangerous, and consequently many recruits suffered from frostbite or hypothermia. Parties sometimes marched in such darkness that men could not see each other and had to tie themselves together to avoid getting lost.

Their boots wore out quickly, and many escapees literally finished the journey on bare, bloody feet.

The worst impediment, however, was the Confederate blockade. Southern commanders began sealing off the border in the summer of 1861, and throughout

1862 and 1863 Confederate patrols steadily increased, particularly along known routes of travel such as the Holston River and Powell River Valleys. These efforts brought frequent success. In July 1861 Dr. J. W. Thornburgh, a noted physician 157 from New Market, organized a company and attempted to lead it to Kentucky.

But Confederate cavalry intercepted Thornburgh at Bulls’ Gap, and he and eight

others were sent to prison. Likewise, in January 1862 a Confederate officer

reported that Southern troops had trapped thirty-nine escapees in the mountains.

Unionists and Confederate troops also made occasional references to having found bodies of escapees who had been shot or hung. The greatest Confederate success occurred in April 1862 when a cavalry patrol intercepted a very large band, numbering at least six hundred Unionists, and captured 475 of them. [36]

Two accounts particularly illustrate the difficulties that escapees faced.

Thomas Doak Edington had to endure two serious mishaps before reaching

Kentucky. On his first attempt the night scheduled for the rendezvous was black and rainy, and the pilot, Spencer Deaton, did not appear. Nonetheless, about fifty men, of the two hundred expected, eventually started out. Conditions were so bad that many were soon lost, however, and the rest became discouraged and returned home. Two days later Deaton surfaced, a second rendezvous was set, and several dozen men again set out. The first night went by without incident, but the second day the escapees blundered into a small group of Confederate cavalry. Several

Unionists again turned back, but the majority chose to fight. Counting on surprise, they charged their outnumbered pursuers, scattered them, and escaped.

Edington’s group proved extremely fortunate, for many other refugees who stood and fought were killed or captured by Confederate troops. This was Edington’s 158 last hazard, and after a few days of hard traveling he and the others reached

Union lines. [37]

Another escapee, Robert Allan Ragan, suffered two misadventures before even linking up with a pilot. Ragan made his first attempt in 1862, traveling to

Greene County to meet a pilot there. He missed the rendezvous, but his disappointment was short lived, for Confederate cavalry overtook this group on their first day of travel and captured all but three. Ragan made his second attempt in May 1863. He spent the day hiding at his father-in-law's farm, but that evening, just as he was setting out to meet the pilot, he saw Confederate soldiers coming up the lane. Ragan ran out the back door to escape, jumped a fence, and sliced his foot on a rock. The cut was so deep and painful that he could not walk and again had to stay behind. Ragan did not escape until July 1863, v/hen George

Kirk led 120 men out of Greene County. This time, also, Ragan and the other recruits narrowly avoided two dangers, betrayal by a hired guide and pursuit by

Confederate patrols. [38]

Each journey, of course, was different. Some escapees experienced few dangers and discomforts, while others suffered even worse than Ragan. In spite of many obstacles, however, an astonishing number of Unionists did arrive in

Kentucky to serve in the Union Army. Over a thousand East Tennesseans had reached Camp Dick Robinson by September 1861, and by March 1862 their numbers were sufficient to make up four regiments. The passage of the

Confederate Conscription Act in March further accelerated this exodus. In late 159 April 1862 Major General Edmund Kirby Smith estimated that seven thousand

East Tennesseans had escaped to the Cumberland Gap area within the last three weeks, and in August 1863 a Union private wrote from Camp Dick Robinson that

150 refugees were arriving eveiy day. This hemorrhage of the male population continued until the eve of the Union invasion. The total number who escaped will never be known, but over 20,000 East Tennesseans, out of a voting population of around 47,000, wore the Union blue. [39]

The consequences of this exodus were profound. First, of course, these recruits represented a significant addition to Northern strength in the western theatre and a corresponding drain on Confederate manpower. Union officers themselves recognized the importance of this exodus. The best civilian pilots, including Ellis and Spurgeon, received aid and sometimes recognition from

Federal authorities, including transportation, passes, and commissions, and Union officers also frequently sent scouts across the border to escort Unionist escapees the last few miles into Kentucky. [40]

Second, this exodus provided powerful evidence for the failure of

Confederate policy in East Tennessee. That men would leave their families and their homes to the mercy of enemy authorities and undertake a hazardous escape rather than enter Confederate service was an unequivocal and inescapable rejection of the new government. In a practical way, also, this exodus damaged the Confederate cause. Although women played a key role in the economy of antebellum and wartime East Tennessee, the disappearance of such a large 160 portion of the male population brought a serious decline in production. Along with the rest of the South, this loss of labor, combined with other effects of the war, sent East Tennessee into a drastic economic decline. Fields went uncultivated, trade dropped off, businesses closed, and houses and shops were abandoned. In their attempt to impose their authority. Confederate authorities helped to destroy this once moderately prosperous region. [41] Finally, these escapes revealed the depth of the Unionist commitment, and provide powerful evidence for the primacy of ideology in this conflict.

POLITICAL SPHERE

The struggle between the regular forces and the guerrillas in East

Tennessee was quite brutal and widespread. Yet it constituted only a part, perhaps even a lesser part, of the spectrum of violence there, for East

Tennesseeans also battled each other for political control of the region. Unionist and secessionist guerrilla bands terrorized civilians holding the wrong political views, beating, robbing, and kilUng their political enemies. Men were ambushed on the road or shot in their homes, houses and barns were plundered and burned, and East Tennesseans learned to dread the sound of horses’ hooves or a knock at the door after darkness had fallen. Guerrilla bands also occasionally fought each other for control of territory. 161 This violence, which was disturbing in 1861, had reached frightening heights by 1865. Yet it was neither shapeless nor senseless. It reflected not only the tremendous passions that the war had generated, but also a perceptive understanding of the implications of the conflict. East Tennesseans fought for control of their districts, their counties, and their homes, and the outcome of this struggle would be significant no matter which side triumphed in the regular war.

The central issue was political domination, and the central aim was that "we," not

"they," control this valley, this county, or ultimately this region that East

Tennesseans called home. East Tennesseans did not always define "we" and "they" along strict Union-Confederate lines or in ways that made sense to outside observers then or historians today. Furthermore, many selfish motives, including greed, revenge, fear, and personal spite, also entered this struggle. But that did not make this a senseless conflict; rather, it simply means that the war must be understood fi'om their perspective. The guerrilla war was an ideological conflict, and the political motives, though sometimes blurred and smudged, were always visible.

Officers on both sides testified to the widespread nature of this violence.

In late November 1861 Major General Albert Sidney Johnston reported to

Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris that recruits from East Tennessee could not be transferred elsewhere until their families were secured against violence, a report echoed by a secessionist fi’om Jonesboro. In December 1861 Colonel

Danville Leadbetter asserted that in several counties in northern East Tennessee 162 southern sympathizers remained in great danger, and in April 1862 General Kirby

Smith concluded that in twenty-five of East Tennessee’s thirty-one counties there

existed "organized armed bands that oppress men of Southern principles."

Brigadier General Alfred E. Jackson stated that the withdrawal of Confederate forces in August 1863 had sent Confederate supporters fleeing from "bands of marauding bushwhackers and Tories," and in March 1864 Franklin Gaillard wrote that secessionists in Greeneville were depressed at reports that Southern troops would soon be transferred, "for when we leave the Tories will make it very aimoying to them. They are more vindictive than the Yankees." [42]

On the other side, in November 1861 Colonel William B. Wood admitted that in many places in East Teimessee southern bands were stealing horses and property, threatening Unionists, and forcing them into the Confederate Army.

Likewise, in the summer of 1864 Military Governor Andrew Johnson asserted that the large number of East Teimesseeans who had recently deserted the Federal

Army had done so because secessionist guerrillas were threatening their families.

[43]

In at least two regions Unionists came close to achieving their aim of complete political control. In the summer of 1861 Unionists in Carter and

Johnson Counties forced the Confederate clerk of the court to resign, killed at least two secessionists, and reportedly caused numerous others to flee to Virginia or North Carolina for safety. The threat of a Unionist takeover was reported to be so serious that Zollicoffer sent one of his scarce regiments and a cavalry 163 company from the Kentucky border to Johnson County to restore Confederate

control. [44]

In early 1862 Unionists in Scott and Morgan Counties launched a similar campaign. On 23 March G. M. Hall wrote from Kingston that he had just talked with one man who had had his house plundered and then burned by Unionists.

This man claimed that several secessionists had already been killed or robbed and that numerous others had fled after receiving death threats. As described earlier, these and other reports forced Kirby Smith to send almost one thousand troops into the area. After reading the expedition commander’s report, Kirby Smith concluded that Unionists in Scott and Morgan had taken over all local offices, established their own military units known as Home Guards, and forced out every

Southern sympathizer in the area. [45]

All over East Termessee Unionists attempted to accomplish these same ends, though sometimes on a smaller scale. In November 1861 Alexander Coffee wrote from Cumberland Gap that the Southern troops had many friends there,

"but they are overwhelmed when they are not with us." Likewise, in August 1862

Fuller Manley reported that his battalion had been ordered to Clinton to eliminate "bushwhackers" who "have been hanging, shooting, and robbing men sympathetic to the cause of the South ..." A secessionist woman from New

Market remembered that in the summer of 1864 Unionists there began plundering secessionist homes and threatening their occupants. Her husband was beaten, and they eventually had to leave New Market for safety. None of her friends would 164 help, for they also feared being beaten or worse. And in late 1864, eight

secessionists from Johnson County petitioned Major General John C. Breckinridge

for protection against several Unionist bands who were robbing and killing

Southern supporters. [46]

The Confederate population suffered a significant numerical disadvantage.

Nonetheless, in several areas of East Tennessee secessionists effectively terrorized

Unionist supporters. In 1861 John Brown Rodgers, a wealthy Unionist from

White County, ran for election to the United States Congress. In retaliation,

secessionists threatened his life, burned his hotel, and forced him to leave

Tennessee. G. F. Livesay remembered that when secessionists discovered that one man was planning to escape to Kentucky they came to his house, shot at him,

chased him into the woods, and stole his boots. In May 1864 Colonel Robert K.

Byrd stated that secessionist bands in Rhea and Meigs Counties had become so threatening that if Federal troops were not sent Unionist families there would have to flee, while in October secessionists in Blount County were also reported to be "intimidating Union men." And in March 1865 twenty civilians and sixteen soldiers from the Seventh Tennessee Mounted Infantry informed Brigadier

General Davis Tillson that secessionist bands had taken over McMinn and

Monroe Counties, to the extent that Unionists were abandoning their farms and soldiers were unable to visit their families. [47] Political violence in East

Tennessee frequently followed definite patterns. As the term bushwhacker implies, guerrillas commonly ambushed men on the road or sniped at them from 165 hidden locations. But they also frequently carried out deliberate executions in a

form designed to terrorize other potential victims. Often they would appear at a

home at night, call men to the door, and shoot them. In June 1863 a Unionist band in Carter County targeted two brothers, both Confederate recruiting officers home on leave. Seventeen bushwhackers came to the farm at night, lured the brothers out of the house with the report that Union forces had taken Carter’s

Depot, shot one in the yard, and took the other into the mountains as their prisoner. Neighbors assumed that this second officer also had died, but he eventually reappeared, having escaped his captors. Finally, in other cases guerrillas took their victims to a particular location and murdered them there.

One Unionist band took three secessionists to a river, shot them, left their bodies there, and threatened the same fate to anyone who touched the bodies. Similarly, in January 1864 guerrillas captured a secessionist from Loudon and kept him prisoner one night. The next morning they started to take him town, but then changed their plans, dragged him off into the woods, shot him, and left him for dead. This man, peculiarly, also survived. [48]

In the last year of the war secessionist guerrillas adopted a new tactic that proved particularly effective and terrifying. Bands of guerrillas based in North

Carolina and Georgia, sometimes joined by renegade Confederate cavalry, began raiding into southern East Termessee in large numbers. They would wait until darkness had come and then sweep through a particular area, capturing or killing

Union men, robbing loyalist homes, and escaping back to their hideouts before 166 dawn. In August 1864 eighty secessionists under Bill Gibbs came into Union

County, killed three Unionists, took nine civilians and three soldiers prisoner, and

left a threat to kill the captives. In December southern partisans raided into

Monroe County and killed or captured twenty men; that same month Brigadier

General S. S. Fry reported that fourteen Unionists had died in Washington County

in the last few days. And in January 1865 Peter Smith wrote that southern

bushwhackers had recently been in Polk and Idlled at least five men. He also

claimed that many Unionist families were so frightened that they were sleeping

in the woods and admitted that he himself was afraid to go into either Polk or

Rhea. The Unionist historian S. A. Hurlbut asserted that secessionist guerrillas

raided Bradley County at least ten times in the last year of the war, and Polk,

McMiim, and Meigs were also hit hard. [49]

Perhaps the most notorious raids were those carried out by "Captain" John

P. Gatewood. Gatewood’s origins are unclear, but Hurlbut claimed that he had

ridden with "Champ" Ferguson for about a year and had then been commissioned

by General Joseph Wheeler in the summer of 1864 to "recruit" in Sherman’s rear.

But Gatewood preferred guerrilla operations to recruiting and proved extremely

adept in this field. Based in Georgia near the Tennessee border, he led about

fifty men, many of them Confederate deserters, and operated from August 1864

through the end of the war. He eluded all attempts at capture, though he did suffer a major defeat in March 1865. Gatewood made his reputation on the night of 29 November, when he sent raiders into both Polk and Bradley Counties. 167 Before they were finished, Gatewood’s men had plundered over twenty houses,

driven off a herd of horses, and killed somewhere between six and eighteen

Unionists. [50]

Frequently this violence was reciprocal, for raids by one side led to

retaliation by the other and led to an escalating cycle that was difficult to halt.

One such incident occurred in the border area of Tennessee and North Carolina.

According to Shepherd Dugger, sometime in 1864 ten Unionist bushwhackers from

Tennessee rode into North Carohna, murdered one man, and stole six horses. A

North Carolina secessionist named Major Bingham then led a retaliatory raid, in which he captured three men and stole a herd of cattle and a horse. Unionists in the area learned of the raid, however, and made plans to waylay Bingham before he could return to North Carolina. They set up an ambush on the most likely road, but Bingham almost ruined their plans when he took another route. A woman in the neighborhood discovered Bingham’s route, however, and, pretending to search for a cow, reached the Unionists in time. Unionist guerrillas then set up a new ambush, and in the resulting "battle" they killed two secessionists and claimed victory. [51]

Daniel Ellis related a similar story. In April 1864 he returned to Johnson

County from a trip to Kentucky and brought back a number of letters as well as money for the families of Union soldiers. Confederate troops soon learned of his visit, however, and swept through Johnson, stealing most of the money and threatening Unionists there. Ellis believed that two local secessionists. Bill Waugh 168 and Sam McQueen, had provided the soldiers with the names of the families. In

retaliation he gathered a few followers, broke into Waugh’s home, and killed him

there. The Unionists also searched several secessionist houses for the money, and

when they found none stole several horses as compensation. [52]

This internecine strife entered into almost all areas of East Tennessee life,

distorting social relations and destroying families, friendships, communities, and

institutions. Wives were pitted against husbands, fathers against sons, brothers

against brothers. Communities split into factions, and old friendships were

consumed. Perhaps no institution, however, suffered more from the polarization

of the population than the churches. The political split began to enter the

churches in the summer of 1861, and eventually it destroyed some and

fundamentally altered others. In July 1861 M. B. Ramsey wrote that one pastor

was considering leaving Knoxville because the Unionist members of the church

had stopped attending. Another Knoxville minister did resign because he

supported the Union while most of the congregation was Southern; similarly, a

pastor in Jonesboro confided to Nelson that his financial support had dropped

considerably because he had "not prayed just as some people would like to have me ..." The Sunday after Horace Maynard fled to Washington the pastor of his former church prayed that the Unionist leader would never return to Tennessee, a prayer that delighted some but bitterly antagonized others. And several

Unionist churches, including the Baptist congregations at Cedar Creek and Cades

Cove, were forced to close. [53] 169 As Charles F. Bryan demonstrated, the leadership of at least two denominations, the Presbyterian and the Methodist, blatantly used their power for political ends and turned the East Tennessee churches into battlegrounds in the

Unionist-secessionist struggle. In May 1863 the East Termessee Presbytery passed resolutions that it would neither licence nor ordain any candidate who opposed slavery or refused to support the Confederate government. Similarly, the Holston

Methodist Conference, which was dominated by Bishop John Early, brother of

General Jubal Early, expelled more than a dozen pastors for their avowed

Unionism, and in 1864 it also instructed ministers to refrain from taking the

Federal oath of loyalty.

In this case the Unionists had their revenge. William G. Brownlow began advocating the formation of a loyal Methodist conference in 1863, and in 1864

Unionist ministers met in Knoxville and reunited the East Tennessee conference with the Northern organization. Aided by Northern bishops and Secretary of War

Edwin M. Stanton, they then expelled a number of Southern ministers and took possession of most Methodist Church property in East Tennessee. Loyalists also resorted to violence. A Unionist mob broke up a convention of secessionist

Methodist ministers at Decatur in 1863, and over the next three years other mobs whipped secessionist pastors and broke up Southern church meetings. Like many other Unionist campaigns, however, this one ultimately failed, and by the early

1870s most Methodist churches in East Tennessee had returned to Southern hands. [54] 170 Several incidents reveal the political aims of the guerrillas. In July 1863 a Confederate officer learned that Unionists in Cocke County were preparing to

"meet and control the election" the following week, and he sent a large force to break up this band and protect the voting. Conversely, in May 1865 Major

General George Stoneman had to send sixty men to Maryville to guard the newly opened court there against secessionist disruptions. Confederate bands also killed several East Teimesseeans who had recently taken the oath of allegiance, attacks that were probably meant both as punishments and as warnings to others. [55]

Guerrillas on both sides also targeted political officials. Unionists particularly hated Confederate conscript officers, and Captain William Stringfield, provost marshal of Carter County, admitted in 1862 that he "did not visit very much out-as the enforcement of the conscript Law made it a rather dangerous thing to do-unless with soldiers." Union deputy provost marshals, the local officers primarily responsible for implementing occupation policies and suppressing dissent, also suffered several attacks. The most notorious of these occurred in January 1865 in Athens. McMirm County was a center of Confederate sentiment, and the deputy provost marshal there. Major John McGaughy, had recently banished several secessionist families and arrested a number of women.

In retaliation a combined force of guerrillas and Confederate cavalry, numbering perhaps as many as three hundred, raided Athens on the night of 28 January.

They engaged the garrison there for several hours and took 15 prisoners, including

McGaughy. Southern guerrillas held the deputy provost marshal for several days 171 and then deliberately executed him. This same force also killed Joseph Divine,

deputy provost marshal at Madisonville, while in February 1864 secessionist

guerrillas supposedly led by Ferguson raided Washington and killed the provost

marshal there. [56]

In some regions secessionist and Unionist guerrilla bands fought each other for supremacy. In the Sparta area Confederate bands under Hughes, Ferguson and Bledsoe clashed with "Tinker Dave" Beatty and William Clift, and Amanda

McDowell remembered that both Beatty’s men and secessionist guerrillas visited her father and warned him against supporting the other side. One Federal soldier described a similar conflict in the Holston River area, which he learned about when a Unionist leader came into camp for ammunition. "Said he had lately killed several guerrillas; never took prisoners, and thought by a few more expeditions he could conquer all the rebel guerrillas in the Holston Valley." [57]

Finally, on occasion East Tennesseans persuaded friendly soldiers to commit violence for them. Two Unionist leaders who suffered such attacks were

Andrew Jackson Fletcher and John Baxter. Fletcher was a prominent radical in

Greene County. He had served as a delegate to both Unionist Conventions and had argued for Nelson’s position at Greeneville, and in the Reconstruction period he would serve as Brownlow’s Secretary of State. Fletcher’s political career, however, was interrupted one night in August 1861 when eight Confederate soldiers came to his home, broke in, and attempted to kill him. Fletcher fought back and escaped, but the incident terrified him so much that he fled East 172 Tennessee and spent the war in safety in Indiana. Fletcher always believed,

probably correctly, that his enemies in Greeneville had sent the soldiers to his

house. [58]

Baxter’s story was somewhat different. He also was a prominent delegate

at Knoxville and Greeneville, but he had helped defeat Nelson’s proposals at the

second convention. Shortly thereafter Baxter determined that accommodation

would be a wiser course than resistance, and he publicly recognized the

Confederate Government and announced his candidacy for the Second District’s

seat in the Confederate House of Representatives. Baxter’s effrontery apparently

infuriated his enemies. On 15 August several Confederate soldiers attempted to

kill Baxter in his hotel room in Tazewell. Baxter barricaded his door, held the

soldiers off with a pistol, and eventually made his speech as planned. He also

remained in East Termessee. [59]

The greatest atrocity of this type on the Union side was the destruction of the estate of J.G.M. Ramsey. Ramsey was a physician and a respected historian in antebellum East Tennessee, but his wartime career had made him a prominent target. He was a longtime enemy of Brownlow, and he had been one of the earliest advocates of secession. John Crozier Ramsey, the despised Confederate

District Attorney, was his son, and J.G.M. Ramsey had worked closely with C. W.

Charleton, William Sneed, and John Crozier in their attempts to persuade

Confederate authorities to implement harsher measures against the Unionist population. Thus it was no surprise when Federal troops, almost certainly inspired 173 by Brownlow and others, burned Ramsey’s home in late 1863. The loss was profound, for the estate was a magnificent structure that housed not only Ramsey’s library, one of the finest in Tennessee, but also all manuscripts of the second volume of his history of Tennessee. [60]

CRIMINAL

In East Tennessee, criminal acts were an integral part of the operations of most bushwhackers. Many guerrilla bands lived partly or entirely by theft, and they routinely broke into houses, stole money and goods, carried off horses and stock, and waylaid people on the roads. Theft and other crimes had become fairly common in East Tennessee by mid-1862, but the number of crimes began to rise ever more sharply after 1863, and by 1865 theft and assault had become epidemic.

This crime wave did not begin to subside until 1867, and East Tennesseeans suffered as much from crime as from other types of violence.

This problem plagued almost all areas of East Tennessee. In July 1863 the

Confederates had to send one hundred men into Sevier County to suppress "some bushwhackers and thieves" there. Likewise, in late August, after Southern forces had left the Knoxville area, groups of robbers became particularly bold and active, even coming into Knoxville one night to steal horses. These bands became so dangerous that people in Knoxville formed self-defense companies to protect their property. In the winter of 1863-1864 Provost Marshal General Carter received 174 several complaints from Anderson and Monroe Counties concerning "marauders" who regularly came out of the mountains to rob people, and in January 1864 a band of thirty bushwhackers came into the town of Madisonville and robbed most of the homes there. Lieutenant Colonel William C. Bartlett reported from

Cumberland Gap that "the place is much troubled by horse thieves and guerrillas who run in steal horses and then ride off," and one man changed his plans to bring some stock from Kentucky into Tennessee because of his fear of driving cattle through mountains "full of Robbers." And steady reports violent theft came in from McMinn, Sequatchie, Hamilton, Grainger, Campbell and other counties. [61]

These criminal attacks were often ruthless and terrifying. In some cases guerrillas strung up men until they revealed where their money and other valuables were hidden. In other cases they beat or whipped men and women, and in a few they simply shot their victims, whether they had resisted or not. Even more frightening was the fact that victims sometimes did not know who their attackers were. There were numerous reports of robbers pretending to be Union soldiers or actually wearing Federal uniforms and justifying their thefts as legal confiscation or retribution. This situation was extremely disorienting for the population, for many soldiers did in fact commit crimes and behave exactly as bushwhackers. In these cases victims could not know whether resistance would bring them into conflict with the occupying authorities. [62]

It would be a mistake to ignore the purely criminal motives of some guerrillas. Many bands were rapacious, and their crimes were often vicious. 175 Nonetheless, some of these crimes clearly possessed a political dimension. Mary

Jane Reynolds described at length the activities of one band, who for several weeks had been going around the Loudon area robbing houses and forcing people to give them money. All the victims she mentioned were secessionists. Likewise, although Union authorities managed to arrest several of these men, the provost marshal subsequently had to release them, for the authorities could get evidence against them only from secessionists. Similarly, William Sloan described how several Unionist bands in the Benton area preyed on secessionist families, to the extent that secessionists had to organize a guard for their defense. [63]

A second reason for not drawing too sharp a line between criminal and political attacks is that the war itself created the conditions in which crime flourished. This was true not only of East Tennessee but also of many other parts of the South. The breakdown of pohtical and legal institutions in East Tennessee had left a vacuum of authority and law enforcement, while confiscation by the military had made theft by civilians, particularly that carried out in retaliation, seem justified. Finally, shortages produced by the war created desperate needs that sometimes could be met only through crime. This was particularly true in the winter of 1863-1864, when the demands of the Union Army far overburdened the already struggling economy. [64] 176 CONCLUSIONS

In some ways the impact of guerrilla activity on the regular forces was very

small. East Tennessee guerrillas had no influence on any major operation, Union

or Confederate, and they could not stop the main armies from moving where they wished. Further, only rarely could partisans prevent soldiers from controlling territory that they desired to hold, and both the Confederate and the Union armies retained effective control of the rail lines, the major towns and cities, and other strategic points. Likewise, when guerrillas attempted to engage the regular forces openly they almost always suffered defeat.

Guerrilla operations also had little impact on the number of troops committed to East Tennessee. Confederate commanders typically reserved two regiments for guarding the railroads, and they retained a few additional forces to suppress the recurring outbreaks of rebellion. The railroad guards were as much a guarantee against Union cavalry raids as against guerrilla attacks, however, and even during the November uprising Confederate commanders required no more than about seven regiments to restore control. In March 1862 Kirby Smith had only about four thousand troops to govern the whole interior of East Tennessee, and though this number began to rise in early 1862 commanders in East

Tennessee never had more than eight thousand troops to overawe the Unionist partisans. The highest Confederate troop level in East Tennessee was eighteen thousand, but in comparison with the forces committed to Middle Tennessee or 177 other theaters this was a small figure. In sum, it is unlikely that the Unionist

rebellion brought more than four or five thousand additional troops into this area.

The effect of the guerrilla war on the Federal commitment was even smaller. The

initial invasion force was quite large, reaching a high of thirty-five thousand in

December 1863. However, after the elimination of the Confederate threat to the

Army of the Ohio and the start of the Atlanta campaign, this figure declined

drastically, until by 1865 it had reached a mere seven thousand. (See Table VII)

On the other side, both the Confederacy and the Union paid for their lack

of commitment to East Tennessee. Confederate troops could control any given

area only as long as they remained there in force, but once they left effective

control reverted to the Unionist organizations. In reality. Unionist bands dominated most of East Tennessee, particularly the countryside, throughout the entire war. Conversely, secessionist bands controlled five or six counties in southern East Termessee in defiance of the Union authorities. Furthermore, neither side proved at all effective in protecting its supporters. Unionists drove out secessionists in many areas of East Termessee, and the Confederate

Government did little to halt this process. Similarly, secessionists in lower East

Tennessee effectively terrorized Unionists, and the Federal Goverrunent failed to respond. Despite Unionist screams for protection, it was not until March that the

District Commander sent one regiment to Athens to stop guerrilla raids. The

Confederacy simply lacked the resources, and the Union the will, effectively to 178 police all of East Tennessee. Thus the political war went unchecked, and both

sides paid a terrible price. [65]

While guerrillas had little effect on major campaigns, they greatly influenced routine operations. Tasks essential to an army’s function, such as transportation, communication, foraging, and scouting, all became more difficult, more costly, and less effective because of guerrilla operations. Both sides had to commit more guards to trains and wagons, and often they had to operate in larger groups than normal. Routine operations also suffered from a greater number of impediments, interruptions, and failures. The guerrillas also had a powerful psychological impact on troops in East Tennessee. The total number of soldiers bushwhacked is unknown, but it was sufficient that guerrillas became a constant presence in the thoughts of troops stationed in this region. Most made at least some reference to guerrillas, and many expressed fears for their safety. The guerrillas were a menace, an unknown but threatening presence.

The political operations of the guerrillas were more significant. By their campaign of murders and evictions, the Unionist population gained undisputed control of all but a handful of counties in East Tennessee. They frustrated

Confederate attempts to impose their authority, and they ensured a significant role for native Unionists when the Federal Army replaced the Confederate. East

Termessee therefore remained a stronghold of Unionism and radicalism in the

South. As will be discussed, it provided the foundation for Termessee’s 179 reconstruction, and it remained Republican when most of the South reverted to the Democratic Party. 180

TABLE?

TROOP STRENGTHS, 1861-1865

CONFEDERATE

PRESENT PRESENT A

SEPTEMBER 1861 10,194 11,457

DECEMBER 1861 12,128 16,183

APRIL 1862 12,705 19,199

JUNE 1862 16,303 24,895

DECEMBER 1862 9,268 15,435

FEBRUARY 1863 11,875 18,761

APRIL 1863 17,678 26,554

JULY 1863 17,814 26,400

UNION

NOVEMBER 1863 30,352 44,723

FEBRUARY 1864 30,416 52,463

SEPTEMBER 1864 25,545 38,567

DECEMBER 1864 8,207 10,376

FEBRUARY 1865 7,535 9,675

MARCH 1865 14,267 18,558 181

NOTES

1. Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri Durinp the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Stephen V. Ash: Middle Tennessee Society Transformed. 1860-1870: War and Peace in the Upper South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988); Paul D, Escott, Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina. 1850-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985).

2. Oliver P. Temple, Notable Men of Tennessee from 1833 to 1875 (New York: The Cosmopolitan Press, 1912), pp. 79-80, 94-100; Thurman Sensing, Champ Ferguson. Confederate Guerrilla (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1942), pp. 2-11.

3. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, March 23, April 2, 1862, Letters and Telegrams Sent, Department of East Tennessee, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major General Simon B. Buckner to Hon. J. H. Reagan, Postmaster, July 28,1863, Letters and Telegrams Sent, Department of East Tennessee, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Charles F. Bryan, "The Civil War in East Tennessee: A Social, Political, and Economic Study," unpublished dissertation. University of Tennessee, 1978, pp. 190-198.

4. Georgia Lee Tatum, Disloyaltv in the Confederacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934), pp. 32-35, 107-135, 143-155.

5. Franklin Gaillard to Maria Gaillard, New Market, February 1864, Franklin Gaillard Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; William Cole to Cornelia Cole, Wartrace, June 24, 1863, William Cole Letters, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Brigadier General John H. Morgan to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, July 1, 1864, Department of East Tennessee, Letters, Orders, Circulars, April 1863-October 1864, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Lieutenant Colonel J. I. Daniel to Colonel H. G. Gibson, Tellico Mountain, [1865], Lieutenant G. A. Deal to Colonel H. G. Gibson, Tellico Mountain, April 3, 1865, Second Brigade, Fourth Division, Department of the 182 Cumberland, Letters and Telegrams Received, 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Charles Cruft to Major T, A, Reeve, Greeneville, June 8, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Sent, May-September 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; J. S. Hurlbut, History of the Rebellion in Bradley County. East Tennessee (Indianapolis: Downey & Brouse, 1866), pp. 129-130. For general discussions of desertion in this area, see Ella Lonn, Desertion During the Civil War (New York: The Century Co., 1928), pp. 25,62-63,79; Albert Burton Moore, Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1924), pp. 152, 219-21; Paul D. Escott, Manv Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina. 1850-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), pp. 76-81; Philip Shaw Paludan, Victims: A True Storv of the Civil War (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981), pp. 70-75, 84-85.

6. Brigadier General E. H. Hobson to Captain A, C. Semple, Columbia, Kentucky, December 22, 1863, OR 31, 3, p. 469; Brigadier General John C. Vaughn to Colonel David M. Key, Strawberry Plains, November 19, 1864, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Colonel Allston, Cades Cove, June 1,1862, Department of East Termessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Colonel John H. Morgan to Major General Edmund Kirby Smith, Tompkinsville, Kentucky, July 9, 1862, OR 16, 1, p. 766; Colonel Robert K. Byrd to Major General Ulysses S. Grant, ïüngston, November 19, 1863, OR 31, 3, pp. 193-94; Colonel William B. Stokes to Captain B. H. Polk, Sparta, February 24, 1864, March 28, 1864, OR 32, 1, pp. 416-17, 494-95; Department of the Cumberland, Special Field Orders No. 141, May 22, 1864, OR 52, 1, p. 555; John S. Daniel, Jr., "Special Warfare in Middle Termessee and Surrounding Areas, 1861-1862," unpublished thesis. University of Termessee, 1971, pp. 41-42, 143-45, 154; Thomas William Humes, The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee (Knoxville: Ogden Brothers, 1888), p. 392. See also Fellman, Inside War, pp. 81, 97-106.

7. Humes, Mountaineers, p. 229; David S. Stanley, West-Stanley-Wright Family Memoirs, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Permsylvania.

8. Brigadier General George W. Morgan to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Cumberland Ford, May 24, 1862, OR 10, 2, p. 213; Morgan to Andrew Johnson, Cumberland Ford, May 24,1862, Leroy P. Graf and Ralph Haskins, The Papers of Andrew Papers. 9 vols. (Knoxville: University of Termessee Press, 1967), vol. 5, pp. 415-16; Temple, Notable Men, pp. 94-100; Hurlbut, Bradlev County, pp. 68-77; James W. Livingood, A History of Hamilton County. Tennessee (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1981), pp. 157-61; Major General Edmund lürby 183 Smith to Brigadier General Henry Heth, Knoxville, August 10, 1862, Smith to Colonel S. J. Smith, Knoxville, August 23, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Colonel James R. Howard to Major General Edmund Kirby Smith, Jamestown, October 17, 1862, OR 16, 1, p. 1143; Colonel William Clift to "Adjutant General, United States Army," Somerset, Kentucky, October 28, 1862, OR 16, 1, pp. 858-59; Major General Braxton Bragg to President Jefferson Davis, Chickamauga, October 28, 1863, OR 52, 2, p. 548.

9. Major General John M. Schofield to Major George W. Kirk, Knoxville, February 13, 1864, Army of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Special Orders No. 44, Department of the Ohio, February 13, 1864, OR 52, 1, p. 517; Fourth Division, Department of the Cumberland, Special Field Orders No. 7, April 3,1864, Second Brigade, Fourth Division, Department of the Cumberland, Special Orders, March- September 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Schofield to Kirk, Knoxville, June 12, 1864, Army of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Assistant Adjutant General Robert Morrow to Schofield, Knoxville, July 15, 1864, Schofield to Kirk, Atlanta, July 24, 1864, Army of the Ohio, Letters Sent, May 1864-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Davis Tillson to Lieutenant Colonel G. W. Bascom, Knoxville, January 17, 1865, OR 45, 2, pp. 608-09. For Kirk’s reputation, see S. A. Key to "Kendree," Washington County, January 11,1864, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Assistant Adjutant General G. M. Sorrel to Colonel J. B. Palmer, Greeneville, March 26, 1864, Letters Sent, Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s Command, January 1864-February 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; L. Cowles to Mary, Wilksboro, July 24, 1864, Calvin J. Cowles Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; Colonel William Holland Thomas to Colonel J. B. Palmer, Quallatown, North Carolina, August 24, 1864, William Holland Thomas Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; William G. Allen Memoir, p. 1, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Wilma Dykeman, The French Broad (New York and Toronto: Rhinehart & Company, Inc., 1955), p. 117.

10. Daniel Ellis, Thrilling Adventures of Daniel Ellis (New York: Harper, 1867), pp. 289-305. For the Union Home Guard, see Chapter 5, pp. 309-13, 315- 18.

11. Colonel Alex M. Wallace to his wife, Blaine’s Cross Roads, October 26, 1862, Colonel Alex M. Wallace Letters, Lewis Leigh Collection, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Captain John M. 184 Shrady to his wife, Knoxville, September 4,1864, John M. Shrady Letters, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Albert A. Pope Diary, p. 138, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Major General D. S. Stanley to Major General George Thomas, Knoxville, April 20, 1865, OR 49, 2, p. 414; District of East Tennessee, Special Orders No. 20, April 20, 1865, OR 49, 2, p. 420; Captain John Shrady to his wife, Rogersville, November 1, 1863, John Shrady Letters, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; George P. Hawkes Diary, December 26, 1863, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Assistant Adjutant General Robert Morrow to Major General John M Schofield, Knoxville, July 15, 1864, Army of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major Thomas H. Reeve to Lieutenant P. S, Abbot, Kingston, July 9,1864, July 20,1864, OR 39,1, pp. 351-52; 353-54.

12. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Lieutenant Colonel W. L. Eakin, Captain William H. Thomas, and Captain W. C. Kain, Knoxville, July 1, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March- September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major General Simon B. Buckner to Brigadier General A. Greeley, Knoxville, May 20, 1863, Department of East Tennessee, Telegrams Sent, April 1863-September 1864, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major General Dabney H. Maurey to Major General Joseph E. Johnston, Knoxville, May 11, 1863, Department of East Tennessee, Letters, Orders, Circulars, April 1863-October 1864, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Campbell Wallace and John R. Braemen to President Jefferson Davis, Knoxville, July 17, 1863, Jefferson Davis Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; Davis to Major General Braxton Bragg, Richmond, September 10, 1863, OR 52, 2, p. 524.

13. Major General O. O. Howard to Major General William T. Sherman, Athens, December 9, 1863, OR 31, 3, pp. 364-65; Lieutenant Colonel M. S. Patterson to Brigadier General Jacob Ammen, Loudon, June 19, 1864, George M. Lyons to Ammen, Sweetwater, December 2, 1864, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Suzanne Colton Wilson, compiler. Column South: With the Fifteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, edited by J. Ferrell Colton and Antoinette G. Smith (Flagstaff: J. F. Colton & Co., 1960), p. 170; Captain John Shrady to his wife, Knoxville, July 20,1864, John Shrady Letters, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville. See also Assistant Adjutant General S. Kauffman to Brigadier General Davis Tillson, Nashville, February 26, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; W. H. Watterson to his father, Mill Springs, 185 Kentucky, December 17, 1861, Watterson Family Papers, McCIung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

14. Colonel Alex M. Wallace to his wife, Tazewell, August 15, 1862, Alex M. Wallace Letters, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; James Bennett McCrey Diary, November 13, November 17, 1862, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; Stephen F. Whitaker to his wife. Carter’s Depot, August 13, 1862, Stephen F. Whitaker Letters, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; Paul Turner Vaughn to his father, Morristown, January 20,1864, Paul Turner Vaughn Letters, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; David F. Beatty to Matty Patton, Elk River, June 9, 1864, Boren Family Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

15. Colonel Henry M. Doak Memoirs, pp. 17-18, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Thomas B. Hill to his father, Chattanooga, August 18, 1862, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; J. C. Gruar to his wife, Blountville, March 20, 1864, J. C. Gruar Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Colonel Baxter Smith, "History of the Regiment", pp. 6-7, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Permsylvania. See also William G. Allen Memoirs, November 6,1864, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

16. John W. Rowell, Yankee Cavalrymen (Knoxville: University of Termessee Press, 1971), pp. 60-61; Colonel Edward McCook to Brigadier General Edward E. Potter, Motley’s Ford, February 13, 1864, OR 32, 2, pp. 386-87; L. S. Trowbridge, A Brief History of the Tenth Michigan Cavalry (Detroit: Friesman Brothers, 1905), pp. 18-19; Wilson, Column South, pp. 205-06; Colonel C. G. Howley to Captain W. B. Arrnnen, Dandridge, January 8,1865, OR 45,2, pp. 551- 52; Thomas Smith Hutton Diary, February 21, 1865, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville. See also A. J. Williams, Confederate Historv of Polk Countv. Tennessee. 1860-1866 (Nashville: McQuiddy Printing Company, 1923), pp. 27-28; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Colonel W. Y. Dillard, Knoxville, July 19, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Termessee, Press Copies of Telegrams Sent, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; James Bermett McCrey Diary, October 12, 1862, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham.

17. Lieutenant Colonel George R. McClelland to Colonel William B. Wood, Camp McGinnis, November 9,1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Termessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, April 186 19, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March- September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Ethel Freytag and Glenn Krels Ott, A History of Morgan Countv. Tennessee (Knoxville: Specialty Printing Company, 1971), p. 53.

18. Sensing, Ferguson: Amanda McDowell Bums and Lela M. Blakenship, Fiddles on the Cumberland (New York: Richard R. Smith Co., 1943); Colonel Robert K. Bird to Major General George Thomas, Loudon, Febmary 27, 1864, OR 32, 1, p. 485.

19. Lieutenant Colonel James P. Brownlow to Colonel A. P. Campbell, Sparta, November 25, 1863, Brownlow to Campbell, Sparta, December 1, 1863, OR 31, 1, p. 573,591; William Randolph Carter, History of the First Regiment of Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry in the Great War of the Rebellion (Knoxville: Gant- Ogden, 1902), pp. 109-11; Andrew Johnson to Major General William S. Rosecrans, Nashville, October 12, 1863, OR 30, 4, p. 308; Major General George Thomas to Johnson, Chattanooga, January 10, 1864, OR 32, 3, pp. 64-65; Department of the Cumberland, Special Field Orders No. 24, January 24, 1864, OR 52, 1, p. 513; Colonel William B. Stokes to Captain B. H. Polk, Sparta, Febmary 24, 1864, Stokes to Polk, Sparta, March 28, 1864, OR 32, 1, pp. 416-17, 494-95; Department of the Cumberland, Special Field Orders No. 141, May 22, 1864, OR 52, 1, p. 555; Major Thomas A. Reeve to Lieutenant P. S. Abbot, Kingston, July 20, 1864, OR 39, 1, pp. 353-54.

20. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Colonel William Mackell, Knoxville, March 14,1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

21. Alex D. Coffee to his wife, Cumberland Gap, November 3, 1861, Alex D. Coffee Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.

22. Franklin Gaillard to Maria Gaillard, Sweetwater, November 10, 1863, Franklin Gaillard Papers, Southem Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.

23. Major John Morgan Brown to Colonel Samuel A. Gilbert, Danville, Kentucky, January 3, 1863, OR 20, 1, pp. 159-61; Wilson, Column South, p. 140.

24. Major John M. Brown to Colonel Samuel A. Gilbert, Danville, Kentucky, January 3, 1863, OR 20, 1, pp. 159-61; Major General Ambrose Burnside to Colonel Foster, Knoxville, September 4, 1863, Army of the Ohio, 187 Letters Sent, August 1863-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Captain John Shrady to his wife, Rogersville, November 1, 1863, John Shrady Letters, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Hugh T. Carlisle Reminiscences, p. 130, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

25. Basil Duke, A History of Morgan's Cavalry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1960), pp. 123-24,164; James Bennett McCrey Diary, January 20, 1863, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Captain W. C. Eblen, Knoxville, May 20,1862, Department of East Termessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March- September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

26. Oliver P. Temple, East Termessee and the Civil War (Cincirmati: The Robert Clarks Company, Publishers, 1899). pp. 498-510; Humes, Mountaineers. pp. 262-64; Orlando M. Poe, Personal Recollections of the Occupation of East Termessee (Detroit: Ostler Printing Company, 1889), p. 47; Dykeman, French Broad, pp. 104-07; Betsy Beeler Creekmore, Knoxville (Knoxville: University of Termessee Press, 1952), pp. 101-02, 108-09; Major General Ambrose Burnside to Colonel James Biddle, ïôioxville, November 21,1863, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Letters Sent, June 1863- May 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

27. Sarah Thompson, "Morgan’s Defeat by Sarah Thompson, herself," Statements by Second Lieutenant John G. Johnson, January 10, 1875, Lieutenant Edward J. Brooks, April 13,1876, Military Governor Andrew Johnson, November 7, 1864, Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter, January 15,1878, Edward J. Brooks and Sarah E. Thompson, Office of the Commissioner of Claims, April 13, 1876, John B. Brownlow to Hon. W. W. Dudley, Commander of Pensions, July 7, 1882, Sarah Thompson to Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman, April 19, 1879, Sarah Thompson Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham. For an alternate account of Morgan’s death, see David S. Stanley, West-Stanley-Wright Memoirs, pp. 331-333, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Cecil Fletcher Holland, Morgan and His Raiders (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1942), discounts this and all other stories of Morgan being betrayed as tales from which there is no evidence and as virtually impossible feats. However, because there is so much testimony to Thompson’s claim, and because it is consistent with other Unionist activities, it is included as a possible incident.

28. Carter, First Tennessee, p. 16; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 184-85; "Morgan’s Defeat by Sarah Thompson, herself," Sarah Thompson Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; 188 Hannibal Paine to Oliver Paine, Dalton, Georgia, July 18, 1864, Paine Family Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville. See also "Received at Knoxville, October 18, 1861, By (JG) from Jamestown, Term to Col. G. R. McClelland," Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Lieutenant Colonel G. R. McClelland, Camp Buckner, October 28, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25,1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Chauncey B. Welton to his parents, Greeneville, September 13,1863, Welton Letters, Southem Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. For accounts of women acting as spies and other types of auxiliaries, see Lyde Cullen Sizer, "Acting Her Part: Narratives of Union Women Spies," in Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber, eds.. Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 114-33; Bynum, Unmly Women, pp. 130-50; Bell Irvin Wiley, Confederate Women (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1975).

29. Assistant Adjutant General W. P. Anderson to Brigadier General E. E. Potter, Knoxville, January 21, 1864, Army of the Ohio, Telegrams Sent, December 1863-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders No. 9, July 1, 1864; Mary Jane Reynolds to S. B. Reynolds, Loudon, May 1, 1864, Reynolds Letters, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

30. Horace Kephart, Our Southem Highlanders (New York: Outing Publishing Company, 1913), p. 124.

31. ibid, p. 130.

32. Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 198-99; Ellis, Adventures, passim; Reminiscences of Chris D. Livesay, p. 3, Chris D. Livesay Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; John G. Barrett, Civil War in North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963), pp. 237-39; Alex D. Coffee to his wife, Wartburg, November 20, 1861, Alex D. Coffee Papers, Southem Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Colonel William B. Wood to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Knoxville, November 4, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Hurlbut, Bradley, pp. 213-18; "Statement," Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter, December 31, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 426-28; Lieutenant Colonel Edward Maynard to Dr. Pick, Lee County, Virginia, July 6,1862, Horace Maynard Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; James M. Skelton to Emily, Loudon, August 10, 1862, James 189 M Skelton Letters, Southem Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; William Williams Stringfield, "History of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment of North Carolina Volunteers," North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh.

33. Paludan, Victims, pp. 66-67; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Adjutant and Inspector GenerM Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, April 2, 1862, Smith to Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter, Knoxville, April 12, 1862, Letters and Telegrams Sent, Department of East Tennessee, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, Nation^ Archives, Washington, D.C.

34. Ellis, Adventures.

35. Robert A. Ragan, Escape from East Tennessee to the Federal Lines (Washington: J. H. Dony, 1910), pp. 12-36; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 159-63,357- 63.

36. Ragan, Escape, pp. 12-36; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 159-63, 165-66, 357-63; Ellis, Adventures: Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 424-25, 470; Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Colonel William B. Wood, Jonesboro, November 12, 1861, 2SoUicoffer to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Jacksborough, November 14, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; D. L. Boren to John C. and David A. Boren, Knoxville, June 17, 1864, Boren Family Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Christopher L. Johnsen to Andrew Johnson, Cumberland Gap, August 8, 1862, Johnson Papers, vol 5., pp. 599-600; Thomas Doak Edington Memoirs, pp. 15-16, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Captain John M. Carmek to Colonel John E. Toole, Athens, January 27,1862, OR n, 1, pp. 878-79; Brigadier General George W. Morgan to Captain Oliver D. Greene, Cumberland Ford, April 19, 1862, OR 10, 2, p. 114; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Lieutenant Julius M. Rhett, Knoxville, April 23, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

37. Thomas Doak Edington Diary, March 2-7, 1862, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville.

38. Ragan, Escape, pp. 12-36.

39. Edward Maynard to Horace Maynard, Camp Dick Robinson, September 1, 1861, Horace Maynard Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Colonel William B. Wood to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Knoxville, November 4, 1861, OR II, 1, p. 837; Carter, First 190 Tennessee, p. 19; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Captain J. B, Fry, Cumberland Ford, March 9,1862, OR 10, 2, p. 23; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Major T. A. Washington, Knoxville, April 26,1862, OR 10,2, pp. 453-54; David C. Bradley to his mother. Camp Nelson, August 10,1863, David C. Bradley Letters, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Charles C. Anderson, Fighting by Southern Fédérais (New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1912), p. 11; Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. 4 vols. (New York: Thomas Yosiloff, 1959), vol. 1, pp. 11-12; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Governor Isham G. Harris, Knoxville, May 29, 1862, Kirby Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina library. Chapel Hill. See also Major General Simon B. Bucloier to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, August 4,1863, OR 23, 2, p. 950; Benjamin T. Staples to Andrew Johnson, Jamestown, Kentucky, August 16, 1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 681-82; Colonel Danville Leadbetter to Cooper, Greeneville, January 21, January 26,1862, OR II, 1, pp. 877-78; J.G.M. Ramsey to President Jefferson Davis, Knoxville, January 24, 1862, OR 52, 2, pp. 256-67; Kirby Smith to Brigadier General C. L. Stevenson, Knoxville, April 21, 1862, Department of East Teimessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March- September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.

40. Joseph H. Parks, General Edmund Kirbv Smith. C.S.A. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1954), p. 171; Twenty-Third Army Corps, Special Orders No. I ll, November 13, 1863, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Special Orders and Circulars, June 1863-May 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Ellis, Adventures.

41. See Chapter Four, pp. 278-79.

42. Major General Albert Sidney Johnston to Governor Isham G. Harris, Nashville, November 19,1861, OR 4, p. 564; A. G. Graham to President Jefferson Davis, Jonesboro, November 12,1861, OR 4, p. 239; Colonel Danville Leadbetter to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Greeneville, December 24, 1861, OR 7, p. 791; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Major T. A. Washington, Knoxville, April 3,1862, Department of East Tennessee, litte rs and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Alfred E. Jackson to Secretary of War James A. Seddon, Bristol, September 3, 1863, OR 30, 4, p. 589; Franklin Gaillard to Maria, Greeneville, March 27,1864, Franklin Gaillard Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.

43. Clifton R. Hall, Andrew Johnson: Militarv Governor of Tennessee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1916), pp. 16, 196. 191 44. General Orders No. 5, August 29, 1861, General Orders No. 7, September 7,1861, General Orders No. 10, September 10, 1861, General Orders No. 11, August 26, 1861, General Orders No. 12, September 1, 1861, General Orders No. 13, September 12, 1861, General Orders No. 14, September 14, 1861, General Orders No. 15, September 19, 1861, Circulars, Letters, Orders Issued by Various Commands, Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, East Tennessee Brigade, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Colonel William F. Baldwin, Knoxville, September 1, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Teimessee, October 14-November 25,1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.

45. G. M. Hall to Callie, Kingston, March 23, 1862, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, April 19, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March- September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.

46. Alex D. Coffee to his wife, Cumberland Gap, November 3, 1861, Alex D. Coffee Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Fuller Manly to his parents, Knoxville, August 26,1862, Basil Manly (Sr.) Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Elvie Eagleton Skipper, "Stray Thoughts: The Civil War Diary of Elvie Eagleton Skipper," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 40 (1968): 131; 41 (1969): 119-120, 126.

47. "Biographical Sketch," John Brown Rodgers Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Reminiscences of Chris D. Livesay, p. 39, Chris D. Livesay Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Colonel Robert K. Byrd to Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter, Kingston, May 2, 1864, District of East Tennessee, Letters Received, 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Carter to Thomas Sanderson, Knoxville, October 29, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; 20 citizens and 16 officers and men of the Seventh Tennessee Mounted Infantry to Brigadier General Davis Tillson, Athens, March 18,1865, District of East Tennessee, Letters Received, 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also Carter to Colonel W. Y. Dillard, Knoxville, October 3, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Telegrams Sent, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; D. G. Humphreys to John C. Boren, Knoxville, July 1, 1864, Boren Family Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Bums, Fiddles, p 272; Livingood, Hamilton Countv. p. 200. 192 48. Abraham Jobe Memoirs, pp. 136-37, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Stephen F. Whitaker to his father. Carter’s Depot, August 2, 1863, Stephen F. Whitaker Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; Reminiscences of Chris D. Livesay, p. 2, Chris D. Livesay Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Mary Jane Reynolds to S. B. Reynolds, Loudon, January 26, 1864, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

49. Captain J. W. Branson to Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter, n. p., August 8,1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Teimessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Destiny to Assistant Adjutant General W. P. Ammen, Loudon, December 14,1864, Telegrams Received, District of East Tennessee, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Speed S. Fry to Captain J. S. Butler, Camp Nelson, Kentucky, December 2, 1864, OR 45, 2, p. 28; Peter Smith to Wilham B. Reynolds, Cleveland, January 17, 1865, William B. Reynolds Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham.

50. Hurlbut, Bradley Countv. pp. 130-33, and Appendix, pp. 6-13; Roy G. Lillard, Bradley Countv (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1980), pp. 63- 64; Williams, Polk County, p. 28; Colonel Horace Boughton to Captain H. A. Ford, Cleveland, November 30, 1864, OR 45, 1, p. 1193.

51. Shepherd M. Dugger. The War Trails of the Blue Ridge (Banner Elk: North Carolina Pudding Stone Press, 1932), pp. 112-17.

52. Ellis, Adventures, pp. 261-65.

53. Freytag and Ott, Morgan Countv. pp. 54-55; Robert A. Ragan to his wife. Mossy Creek, March 29,1864, Robert A. Ragan Letters, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Abraham Grubb to John P. Brownlow, Stewartsville, Indiana, July 6, 1863, John P. Brownlow Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; M.B.C. Ramsey to Robert, Knoxville, July 10, 1861, Ramsey Family Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Carrie Stakely to Margaret, Knoxville, August 12, 1861, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; R. P. Wells to T.A.R. Nelson, Jonesboro, April 11, 1862, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Bryan, "East Tennessee," pp. 274- 76.

54. Bryan, "East Tennessee," pp. 273-74, 284-89. 193 55. Major General Simon B. Buckner to Brigadier General Alfred E. Jackson, Knoxville, July 29,1863, Department of East Tennessee, Letters, Orders, Circulars, April 1863-October 1864, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Major General George C. Stoneman to Colonel H. G. Gibson, Knoxville, May 15, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Letters Sent, April 1864- March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to "Comdg. Officer S Plains," Knoxville, October 17, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Telegrams Sent, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Bums and Blakenship, Fiddles, p. 228.

56. William Williams Stringfield, "History of the Sixty-Ninth North Carolina," p. 65, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; Colonel Robert K. Byrd to Major General George Thomas, Loudon, February 27, 1864, OR 32, 1, p. 485; Lieutenant George W. Ross to Brigadier General Davis Tillson, Athens, January 29, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Captain Thomas A. Stevenson to Captain Dean, Athens, January 31,1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Stevenson to Brigadier General Davis Tillson, Knoxville, February 3,1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Temple, Notable Men, pp. 150-51.

57. Daniel, "Special Warfare," pp. 146-48,153-54; Colonel John M. Hughes to Captain Walter Weir, Dalton, Georgia, September 8, 1863, OR 30, 2, pp. 646- 47; Hughes to Weir, Dalton, Georgia, Febmary 14, 1864, OR 32, 1, pp. 55-57; James Bennett McCrey Diary, January 29,1863, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; David Stanley, West-Stanley-Wright Memoirs, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Peimsylvania; Bums, Fiddles, pp. 59-61, 269.

58. Andrew Jackson Fletcher to Oliver P. Temple, Greeneville, July 26, 1861, October 15, 1861, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Teimessee Library, Knoxville; Temple, Notable Men, pp. 123-27.

59. Temple, Notable Men, p. 70.

60. Dr. J.G.M. Ramsey, "History of Lebanon Presbyterian Church," September 26, 1875, Church Records, Knox County, Teimessee, Lebanon Presbyterian Church, Teimessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

61. Brigadier General John Pegram to Colonel J. J. Morrison, July 1,1863, Department of East Teimessee, Letters, Orders, Circulars, April 1863-October 194 1864, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Humes, Mountaineers, p. 209; Captain H. H. Thomas to Captain William Reynolds, Knoxville, December 6, 1863, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Brigadier General Samuel D. Sturgis to Colonel Robert K. Byrd, Knoxville, January 6, 1864, Department of the Ohio, Letters Sent, 1861-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Lieutenant Colonel Frank S. Curtis to Captain W. P. Ammen, Loudon, January 4,1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Lieutenant Colonel William C. Bartlett to Brigadier General Davis Tillson, Jacksborough, February 22, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. John C. Williams to Rufus Williams, Knoxville, September 22, 1864, Rufus Williams Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; William Clift to his wife, Soddy, April 17, 1864, William Clift Letters, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Captain J. M. Gallagher to Colonel Scott, Knoxville, May 24, 1864, Department of East Tennessee, Letters, Orders, Circulars, April 1863-October 1864, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Henry R. Camp, Sequatchie County (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1984), pp. 61-62; Brigadier General James G. Spears to Captain E. D. Saunders, Sevier Hill, February 4, 1864, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Letters Received, 1863-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

62. Wyatt Lipscomb to Mr. Lenoir, Limestone Springs, February 4, 1865, Lenoir Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; M. S. Temple to Oliver P. Temple, August 31, 1864, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; A. S. Shrady, J. D. Moore, J. P. Moore, and J. H. Moore to William G. Brownlow, Hamilton County, March 18, 1865, William G. Brownlow Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Colonel Crawford, Knoxville, October 28, 1863, Provost Marshal General, District of East Teimessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C; Captain H. H. Thomas to Lieutenant S. F. Shaw, Knoxville, November 19, 1863, Provost Marshal General, District of East Teimessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Colonel W. Y. Dillard to W. P. Ammen, Cumberland Gap, October 7, 1864, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National ^Archives, Washington, D C.; District of East Tennessee, General Orders No. 56, June 10, 1865, General Orders No. 57, August 2, 1865, District of East Tennessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; "State vs. William 195 Brazelton," April 1867, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

63. Mary Jane Reynolds to S. B. Reynolds, Loudon, [February 1864], February 26, 1864, Reynolds Letters, Teimessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Colonel Dunlop, Knoxville, January 15, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Teimessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; William Sloan Diary, March 15, March 16, August 11, 1864, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

64. Thomas B. Alexander, "Neither Peace Nor War: Conditions in Teimessee in 1865," East Teimessee Historical Society Publications 21 (1949): 33- 51; James B. Campbell, "East Tennessee During the Federal Occupation, 1863- 1865," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 19 (1947): 64-80. See also Chapter 5, pp. 419-31.

65. Colonel H. G. Gibson to "commanding officer 7th Term. Vol. Inf.," Knoxville, March 21, 1865, OR 49, 2, pp. 46-47. CHAPTER IV

"THE IÆNIENCY SHOWN THEM HAS BEEN UNAVAILING"

Even before Tennessee had officially separated from the Union,

Confederate troops began to occupy the eastern counties. Secessionist leaders started organizing regular regiments and Home Guard companies in early May, and in July units from Middle Tennessee arrived to reinforce them. The

Confederate presence expanded throughout the summer, and by August the

Confederacy had established formal control of East Tennessee. Acquiring effective control, however, was another matter. Confederate forces had to contend not only with the threat of Northern invasion, but also with a population that was hostile, well organized, and prepared to wage an unorthodox war. For over two years Southern forces kept the rebellious population in check and East

Tennessee in the Confederacy, but real control of the population remained far out of their grasp. [1]

Three factors limited the ability of Confederate forces in East Tennessee to end Unionist resistance. The first was the relative strategic insignificance of this department. In the scope of the whole conflict East Tennessee was a backwater theater and a region of limited value. It held no major cities, ports, or rivers that demanded defense, and politically its influence was small. Likewise,

196 197 while East Teimessee possessed significant copper deposits, an important resource,

its overall agricultural and industrial output were modest.

Only three factors gave the Department some leverage in the competition for resources. One of the Confederacy’s only two trunk lines connecting the Gulf states with Virginia ran directly through the East Tennessee Valley. In 1861 and

1862 these lines sent thousands of deep South recruits to the defense of Richmond and'gave the Confederacy the capacity to shuttle troops between the eastern and western theaters. [2] Second, East Tennessee guarded the approach to Georgia, and Northern forces could not invade that critical state until they had secured

Knoxville and Chattanooga. Finally, Confederate control of East Tennessee had symbolic importance. The Unionist movement provided concrete evidence of a divided Confederacy and was thus an embarrassment to the Richmond government. These factors were not insignificant, and between November 1861 and October 1862 the Confederate government devoted considerable resources and attention to East Tennessee. But when Confederate defenses began to crack and the economy began to contract, other theaters took precedence. Thus the

East Tennessee command was constantly short on manpower and supplies, and department commanders had to chose between external defense and internal policing.

A second problem was lack of consistency in Confederate policy. This weakness stemmed partly from policy shifts in Richmond, but it also resulted from the rapid turnover of department commanders. In the twenty-eight months that 198 the Confederacy held formal control of East Tennessee eight different men headed the department. The longest tenure, that of General Edmund Kirby

Smith, was ten months; the shortest was seventeen days. [3] This revolving door of command prevented both the effective implementation of consistent policies and the establishment of trust, or at least understanding, between the commander and the rebellious population. Promising initiatives lapsed, and Unionists eventually felt themselves unable to trust any Confederate pronouncements.

A final difficulty was the attitudes of the officers and men stationed in this theater. The people of East Tennessee had a reputation for being ignorant and primitive, a reputation enhanced by their disloyalty, and most Confederate officers and men despised the people they were sent to govern. Furthermore, East

Tennessee was far from the major battlefields of the war, and there was little glory to be won there. Occupation duty was uninteresting and demoralizing, and the majority of soldiers who recorded their opinions hated service in East Tennessee and were glad to leave. These attitudes made it difficult for Confederate forces to act as a reconciling agent.

Confederate policy toward East Tennessee passed through four phases.

The first. May through November 1861, was characterized by leniency and restraint. Rather than harshly suppressing dissent. Confederate authorities attempted to persuade the Unionists voluntarily to accept Confederate rule. The second phase was a reaction to the November uprising and constituted a complete shift in policy. Angered by the failure of leniency. Confederate authorities threw 199 off all restraints and attempted to destroy the Unionist resistance and terrorize the population into submission. In the third phase, March through September 1862,

Confederate pohcy oscillated between conciliation and coercion. Confederate authorities carried out a second major campaign to win the loyalties of the population, but this attempt was far more cautious than the first. Southern patience was ebbing, and Confederate leaders displayed an increasing determination to force East Tennessee to function as a part of the Confederacy.

The final phase, which emerged sometime late in 1862, revealed a dangerous change in Confederate attitudes. Increasingly the authorities referred to the people of East Tennessee not as Confederate citizens but as enemies, and those who would not submit were harassed, imprisoned, or driven out the state.

CONCILIATION

The first man appointed to command the Department of East Tennessee,

Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, reflected Confederate policy in the war’s first year. Both Governor Isham G. Harris and President Jefferson Davis had received numerous reports that the resistance in East Tennessee was due primarily to the malignant influence of a few leaders, particularly Andrew Johnson and

T.A.R. Nelson, and to the misapprehensions that they had created. Harris and

Davis believed, therefore, that if handled properly the Eastern Unionists might yet convert willingly to the Southern cause. Thus Harris urged the Richmond 200 government to station as few forces in East Tennessee as possible, to limit those

troops to Tennessee regiments, and to appoint as commander a moderate and prudent man. Governor Harris also drew Davis’ attention to the fact that the first three Tennesseans appointed generals were all Democrats and all from Middle

Tennessee. This imbalance had already aroused criticism and discontent, and

Harris claimed that if it were not corrected his own administration might be damaged. Thus the governor requested that the next commissions go to former

Whigs and occupants of West and East Tennessee. [4]

Except for residence, Zollicoffer perfectly fit these criteria, for he was the model of a Southern moderate. Zollicoffer had begun his political career as a journalist, and after working on smaller papers in Columbia and Knoxville had reached the position of assistant editor of the Nashville Republican Banner, one of the most powerful Whig organs in the state. By the early 1840s he had achieved a reputation as a kingmaker in the Tennessee Whig party, though this was probably exaggerated. In 1849 Zollicoffer switched to a professional political career. He first served one term in the Tennessee Senate; then from 1853 through

1859 he represented Tennessee’s pivotal Eighth District in the United States

House. When the secession crisis emerged in 1860 Zollicoffer used all his influence for compromise. He helped organize the Constitutional Union Party and stumped his district for John Bell, He also represented Tennessee in the

Washington Peace Conference and campaigned against secession in the February referendum. Like many other Southern Unionists, Zollicoffer clung to the Union 201 until the outbreak of fighting left him no choice: "I would have given all I had to preserve the Union, and the rights and honor of the South. But our reasonable demands were refused-equality and security of rights denied us . . Elsewhere he asserted that "we must not, cannot, stand neutral and see our Southern brothers butchered." In spite of his own shift, however, Zollicoffer remained sensitive to the fears of Southern Unionists, and this, in addition to the fact that he was personally acquainted with many of the Eastern leaders, made him the perfect choice to command this difficult region. Thus in July 1861 the Confederate War

Department appointed Zollicoffer a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army and sent him to Knoxville. [5]

Zollicoffer’s initial orders carefully set out Richmond’s priorities in East

Tennessee. Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin made clear that his primary responsibility was to secure the rail lines in his Department and block Northern attempts to smuggle arms into the region. His second assigmnent was to prevent the Unionists from building political and military organizations and if necessary aid the civil authorities in suppressing treason. At the same time, Benjamin instructed Zollicoffer to attempt to win back the rebellious population and create public support for the Confederacy. How the new commander was to juggle these multiple and competing responsibilities, the Secretary of War did not specify. [6]

One of Zollicoffer’s first major acts upon taking conunand was to issue a general proclamation. East Tennesseans would hear many of these, but

Zollicoffer’s was the most sincere and carefully argued appeal that they would 202 ever receive. Zollicoffer first made clear that he would tolerate no resistance. He stated unequivocally that the Confederate government considered the June referendum to be final and binding, and guaranteed that he would immediately suppress any rebellious activities. But Zollicoffer then attempted to calm Unionist fears concerning Confederate rule: "No man’s rights, property, or privileges shall be disturbed. All who desire peace can have peace, by quietly and harmlessly pursuing their lawful avocation." If Unionists refrained from giving aid to the

North, they would be allowed to go on with their normal lives. Though not specifically presented as such, what Zollicoffer offered the Unionists was a kind of middle ground, a stance of neutrality. He demanded no service or evidence of loyalty; all he asked was that the Unionists not actively take the Northern side.

At this point Zollicoffer was willing to tolerate Unionist sentiments as long as they did not lead to rebellious actions. Finally, the new commander pointed out that the result of continued resistance would be civil war within East Tennessee. [7]

Zollicoffer made real attempts to put these principles of tolerance into action. In spite of mounting criticism by local secessionists, he allowed Brownlow to continue publication of the Whig, even when the editor defiantly turned out a steady stream of editorials ridiculing Confederate pretensions to greatness, accusing the War Department of corruption, and questioning the courage of local secessionists who declined to enlist. [8] Zollicoffer also enforced strict discipline among his troops. He ordered his men to treat the population with respect, and he attempted to minimize contact between Confederate troops and civilians by 203 confining soldiers to their camps. [9] Finally, Zollicoffer maintained friendly relations with many Knoxville Unionists. According to one account, he refused to punish Unionists whose letters to Northerners had been intercepted by postal authorities, and he welcomed old Whig acquaintances who came to see him. [10]

Other Confederate authorities also attempted to woo the wayward

Unionists. In late July Major General Leonidas Polk persuaded four Tennessee moderates-Colonel Robertson Topp, Judge J. Caruthers, Dr. Jeptha Folk, and

D.M. Leatherman-to undertake a "peace mission" to East Tennessee. Polk suggested that they attempt to convince Unionists that Southern troops were in

East Tennessee only to prevent Northern invasion and that Confederate rule posed no threat to their interests. [11] At about the same time President Davis appointed A. M. Lea an "emissary" to East Tennessee and instructed him to work out some kind of reconciliation. [12] These men made strenuous efforts for the

Confederate cause, though with little effect. Topp, particularly, traveled widely in East Tennessee, meeting with Unionist leaders, measuring Unionist attitudes, and studying some of the underlying causes of the resistance. He sent reports to

Richmond and also apparently met with President Davis in person. [13] Lea also talked with the Eastern leaders, and he claimed to have published and widely distributed a handbill containing Zollicoffer’s proclamation, a letter of submission from T.A.R. Nelson, and endorsements from other loyalist leaders. Unionists claimed that Lea came to Knoxville not to make peace, however, but to offer an 204 ultimatum to Unionist leaders, and it appears that Lea did exaggerate his accomplishments. [14]

The first test of Confederate policy came almost immediately after

Zollicoffer’s appointment. On 1 August Tennessee held its first state elections under Confederate rule. East Teimessee secessionists, particularly Landon Carter

Haynes, had urged Harris to suspend the elections in the eastern counties, arguing that failure to do so would simply encourage further resistance. Haynes suggested that the governor appoint provisional representatives instead. His was not the only voice of caution. Several secessionists had already warned President Davis that the Lincoln administration had shipped ten thousand muskets to Cincinnati with the intention of smuggling them into East Tennessee, and in July General

Polk recommended that at least ten thousand troops be stationed in the region.

Others, including Haynes and J.G.M. Ramsey, had pointed out that Unionists were organizing into military companies and drilling, that their Home Guards outnumbered Zollicoffer’s forces, and that they talked openly of revolt and the coming of the Union Army. Several warnings specifically mentioned threats to the

East Tennessee railroads. In short. Unionists had shown almost no sign of submission, and they had not even abandoned their plans to hold a third convention in August. But Harris and Zollicoffer believed that the risk of opening the polls was justified. Free elections might demonstrate that, contrary to the assertions of Unionist leaders. Confederate rule posed no threat to the rights of

East Tennesseans. Thus they did not interfere even when Unionist candidates in 205 all four districts repeatedly condemned the Confederacy and campaigned openly for seats in the United States Congress. [15]

The results of the August elections angered and embarrassed Confederate authorities. The Unionist candidates, T.A.R. Nelson, Horace Maynard, and

George Bridges, all won their districts, and loyalists also dominated most county and municipal elections. Both Zollicoffer and Harris displayed a marked change in attitude after the elections. On 3 August Harris stated that "I fear we will have to adopt a decided and energetic policy with the people of that section," and on

16 August he requested that the War Department station twelve to fourteen thousand troops in the region, so that the authorities might be able to "crush out rebellion there without firing a gun . .." [16] Likewise, on 6 August Zollicoffer concluded that "there are very many Lincoln men here who will be restrained from cooperating [with a Union invasion] only by consideration of policy or apprehension of the circumstances," and one recruit claimed to have heard

Zollicoffer state that he "has a force sufficient, at his command and that he intends whenever [rebellion] shows its head to crush it out, let the cost be what it may." [17] Zollicoffer also began sending expeditions to various parts of East

Tennessee to break up Unionist organizations and arrest known leaders, and he increased attempts to seal off the northern border and prevent Unionists from reaching Kentucky. [18]

The outcome of the election was not surprising, for little had occurred since

June to change the minds of Unionists. Zollicoffer had been in the region for 206 only one week, and his attempts at conciliation were too new to have any effect.

Unionists also did not yet fear Confederate retribution, for their Home Guards outnumbered Confederate troops in the region, and Confederate authorities had made no decisive moves against resistance. Furthermore, East Tennesseans knew that Federal forces were assembling in Kentucky. Detachment from the

Confederacy appeared a real possibility, and thus the majority of East

Tennesseans continued to act as if they were still in the Union.

Nonetheless, Confederate vigilance partially negated the Unionist victory at the polls. All three Unionist representatives attempted to escape to

Washington, D. C., but only one succeeded. On 4 August Confederate cavalry intercepted Nelson and his escorts in southwest Virginia, less than twenty miles from the Kentucky border. Secessionists wanted Nelson indicted for treason, and initially Zollicoffer, after consultation with District Court Judge William H.

Humphreys, determined to send Nelson secretly to Nashville to stand trial.

Perhaps fearing the response that such a move would provoke, however,

Zollicoffer soon rejected that plan and instead sent the Unionist leader to

Richmond, leaving his fate to the government there. Zollicoffer also managed to trap George Bridges, who had actually left Tennessee before the election and was waiting for his family to join him in Kentucky. Confederate authorities, therefore, sent word that his wife was ill, and arrested Bridges when he slipped back into

Tennessee. 207 Confederate pressure convinced both leaders to submit. Nelson was defiant at first, but President Davis gave him no choice other than submission or indefinite imprisonment, and within a few days Nelson began to bend. After several lengthy exchanges the two men came to terms. In return for release from confinement and protection from prosecution. Nelson agreed to recognize the authority of the Confederate government, counsel his followers to submit, and make no public statements against the Confederacy. Nelson faithfully kept his vow, playing no public role for the remainder of the war. His law practice did involve him in war-related issues, and he would occupy several significant positions in the reconstruction period. But his arrest ended his time as a revolutionary leader. Bridges likewise submitted to the Confederate government and agreed to remain quietly in East Tennessee, but unlike Nelson he did not keep his vow. In

1862 he escaped East Tennessee for a second time and reached Washington, D.

C. in time to serve one week in the United States Congress. [19]

Thus Confederate authorities managed to neutralize two powerful Unionist figures. But two others eluded their grasp. Andrew Johnson had returned to

Washington well before election day, and Maynard also made a successful escape.

The Confederate failure to capture Johnson and Maynard was significant. Though they could no longer lead the resistance in person, the two leaders kept the cause of East Tennessee constantly before the Lincoln Administration and the Northern public and pressured Union authorities to rescue their loyal constituents. 208 Confederate authorities soon moved against other resistance leaders.

Throughout September and October dozens of Unionists throughout East

Teimessee, particularly political figures, ministers, and others considered to be influential, found themselves detained and sent to Knoxville, One observer,

Robertson Topp, estimated the number of arrests at over one hundred, but it may have been higher, for in October the Confederate District Court in Knoxville held a special three-week session to handle these cases. Many of these prisoners had been seized by Confederate officers and turned over to the civilian court, but many other arrests had been initiated by Confederate District Attorney John

Crozier Ramsey. Robertson Topp concluded that a large number of these confinements were the result of personal grievances or past party conflicts, and he particularly pointed to Ramsey and his allies, C. W. Charleton and William Swan, as instigators. [20]

The results of these prosecutions revealed the divided Confederate mind concerning the treatment of dissent and the reluctance of some to deal harshly with resistance. Zollicoffer rejected the stem policies favored by Knoxville secessionists and disapproved of some arrests. Judge Humphreys likewise disappointed Ramsey, for he refused to order most defendants brought before him tried. Humphreys did require that most Unionists take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate government and give bond for good behavior before they were released, but that was as far as he would go. Humphreys freed even some

Unionists who refused to meet these conditions. Thus neither Humphreys nor 209 Zollicoffer could set aside their attachment to individual rights and due process and institute the kind of extreme measures that many secessionists desired. In the end, this attempted purge of Unionist leaders, while frightening many, had little practical effect except to confirm Unionist fears about Confederate rule and to heighten tensions in East Tennessee. [21]

Thus, although some Unionists had felt the touch of Confederate authority, most remained undaunted, and as summer disappeared into fall they continued to organize, defy Confederate authority, and wait for their deliverance. It was increasingly clear to many that the policy of conciliation had become not only inappropriate but also dangerous to Confederate interests, and Governor Harris,

President Davis, and Zollicoffer all received warnings that the East Tennessee railroads were in danger. But Zollicoffer refused to alter his approach substantially. Although he continued his attempts to break up Unionist organizations, he also he brushed aside repeated warnings from his subordinates that a crisis in his Department was immanent, and he failed to order increased security on the railroads. At least two factors contributed to this neglect. In part,

Zollicoffer underestimated the Unionist threat, an error for which he would pay dearly. In part, however, the commander misjudged where the real threat to his department lay. By October an invasion from Kentucky seemed imminent, and

Zollicoffer chose to give most of his attention to this danger. He moved six regiments to the Kentucky border, near Jamestown, Tennessee, and left the interior largely unguarded. Colonel Wilham B. Wood, left in command at 210 Knoxville, had at his disposal only two hundred infantry and one company of

cavalry. Other small units were scattered along the railroad line, but Wood felt very alone. [22]

The evidence suggests that by late October the heavy responsibilities of his department had overwhelmed Zollicoffer and impaired his judgment. His dispatches in the days before the uprising reveal a harried man, distracted by repeated rumors and lacking any reliable information concerning his enemy’s strength, position, or intentions. On 25 October Zollicoffer reported "reliable information" that ten thousand Union troops from Camp Dick Robinson were advancing on Cumberland Gap. Five days later he estimated the Union force at nine thousand, placed it at London, and believed its aim to be Jacksborough or

Jamestown. On 4 November he was still awaiting an attack on Jamestown by a

Union force now estimated at six thousand, but on the next day he received information that Union forces instead were fortifying London in expectation of an attack. Finally, on 6 November Zollicoffer reported that he was again expecting a Union invasion, this time from a force near Monticello. In sum, Zollicoffer had no clear idea of the threat that he faced, and each new report forced him to shift his forces. Under such conditions he had little attention to give to the danger in his rear. [23]

Zollicoffer had not forgotten entirely about the Unionist menace, for on

28 October he sent cavalry to Jacksborough and Montgomery to cut off communications between Union troops in Kentucky and East Tennessee partisans. 211 But Zollicoffer failed to contemplate seriously the urgent warnings sent from

Knoxville. Wood had informed him that unrest among Unionists was increasing, and he became so worried that on 4 November he went over Zollicoffer’s head and appealed directly to Richmond for reinforcements. Zollicoffer thought that the Unionists were becoming reconciled to Confederate rule, however, and he could not believe that they would actually rebel. His perceptions and attitudes are clearly revealed in the instructions he sent to Wood on 30 October: "Watch the movements of the Lincoln men in East Tenn.—restrain our ultra-friends [hard-line secessionists] from acts of indiscretion-promptly meet and put down any attempted open hostility. But I have observed heretofore that a few of our friends about Knoxville are unnecessarily nervous-give their expressions of apprehension only their due weight." Eight days later his Department erupted. [24]

RETRIBUTION

Zollicoffer’s reaction to the 8 November uprising is revealing. His orders in the first days suggest a man who felt deeply betrayed and whose good intentions had led him into error and humiliation. On 12 November he declared that "their leaders should be seized and held as prisoners. The leniency shown them has been unavailing. They have acted with base duplicity, and should no longer be trusted." Zollicoffer also ordered that those "fugitive traitors" still in rebellion

"should now be pursued to extermination if possible," and on 20 November he 212 concluded that "those that are yet hostile can only be cured of their folly by severity. They should be made to feel in their persons and their property that their hostile attitude promises to them nothing but destruction." Conciliation having failed, Zollicoffer was now willing to try repression. [25]

Zollicoffer’s own views had little significance, however, for his influence over policy in East Tennessee declined after the rebellion. He remained on the border until December, sometimes out of contact with his subordinates, and most of the hard, dirty work of suppressing the uprising was left to Brigadier General

William H. Carroll and Colonels Wood and Danville Leadbetter. Furthermore, the Confederate War Department no longer trusted his leadership and directly intervened in East Tennessee. Wood had written Richmond for instructions concerning the treatment of Unionist prisoners, and on 25 November Benjamin sent identical instructions to Zollicoffer, Wood, Leadbetter, and Carroll outlining a policy of harsh repression:

1st. All such as can be identified as having been engaged in bridgeburning are to be tried summarily by drum-head court- martial, and, if found guilty, executed on the spot by hanging. It would be well to leave their bodies hanging in the vicinity of the burned bridges. 2nd. All such as have not been so engaged are to be treated as prisoners of war, and sent with an armed guard to Tuscaloosa, Ala., there to be kept imprisoned at the depot selected by the Government for prisoners of war. Wherever you can discover that arms are 213 concealed by these traitors you will send out detachments, search for and seize the arms. In no case is one of the men known to have been in arms against the Government to be released on any pledge or oath of allegiance. The time for such measures is past. They are all to be held as prisoners of war, and held in jail till the end of the war. Such as come in voluntarily, take the oath of allegiance, and surrender their arms are alone to be treated with leniency. P S. Judge Patterson, Colonel Pickens, and other ringleaders of the same class must be sent at once to Tuscaloosa to jail as prisoners of war. [26]

For the next few weeks Southern forces, aided by secessionist volunteers, made a thorough sweep through East Tennessee. Confederate soldiers went house to house and farm to farm, arresting men reported as bridgeburners or known to have been at a Union camp and taking them off to Knoxville. They entered homes to search for arms and ammunition, carried off supplies, and lay in wait for Unionists who might be hiding. Benjamin’s orders limited arrests to men guilty of sabotage or "in arms" against the government, but anyone known to have voted against secession might be taken. No Unionist could be certain of his security, and many hid for weeks in cellars, caves, or forest hideouts to escape their pursuers. Confederate forces also committed numerous atrocities at this time. The number was probably not so great as Unionists later charged, but there is evidence to show that Confederate troops chose to shoot down rather than arrest some men and that they hung others. [27] 214 The fate of those who were captured varied. Confederate officers

established two military tribunals, one at Greeneville and one at Knoxville, to try

men for bridgeburning, and eventually these tribunals convicted seven men for this

crime. President Davis commuted the sentences of two, but the other five were

executed in the manner that Benjamin had specified. The remainder, arrested on

charges of being in arms or for involvement in the conspiracy, languished for days

or weeks in local jails. Judge Humphreys attempted to issue writs for the release

of some, but military officers spumed civilian interference, and Confederate

authorities eventually sent over two hundred men to military prisons. A few

Unionists chose to enlist rather than face imprisonment, but most were detained in Knoxville until Confederate passions had cooled. [28]

The most prominent figure taken at this time was William G. Brownlow.

He had published his last issue on 24 October and had then disappeared from

Knoxville, taking refuge with other Unionists in Sevier County. The impending bridgebumings may have precipitated his escape, but this is not clear. Brownlow claimed to have had no foreknowledge of the attempt, and instead attributed his departure to mmors that District Attorney Ramsey would soon order his arrest.

Several days after the uprising Brownlow secretly returned to Knoxville and opened communications with General Carroll, offering to give himself up if the

General would guarantee him against prosecution. Carroll agreed, and on 5

December Brownlow appeared at Carroll’s headquarters. The following day

Ramsey obtained a warrant for Brownlow’s arrest and had him detained in the 215 Knoxville jail. Brownlow protested to Carroll that their agreement had been violated, but the general pointed out that he had only promised Brownlow protection against military arrest and that he had no authority over Ramsey.

Brownlow remained in prison for over three weeks, but then took sick and was allowed to return to his home, where he remained under guard. Brownlow subsequently offered to leave East Teimessee if Confederate authorities would give him a pass, and in early March the new East Tennessee commander. Major

General George C. Crittenden, accepted that offer after consultation with

Richmond. A few days later Confederate cavalry escorted Brownlow to Union lines near Nashville. [29]

In addition to laying down new policy, the War Department also showed its displeasure with Zollicoffer by reorganizing the command structure in East

Tennessee. On 15 November Benjamin gave Colonel Danville Leadbetter responsibility for protecting the railroads and suppressing the insurrection, leaving

Zollicoffer only in command of the troops on the border. Leadbetter had commanded the forces that had broken up the Unionist camp at Elizabethton and had adjudicated at the Greeneville tribunal. He had ordered three men hung, and his decisions were rumored to have been swift and ruthless. Perhaps Leadbetter’s obvious zeal for the Southern cause won Benjamin’s trust. Then on 13 December the Secretary of War ordered Crittenden to Kentucky to replace Zollicoffer as commander of forces there, thus completing his repudiation of Zollicoffer.

Benjamin reminded Crittenden that "the policy of the Government [is] to show no 216 further clemency to rebels in arms," and he repeated the orders he had sent to

Wood on 25 November. Crittenden did not arrive until early January, however,

and Zollicoffer led Confederate forces in the ill-fated Battle of Wildcat Springs,

losing his life there. [30]

As the repression dragged on into January and the prison rolls continued to swell the Richmond government again modified its policies. Some arrests, particularly that of former state senator Levi Trewhitt, had raised doubts even among Confederate supporters in East Tennessee. Petitions bearing the signatures of both Unionists and secessionists had urged the release of Trewhitt and other prisoners, while some East Tennessee Confederates informed Benjamin that many arrests had been unjustified and that Confederate policy had become counterproductive. Tennessee congressmen were also questioning Benjamin concerning affairs in the eastern counties. Thus, in late January Benjamin ordered that the cases of all Unionists still confined in Knoxville be reviewed and that anyone arrested without cause be released. By now the insurrection had been crushed and the Unionists temporarily cowed, and Confederate anger had spent itself. The number of arrests gradually fell off, and by mid-February a kind of uneasy quiet returned to the region. [31] 217 THE SEARCH FOR BALANCE: PART ONE

A new phase in Confederate policy opened in March 1862 when the War

Department relieved Major General Edmund Kirby Smith of his duties with the

Army of Northern Virginia and sent him to restore order in East Tennessee.

Where Zollicoffer was an amateur, Kirby Smith was a professional officer with a superior record. He had graduated twenty-fifth in his class at West Point, and had seen extensive service in the Mexican War, including action at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, Vera Cruz, and Mexico City. After the war he had returned to West Point for two years to teach, and had then spent four years on the Texas frontier with the Fifth Infantry, skirmishing with Native Americans and

Mexican raiders. In 1855 Captain Edmund Kirby Smith was transferred to the newly-formed Second United State Cavalry, the famous regiment commanded by

Albert Sidney Johnston that included such other Civil War notables as Robert E.

Lee, George Thomas, and John Bell Hood, and he had remained with this unit until 1861. Kirby Smith’s service with the Confederate Army had also been commendable. He had acted as General Joe Johnston’s adjutant, had been wounded at the Battle of Bull Run, and had helped train and organize recruits at

Lynchburg, a task that he performed with great efficiency. By October he had been promoted to Major General and been assigned command of a division in the

Army of the Potomac. [32] 218 Politically, Kirby Smith and Zollicoffer shared many traits. Both men were conservatives, both had denied the constitutionality and the wisdom of secession, and both had clung to the Union until the clash at Fort Sumter. Kirby Smith had remained with the Second Cavalry in Texas until that state ratified its ordinance of secession. He had ridden out with his regiment, but then resigned his commission on 1 March. Less than a month later he had accepted a lieutenant- colonelcy from the Confederate War Department. [33]

Perhaps no commander ever came to East Tennessee with more reluctance than Kirby Smith. He had found his duties in Virginia satisfying, and he had recently settled his wife and children in nearby Lynchburg where he could visit them frequently. His assignment to East Tennessee broke up this comfortable situation and placed him in an isolated region among a hostile and backward people. Furthermore, his service there promised to be unrewarding, for East

Tennessee afforded little opportunity to contribute to Southern victory or to prove himself as a commander.

Kirby Smith’s initial observations of his new department confirmed his worst fears. To his wife he complained that "I find affairs here, as far as I am able to judge, in a much worse condition than represented ..." On 13 March he wrote that "no one can conceive the actual condition of East Tennessee, disloyal to the core, it is more dangerous and difficult to operate in than the country of an acknowledged enemy ..." Less than two weeks after his arrival Kirby Smith was looking for an escape. On 14 March he sent this extraordinary offer to Major 219 General Braxton Bragg: "East Tennessee is an Enemy’s country, its people beyond the influence and control of our troops and in open rebellion. The force here at present is barely more than sufficient to guard the Pork Houses and the line of the Railroad-If under the circumstances you deem it advisable, I will turn over the defense of the Post to the Militia and willingly and gladly join you with such portion of my command, as you may direct." Kirby Smith soon gave up this desperate plan, but it is not clear that he ever entirely reconciled himself to this assignment. [34]

In a series of more lucid dispatches, Kirby Smith enumerated the deficiencies of his command. First, from December through February the department, due to the reorganization ordered by Richmond, had had no effective commander. Leadbetter had believed that he was responsible only for the defense of the rail lines, while Crittenden had commanded only the forces on the Kentucky border. This confusion had left internal and administrative affairs untended, and units had been left aimlessly scattered around the region. Second, far too few troops were available for all the Department’s requirements. Defense of the rail lines and "porkeries" required one to two full regiments, leaving only 2300 men to cover Cumberland Cap and Knoxville. Chattanooga was almost entirely unprotected, and few troops were available to keep the Unionist population in check. Other problems had further reduced the effectiveness of the forces in East

Tennessee. Waves of disease had immobilized many men, and the terms of most of the regular regiments were due to expire in April, May, or June. Most units 220 in the department had never received proper arms and equipment, and most still lacked sufficient training. The East Tennessee militia was thoroughly disloyal and unreliable, and even some regular units raised in East Tennessee were "infected" with dissent. [35]

Even allowing for the propensity of Civil War commanders to exaggerate their difficulties, these were daunting problems indeed. But despite bouts of depression Kirby Smith worked very hard at restoring order in his new command.

He was an experienced and skilled administrator, and he brought to East

Teimessee a professionalism that the department had previously lacked. Within a few weeks he had made a number of reforms. Kirby Smith reorganized his forces, consolidating scattered units and assigning them to the most critical points, and in the process he managed to create a small force for field operations. He also increased training, secured more arms and equipment, attempted to repair defects in the supply system, and labored to catch up on months of neglected paperwork. Perhaps most importantly, Kirby Smith took steps to restore the morale and discipline that had been lost since the uprising. The new commander never eliminated all the defects that he had described, but in the administrative realm he could claim real success. Kirby Smith restored order and purpose to the

East Teimessee command, and he eliminated some of the worst abuses that had grown up since the uprising. [36]

Although much of Kirby Smith’s energy in these first weeks went into administration, by early April he had also developed a comprehensive policy for 221 winning back, or at least controlling, the rebellious population. Kirby Smith lacked the optimism that Zollicoffer had displayed, but he did believe that if approached properly much of the Unionist population might be reconciled to

Confederate rule. Kirby Smith did not believe that Unionism was fundamental to East Tennessee; rather, he saw it as the creation of unscrupulous men who misrepresented the nature and intentions of the Confederate government and thus frightened the population into opposition. On 2 April he summarized his observations for Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper: "The arrest of the leading men in every county, and their incarceration South, may bring these people right. They are an ignorant, primitive people, completely in the hands of, and under the guidance of, their leaders ... Remove these men, and a draft might soon be made, to which a portion of the population would respond." [37]

Kirby Smith’s analysis, though flawed, was partially correct. Despite dozens of arrests and the neutralization of prominent leaders such as Nelson, Unionists still dominated local political and legal offices in most East Tennessee counties.

This situation not only provided a solid framework for the resistance movement, but also gave Unionists considerable power over secessionists. [38]

Kirby Smith, therefore, proposed to bring local government in East

Tennessee under Confederate control. Newly-elected county officers were scheduled to be sworn in on 7 April. On 2 April the new commander sent secret orders to subordinates at Clinton, Cleveland, Greeneville, Loudon, Morristown,

Knoxville, and Cumberland Gap, instructing them, on the morning of 7 April, to 222 send parties of twenty-five men under trusted officers to observe the installation

ceremonies. They were to ensure that all elected officers took the oath of

allegiance to the Confederate government and were to arrest and send to

Knoxville anyone refusing to do so. This new assertion of Confederate authority was quite risky, for it not only threatened the counter-government that Unionists had created but also brought the Confederate government directly into the local affairs of East Tennesseeans. Kirby Smith recognized the possibility of resistance or retaliation, for he instructed his subordinates not to communicate these instructions to the selected officers until just before their departure and reminded them to use "the utmost secrecy and precaution." In the event, most Unionist officeholders chose to submit, though elected officials at Cleveland and perhaps elsewhere did refuse to take the oath and were taken to Knoxville. [39]

Kirby Smith struck at the Unionist leadership in other ways. In late March he ordered John Baxter arrested on suspicion of spying and turned him over to

Bragg. Baxter had adroitly accommodated himself to Confederate rule, running for the Confederate Congress and helping to defend the Strawberry Plains bridge after the uprising, and had retained his freedom of movement. But Kirby Smith suspected Baxter’s frequent trips to Northern-occupied Memphis and his correspondence with known Unionists, and attempted, though without success, to have him tried for treason. Then on 14 April the general ordered the commander at Morristown to arrest Unionist leaders suspected of spreading "exaggerated" rumors concerning the Confederate draft and inciting men to flee to Kentucky. 223 At the same time, civilian authorities launched a second wave of arrests similar to those carried out in August 1861. Those taken included former state senator

Montgomery Thornburgh and future Tennessee governor DeWitt Senter, as well as several delegates to the 1861 Unionist Conventions. These men were held in

Knoxville several days without charges, then notified that they were being sent to a military prison in Georgia. Their demands for a trial were rejected, and they eventually found themselves in Macon. Montgomery Thornburgh died in captivity, and his death became for Unionists a symbol of Confederate repression.

Nonetheless, this campaign, like the previous two, had only a limited effect on the resistance. [40]

Kirby Smith recognized that normal legal institutions were too weak to cope with the kind of resistance that he faced in East Tennessee. Shortly after his arrival, therefore, he began pressing Richmond for a declaration of martial law.

Debate over this issue had been going on for some time. After the November uprising Carroll had proclaimed martial law in Knoxville, and both Carroll and

Leadbetter had overridden legal restraints in their military tribunals. But for the most part the civilian courts had continued to function and had provided considerable protection to Unionists. District Court Judge Humphreys had freed dozens of Unionists arrested for rebellion, and other justices had issued writs of habeas corpus for persons held by the military. There were also charges, probably justified, that in most counties secessionists could not receive justice from Unionist courts. [41] 224 After repeated requests, therefore, on 8 April 1862 President Jefferson

Davis declared martial law and suspended the writ of habeas corpus in the entire

Department of East Tennessee. All civil jurisdictions except those exercising purely administrative functions were suspended. Davis also authorized Kirby

Smith to establish a "military police" and prohibit the production and sale of all

"spirituous liquors." Some confusion existed concerning the exact scope and implications of Davis’ declaration, but subsequent communications from the

Attorney General clarified its meaning. The proclamation suspended all civil jurisdictions, with the exceptions stated, but allowed criminal courts to continue to function. The department commander was granted "super vision over the judicial tribunals of the Department," and possessed the power to establish military commissions to try criminal cases if civilian courts failed to do so efficiently and fairly. Thus, potentially the entire judicial machinery of East

Teimessee lay in the department commander’s hands. [42]

Martial law gave Kirby Smith a powerful weapon against Unionist activity.

It allowed him to imprison Unionist leaders and anyone engaged in rebellious activities for as long as he desired, and thus gave him the power to remove the most dangerous persons from the population. Martial law greatly increased the risks and costs of dissent, and it reduced the ability of Unionist office holders to use their power against secessionists. Some civilian courts did continue to function, and Kirby Smith did not make full use of his authority. Even so, martial 225 law was a significant assertion of Confederate authority, and it reflected a

hardening of Confederate attitudes.

Kirby Smith recognized that persuasion, as well as coercion, was necessary

if he were to win the Unionist population. Thus hand in hand with martial law went a campaign to bring about the long hoped for shift in loyalties. On 18 April

Kirby Smith issued an offer of general amnesty which stated that any person who would abandon resistance to Confederate rule and take an oath of loyalty to the new government would be protected against prosecution and harassment and guaranteed all normal rights. This offer of forgiveness extended even to East

Tennesseans in the Union Army, provided that they returned to the state within thirty days. On 23 April Provost Marshall Colonel William Churchwell repeated the amnesty offer to Unionists in the Federal ranks, and on 13 August Kirby

Smith issued a third proclamation "To the East Tennesseans in the United States

Army," this time promising not only amnesty but also compensation for arms and equipment brought back. Finally, in conjunction with the April amnesty offer

Kirby Smith published a circular that attempted to quiet Unionist fears. He promised to protect "the lives and property" of East Tennesseans from all marauders, including his own troops, and to suspend the state militia draft. Like

Zollicoffer, Kirby Smith also promised that farmers engaged in raising and harvesting crops, and other East Tennesseans following normal pursuits, would not be disturbed. [43] 226 Kirby Smith’s proclamations were neither very sympathetic nor very

inspiring, reflecting perhaps his contempt for the East Tennessee population or

his own pessimism. At the same time, the commander made a sincere attempt to

heal some of the damage from the uprising period and offer terms that East

Tennesseans might accept, while still preserving Confederate authority.

Furthermore, Kirby Smith attempted to give substance to his declarations by

combining them with a significant concession. In early May he persuaded the War

Department to suspend the conscription law in East Tennessee. Kirby Smith argued that given current conditions in the Department, particularly the "excited condition of the public mind," conscription would only drive Unionists into inaccessible hideouts or completely out of the state. He also claimed that almost all eligible loyal men were already in the service and that the draft would add

Uttle to Confederate manpower. After some debate, and with some misgivings,

Richmond accepted these arguments. [44]

As an alternative to conscription, Kirby Smith suggested using the regular regiments already recruited as a base for building loyalty. In keeping with his general assessment of East Tennessee Unionism, he argued that if these regiments, which were suspected of disloyalty, were sent out of the region into a

"pure political atmosphere, and removed from their present associations," they might become reliable. New recruits could then be placed in these units, and their ties with the population might eventually foster a greater attachment to the

Confederate cause. On 7 April Major General Robert E. Lee agreed that the 227 East Tennessee regiments might be exchanged for units from other states if they enlisted for three years. Consequently, on 11 May Kirby Smith ordered the

Fourth Tennessee, one of the most suspect units, to Georgia. On the same grounds, he attempted prevent the disbandment of an East Tennessee "company of sappers and miners." This was a non-combat unit that Zollicoffer had created as an alternative for Unionists who were willing to submit to Confederate rule but who would not enlist in regular units. Since that time there had been charges that the unit had become a refuge for conscript evaders and should be eliminated.

Kirby Smith argued, however, that the company had done good service, that it was a means of building links between the population and the government, and that it was better to have the men in noncombat service than defying the draft law. [45]

Finally, Kirby Smith continued Zollicoffer’s attempts to stop the flight of

East Tennessee manpower to Kentucky. On 18 April he ordered Colonel John

C. Vaughn to employ all his available cavalry in patrolling the area between

Clinton and "the north Valley of Powell’s River," one of the major escape routes, and also increased the forces in the Holston River Valley, another major crossing point. Unionists would continue to evade Confederate patrols and escape by the hundreds, but as the experiences of Daniel Ellis and others illustrate the trip to

Kentucky became increasingly hazardous. [46]

April and May 1862 were the high point of Kirby Smith’s campaign for

Unionist loyalties. By early summer the commander was forced to give his attention to other problems, particularly the defense of his department against 228 invasion. Union forces in Kentucky had begun to threaten Cumberland Gap in

March, while Brigadier General Ormsby Mitchell’s capture of Huntsville, Alabama seemed to place Federal forces within striking distance of Chattanooga. In addition. Union possession of Nashville opened a third invasion route, unlikely but possible, from Nashville over the Cumberland Mountains to Kingston and

Knoxville. These diverse threats placed tremendous strains on the East Tennessee commander. Although he had received respectable reinforcements, Kirby Smith’s twelve thousand men were simply inadequate to meet the needs of his

Department. [47]

In April Union forces began to move at several points, and Kirby Smith faced an unceasing succession of threats. Throughout April, May, and June he was forced to shuttle his forces back and forth between Knoxville, Cumberland

Gap, and Chattanooga in response to each new real or imagined Federal advance.

In spite of his efforts. Confederate troops had to evacuate Cumberland Gap on

18 June; that same month, Kirby Smith twice had to beat off Union probes that reached within artillery range of Chattanooga. Kirby Smith’s exhaustion was revealed in this 12 June note to his wife: "I am so sad, distressed, and anxious. .

. The Enemy have now crossed the Cumberland Mountains, their name is legion and they come from every quarter-no sooner disposed of in one direction than they appear in another." Under such circumstances Kirby Smith could give little thought to internal affairs, and the pacification campaign suffered accordingly. [48] 229 Kirby Smith and his department survived these crises, but by the fall of

1862 very different circumstance had emerged to capture his attention. Federal forces still held Cumberland Gap, but their hold was becoming tenuous, and the other threats to East Teimessee’s security had dissipated. Furthermore, developments elsewhere in the western theater had opened up for Kirby Smith an opportunity for glory. Halleck’s stalled advance at Corinth and Buell’s slow progress along the railroad to Chattanooga had opened the door to Kentucky.

This was too great an opportunity to pass up, and on 14 August, after supposedly coordinating plans with General Bragg, Kirby Smith marched north out of

Knoxville with dreams of bring the Bluegrass state and its thousands of recruits into the Confederacy. With such visions before him, Kirby Smith again gave little thought to affairs in East Tennessee. [49]

THE SEARCH FOR BALANCE: PART TWO

Before Kirby Smith left Knoxville he requested that Major General John

P. McCown take over his duties. McCown, a native of Sevier County, radiated confidence, declaring that T am one of these people, and think I know them. I shall pursue such policy as my knowledge of the people and the interests of the country, dictates . . ." But McCown floundered almost immediately. On 17

September he sent a dispatch to Richmond asking for guidance on a whole range of issues, many of which had already been settled, prompting Secretary of War 230 George Randolph to conclude that "General McCown seems to have no policy of his own and recommends nothing." Further stating that "the treatment of the

Union men in East Tennessee cannot be prescribed here, but must be determined on by some one thoroughly acquainted with the state of things in that region,"

Randolph shortly thereafter removed McCown and put in his place Major General

Sam Jones. Unlike Kirby Smith, Jones’ career in the war had been troubled. He had acted as chief of artillery for Major General P.G.T. Beauregard and had fought at First Manassas. He had then served under Major General Earl Van

Dorn and Major General Braxton Bragg, but had quarreled with both men and had eventually been assigned post commander at Chattanooga. Jones, thus, intended to make the most of his new assignment. [50]

Jones’ diagnosis of the ills of his command, and the prescriptions he proposed, differed little from those of Kirby Smith. But Jones possessed an optimism and a sympathy that East Tennesseeans had not seen since the beginning of Zollicoffer’s term. Two examples illustrate Jones’ belief in the importance of his new command. Shortly after replacing McCown, Randolph recommended that

Jones shift his headquarters and most of his forces to Murfreesboro in order to support General Bragg, an offer that other commanders would have gratefully accepted. Jones refused, however, explaining that "I have no one who I could leave here with any feeling of confidence that the affairs of the Dept, would be managed as I think they should be." Likewise, in January 1863, after he had been transferred to the Department of West Virginia, Jones wrote T.A.R. Nelson to 231 inquire about conditions in East Tennessee and to urge him to use his influence

for the Confederate cause. [51]

Secretary Randolph’s initial instructions to Jones revealed yet another shift

in Confederate policy toward East Tennessee:

Your chief duty, however, will be the execution of the conscript law in East Tenn, It will require great judgement, and we rely upon your firmness and prudence to carry out the law without exciting revolt. Confer with Gov. Harris, act in concert with him, and be on your guard in listening to the advice of persons exasperated by contact with the disaffected. [52]

The tension in these orders is significant. For some time East Tennessee

secessionists had been pressuring Richmond to adopt a stricter policy against the

rebellious Unionists, but as yet the War Department had been unwilling to take such sweeping measures as mass arrests and deportations. At the same time,

Richmond displayed an increasing reluctance to continue to make concessions to a rebellious population, and the neutrahty that Zollicoffer and Kirby Smith had suggested was now unacceptable. Richmond could not continue to make allowances to East Tennessee without exciting resentment and dissent elsewhere, and President Davis was thus determined to force East Tennessee to function as part of the nation and contribute to the military effort. The Richmond govermnent, therefore, had decided to carry out conscription in East Teimessee, even at a very high cost. 232 Though this was not openly stated, the draft would serve a second purpose

in East Tennessee. Conscription would become the Confederacy’s chief weapon

against dissent. It would force potential consripts in East Tennessee to declare

their loyalties and make it far more difficult for Unionists to remain in East

Tennessee and cariy on a resistance. The draft promised to separate friend from

enemy and reduce the internal threat to Confederate rule, for Unionists eligible for the draft would have only three choices: submit, flee to Kentucky, or attempt to avoid conscription officers. The first would bring them under Confederate control and perhaps send them out of East Tennessee, the second would reduce the strength of the insurgent forces, while the third would force them into open enmity and expose them to the operations of Confederate forces and legal punishments.

The enforcement of conscription in East Tennessee accelerated the

Unionist rush into Federal ranks and increased disaffection. But some

Confederate officers serving in the Department argued that it was better to have

Unionists as open enemies and evaders than living secure at home and engaging in secret resistance. Conscription may have even been a deliberate means of forcing the male population of East Tennessee into exile, though the evidence on this point is inconclusive. Nonetheless, it is clear that during the last year of

Confederate rule much of the energy of the occupying force went into enforcing the draft. The physical and moral costs of such a policy were high, but it reflected the growing frustration and anger of Confederate authorities. [53] 233 Like Kirby Smith, Jones found the depth and extent of resistance to

Confederate rule in East Tennessee startling. He likewise identified the Unionist

leadership as the key to reconciling the population, and he agreed that some of

the most hostile leaders might have to be removed. But unlike Kirby Smith, Jones recognized that the leadership might be used for positive purposes as well. Thus one of his first steps upon taking command was to initiate a series of discussions with important Unionist figures. On 25 September Jones requested that T.A.R.

Nelson visit his headquarters to discuss affairs in East Tennessee, and, as a gesture of good will, lifted the restrictions that had been placed on Nelson’s freedom of movement. In subsequent days Jones also met with Oliver P. Temple, John

Baxter, Andrew Fleming, and R. H. Hodges, all of whom had been delegates to the Knoxville and Greeneville Conventions. [54]

On 4 October Jones reported that his efforts had brought success. Nelson had willingly written an "Address to the People of East Tennessee," a lengthy and essentially pro-Confederate discussion of the current political situation, and given him permission to use it as he desired. Jones immediately arranged for the document to be published in the Knoxville Register, the Athens Post, and other papers, attempting, as he explained to Randolph, to pass Nelson’s document off as a voluntary production. He refrained fi'om tampering with the Addresses’

"Union tone" in the belief that this would make it more authentic and effective, and he wrote the editor of the Athens Post that "of course I do not want my name to appear in connection with it." Jones also received statements from three other 234 influential figures, John Netherland, the Reverend Nathaniel G, Taylor, and Judge

Seth Lucky, that appeared to promise submission and the use of their influence for the Confederate government. Encouraged by these seeming conversions, Jones then attempted to persuade Nelson and Netherland to stump East Tennessee in support of the Confederacy. [55]

Jones’ timing in this campaign was fortunate, for the transformation of the

Union war effort had created an opportune moment for Confederate appeals.

The aiuiouncement of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on 22

September had created great consternation among Southern Unionists. They could support a war to restore the nation, but could they acquiesce in the destruction of a Southern institution? Nelson’s address, in fact, revolved around this issue. Nelson admitted no change of heart concerning the legality or wisdom of secession, and he openly charged that Southern troops had committed a large number of outrages in East Tennessee. Nonetheless, Nelson insisted that the

Lincoln administration now posed a greater threat to Southern rights than the

Confederacy. In support of this asisertion he listed Lincoln’s unconstitutional acts: suspension of the writ of habeas corpus; imprisonment of civilians opposed to the conflict; calling up troops without a Congressional declaration of war; and now the unlawful attempt to deprive Southerners of their slaves.

A sense of betrayal marked Nelson’s address: East Tennesseeans had sacrificed and suffered for the Union and the constitution, and now Lincoln seemed determined to destroy these very things. Admitting that the experience 235 of the last eighteen months would make any shift in loyalties difficult, Nelson nonetheless concluded that East Tennesseans must now join with the rest of the

South, and he called on Unionists not only to submit to Confederate rule but also to enlist voluntarily in the Confederate forces:

If you would save yourselves from a species of carnage unexampled in the history of North America, but unequivocally invited in Mr. Lincoln’s proclamation, let every man who is able to fight buckle on his armor, and without awaiting the slow and tedious process of conscription, at once volunteer in the struggle against him [Lincoln]. The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, and it cannot in the nature of things be possible that a just God will prosper the efforts of a man or a Government which has hypocritically pretended to wage war in behalf of the Constitution, but now throws off the mask and sets it utterly at defiance. [56]

Shortly after the publication of Nelson’s address Jones reported to

Randolph that his discussions with Unionist leaders had begun to shift Eastern loyalties to the Confederacy, and asserted that this conversion might become widespread if the Confederates followed the proper course. Despite such encouraging pronouncements from so important a figure as Nelson, however, the results of Jones’ campaign were limited. It is true that Nelson received petitions from Greeneville, Morristown, Bristol, Athens, Jonesboro, and Knoxville, some with fifty or more names, that expressed confusion concerning recent 236 developments and asked him to come and give them guidance in person. [57]

Many Unionists did find it difficult to accept emancipation, even as a war measure, and this and other radical war policies would eventually create a permanent split in the Unionist camp. But overall Jones’ attempts to coopt the

Unionist leadership failed. By Jones’ own admission, many East Tennesseans denounced the Emancipation Proclamation, or Nelson’s Address, or both, as forgeries perpetrated by the Knoxville Register. Others concluded that Nelson had agreed to write the Address only in return for the release of his son from a

Confederate prison. One observer concluded that Nelson had as little impact on

Unionist sympathies in 1862 as John Bell had had when he came to Knoxville in

1861, and this seems a fair comparison. The resistance did not end or even abate, and when Federal forces entered East Tennessee in 1863 they were met not with fear but with gratitude. [58]

Jones’ efforts were admirable but misdirected. By October 1862 Unionist leadership had largely passed out of the hands of men such as Nelson and now rested with radicals who actively organized and led the resistance. Furthermore, the rebellious Unionists had suffered far too much to embrace the Confederacy, and it is unlikely that anyone could have persuaded them to submit. Why should they fear an abstract, far-off despotism in Washington when, every day, they experienced Confederate repression in person? Why should they be angered by

Lincoln’s "unconstitutional" acts when they had in their midst Confederate authorities who confiscated their property, drove them into military service, and 237 killed their friends and burned their homes? Nelson and Jones were asking them to join forces with a real, live enemy to repel a far-off, imaginary one, a request that was clearly absurd.

Jones had been deceived by the Unionist leaders, and he had perhaps deceived himself. Nelson’s conversion, though temporary and perhaps exaggerated, was real enough. He never became reconciled to emancipation, and his address stated the position that he himself had adopted and practiced, which was that the Union was gone and the Confederate government was de facto a legitimate govermnent to which Unionists might reasonably submit. Though he called on Unionists to volunteer, however. Nelson himself avoided service, even when Kirby Smith offered him a commission in November 1862 if he would raise a regiment, and neither he, nor John Netherland, nor any other Unionist granted

Jones’ repeated requests to make speeches urging support for the Confederacy.

Taylor, likewise, stated only that he professed to be "thoroughly Southern in heart and soul," a statement open to multiple interpretations, and other leaders whom

Jones contacted appear to have been similarly disingenuous. [59]

Jones made equally high-minded attempts to end the partisan violence that was convulsing East Tennessee. His diagnosis of the conflict was shrewd, recognizing as it did the many political factors feeding the conflict:

I believe there are Southern men in East Tennessee, small politicians generally, who do not desire that influential men who have heretofore been Union men should change their 238 course and come out in support of the Government, men who if let alone would gladly have abandoned their hostility and opposition. They are actuated by petty party Jealousy, and have done much mischief by denunciatory articles in the public press .. . [60]

Both Zollicoffer and Kirby Smith had made similar observations. Kirby Smith had refused to attempt to influence this conflict, deliberately holding himself aloof from both Unionist and secessionist leaders and disdaining, as a professional soldier, to soil himself with the dirt of politics. [61] In contrast, Jones recognized that his position as commander was in fact a political one, and he plunged himself directly into the conflict. Jones met with influential men on both sides and urged them to stop their agitation and use their influence to end the partisan feuding.

He particularly targeted the Knoxville Register and the Athens Post, urging their editors to publish not only Nelson’s Address but also editorials holding out the hand of friendship to Unionists and calling for an end to partisan conflict. The

Register complied, though its response, like that of the Unionist leaders, probably did not meet Jones’ expectations. Sperry refused to apologize for secessionist actions, and he took pains to blame most of the conflict on the inflammatory issuances of Brownlow’s Whig. Sperry did, however, deplore the terrible violence of the last year and the state into which East Teimessee had fallen. He called on all East Tennesseans, Unionist and secessionist, to end the destruction of their 239 own society, and urged secessionists to befriend Unionists who joined the

Confederate side. [62]

Hand in hand with Jones’ enthusiastic wooing of the Unionist population went attempts to remove the greatest irritant in Confederate policy, conscription.

On 18 October Jones requested that Richmond again suspend the draft and in its stead accept the two volunteer regiments recently organized in East Tennessee.

Like Kirby Smith, Jones argued that voluntary enlistment alone would bring in all reliable recruits now available in the Department. The draft, conversely, would net only unreliable and resentful conscripts, and it would require more troops to chase down evaders, guard them in camps, and bring them to the front than it would ever net. Conscription also increased hostility to the government and undercut his attempts at reconciliation. Jones proposed instead a policy of neutrality very similar to that which Zollicoffer, and to a lesser extent Kirby Smith, had outlined, arguing that "men who are so averse to entering the military service as to flee from their homes and conceal themselves in the mountains to avoid it would be far more serviceable to the Government in the com and wheat fields and iron mines than in the ranks." Jones thus agreed that the Confederate government would benefit more from East Teimessee by governing loosely and thereby gaining more of the region’s production than by attempting to impose such a hated policy as conscription. [63]

The War Department was cold to Jones’ proposals. His specific request- that the govermnent suspend conscription for only two weeks until the end of 240 harvest and that the enrolling process continue during that time-was so illogical that it baffled and angered the Secretary of War. More seriously, his scheme directly contradicted Confederate policy. Randolph pointed out that the previous suspension had had no apparent effect on the rebellious population and that there was no reason to think that a second concession would have a different result.

The Secretary thus rejected Jones’ arguments for leniency and asserted that "the issue must be made with these people whether they will submit to the laws or not."

[64]

Several recent orders had already indicated Richmond’s decreasing interest in, and sympathy for. East Tennessee. Under Kirby Smith’s command the War

Department, in order to protect the region’s dwindling resources, had prohibited the export of supplies to other departments. But on 23 September Randolph permanently lifted this prohibition. Second, the Confederate government not only rejected Jones’ requests for reinforcements but also ordered him to send some of his own troops to Bragg and, as previously described, even suggested that he transfer his headquarters and most of his command to Murfreesboro. Finally, in

October Richmond took away one of the Department commander’s most effective weapons, martial law. Davis’ original proclamation expired on 4 October, and

Jones immediately requested that the measure be reinstated, explaining on 18

October that "I have continued to enforce Martial Law, byt the lawyers are meddling in the matter, and will produce some trouble and confusion if the writ is no longer suspended." Davis, nonetheless, refused to seek Congressional 241 authorization for a second suspension. Thus, at the same time that Richmond called for the enforcement of the draft and the suppression of dissent, it took away one of Jones’s most effective means of doing so, a contradiction that is difficult to explain. [65]

RETRIBUTION AGAIN

In late October 1862 Kirby Smith, smarting from his failure in Kentucky, retreated back into East Tennessee. Jones was transferred to the Department of

West Virginia, and in December 1862 Kirby Smith took over the Department of the Trans-Mississippi. After their departure Confederate policy became increasingly harsh. One of Kirby Smith’s successors. Brigadier General Daniel S.

Donelson, suggested conscripting all men of military age, including men who had been given exemptions to work in the iron foundries, and sending them to the

Deep South. Donelson also urged the arrest of prominent Unionists as hostages for men confined in Middle Tennessee and the reestablishment of military courts.

President Davis, who favored a policy of "precaution and repression," approved these suggestions, though he directed Donelson to confer with Governor Harris before taking any drastic steps. Another commander. Major General Simon B.

Buckner, ordered the arrest of several Unionists for "disloyal talk" and

"encouraging bushwhacking" and refused to release them even when a justice issued writs of habeas corpus. And Buckner’s chief of staff recommended that the 242 commander send influential Unionists out of the state until the war’s end and begin taking hostages in retaliation for Unionist bushwhacking. [66]

By the summer of 1863 the Confederate position in East Tennessee had deteriorated. A Union soldier at Camp Nelson reported that 150 refugees were coming out of East Tennessee every day: "They say there is no army in East Tenn-

-nothing but conscript officers--and they are taking all from the age of sixteen to sixty . . ." Furthermore, units from other departments had begun entering East

Teimessee to plunder supplies, a situation that Buckner found so dangerous that he actually arrested several Confederate troopers from the Army of Tennessee and threatened to do the same to any other soldiers entering East Tennessee without his permission. Finally, the command had lost the sense of purpose that

Kirby Smith had instituted. By September Buckner had only fifteen thousand men and could make only a limited resistance when the Army of the Ohio entered East

Tennessee. The Union invasion did not end the Confederate role in East

Tennessee, for several unforseen circumstances ensured that Southern forces would hold parts of northern East Tennessee until almost the war’s end. But officially East Tennessee was now in Union hands. [67]

CONTINUITIES

A number of common themes run through Confederate policy toward East

Tennessee. The first was a misunderstanding of the nature of East Tennessee 243 Unionism, Few Confederate officers, even conservatives such as Zollicoffer and

Kirby Smith, would believe that any reasonable Southerner could cling to the

Union after the fighting had begun. Confederate authorities, therefore, turned to another explanation. Unionism, they argued, was the product of demagogic and unprincipled leaders, who deliberately, and for their own gain, misled their followers concerning the causes of the war, the purposes of secession, and the intentions of the Confederate government. The constancy of this belief is striking, and it appears not only in the proclamations and reports of several commanders but also in the statements of lower ranking officers. Every Department commander also concluded that if these unprincipled leaders could be removed the people of East Tennessee would eventually come to their senses and embrace

Confederate rule, and they all made various attempts to silence or expel Unionist spokesmen. The Confederate emphasis on eliminating the leadership was not misplaced, but the belief in the artificiality of the region’s Unionism was seriously flawed and misleading. [68]

A second constant was disagreement between the government in Richmond and commanders in East Tennessee over policy. Such conflicts were not surprising, for the two had different interests and different perspectives. The primary concern of the Confederate government was the defense of the nation’s vital points, and their primary interest in East Teimessee was the contributions it could make to the war effort, particularly transportation, foodstuffs, and men. The department commanders, conversely, were interested in gaining sufficient 244 resources for their needs and maintaining order in East Tennessee. Furthermore,

Richmond never fully grasped the depth of the resistance in East Tennessee or the difficulties that officers there faced. The ongoing debate over conscription illustrates this clash. Both Kirby Smith and Jones quickly concluded that attempting to enforce the draft in the face of such fierce opposition was counterproductive and argued for its suspension. The Davis administration gave in once but would not do so again, for it could not afford to follow one policy in

East Tennessee and a different one everywhere else.

East Tennessee commanders also faced pressure from local secessionists to institute a harsher policy. District Attorney John Crozier Ramsey, Postmaster

C. W. Charleton, Colonel William Churchwell, Senator Landon Carter Haynes,

John Crozier, J.G.M. Ramsey, and Register editor James Sperry all sent reports on conditions in conditions in the region to Richmond. They also made suggestions concerning policy, attempted to manipulate the East Teimessee command, and used their own authority to harass their Unionist enemies. Their attempts to shift Confederate policy never fully succeeded, but officers could not ignore the influence of local secessionists. [69]

A third common theme was an ethic of restraint. Confederate authorities, in theory at least, drew a line between dissenting actions and dissenting beliefs, punishing the one, but tolerating the other. Zollicoffer made clear in 1861 that

Unionists need not fear Confederate authorities as long as their beliefs did not spill over into actions, and Kirby Smith continued this distinction into 1862. 245 Likewise, when Confederate authorities sent expeditions to break up loyalist

organizations they consistently specified that mere Unionist beliefs were not

sufficient grounds for arrest. In an exchange with Union Brigadier General

George Morgan, Kirby Smith referred to his "earnest desire to allay the horrors

of war and to conduct the campaign with as little severity as is consistent with the

interests of my Government." This ethic held up under the greatest stresses.

Even in the days following the uprising Brigadier General William H. Carroll

announced that Unionist beliefs would be respected, and Secretary of War Judah

P. Benjamin limited arrests to men involved with the bridgeburnings or actually

found in arms. This ethic, of course, frequently was lost in the implementation of

policy, and Confederate authorities were guilty of a certain hypocrisy.

Nonetheless, this belief in restraint and this continued respect for constitutional

protections were a marked contrast to the policies that Federal authorities would

adopt. [70]

In spite of this restraint at the top, the costs of the Confederate occupation were appallingly high. The devastation of the region was one of the most common

observations made by Union soldiers entering East Tennessee in 1863. William

Franklin Draper wrote that he would know that he was in East Tennessee "by the number of houses destroyed or abandoned." R. E. Jameson concluded that while

"the rebellion has left its devastating mark upon every Southern town . . . there are few places that have suffered more than Knoxville." And Marshall Miller asserted that "I have never been in a place yet where so much property or where 246 so many lives have been destroyed." [71] Part of the blame for this destruction rests with policy makers in Richmond, particularly the insistence in the last year on enforcing conscription. Part also lies with the department commanders, who on occasion issued ambiguous orders that sanctioned giving no quarter to Unionist partisans and who frequently overlooked the many atrocities and depredations committed by Confederate troops. But for the most part this destructiveness stemmed from the nature of conflict itself and the stresses it placed on the men in the field, who, provoked by unceasing resistance and an unconventional war, themselves became increasingly savage and threw off their accustomed restraints. 247

NOTES

1. The process of mobilization can be followed in Orders, East Tennessee Brigade, 1861, Order Book of Assistant Adjutant General David M. Key, Brigadier General William R. Caswell, Tennessee Volunteers, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also Brigadier General William R. Caswell to Governor Isham G. Harris, Camp Cummings, August 23,1861, Papers of the Governors, Isham G. Harris, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Jesse C Burt, Jr., "East Tennessee, Lincoln, and Sherman," East Teimessee Historical Society Publications 34 (1962): 10.

2. Robert C. Black III, The Railroads of the Confederacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952), pp. 1-11, 68-70, 106, 225.

3. Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, July-December 1861; Brigadier General George B. Crittenden, December 1861-February 1862; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith, February-December 1862; Major General John P. McCown, August-September 1862; Major General Samuel Jones, September-October 1862; Brigadier General Harry Heth, December 1862-January 1863; Major General Daniel S. Donelson, January-April 1863; Brigadier General Dabney H. Maury, April-May 1863; Major General Simon B. Buckner, May-September 1863.

4. H. R. Cox to Governor Isham G. Harris, June 10, 1861, Papers of the Governors, Isham G. Harris, Teimessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; James W. Rogan to "His Excellency Jefferson Davis," Rogersville, July 1, 1861, Jefferson Davis Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; S. B. Cockerill to Governor Isham G. Harris, August 8, 1861, Papers of the Governors, Isham G. Harris, Teimessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Governor Harris to President Jefferson Davis, Nashville, July 13, 1861, Isham G. Harris Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Colonel Henry M. Doak, "Paper Re James Q. Quarles and Felix Zollicoffer," Heruy M. Doak Papers, Teimessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Stanley J. Folmsbee, Robert E. Corlew, and Enoch L. Mitchell, History of Tennessee. 4 vols. (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1960), vol. 2, pp. 69-70. 248 5. James W. McKee, Jr., "Felix K. Zollicoffer: Confederate Defender of East Tennessee," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 43 (1971): 37-42; James C. Stamper, "Felix K. Zollicoffer: Tennessee Editor and Politician," Tennessee Historical Quarterly 28 (1969): 356-76; Thomas William Humes, The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee (Knoxville: Ogden Brothers, 1888), p. 122; Felix K. Zollicoffer to William B. Campbell, Nashville, May 11, 1861, William B. Campbell Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; James Welch Patton, Unionism and Reconstruction in Tennessee. 1860-1869 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934), pp. 15-16.

6. Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper to Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, Richmond, July 31, 1861, OR 4, p. 377.

7. Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, "To the People of East Tennessee," August 7,1861, Orders, East Tennessee Brigade, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

8. Knoxville Whig. July 6, 1861, June 29, 1861, July 6, 1861, October 12, 1861, October 19, 1861.

9. Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, General Orders No. 5, August 23, 1861, Orders and Letters Sent, Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, August 1861-January 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

10. William G. McAdoo Diary, August 18, 1861, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 120-23.

11. Major General Leonidas Polk to Colonel Robertson Topp, Judge J. Caruthers, Dr. Jeptha Folk, D. M. Leatherman, Memphis, July 29, 1861, Robertson Topp Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

12. A. M. Lea to A. J. Bledsoe, Knoxville, August 26, 1861, OR 4, pp. 393- 94.

13. Robertson Topp to Robert Josselyn, Memphis, October 20, 1861, Copies of Letters sent to the Confederate Secretary of War and President Davis, Jefferson Davis Papers, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Alex M. Clayton to His Excellency Jefferson Davis, Memphis, July 31, 1861, Robertson Topp Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville. 249 14. A. M. Lea to A. J. Bledsoe, Knoxville, August 26, 1861, OR 4, pp. 393- 94; Thomas B. Alexander, Thomas A.R. Nelson of East Tennessee (Nashville: Tennessee Historical Commission, 1956), p. 95; Andrew Johnson and William B. Carter to Abraham Lincoln, Washington, D.C., August 6,1861, Leroy P. Graf and Ralph Haskins, eds.. The Papers of Andrew Johnson. 9 vols. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1967), vol. 4, pp. 669-70.

15. Landon Carter Haynes to Governor Harris, Knoxville, June 15, 1861, Landon Carter Haynes Letters, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Sam Tate to Hon. Robert Toombs, Chattanooga, June 28, 1861, OR 52, 2, p. 116; P.G.T. Beauregard to President Davis, Manassas, Virginia, June 27, 1861, OR 52, 2, p. 115; J. L. Calhoun to Hon. L. P. Walker, Atlanta, June 30, 1861, OR 52, 2, pp. 117; Martha Hall to Margeret, Knoxville, August 12, 1861, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Major General Leonidas Polk to President Jefferson Davis, Nashville, July 9,1861, OR 4, pp. 365- 66; Samuel P. Carter to Andrew Johnson, Barboursville, Kentucky, August 7,1861, Johnson Papers, vol. 4, pp. 671-72.

16. Governor Harris to Secretary of War L. P. Walker, Nashville, August 3, 1861, August 16, 1861, OR II, 1, pp. 830-31.

17. Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Adjutant and Inspector- General Samuel Cooper, August 6, 1861, Orders and Letters Sent, Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, August 1861-January 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C; Hannibal Paine to "Miss Jermy," Camp Cummings, August 18, 1861, Paine Family Papers, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

18. McKee, "Zollicoffer," pp. 45-46.

19. Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, August 6, 1861, Orders and Letters Sent, Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, August 1861-January 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; William H. Humphreys to Zollicoffer, Nashville, August 13, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson to President Jefferson Davis, "Statement" by Nelson, Richmond, August 12, 1861, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Alexander, Nelson, pp. 87-93; Oliver P. Temple, East Teimessee in the Civil War (Cinciimati: The Robert Clarks Company, Publishers, 1899), pp. 367-69; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 127-29; John M. Lillard to Jennie Lillard, August 13, 1861, Lillard Family Papers, Teimessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; David Sullins, Recollections of an Old Man: Seventy Years in Dixie (Bristol: The King Printing Company, 1910), 250 pp. 202-04; Robert W. Winston, Andrew Johnson. Plebian and Patriot (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1928), p. 199.

20. Robertson Topp to Robert Josselyn, Memphis, October 20, 1861, Copies of Letters sent to the Confederate Secretaiy of War and President Davis, Jefferson Davis Papers, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 141-46; William G. Brownlow, Sketches of the Rise. Progress, and Decline of Secession (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1862), pp. 134- 40; William G. McAdoo Diaiy, October 12, 1861, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Andrew Jackson Fletcher to Oliver P. Temple, Greeneville, October 15, 1861, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville.

21. Robertson Topp to Robert Josselyn, Memphis, October 20, 1861, Copies of Letters sent to the Confederate Secretary of War and President Davis, Jefferson Davis Papers, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 141-46; William G. Brownlow, Sketches of the Rise. Progress, and Decline of Secession (Philadelphia: 1862), pp. 134-40.

22. Charles Wallace to Governor Isham G. Harris, Knoxville, October 29, 1861, OR 4, p. 510; Reuben Davis to President Jefferson Davis, Corinth, November 4, 1861, OR 4, pp. 510-11; Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Camp Buckner, October 26, 1861, Colonel William B. Wood to Zollicoffer, Knoxville, October 28,1861, Wood to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Knoxville, November 4,1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14- November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

23. Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Lieutenant Colonel George C. McClelland, Camp at Flat Lick, October 25, 1861, McClelland to Colonel William B. Wood, Camp Sterndon, October 29, 1861, Zollicoffer to Wood, Camp Buckner, October 30, 1861, McClelland to Zollicoffer, Jamestown, November 4, 1861, McClelland to Zollicoffer, Camp McGinnis, November 5, 1861, Zollicoffer to Wood, Jacksborough, November 5, 1861, Zollicoffer to Wood, Cumberland Gap, November 7, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

24. Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Colonel William B. Wood, Cumberland Gap, November 5, 1861, Wood to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Knoxville, November 4, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Zollicoffer to 251 Lieutenant Colonel George C. McClelland, Camp Buckner, October 28, 1861, Orders and Letters Sent, Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, August 1861- January 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Zollicoffer to Wood, Camp Buckner, October 30, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

25. Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer to Colonel William B. Wood, Jacksborough, November 12, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Tennessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Zollicoffer to Lieutenant Colonel William Mackall, Montgomery, November 20, 1861, Zollicoffer to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Jamestown, November 22, 1861, Orders and Letters Sent, Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, August 1861-January 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

26. Colonel William B. Wood to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Knoxville, November 20, 1861, Benjamin to Wood, Colonel Danville Leadbetter, and Brigadier General Wilham H. Carroll, Richmond, November 25,1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Teimessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Judge David T. Patterson was Andrew Johnson’s son-in-law and was thought to be a leader in the resistance movement in Greene County. Levi Pickens was an outspoken Unionist whose son was suspected of involvement in the bridgeburnings.

27. See Chapter One, pp. 62-65.

28. Colonel Danville Leadbetter to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Greeneville, November 30, December 8, 1861, OR 7, pp. 726, 747-48; Benjamin to Brigadier General William H. Carroll, Richmond, December 10, 1861, OR 7, p. 754; Carroll to Benjamin, Knoxville, December 11, 1861, OR 7, pp. 759-60; John Crozier Ramsey to Benjamin, Knoxville, November 28, 1861, Benjamin to Ramsey, Richmond, November 28, 1861, OR 7, pp. 700-701; Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 393-400; Benjamin to Brigadier General John M. Withers, Richmond, December 26, 1861, OR II, 1, p. 859; Leadbetter to Cooper, Greeneville, January 7, 1861, OR II, 1, p. 869; Record of Political Prisoners, Knoxville, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Record of Political Prisoners, 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; "J. Pickens vs. John Crozier, D. B Reynolds, W. H. Sneed," February 1865, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; David M. Key to Lizzie Key, Knoxville, December 14, 1861, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical 252 Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; H. C. Smith to Oliver P. Temple, February 9,1862, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 403-09; Humes, Mountaineers, p. 146; Brownlow, Sketches, pp. 308-28, 369-70; William Randolph Carter, History of the First Regiment of Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry in the Great War of the Rebellion (Knoxville: Gant & Ogden, 1902), p. 16. For Judge Humphrey’s intervention, see Carroll to Benjamin, Knoxville, November 29, 1861, OR 7, p. 720, and Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 141-43.

29. Brownlow, Sketches, pp. 280-305, 337-81; John Crozier Ramsey to Secretary of War JudaJi P. Benjamin, Knoxville, December 6,1861, OR 7, p. 740.

30. "Patriotic Proclamation to the Citizens of East Tennessee," Colonel Danville Leadbetter, Greeneville, November 30,1861, M. J. Solemans Scrapbook, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; Humes, Mountaineers, p. 147; Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin to Major Generd George C. Crittenden, Richmond, December 13, 1861, OR 7, p. 764.

31. John Baxter to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Richmond, November 30, 1861, OR 7, pp. 725-26; Governor Isham G. Harris to General Albert Sidney Johnston, Nash\^e, December 31,1861, OR 7, pp. 811-12; John C. Burch to President Jefferson Davis, January 20, 1862, "Citizens Petition for Release of James S. Bradford and Levi Trewhitt, Bradley County" and "Statement by Colonel James W. Gillespie, 43rd Tennessee Volunteers," January 20, 1862, "Statement by Judah P. Benjamin to the Teimessee Delegation, Confederate Congress," February 24, 1862, OR II, 1, pp. 870-71, 871-73, 879-80; Temple, East Tennessee, pp. 406-20; Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin to Landon Carter Haynes, Knoxville, February 4, 1862, OR II, 1, p. 879.

32. Joseph H. Parks, General Edmund Kirby Smith. C.S.A. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1954), pp. 12-110.

33. Ibid., pp. 116-54.

34. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Cassie, Knoxville, March 3, 1862, March 13, 1862, March 26, 1862, Edmund Kirby Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Kirby Smith to Colonel William W. Mackall, Knoxville, March 14, 1862, Department of East Teimessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Parks, Kirby Smith, pp. 155-56.

35. Colonel Danville Leadbetter to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, December 24,1861, OR 7, p. 791; Major General Edmund Kirby 253 Smith to President Jefferson Davis, Knoxville, March 10, 1862, Kirby Smith to Cooper, Knoxville, March 13, 1862, March 23, 1862, Kirby Smith to Major General Albert Sidney Johnson, Knoxville, March 9, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Kirby Smith to Cassie, Knoxville, March 15, 1862, Kirby Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Kirby Smith to Governor Isham G. Harris, Knoxville, May 29, 1862, Kirby Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Kirby Smith to Cooper, Knoxville, April 2, 1862, Department of East Termessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Parks, Kirby Smith, pp. 156-58.

36. Parks, Kirbv Smith, pp. 157-59.

37. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Major T. A. Washington, Knoxville, April 3, 1862, Kirby Smith to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, April 2, 1862, Department of East Termessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

38. See Chapter Three, pp. 152-53.

39. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, April 2, 1862, Kirby Smith to "Colonel Danville Leadbetter, Colonel James E. Rains, Captain W. L. Brown, Captain A. W. Hoge, Captain Chambers, Major W. L. Ealdn, and Captain Ashby," Knoxville, April 2, 1862, Assistant Adjutant General Henry L. Clay to Captain W. L. Brown, Knoxville, April 8, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

40. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Major General Albert Sidney Johnston, Knoxville, March 25, 1862, Kirby Smith to Major General Braxton Bragg, Knoxville, April 4, 1862, Assistant Adjutant General Henry L. Clay to Major W. L. Eakin, Knoxville, April 14, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Samuel P. Johnson Diary, April 22-June 15, 1862, Samuel P. Johnson Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Oliver P. Temple, Notable Men of Tennessee from 1833 to 1875 (New York: The Cosmopolitan Press, 1912), pp. 203-05. 254 41. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Major F.A. Washington, Knoxville, April 3, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

42. War Department, Adjutant and Inspector General’s Office, General Orders No. 21, April 8,1862, OR 10,2, p. 402; Assistant Adjutant General Henry L. Clay to Hon. F. W. Turby, Knoxville, April 14, 1862, Clay to R. Lovel, Knoxville, April 24,1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; T. H. Watts to Secretary of War George W. Randolph, April 19, 1862, Confederate Attorney General, Opinion Book, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Bryan, "East Tennessee," pp. 209-11.

43. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith, "Proclamation," April 18, 1862, Kirby Smith, "To the East Tennesseans in the United States Army," August 13, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March- September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Colonel William M. Churchwell, "To the Disaffected People of East Tennessee," April 23, 1862, OR 10, 2, p. 641; Parks, Kirbv Smith, p. 172.

44. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to President Jefferson Davis, Knoxville, May 9, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Davis to Kirby Smith, Richmond, May 13, 1862, OR 10, 2, p. 521.

45. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, March 13, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; General Robert E. Lee to Kirby Smith, Richmond, April 7, 1862, OR 10, 2, pp. 397-98; Kirby Smith to Colonel R. Morgan, Knoxville, May 11, 1862, Smith to Cooper, Knoxville, May 13, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

46. Robert Johnson to Andrew Johnson, Camp Gardner, April 8, 1862, Johnson Papers, vol. 5, pp. 280-82; Assistant Adjutant General Henry L. Clay to First Lieutenant Julius M. Rhett, Knoxville, April 23, 1862, Clay to Colonel John C. Vaughn, Knoxville, April 18,1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Daniel Ellis, Thrilling Adventures of Daniel Ellis (New York: Harper, 1867). 255 47. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Major F. A. Washington, Fincastle, April 25, May 3, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Parks, Kirby Smith, pp. 159-71.

48. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Cassie, Knoxville, March 23, 1862, Chattanooga, June 12,1862, Moimt Wall, July 15,1862, Kirby-Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Kirby Smith to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Bean’s Station, June 15, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Parks, Kirbv Smith, pp. 159-92.

49. Parks, Kirby Smith, pp. 198-245.

50. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to President Jefferson Davis, Knoxville, August 11, 1862, Major General John P. McCown to Secretary of War G. W. Randolph, Knoxville, September 1,1862, September 3,1862, September 17, 1862, and indorsement. Secretary of War G. W. Randolph, September 17, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C. For Jones’ background, see Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Grav (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959), pp. 265-66.

51. Major General Sam Jones to Secretary of War G. W. Randolph, Knoxville, October 14, 1862, Department of East Teimessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Jones to T.A.R. Nelson, Dublin, Virginia, January 25, 1863, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

52. Secretary of War G. W. Randolph to Major General Sam Jones, Richmond, September 19, 1862, OR 16, 2, p. 851.

53. Major General John P. McCown to Secretary of War G. W. Randolph, Knoxville, September 3, 1862, Department of East Termessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

54. Major General Sam Jones to T.A.R. Nelson, Knoxville, September 25, 1862, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Jones to Secretary of War G. W. Randolph, Knoxville, October 4,1862, October 14, 1862, Department of East Teimessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, 256 September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; William G. McAdoo Diary, October 3, 1862, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

55. Major General Sam Jones to Secretary of War G.W. Randolph, Knoxville, October 4, 1862, October 14, 1862, Seth J. W. Lucky to Jones, Jonesborough, October 11, 1862, Rev. F. E. Pitts to Hon. Nat Taylor, Knoxville, September 24, 1862, Taylor to Pitts, Happy Valley, October 2, 1862, Jones to Editor, Athens Post. Knoxville, October 4, 1862, Assistant Adjutant General Charles Stringfellow to "Neale and Cowwan," Knoxville, October 6, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

56. "Address of Hon. T.A.R. Nelson to the People of East Teimessee," Knoxville Register. October 3, 1862.

57. C. W. Charleton to T.A.R. Nelson, Knoxville, October 5, 1862, James P. McDoult and ninety others to Nelson, Greeneville, October 6, 1862, William McCampbell to Nelson, Morristown, October 8,1862, James Sevier and thirty-one others to Nelson, Bristol, October 8, 1862, T. P. Ficlde and six others to Nelson, October 6, 1862, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

58. Alexander, Nelson, pp. 97-98; Major General Sam Jones to T.A.R. Nelson, Knoxville, October 17, 1862, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Thomas Doak Edington Memoirs, p. 15, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

59. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to T.A.R. Nelson, Knoxville, November 17,1862, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Rev. F. E. Pitts to Hon. Nat Taylor, Knoxville, September 24, 1862, Taylor to Pitts, Happy Valley, October 2, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

60. Major General Sam Jones to Secretary of War G. W. Randolph, Knoxville, October 4,1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

61. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Cassie, Knoxville, July 22, 1862, October 27, 1862, Edmund Kirby Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. 257 62. Major General Sam Jones to Secretaiy of War G. W. Randolph, Knoxville, October 4, 1862, October 14, 1862, October 17, 1862, Jones to Editor, Athens Post. Knoxville, October 4, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

63. Major General Sam Jones to Secretary of War G. W. Randolph, Knoxville, September 23,1862, September 24,1862, October 17,1862, October 18, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September- November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

64. Indorsements, Secretary of War G. W. Randolph and President Jefferson Davis, October 24, 1862, to Jones’ letter of October 17, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

65. Major General Sam Jones to Secretary of War G. W. Randolph, September 25, 1862, Jones to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, October 5, October 10,1862, Cooper to Jones, October 10,1862, Jones to Cooper, October 18, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

66. Major General Daniel S. Donelson to Colonel Ewell, February 10, 1863, OR 23, 2, p. 631; Secretary of War James A. Seddon to Donelson, Richmond, February 27, 1862, OR 23, 2, pp. 651-52; Major General Simon B. Buckner to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, April 21, 1863, Buckner to Cooper, Knoxville, July 28, 1863, Bucloier to Mr. Abe Tipton, Knoxville, July 25,1863, Colonel V. Shelikan to Buckner, Knoxville, May 30,1863, Department of East Tennessee, Letters, Orders, Circulars, April 1863-October 1864, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

67. Major General Simon B. Buckner to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Knoxville, April 21,1864, Department of East Tennessee, Letters, Orders, Circulars, April 1863-October 1864, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Buckner to Brigadier General William Mackall, Knoxville, July 31, 1863, Department of East Tennessee, Telegrams Sent, April 1863-September 1864, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; David C. Bradley to his mother. Camp Nelson, August 10, 1863, David C. Bradley Letters, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

68. Colonel William Churchwell to Captain J. F. Betton, Knoxville, May 14, 1862, OR n, 1, pp. 887-88; Major General Sam Jones, "Proclamation to the 258 People of East Tennessee," Knoxville, September 30, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Colonel Danville Leadbetter, "Patriotic Proclamation to the Citizens of East Tennessee," Greeneville, November 30, 1861, M.J. Solemans Scrapbook, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham.

69. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Cassie, Knoxville, July 22, 1862, Edmund Kirby Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; "J. Pickens vs. John Crozier, D.B. Reynolds, W.H. Sneed, others," Nelson Papers, February 1865, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

70. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Brigadier General George W. Morgan, Knoxville, August 1, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General William H. Carroll to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Knoxville, November 29, 1861, OR 7, pp. 720-21; Benjamin to Colonel William B. Wood, Colonel Danville Leadbetter, Brigadier General William H. Carroll, Richmond, November 25, 1861, Letter Book of Colonel W. B. Wood, Commanding Post at Knoxville, Teimessee, October 14-November 25, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also Assistant Adjutant General Henry L. Clay to Brigadier General C. S. Stevenson, Knoxville, June 26, 1862, and Clay to Colonel A.W. Reynolds, Knoxville, July 8, 1862, Department of East Teimessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

71. William Franklin Draper to his wife, Morristown, September 25,1863, William Franklin Draper Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; R. E. Jameson to his mother, Knoxville, October 3, 1863, R. E. Jameson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Marshall M. Miller to his wife, Knoxville, January 22, 1864, Marshall M. Miller Letters, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. See also Colonel Orlando Poe to Eleanor, Chitwood, August 26, 1863, Orlando M. Poe Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Colonel Daniel Lamed Journal, September 22, 1863, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. CHAPTER V

"TO GUARD AGAINST REAL OR EVEN SUPPOSED DANGER"

In the last week of August 1863 the Army of the Ohio, led by the inept Major

General Ambrose Burnside, moved south from Crab Orchard, Kentucky, crossed the border west of Cumberland Gap, and followed the steep trails down into East

Tennessee. After more than two years of delays and disappointments Federal troops had come to deliver the Eastern Unionists from Confederate rule. The Southern defenders fell back toward Chattanooga, and Union troops pushed ahead rapidly, reaching Knoxville by the afternoon of 2 September. Their reception was extraordinary. Unionists came from miles to line the march routes, cheer the bluecoats, and offer food and drink. Guerrillas and conscript evaders emerged from their sanctuaries, and men lined up to enlist. Loyal East Teimesseans brought out

United States flags that they had hidden from Confederate authorities, and in

Knoxville crowds paraded through Burnside’s headquarters and celebrated the return of exiles such as Brownlow and Maynard. Though they would soon suffer setbacks, the initial invasion was for Burnside and his men an immensely gratifying triumph.

[1]

259 260 At the same time, the situation that Burnside’s command faced was sobering.

More than two years of partisan violence and Confederate occupation had left deep

scars. Military demands had overburdened the economy at the same time that the

disappearance of much of the male population had disrupted normal production.

Fields were unplanted, crops unharvested, and livestock and draft animals

dangerously scarce. The social and political distortions were equally serious. Dozens

of guerrilla bands now roamed the countryside, and the Union occupation, though

it would change the terms on which they fought, would not end their struggle.

Violence had become integral to pohtics, and the perceived illegitimacy of

Confederate rule had created a general mistrust of and contempt for authority.

Finally, two years of conflict had left an accumulation of grievances that would be very difficult to assuage. The task of restoring order to East Tennessee would prove perhaps more difficult than the occupation itself.

In comparison with their Confederate counterparts. Union authorities enjoyed several advantages. First, the Lincoln Administration had already developed guidelines for the governance of disloyal persons, and thus Union officers had a ready framework for their policies. Second, the Union command possessed more than two years experience in occupying enemy territory and suppressing resistance.

In addition to Burnside’s own experience in North Carolina and the Department of the Ohio, and Major General John M. Schofield’s in Missouri, East Tennessee officers could potentially draw on the methods developed in Middle and West

Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana, and elsewhere. Finally, the majority of the 261 population supported the occupying forces and were eager to provide various kinds of valuable assistance.

There were a number of similarities in Confederate and Union policies in

East Tennessee. Union commanders rotated in and out of the theater almost as frequently as their Confederate predecessors. Burnside remained in East Tennessee only until December 1863, and his successor, Major General John G. Foster, served a mere two months. The next district commander. Major General John Schofield, stayed at this post for almost a year, but since Schofield was with General William

T. Sherman much of that time effective command fell to two subordinates, Brigadier

Generals Jacob Ammen and Davis Tillson. The command turnover became even more rapid at the war’s end, with new commanders appointed in March 1865 and then again in May. [2] Union and Confederate commanders also adopted equivalent legal positions concerning disloyalty, and they utilized many of the same measures to control dissent, including imprisonment, the loyalty oath, confiscation, exile, and voluntary resettlement.

The differences between the two occupations are more significant than the similarities, however. First, as noted above. Union policy was not an individual creation for East Tennessee, but was part of a national policy established by the

Lincoln administration and the Union command. This was both an advantage and a disadvantage. The national guidelines guaranteed a certain continuity despite changes in command; at the same time, national policies were not always appropriate to the situation in East Tennessee. A second difference was that Union commanders 262 were less hampered by the kinds of restraints that the Confederates placed on

themselves and was, on the whole, considerably harsher. This contrast was the result

of a third difference, the way in which each side viewed East Tennessee. From the

Southern perspective. East Tennessee was Confederate territory, subject to common

obligations and burdens, but also entitled to common rights and protections. This perception eroded as Confederate frustrations increased, but it nonetheless moderated Confederate policies. Conversely, Union authorities viewed East

Tennessee as occupied enemy territory. They recognized the region’s loyalty, but nonetheless they acted as conquerors and felt less obliged to conciliate, persuade, or woo the disaffected.

THE CONVENTIONAL CONFLICT

Union policy in East Tennessee was considerably influenced by the fact that control of the region remained divided between Confederate and Union forces until almost the end of the war. Thus it is essential to explain the Union failure to capture the entire region. Three developments particularly account for this lapse: Burnside’s conduct of operations after the capture of Knoxville; General James Longstreet’s attempt to retake East Tennessee in November 1863; and the refusal of Union commanders thereafter to drive Confederate forces out of the northeast counties.

Burnside entered East Teimessee with the newly organized Twenty-Third

Corps and a division of cavalry, giving him a total of a little over twelve thousand 263 effectives. Two additional divisions of Burnside’s old Ninth Corps were in Cincinnati

and were due to arrive in early September. Confederate Major General Simon B.

Buckner could put in the field about as many men as Burnside, and though many of

his units were demoralized and unreliable, Buckner initially intended to oppose the

invasion. He left twenty-Gve hundred men at Cumberland Gap and posted the rest

at Kingston and Loudon, hoping to trap Burnside deep inside East Tennessee and

destroy him. But Buckner’s superior. Major General Braxton Bragg, needed

assistance against Major General William Rosecrans and ordered Buckner to fall

back to Chattanooga. Thus Burnside was able to capture Knoxville and push as far

south as Loudon by early September. Even so, his position was anything but secure.

The main supply depot lay at Nicholas ville, Kentucky, two hundred miles north of

Knoxville over some of the worst roads his men had ever seen. Furthermore,

Confederate forces threatened his small force on three sides. Cumberland Gap was still in Southern hands, Buckner and Bragg were not far off in Georgia, and about three thousand men under General Sam Jones lay just over the border in southwest

Virginia. Finally, at any time the Confederate command could, without Burnside’s knowledge, send reinforcements from the Army of Northern Virginia either to Bristol or Chattanooga.

After securing Knoxville, Burnside made a critical decision. His initial orders from Major General Henry W. Halleck instructed him both to hold East Tennessee and support the Army of the Cumberland against Bragg. Burnside, therefore, determined first to eliminate the two threats to his north before shifting his forces 264 south. At least two factors influenced this decision. First, at this point Burnside believed that Rosecrans was still pushing Bragg into Georgia and required no assistance, and he did not begin to leam otherwise until 16 September. Second, the

Union commander did not wish to leave the Unionist population unprotected. Even a few days’ observations had convinced Burnside that the East Tennessee loyalists had suffered terribly under Confederate rule, and he did not wish to abandon them to their enemies again.

Union troops quickly disposed of the garrison at Cumberland Gap. Two forces, one moving south from Kentucky and one north from Knoxville, trapped the

Confederates and forced their surrender on 10 September. Then on 16 September

Burnside led a force up the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad to Zollicoffer and began skirmishing with Jones’ troops there. But on 22 September urgent messages from Knoxville interrupted this operation. Burnside received confirmation that

Rosecrans was in serious trouble and that Lincoln had ordered him to take his entire force south to Rosecrans’ aid. Burnside remained in Knoxville several days, calling in his spare forces and arranging their movement south, and in the event provided little aid to Rosecrans. He was also unable to resume his operations in upper East

Tennessee, however, until 9 October. Union forces then routed Jones, who had ventured as far south as Bull’s Gap, and chased the Confederates all the way back to Blountville, near the Virginia line. But they failed to trap and destroy the entire force as Burnside had planned, a failure that Burnside’s staff attributed to the delay in the operation and the absence of the units sent south. Sadly for his reputation. 265 Burnside was unable to accomplish either of his objectives, effectively supporting the

Army of the Cumberland or securing northern East Tennessee. Given the

geography of the theater, it is unlikely that any operation would have eliminated

permanently the threat from Virginia. At the same time, after October the Union

command would never resume operations in upper East Tennessee in the manner

that Burnside had planned. [3]

By early October Burnside had twenty-three thousand men in East Tennessee, almost twice as many as the initial invasion force. Even so, his position had actually grown more precarious. Bragg had Rosecrans locked up in Chattanooga, and in late

October he detached about fifteen thousand men under General James Longstreet and sent the discontented general north to retake Knoxville. Burnside learned of

Longstreet’s advance on 12 November and, after consultation with General Ulysses

S. Grant, decided to withdraw to Knoxville, taking Longstreet as far from

Chattanooga as possible and thus aiding Grant’s attempt to break the Confederate stranglehold there. This decision, though ultimately successful, proved enormously risky. Burnside barely beat Longstreet back to Knoxville, and he had to sacrifice most of three regiments and one of his best officers, newly-promoted Brigadier

General William P. Sanders, to buy the extra day his engineers needed to complete the city’s defenses. But Burnside detailed most of his forces for fatigue duty and called out the entire male population of Knoxville, and by 20 November his talented chief engineer. Colonel Orlando Poe, had constructed defenses formidable enough to force Longstreet into a siege. 266 The siege lasted little more than a week, but it punished the Union defenders.

Despite provisions rafted into Knoxville by friendly citizens, Union supplies were

scarce and men lived on quarter rations. But Burnside’s fortunes soon turned, for

on 29 November Longstreet, under pressure to end his campaign, attempted a direct

assault. Obstructions had prevented Confederate officers from observing all the

Union defenses, and when fourteen Confederate regiments opened the attack at

dawn they tumbled down the eleven-foot walls of a moat and came directly under

Union fire. The result for the Confederates was a disaster. For forty-five minutes

pre-positioned Union artillery raked the attackers, while Union infantry shot down

those Confederates who managed to work their way out. By the time Longstreet

called off the attack he had suffered six hundred casualties. Burnside’s losses were

eight dead and five wounded. [4]

Longstreet had no time for further attempts, for assistance was coming to

Burnside. After breaking Bragg’s hold on Chattanooga Grant ordered Sherman to

take General Gordon Granger’s Fourth Corps and go to Burnside’s aid. Sherman

reached Maryville on 5 December and then went ahead into Knoxville to confer with

the East Tennessee commander. Their discussion was not pleasant, for Sherman had

driven his men to exhaustion only to find conditions in Knoxville seemingly far better

than had been reported. Nonetheless, he offered to bring up the entire Fourth Corps

and assist Burnside in driving Longstreet out of East Tennessee. Fearful of

overburdening his fragile supply system, however, Burnside decided to take only two divisions. 267 This proved to be Burnside’s second critical decision, for thereafter all Union

attempt to capture northern East Tennessee foundered. On 7 December Burnside

marched north out of Knoxville and followed Longstreet as far as Rogersville. After

a week of skirmishing, however, Longstreet counterattacked in force, driving the

Fédérais back to Blaine’s Cross Roads and ending Union operations. General

Foster, who had replaced Burnside the day before, soon became too ill to take the

field, and by the time Schofield arrived in February other Union aims took

precedence over East Termessee. Sherman, who wanted no distractions from

preparations for his Atlanta campaign, instructed Schofield not to challenge

Longstreet, and he refused to alter this decision even at the urging of President

Lincoln. Grant, likewise, had abandoned his plans in early February to send fourteen thousand men under General George Thomas to drive the Confederates out.

These decisions were based both on practical considerations and on Union strategic priorities. As Grant noted, the lack of transportation and the scarcity of forage would make it almost impossible to sustain a large force in East Tennessee.

If threatened Longstreet could simply fall back into Virginia, stretching Union communications and shortening his own, and could easily return to East Tennessee as soon as Union forces left. Furthermore, both Grant and Sherman believed that

Longstreet would voluntarily return to Virginia in the spring, and therefore argued that the costs of driving him out were not justified. Grant and Sherman were actually in no hurry for Longstreet to leave, for as long as the Confederate general 268 remained isolated in East Tennessee he could influence events in neither Virginia

nor Georgia, the two areas now central in Union planning. [5]

Longstreet remained in the area of Bull’s Gap until early April, when he

returned to the Army of Northern Virginia. But even after his departure three to

four thousand Confederate troops remained in upper East Tennessee, mostly cavalry

under the command first of Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan and then Brigadier

General John C. Vaughn. The costs to the Eastern Unionists were high. Longstreet

subsisted his forces entirely on the country, and before he left he stripped the region

of as many supplies as he could carry. Furthermore, by all accounts, both Union and

Confederate, the Southern forces that remained after April were frightfully undisciplined, and their treatment of the Unionist population steadily worsened.

Finally, divided control ensured that Confederate and Union authorities would continue to compete for control of the population, leading to such evils as the taking of hostages. [6]

In mid-1864 the Union command, prodded by Military Governor Andrew

Johnson, made one final attempt to secure all East Tennessee. Johnson was increasingly distressed by the continued Confederate occupation of his home region, and in July he persuaded the War Department to transfer a division of cavalry under

Brigadier General Alvin C. Gillem, a force that Johnson himself had helped raise, to East Tennessee. Gillem, a native of Tennessee and the commander of Johnson’s so-called bodyguard, was competent and aggressive, and there were reasons to hope for his success. But he also treasured his independent status. Gillem refused to 269 place his command under the authority of Brigadier General Ammen, and eventually

tensions between the two men doomed Union efforts. Gillem arrived in East

Tennessee in August and initially enjoyed great success, winning victories at

Russelville and Blue Springs. But in November Major General John C. Breckinridge,

commander of the Confederate Department of East Tennessee and Southwest

Virginia, threw together a force of about 2,500 men and counterattacked, surprising

Gillem, who was unsupported by Ammen, at Russelville, shattering his force, and driving the remnants back almost to Knoxville. That defeat ended Gillem’s operations, and the result was that upper East Tennessee remained in Confederate hands until March 1865, when Major General George Stoneman, raiding into North

Carolina, drove up the East Tennessee valley and destroyed the remaining

Confederate units. [7]

THE UNIONIST ALLIANCE

The loyal population of East Tennessee looked to be an asset to the Union command. East Tennessee was one of the few areas of the South where Union forces met a friendly reception, and this cooperation promised to make the task of occupation and reconstruction easier. But such optimism was not always warranted.

The Union population had its own agenda, an agenda that did not always mesh with

Federal aims, and this difference frequently created complications for the Union command. 270 One of Burnside’s first acts upon reaching Knoxville was to establish the office

of provost marshal general for the District of East Tennessee, an office completely

separate from the provost marshal of the Army of the Ohio. Burnside created this

organization specifically to aid him in governing East Tennessee, and he granted it

broad powers: "The Provost Marshal General will have jurisdiction in all civil

matters-will take cognizance of arrests, and of all violations of civil or military law,

and will have the general supervision and direction of the District in all cases that pertain to his Department." The provost marshal’s office was thus the chief political and legal institution in East Tennessee, a role that it would play until the reestablishment of civilian government, and it had the primary responsibility for restoring and maintaining order, suppressing dissent, and implementing Union policies on disloyalty. [8]

Burnside’s action indicated his realization that East Tennessee could not be governed in the same way as other parts of the South. His choice to head this organization. Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter, was as significant as the creation of the office itself. Carter was a native East Termessean and a cousin of the

Reverend William B. Carter, organizer of the 1861 bridgeburnings. When the war began S. P. Carter was serving as a lieutenant in the United States Navy. He remained loyal to the Union, and in July 1861 the Lincoln administration recalled him from duty, commissioned him a colonel in the Army, and sent him to Kentucky to help organize Unionist recruits and smuggle arms across the border. After the failed uprising Carter commanded a cavalry brigade in the Army of the Ohio, seeing 271 action at the Battle of Fishing Creek and around Cumberland Gap. In the last four

days of December 1862 he also led the first large-scale raid into East Tennessee.

With 925 troopers, Carter burned three key railroad bridges, tore up ten miles of track, wrecked a small train, carried off stores and arms, and returned to Kentucky with few losses. Thus Carter’s nativity, rank, and experience made him an ideal candidate this new office. [9]

Carter’s duties were heavy, and he considered his service as provost marshal general the most difficult he had ever had to perform. Nonetheless, he met his responsibilities magnificently. Carter turned the office into a powerful, independent, and efficient organization, and he acted essentially as an equal partner with the

District Commander in setting occupation policy. Not all officers appreciated his efforts; General Schofield, for example, particularly resented Carter’s independent status and attempted, unsuccessfully, to eliminate the office. But other officers recognized Carter’s value, and he persevered until December 1864, when he resigned the office. The new provost marshal general. Lieutenant Colonel Luther S.

Trowbridge of the Tenth Michigan Cavalry, lacked Carter’s dedication, and under his administration the office fell into disrepair. [10]

The provost marshal general’s office was, to a startling extent, a native East

Tennessee organization. Burnside granted Carter the authority to appoint one or more deputy provost marshals for each county, and until 1865, when the practice was abolished, the provost marshal general could appoint East Tennessee civilians as well as regular officers to these posts. Of the thirty-two appointments listed, thirteen went 272 to civilians, who then possessed the same powers as deputies appointed from the

Federal Army. Furthermore, of the nineteen regular officers appointed deputy provost marshals four were from East Termessee units. Thus, over half of the men responsible for implementing occupation policies, determining loyalty and disloyalty, and punishing opposition were Eastern Unionists. Carter’s appointments had a certain justification, for native deputies possessed a far greater knowledge of the local population than regular officers ever could. At the same time, the makeup of the provost marshal general’s office jeopardized its ability to govern the region impartially and justly. [11]

The Union command also made use of its Unionist allies by employing them as intelligence sources. On 10 November 1863 Burnside authorized Robert A.

Crawford of Greene County to organize a "secret police" in East Termessee.

Burnside directed Crawford to report on enemy movements in the area, send "agents" into Confederate lines to gather intelligence, provide information on disloyal citizens, and monitor their activities. In turn, Crawford had the power to recruit assistants from the population, make requisitions for supplies, arms, and weapons, arrest persons suspected of giving aid to the enemy, and seize their property for the use of his organization. It is not clear what services Crawford actually performed or how useful his organization proved, but the Union command did pay him at least one thousand dollars for his work and did consult with him concerning the loyalty of certain prisoners. Union officers were also authorized to employ so-called "citizen scouts," small mounted units of local Unionists, to supplement the scouting activities 273 of regular cavalry. Finally, at least one Knoxville Unionist served on Burnside’s staff

as a liaison with the native population. [12]

This eagerness to employ the services of the Unionist population was evident

in other actions as well. Shortly after the establishment of the provost marshal

general’s office Burnside, on Carter’s recommendation, "invited and authorized" East

Termessee citizens to form self defense units that collectively would be known as

"The National Guard of Termessee." The procedure for creating these units was

simple. Guard companies had to be properly organized in accordance with Army

regulations, but once enrolled they would receive muskets, ammunition, and equipment. The District Commander could call these companies into service in an emergency, during which time they would operate under the authority of regular officers and receive standard military wages. Even when not in regular service,

Guard members were allowed to keep all arms and supplies issued to them and were free to perform other duties. [13]

This last point was highly significant. Burnside’s initial orders authorizing the formation of Guard units stated only that their purpose was "defense of their homes" and "securing their several counties from invasion." But their powers and their purposes quickly expanded. On 4 November 1863 Burnside authorized National

Guard members to arrest stragglers from the regular forces, "such citizens as are known to have been guilty of acts of oppression and cruelty to Union men, and generally any suspicious characters who may not be able to give a satisfactory account of themselves." In December 1863 Union authorities in Chattanooga granted the 274 citizens of McLemore’s Cove permission to organize a Home Guard unit to protect

themselves from guerrillas, robbers, and raiding Confederate cavalry. Carter’s

perception of the role of these units was even broader. He recorded that Guard

companies were established to put down guerrillas and robber bands and assist the

provost marshal general in enforcing the laws and suppressing disloyalty. In June

1864, in response to a request from Grainger County for permission to organize a

National Guard company. Carter stated that "self defense is a law of nature and

every guerrilla and horse thief should be shot on sight by any and every citizen who

may meet them. Assure the citizens who are loyal in Grainger that they do not need

an order to protect themselves against thieves and robbers." [14]

Union assistance to these Guard units was extremely generous. As early as

17 September 1863 Burnside ordered post commanders in East Tennessee to

distribute surplus arms and ammunition to loyal citizens. On 4 October he made

arrangements to transport weapons "to the upper counties of East Tennessee," and

in July 1864 Schofield again authorized the distribution of arms to Guard units.

Union officers displayed no hesitation in following these orders. Between November

1864 and May 1865 they issued at least 26,700 rounds of musket and pistol

ammunition of various calibers, as well as an undetermined number of muskets, to

Guard units in Hancock, Knox, Grainger, Claiborne, Greene, Hawkins, Cocke, and

Blount Counties. This figure, large as it is, does not include the first thirteen months of the Union occupation which the records do not cover, nor does it include supplies 275 given to Guard units in other counties. The total weaponry that the Union command

put into the hands of National Guardsmen is thus staggering. [15]

Although the "Tennessee National Guard" suffered from several defects, it

played a significant role in the Union occupation. Several Guard units provided

valuable support to the regular forces. In January 1864, after Confederate cavalry

had raided into Sevier County and captured a Union wagon train, the Home Guard

there helped Union forces recover their suppUes. Loyalists guided the Fifteenth

Pennsylvania Cavalry along back roads to the Confederate camp and enabled them

to surprise and rout the enemy troopers and recapture the wagons. They also fought alongside the Federal troops, and Foster noted that "the remains of the rebel party broke and fled to the mountains closely pursued by the Union home guards." In

January 1865 Lieutenant Colonel William C. Bartlett reported that he was employing two Guard companies for operations against guerrillas and that he had found them so useful that he wished to find mounts for them. In February 1865 Brigadier

General Jacob Ammen detached fifty regulars from the Second Ohio Heavy Artillery and sent them to Blaine’s Cross Roads "to cooperate with Capt G. S. White of the

Home Guard in an expedition after bushwhackers." [16]

Even more important were the routine tasks that Guard units performed.

They assisted deputy provost marshals in arresting and guarding prisoners, defended their communities against guerrillas, deserter bands, horse thieves, and renegade

Confederate cavalry, and frequently constituted the only available police force in East

Termessee. They also committed numerous depredations and atrocities, but in the 276 better cases they constituted a force for order and a means of coping with a state of near anarchy.

Finally, Union authorities recruited the services of the chief scourge of the

Confederacy. On 16 October 1863 the Reverend William G. Brownlow, accompanied by Representative Horace Maynard, returned to Knoxville. Brownlow had become famous in the North, and Burnside and others recognized his powers and his potential usefulness. The editor would have returned with or without Federal assistance, hut Burnside provided Brownlow everything he would need to reestablish his paper: a printing press that Union forces had captured in Alexandria, Tennessee, loads of paper and other supplies, and fifteen hundred dollars for his initial expenses.

Burnside also found for Brownlow an army ambulance to transport his family, five army wagons to haul his possessions and equipment, and a cavalry company to escort them from Cincinnati.

The first issue of Brownlow’s paper, maliciously renamed the Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator, appeared on 11 November 1863, and Brownlow soon resumed his role as the leading voice of the Unionists, whipping up partisan passions and displaying the same vicious wit that had served him so well in the past. In addition,

Brownlow secured an appointment as Special Treasury Agent for East Tennessee, a post that gave him tremendous power. Anyone wishing to engage in any kind of business in East Tennessee had first to receive a special licence from the Special

Agent’s office, and Brownlow also had the authority to seize goods traded without a license and confiscate and dispose of property abandoned by disloyal persons. [17] 277 Granting so much power to native Unionists, and making them essentially partners in the occupation, was a dangerous policy. It provided multiple opportunities for Unionists to take revenge on secessionists, and it encouraged, rather than constrained, partisan violence and disorder. On 28 September 1863 Provost

Marshal General Carter himself issued the following proclamation: "All persons who have any knowledge of the murder of Union people in East Tennessee within the past two years, or of other outrages committed upon them, on account of their loyalty to the United States Government, are requested to furnish this office with all such information, together with the names and residences of witnesses by whom the facts can be substantiated in order that measures may be adopted to bring the guilty parties to justice." Samuel W. Scott and Samuel P. Angel, official historians of the

Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, claim that Carter also discussed with the officers of that regiment the possibility of offering rewards for evidence against secessionists who had committed violence against Unionists, though he eventually abandoned the idea for fear of retaliation. Brownlow went further than Carter. He repeatedly stated that Unionists and secessionists could not live together in East Tennessee, and he asserted that secessionist guerrillas should be shot on sight. Brownlow also encouraged Unionists to ruin their enemies by initiating costly damage suits against them, and he explicitly called for vengeance against the men who had executed the

Unionist bridgeburners in 1861: 278 Keep it before the people that it is proper and right for Union men to shoot down upon sight, each and all of those murderers and that it is the duty that East Tennessee union men owe to their country, to their God, and to their abused relatives to see that these men, each, anyone of them, or all, die violent deaths, if they shall dare to show themselves in East Tennessee during the present century. [18]

Difficulties with the Tennessee National Guard also illustrate some of the dangers of Federal policy. Several Guard units committed so many thefts and assaults that Federal authorities had to take action against their allies. In October

1863 Carter ordered three Guard members arrested for stealing horses and money, and in June 1864 he investigated two others in Sevier County for the same crimes.

That same month Schofield disbanded the Guard company of Cocke County for numerous thefts, and in May 1865 Carter arrested the commander of the Maryville

Home Guards for misconduct. Such criminal activity was probably inevitable, for the vague grant of authority to Guardsmen to defend themselves, arrest suspicious persons, and impress horses and supplies was an invitation to abuse. It is likely that many Guard members had been, or still were, guerrillas, and that the new Guard units overlapped with the "Home Guard" units that Unionists had established on their own in 1861. It is also likely that many Guard members did not have quite the same understanding of their duties and powers as the Union command. After watching

Confederates confiscate their property and force them into the army, it was easy for 279 Guardsmen to justify treating their secessionist neighbors in the same way. In the

distorted moral atmosphere of East Tennessee, the line between confiscation and

theft, and criminal acts and acts of war, was very thin. [19]

Federal authorities did not deliberately foment violence in East Tennessee,

and in fact they made some efforts to control it. Carter reminded Unionists that the

time for vigilante justice had passed and urged them to take their cases to his office or to the courts if they must have revenge. He also warned Unionists that Federal officers would arrest anyone. Unionist or secessionist, who engaged in unlawful acts, and he ordered his deputies to jail all vigilantes and robbers that they captured regardless of political beliefs. The Union command also attempted to monitor

Guard units and ensure that they did not abuse their powers. As noted, each Guard company had to be properly enrolled and officered, and when in service had to make regular reports to Knoxville. When Guardsmen made an arrest they were required to turn over the prisoner and a written statement of the charges and the circumstances of the arrest to the nearest deputy provost marshal or military post.

They were also ordered to keep records of any supplies they confiscated for their operations. The District Commander personally authorized most issues of ammunition, and he, as well as the provost marshal general, possessed the authority to disband undisciplined Guard companies. Nonetheless, the thrust of Union policy encouraged continued partisan violence. Union authorities could not prosecute their allies too severely, and the incitements of men such as Brownlow far outweighed the cautions of Union officers. Furthermore, at the same time that Union authorities 280 were disarming secessionists they were placing thousands of weapons into the hands of Unionists and encouraging them to enforce the laws on their own. The results were predictable. [20]

The Union command faced a dilemma in East Tennessee. On the one hand, it was in their interest to attempt to end the partisan violence on both sides, for continued disorder undermined policies aimed at reconciliation and reconstruction, distracted from operations elsewhere, and diverted Union manpower and attention.

On the other hand, Union authorities needed the aid of local Unionists if they were to secure effective control of East Tennessee. Union forces were inadequate to meet all the needs of the District, and Guard units helped fill that gap. More importantly.

Unionist cooperation was essential to the establishment of a reliable loyal government in the post-war period. Whether they wished to or not. Union authorities had no choice but to work with, and aid, men such as Brownlow and the captains of local Guard units, regardless of their faults. Furthermore, Federal sympathies were with the Unionists, and Burnside and other officers felt an obligation to protect the loyal population and punish secessionists who had abused them.

Finally, and most importantly. East Tennessee policy had been influenced by the work of the region’s chief spokesmen, Andrew Johnson, Horace Maynard, and

William G. Brownlow, well before Federal troops ever entered East Tennessee. The cancellation of the Union invasion in November 1861 had devastated Johnson and

Maynard, and thereafter they had kept up a steady pressure on the Lincoln 281 Administration to rescue their followers. In December 1861 they had pressed Buell to move immediately into East Tennessee, and in May and June 1862 Johnson had discussed with Brigadier General George Morgan the prospects for invasion.

Johnson had also regularly implored Major General Henry W. Halleck to order an advance, and in March 1863 Johnson and Maynard had traveled to Washington to press their case. Johnson’s letters, particularly this entreaty to Halleck in June 1862, convey the urgency and desperation that these men felt:

The demonstrations which have been made upon lower East Termessee, causing the people to manifest their Union feelings and sentiments and then to be abandoned, have been crushing, ruinous to thousands. I trust in God that when another advance is made upon that section of the state, our position may be maintained, at least until arms can be placed in the hands of the people to defend themselves against their relentless oppressors.

Johnson was equally bleak in this plea to Major General George Thomas: "The redemption of East Termessee seems almost to be as remote as it was when I was with you at Camp Dick Robinson. I have almost despaired of the people ever being relieved from their oppressors . . . Can you send me no word that will inspire hope."

[21]

Where Johnson and Maynard concentrated on leaders in Washington,

Brownlow took the cause of East Termessee to the Northern public. Brownlow left

East Termessee as an exile in March 1862. After a reunion with Maynard near 282 Nashville he made his way to Cincinnati, where local Republican leaders prevailed upon him to give several speeches describing his experiences in the Confederacy.

The editor embraced the idea enthusiastically, and for several nights he packed the hall, entertaining and inspiring his listeners. Brownlow’s tongue was as facile as his pen, and he told his audiences what they wanted to hear. He ridiculed Southern slaveholders for their degenerate dependence on Africans, painted lurid pictures of

Confederate atrocities and repressions in Tennessee, and saluted the courage and steadfast loyalty of Tennessee Unionists. Brownlow, influential Republicans, and the

War Department all realized the possible benefits of such lectures, and from

Cincinnati Brownlow went on to other Midwestern cities, including Indianapolis,

Cleveland, Chicago, and Columbus, giving the same rousing performance.

Republican Party officials provided lodging, travel, and funds, and the War

Department sent a recruiting officer to travel with Brownlow and sweep in men inspired by his oratory.

From the Midwest, Brownlow went on to the East Coast, speaking at

Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and New York City with equal success. By this time several newspapers were also picking up his speeches and printing them in full. Then in May

1862 Brownlow retired to a house in New Jersey to write an account of his battles with the Confederacy. The result, titled Sketches of the Rise. Progress, and Decline of Secession but more commonly known as "Brownlow’s Book," was no great work.

It consisted largely of Whig editorials haphazardly arranged and loosely strung 283 together with narrative. Despite its lack of literary merit, the work sold over 100,000

copies, making it one of the bestsellers of the war years. [22]

Brownlow’s efforts ensured that not only much of the Northern public but also

numbers of Union officers and soldiers in the Army of the Ohio were familiar with

the recent history of the region that they were occupying, at least the Unionist

version. On the eve of the invasion Burnside reminded his troops that "the present

campaign takes them through a friendly territory, and that humanity, and the best interests of the service, require that the loyal inhabitants be treated with kindness.

. ." Likewise, on 10 September Burnside wrote Lincoln that "I look upon East

Tennessee as one of the most loyal sections of the United States," and on 17

September he again reminded his men that "it is the mission of this Army to rescue

East Tennessee from rebel despotism..." Thus, by the time Union troops entered

East Tennessee the loyalty of the region had taken on legendary proportions, and

Unionist spokesmen had already inclined Federal authorities to grant considerable latitude to the native Unionists. The result was that Union policy was bent in a direction that was sometimes counterproductive. [23]

SUPPRESSION OF DISLOYALTY

Union policies toward disloyalty in East Tennessee differed little from Federal policies in other occupied areas. Their foundation, after December 1863, was

President Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, and their central 284 mechanism was the loyalty oath. Union officers in East Tennessee also borrowed from methods developed elsewhere. Despite their minority status, the East

Tennessee secessionists proved surprisingly intransigent and troublesome, and Union officers in the region faced the same frustrations, and committed the same excesses, as their counterparts elsewhere. At the same time, the Confederate occupation and the two-year struggle between secessionists and Unionists had created peculiar circumstances to which Union policies did not always apply. [24]

General Burnside already had extensive experience in governing a difficult region. In March 1863 he had taken over the Department of the Ohio, a large area that included not only divided Kentucky but also Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, states with sizable populations that were sympathetic to the Confederacy. There Burnside had faced a number of perplexing problems, including secret pro-Confederate organizations, armed resistance to conscription, and overzealous officers who magnified the internal threat. The centerpiece of Burnside’s policy had been

General Orders No. 38, a document based partly on President Lincoln’s proclamation in December 1862 suspending the writ of habeas corpus and applying martial law to persons who were openly disloyal and partly on guidelines furnished by Halleck.

General Orders No. 38 stated that anyone committing "acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country," such as carrying on secret correspondence or harboring escaped enemy prisoners, was subject to execution. Furthermore, anyone openly declaring sympathy for the enemy might be tried by a military court and face imprisonment, banishment, or even death. Schofield’s experience was equally 285 appropriate. He had served in Missouri in 1862 and 1863 and had commanded that

Department before coming to East Tennessee, and had thus already observed the

kind of civil strife that was convulsing East Tennessee. [25]

Burnside and the provost marshal general began to define occupation policy

almost immediately after the invasion. On 12 September 1863 Carter authorized all post commanders in East Tennessee to administer the oath of allegiance to all citizens willing to swear to its provisions. Even deserters from the Confederate Army and paroled prisoners might take the oath and be entitled to its protection if the commander had sufficient proof of their sincerity. At the same time, officers were given full power to disarm and arrest "rebel citizens" and send them to Knoxville.

Three days later Burnside established the legal machinery for handling dissent.

Following the guidelines laid down in General Orders Number One, Department of the Missouri, 1862, he authorized "Commanders of Army Corps, Districts, Divisions, and Separate Brigades" to establish military commissions to try "offenses against the laws of war, which are not triable by a General Court Martial." The chief purpose of these commissions in East Termessee was to adjudicate cases against civilians charged with either criminal or political offenses, though they also tried minor offenses by Union soldiers. Finally, in December Carter printed and widely distributed copies of President Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and

Reconstruction and exhorted secessionists promptly to accept its terms. [26]

With some modifications, these simple guidelines remained the framework for

Union policy on disloyalty. Their implementation, and thus much of the real policy­ 286 making, was left largely to the provost marshal general and his deputies. Thus the

exact nature of Union policy varied from place to place and time to time, depending

on the circumstances, the political sentiments of the region, and the character of the

officers. For example, secessionists in Loudon, a center of Confederate support, suffered far more restrictions than their counterparts in Knoxville. [27]

For the entire Union occupation, the loyalty oath remained the centerpiece of Union policy. The oath served many purposes. It was the primary means that

Union officers employed to sift the disloyal from the loyal. It also exposed the disloyal to punishment, for those who refused to take the oath, and those who took it but then violated its provisions, were immediately liable to arrest and imprisonment. Finally, the oath gave Union authorities a great reach into the population, for they could, and did, employ it against not only men of military age but also women and old men. Here a significant difference between Confederate and Union policies emerges. In the first months of their occupation Confederate authorities had also used loyalty oaths to achieve these purposes. As their struggle with the Unionists intensified, however, they came increasingly to rely on the more destructive, but perhaps more effective, policy of conscription to achieve these ends.

Union policy was simple in concept, but in practice it involved numerous complications. One of these was determining when disloyalty became dangerous enough to warrant punishment. In the first months of their occupation Union authorities actively pursued only particular, well-defined groups of secessionists, especially persons actually committing acts of resistance such as bushwhacking or 287 spying and leaders whose influence was considered particularly dangerous. Initially

the majority of secessionists, though they might suffer harassment and denial of

certain privileges, were not prosecuted, for most Union authorities drew a distinction

between disloyal acts and disloyal sentiments and were willing to tolerate the latter.

As Union frustrations with resistance increased, however. Federal officers became

far less tolerant of, and far more willing to punish, any manifestation of dissent,

whether action, word, or even supposed thought.

East Tennessee authorities had begun moving toward this position on their

own in early 1864, but a pronouncement issued by Major General William T.

Sherman was particularly critical in focusing this sentiment and sanctioning more

aggressive policies. On 21 June 1864 Sherman, acting in his capacity as commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, sent a long directive to Brigadier General

Stephen G. Burbridge in Kentucky that dealt with the problem of guerrilla activity in particular and resistance in general. Sherman also sent copies to all his District

Commanders, including Schofield in East Termessee, as a guide to future policy.

Sherman provided specific instructions for dealing with disloyalty, but his attitude toward the guerrilla war is equally important:

These acts of the so-called Partizans or Guerrillas are nothing but simple murder, horse-stealing, arson and other well-defined crimes, which do not sound so well under their true names as the more agreeable ones of war-like meaning. Now before starting on this campaign I foresaw. 288 as you remember that this very case would arise and I asked Gov. Bramletter to at once organize in each county a small trustworthy band under the Sheriff if possible and at once arrest every man in the community who was dangerous to it, and also every fellow hanging about the houses villages and crossroads who had no honest calling, the material out of which guerrillas are made up; but this sweeping exhibition of power doubtless seemed to the Governor rather arbitrary. The fact is in our Country personal liberty has been so well secured that public safety is lost sight of in our Laws and Constitutions, and the fact is we are thrown back one hundred years in our civilization, law, and everything else, and will go right straight to Anarchy and the Devil if some-body don't arrest our downward progress. We, the Military must do it, and we have the right and law on our side. All Govts and Communities have a right to guard against real or even supposed danger. The loyal people of Kentucky must not be kept in a state of suspense or real danger lest a few innocent men should be wrongfully accused. 1st You may order all your Post and District Commanders that guerrillas are not soldiers but wild beasts unknown to the usages of war. To be recognized as soldiers, they must be enlisted, enrolled, officered, uniformed armed and equipped, by some recognized belligerent power, and must if, detached from a main Army be of sufficient strength with written orders from some Army commander to do some Military thing. Of course we have recognized the Confederate Govt as a belhgerent power, but deny their right to our Lands, territories, rivers, coasts and nationality-admitting the right to rebel and move to some other country whose lands and customs are more in accordance with their own ideas and prejudices. 2d The civil power being insufficient to protect life and property, "in necessitate re" to prevent Anarchy "which nature abhors" the 289 Military steps in and is rightful, constitutional, and lawful. Under this law everybody can be made to "Stay at home and mind his and her own business" and if they wont do that can be sent away where they wont keep their honest neighbors in fear of danger, robbery, and insult. 3d. Your Military Commanders, Provost Marshals, and other agents may arrest all males and females, who have encouraged or harbored guerrillas and robbers, and you may cause them to be collected in Louisville and when you have enough say 300 or 400 I will cause them to be sent down the Mississippi through their guerrilla gauntlets and by a sailing ship send them to a land where they may take their negroes and make a colony with laws and a future of their own. I wish you to be careful that no personalities are mixed up in this, nor does a full and generous love of country, "of the South," or their State or county form a cause of banishment, but that devilish spirit which will not be satisfied and thus makes war the pretext for murder, arson, theft in all its guises, perjury, and all the crimes of human nature. My own preference was and is that the civil authorities of Kentucky would and could do this in that state, but if they will nor or carmot then we must, for it must be done. There must be an "End to Strife" and the honest industrious people of Kentucky and the whole world will be benefitted and rejoice at the conclusion however arrived at. I do not object to Southern men and women having what they call "Southern feelings" if confined to love of country and of peace, honor and security and even of little family pride but these become "crimes" when enlarged to mean love of murder, of wars desolation famine and all the horrid attendants of anarchy. [28] 290 By early summer 1864 it was clear that it was now Union policy to view all forms of disloyalty as unacceptable. On 25 June Major Thomas H. Reeve, commander of U.S. forces at Kingston, ordered that no person, male or female, who had not yet taken the oath be allowed to pass through Union lines or purchase goods from sutlers or merchants. He also directed that "all noted disloyal persons will be arrested at once, and either subscribe to the oath at once or be sent to Knoxville as prisoners, and turned over to the Provost Marshal General." Likewise, in early

August Carter sent these instructions to the deputy provost marshal of Union County:

"All persons, man or woman, if they aver their sympathy for the rebellion or its supporters openly in any shape or manner or who use language or act in such manner as to show contempt for the U.S. Government or the officers and supporters thereof you will arrest and send to this office, to be sent out of the United States forever in accordance with Genl Sherman’s orders." Carter’s directive was a response to a specific query, but it was clearly intended as a statement of policy for all East

Tennessee. [29]

Another sign of changes in Union policy was the transformation of the loyalty oaths administered, which, as elsewhere, became more comprehensive and restrictive.

The first oath used in East Tennessee required it adherents to swear only to support the constitution and laws of the United States, refrain from taking up arms against the Federal government, and avoid giving aid or information to Confederate forces.

But by mid-1864 numerous provisions had been added to this simple formula: 291

I will maintain the National Sovereignty paramount to that of all state, county, and corporate powers; that I will support to the utmost of my ability all proclamations in regard to slaves, issued by the President of the United States as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Army; that I will forever discountenance, discourage, and oppose secession, rebellion, and the disintegration of the Federal Union; that I will disclaim and denounce all faith and fellowship with the so- called Confederate armies, and pledge my property and my life to the sacred performance of this my solemn Oath of Allegiance to the Government of the United States. I furthermore swear that I will not disclose anything that I may have seen or heard within the Federal lines to the enemies of the United States, that may in any way be detrimental to the United States or be beneficial to the enemies thereof. So help me God. The violation of this oath is death. [30]

As in other parts of the South, Federal officers found white secessionist women particularly troublesome, and directed a surprising amount of this increased harshness against them. On 10 January 1864 Carter requested the names of several women in Strawberry Plains who had cheered for President Jefferson Davis when a line of Confederate prisoners passed their house. In April Union officers at Loudon arrested a young woman, Julie Lenoir, for remarking in a store that "she wished she could get to Morgan and tell him how few soldiers there were." The deputy provost marshal detained Lenoir in jail one night and required her to take the oath before releasing her; he also arrested two of her friends and all the women in two other 292 families and forced them to take the oath as well. In June, authorities in Loudon

again threatened to arrest three other women for supposedly mocking a Union funeral procession. [31]

Officers in other towns also attempted to stifle dissent by Southern women.

On 26 April Schofield tersely telegraphed his chief of staff that "I do not want any more rebel women in Knoxville," and in August Carter asked Major John McGaughy, deputy provost marshal of McMiim County, to send the names of all the women "who are still open in their expression of disloyalty ..." Finally, in December 1864 Carter arrested and sent south a women named Kline who had come to Knoxville from

Montgomery, Alabama. Carter explained her arrest this way: "She refuses absolutely to take the amnesty oath and used . . . language both disloyal and unladylike. She is smart and far too dangerous a person to remain within our lines." [32]

In part, this transformation of Union policy was simply a reflection of the growing harshness of the war everywhere. But more particular factors were also at work. One of the most important of these was Sherman’s campaign against Atlanta.

Sherman’s communications, which ran from Nashville to Chattanooga and south into

Georgia, were quite vulnerable to disruption, and Sherman was thus insistent that any dissent in his rear, including that in East Tennessee, be squashed. On 14 June 1864

Sherman himself ordered the arrest of General John C. Vaughn, Judge T. Nixon van

Dyke, and Alexander Cleage on charges of passing information to the enemy. Van

Dyke was already in prison and Vaughn out of reach, but on 27 June Carter arrested the families of the three men and sent them to Nashville. A second factor was the 293 increase in Confederate guerrilla activity in East Tennessee in the summer of 1864, precipitated perhaps by the considerable reduction in the number of troops occupying the region. Some guerrilla attacks were directed at the railroads, while others took the form of vicious raids on Unionist supporters. Both types of attacks angered

Union authorities and drove them to more extreme measures. [33]

The reasons for the focus on women are less clear. Studies of other areas of the South have shown, however, that women were sometimes more openly defiant than men. They snubbed Union officers, harrassed the occupying troops, encouraged resistance, displayed Confederate flags, carried medicine and supplies across Union lines, spied for military authorities, and forcefully defended their homes against plundering. This same behavior was evident in East Teimessee. Several women were charged with carrying mail or medicine through Union lines, and initially they appear to have been very outspoken, perhaps because Union authorities were reluctant to punish them. [34]

A second problem with the mechanism of the loyalty oath was fraudulent oath-taking. Initially in East Tennessee the provost marshal general, deputy provost marshals, and numerous "special commissioners" were all authorized to administer the oath. Union authorities discovered, however, that this broad grant of authority led to confusion concerning what constituted a valid oath and created numerous opportunities for dishonesty and evasion. In October 1864, therefore. Carter sent to all posts copies of General Orders 262, a document issued by the Adjutant General’s office in August. General Orders 262 charged that hundreds of Southerners had 294 taken the oath merely to protect their property or themselves from prosecution, and instructed commanders to be more discriminating in administering the loyalty oath.

This warning proved insufficient, and in January 1865 the new provost marshal general. Lieutenant Colonel Luther S. Trowbridge, took more direct measures.

Trowbridge issued orders that hereafter only the provost marshal general himself, or special commissioners appointed by the District Commander, would have the authority to administer the loyalty oath. He also warned that he would arrest anyone illegally administering the oath, and he instructed Union officers and deputy provost marshals to confiscate illegally issued oaths. [35]

Fraudulent oath-taking was a problem in all Union-occupied areas. But in

East Tennessee Union authorities encountered a third complication that was somewhat more peculiar to the region. Many Unionists, including prominent leaders, had in various ways accommodated themselves to Confederate rule and had committed acts that might now be deemed disloyal. John Baxter had run for the

Confederate Congress, while T.A.R. Nelson, Oliver P. Temple, John Motherland,

John Fleming, and others had all taken an oath in order to practice law in

Confederate courts. David T. Patterson, Andrew Johnson’s son-in-law, and Seth

Lucky had both served as Confederate justices, while Oliver P. Temple and his brother Major had had a contract with the Confederate government to produce salt.

Legally all these men fell outside the amnesty offered in President Lincoln’s proclamation, for that document had excluded from its provisions "civil or diplomatic officers or agents of the so called confederate government; all who have left judicial 295 stations under the United States to aid the rebellion . . To deny them amnesty, however, would have been a clear injustice and a heavy blow to loyal Southerners.

[36]

Carter took up this problem in January 1864. As he pointed out, in occupied

East Tennessee many Unionists whose loyalty was beyond question had served in state and local offices. They had done so. Carter asserted, primarily to keep secessionists out of these positions and prevent Confederates from using their powers against Unionists. In addition. Carter pointed out that such offices were "considered as belonging to the state organization or being separate and distinct from those who received their appointment and commissions from the so-called Confederate Govt," and indeed county officers had functioned largely separately from Richmond in spite of Confederate efforts to intervene. Lincoln accepted Carter’s arguments and eventually granted special pardons to East Tennessee Unionists who fell in this category. [37]

Lincoln’s graceful action satisfied the Unionists involved and prevented the development of dissatisfaction among the East Tennessee leadership. At the same time, special pardons were an expedient, and the question of what defined loyalty remained unanswered. These cases were indicative of the trials and confusions of a population caught between competing governments. What should be the fate of a person such as Nelson, who had bowed to circumstances and recognized the

Confederacy as de facto a legitimate government? Or men who had "volunteered" for Confederate service to avoid imprisonment, or who had been conscripted? What 296 would constitute justice to persons who had accommodated themselves to

Confederate rule to be able to travel, or conduct business, or even buy salt? How

did authorities distinguish between real and circumstantial disloyalty, and where did

they draw the line between survival and treason? All these and similar perplexing

questions were the unhappy legacy of a region of conflicting loyalties and divided govermnent and would continue to plague East Tennessee well into the reconstruction period.

By far the most common Federal response to resistance was arrest and confinement. From the beginning Union commanders had concluded that rather than attempting to conciliate or control persons who resisted Federal authority they would place them in positions where they could not threaten the occupation government. This removal policy targeted several obvious groups. First were influential secessionists who might encourage resistance and attempt to undermine

Federal authority. In October 1863 Federal officers arrested and imprisoned Robert

McNelley, editor of the pro-Confederate Cleveland Banner, and closed down his paper. In November 1864 Burnside sent some of Knoxville’s most prominent secessionists, including William H. Sneed, John Crozier, and Charles McGhee, to

Kentucky. And a year later Carter, perhaps at the urging of Brownlow, arrested

Register editor James Sperry, former Confederate District Attorney John Crozier

Ramsey, Robert F. Fox, and John G. Aiken and sent them to Johnson’s Island. The second group targeted for removal were former Confederate officials. Any

Confederate office-holder might be detained, but Union authorities particularly 297 pursued conscript officers and other men accused of mistreating Unionists. Third

were persons engaged in active resistance, particularly guerrillas, spies, and those

supposedly giving aid to the enemy. Finally, as the war progressed the removal

policy broadened, and anyone refusing to take the amnesty oath, violating the oath’s

provisions, or expressing "disloyal sentiments" might be incarcerated. [38]

The actual means of removal varied. Prominent secessionists who were

considered particularly dangerous or had held Confederate offices were frequently

sent to military prisons to remain until the war’s end. Other influential Confederates were sent out of Union lines, either south into Confederate territory or north of the

Ohio River; their banishment was also for the duration of the conflict. Some men accused of theft, bushwhacking, or harming Unionists were likewise expelled from

East Teimessee, while others were sentenced to hard labor on the Knoxville fortifications. A few prisoners were turned over to the civilian courts for trial, and a few others were transported to Chattanooga and left with the Provost Marshal of the Army of the Cumberland. But most remained in prison in Knoxville until the

District Commander or the Provost Marshal General decided it was safe to release them, which in hundreds of cases was not until March, April, or even June 1865. [39]

The quality of Union justice varied enormously. Prisoners fortunate enough to receive a trial stood an excellent chance of being freed. Burnside had viewed dissent as primarily a legal problem to be handled through the military courts, and he had established strict procedural guidelines for these commissions. All arrests had to accompanied by a written statement of the charges and a list of witnesses, and 298 defendants had the right to answer all charges and present evidence on their behalf.

Furthermore, any sentence imposing "loss of life, confiscation of property, or

imprisonment exceeding the term of thirty days" had to be reviewed by the District

Commander. All these safeguards were meant to prevent arbitrary proceedings, and

in the cases that actually went before commissions Union justice was quite

discriminating. Of the eighteen cases detailed in the records, only five ultimately

resulted in convictions and formal sentences, for while the commissions themselves

found eleven defendants guilty the District Commander overturned six convictions,

mostly on technical grounds. Other prisoners gained their release through the

provost marshal general, who occasionally determined that an arrest had been

unwarranted. [40]

Even so, in the majority of cases Union justice appears arbitrary, erratic, and

harsh. Prison records reveal that Union officers were rather careless in preferring

charges. About two-thirds of the prisoners confined in Knoxville had no offense

listed against them. This may have partially reflected lapses in record-keeping, but

it also resulted from the common failure of local commanders and deputy provost marshals to send written charges with their prisoners. Furthermore, of those prisoners against whom offenses are listed about a third were detained for ill-defined or questionable trespasses, such as being an "active and dangerous rebel" or enforcing conscription.

Union justice was also frequently delayed or lost altogether. Many defendants sat in jail three to six months before their cases were decided, while others received 299 no trial at all. This situation grew worse as the war progressed, and in March 1865

Carter had to urge the District Commander to appoint commissions to try the dozens of prisoners who had been detained in Knoxville for so long. In part, this neglect occurred because the number of prisoners simply overwhelmed the judicial mechanism. Military commissions were slow, lengthy proceedings that could handle only a few cases at a time. Furthermore, the number of officers in East Tennessee declined throughout 1864 and 1865, and it became increasingly difficult to assemble commissions and keep them at their judicial duties for long periods. It was easier, therefore, simply to leave disloyalty cases to the Provost Marshal General or not try them at all. But in part the neglect was deliberate. Simply leaving persons accused of disloyalty in prison served Union purposes, for it kept them from threatening

Federal control. [41]

Union authorities particularly favored arrest and imprisonment as a means of controlling and punishing resistance. But there existed other, less drastic means of drawing a line between the loyal and the disloyal. Unionists were entitled to various privileges denied secessionists. They could receive licenses to sell goods and conduct other kinds of business, while disloyal persons might be denied the right even to purchase basic goods. Unionists might also receive protection from foraging details as well as rent for property used by the military, while dissenters were exposed to impressment, confiscation, and the frequent depredations of soldiers. Likewise, when secessionists fled East Teimessee Union authorities took control of their property, and the original owners had great difficulty regaining their titles after the war. 300 Unionists were also allowed to retain firearms and distill brandy, rights withheld persons considered disloyal, and they sometimes received special favors. For example. Lieutenant Colonel James Brownlow, commander of the First Tennessee

Cavalry and "Parson" Brownlow’s son, impressed a dozen wagons and teams from secessionists and turned them over to Oliver P. Temple so that the Unionist leader could haul his tobacco to market. In all these ways Federal authorities stigmatized dissent, singling out disloyal persons and denying them the opportunity to lead a normal existence. [42]

HOSTAGES

One of the most tragic phenomena of the Union occupation was the taking of hostages in an attempt to prevent, or in retaliation for, political arrests by the opposing government. Hostage-taking and similar retaliatory measures had been tried by Union authorities elsewhere, usually in an attempt to restrain guerrilla activity. Though some officers swore by these practices and continued to use them throughout the war, such measures were usually ineffective in altering enemy behavior. Retaliatory measures were usually a reflection of frustration, and frequently their main result was to increase the suffering of the population.

The first steps toward hostage-taking by Union authorities had actually been taken well before the invasion. In June 1862 Governor Andrew Johnson had arrested seventy Middle Tennessee secessionists and attempted, unsuccessfully, to 301 exchange them for a similar number of Eastern Unionists held in the Confederate military prison at Mobile. That same month Brigadier General George Morgan, commanding Union forces at Cumberland Gap, had also detained a number of secessionists in retaliation for the reported confinement of large numbers of Unionist political prisoners. Morgan soon had to evacuate his position, however, and thus this attempt also was short-lived. [43]

It is not clear exactly when Union authorities again began to take hostages in

East Tennessee, but it was not long after their occupation of the region. The first vague reference to a hostage prisoner appears in November 1863, and the practice accelerated thereafter. Some hostages were taken in retaliation for recent arrests, while others were for Unionists confined long ago. In January 1864, for example.

Carter detained Judge T. Nixon van Dyke and two other McMinn County secessionists in retaliation for the confinement of Jesse Blackburn, a Unionist captured in November 1863. Likewise, in August Carter ordered the arrest and confinement of two Grainger County secessionists in retaliation for the imprisonment of a Unionist named Brooke, and on 28 October he requested Brigadier General

Gillem to detain three secessionists in exchange for two Unionists recently taken at

Dandridge. Union authorities also attempted to use hostages to protect loyalists and

Federal troops from raids by guerrillas and Confederate cavalry. After Southern partisans raided Athens and executed Deputy Provost Marshal John McGaughy,

Union officers published a list of prominent secessionists who would be imprisoned and whose property would be confiscated or destroyed if further attacks occurred. 302 Likewise, after a series of guerrilla strikes into Union County Carter sought permission to arrest a number of influential secessionists there and banish them in the event of another raid. In all, Union authorities arrested at least thirty, and perhaps many more, secessionists and held them hostage. [44]

Union officers followed certain practices in taking hostages. If possible, the secessionists arrested were prominent residents of the same area as the Unionists whom Federal commanders were attempting to free, and Union officers sometimes conferred with local loyalists before selecting the men to be detained. In other cases.

Federal authorities did not actually confine secessionists, but instead circulated a list of men who would be punished if Unionists were harmed. These threatened punishments were usually reciprocal: arrests in response to arrests, the confiscation or destruction of Confederate property in retaliation for damage to Unionist property.

Confederate forces responded in kind. In July 1864 Brigadier General John

Hunt Morgan requested permission from Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel

Cooper to arrest the families of several influential Unionists in upper East Tennessee in response to the recent banishment of several East Tennessee secessionists.

Likewise, in August Morgan, after allowing several Unionist families to leave

Confederate lines, informed Carter that if the mistreatment of secessionists continued he would instead begin imprisoning loyalists. In September Brigadier General John

C. Vaughn warned that if Union authorities refused to exchange civilian prisoners he would "arrest and confine every Union man I can get hold of in E Tenn as Hostages 303 for our friends." The actual number of hostages taken by Confederate authorities is uncertain, but it was probably close to the Federal total. [45]

Though it was a terrible practice, hostage-taking was a logical outcome of the situation in East Tennessee by 1864. The fact that control over the region remained divided meant that neither government could directly protect all its supporters. Thus each side, angered by the growing number of arrests by the other, resorted to desperate attempts at indirect protection. The immediate result was just the opposite of what was intended: arrests led to counter-arrests, hostages to counter-hostages, and the number of prisoners increased.

More fundamentally, hostage-taking was a logical outcome of the conflict in

East Tennessee. From the beginning political control had been the real issue in this struggle, and the population itself had been the real battleground. Both Confederate and Union authorities had attempted to mask this reality and limit the impact of the war on the people of East Tennessee, but divided control brought this struggle completely into the open. Increasingly the two governments followed the logic of this conflict, and increasingly the people of East Tennessee, caught between competing forces, suffered.

Even while carrying out a policy of holding hostages, both sides recognized its evils and its essential futility, and both desired to bring it to an end. As early as

November 1863 Confederate and Union authorities had begun exchanging prisoners on an informal, reciprocal basis, and in February 1864 they also began allowing dissenting families to move to territory controlled by the other side. Then on 7 304 August 1864 Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan proposed to Carter that they negotiate an agreement under which both sides would release all noncriminal, nonmilitary prisoners and henceforth ban the taking of both political prisoners and hostages. Carter quickly accepted the proposal, appointed three commissioners to conduct the negotiations, and issued a circular in East Tennessee soliciting information concerning all Unionists thought to be held in Confederate prisons. [46]

Fighting delayed the first meeting by more than a month, but Union and

Confederate commissioners finally met at Greeneville in September and frequently thereafter. The commissioners made rapid progress and within a few weeks were apparently near an agreement, for on 26 October Brigadier General John C. Vaughn, who had taken over Morgan’s position, requested that Major General John C.

Breckinridge send all East Tennessee prisoners to Bristol and place them under his control. But soon thereafter, in a pattern that would become familiar, higher authorities intervened and jeopardized the negotiations. On 9 November

Breckinridge notified Vaughn that any agreement must include all civilian prisoners held by both sides. The fate of J. B. Heiskell, a secessionist indicted for treason in the United States District Court at Nashville, seems to have been the primary

Confederate concern. Breckimidge, unfortunately, had raised an insoluble problem.

Carter had already turned several secessionists over to the state or Federal courts, and authorities in Washington ruled that these prisoners had to remain in civilian hands. The East Tennessee commissioners met twice to discuss this point, but they failed to find a workable compromise, and the negotiations appeared doomed. [47] 305 Shortly thereafter, for reasons that remain vague, events took a new turn. On

20 November Vaughn notified Carter that he had again received authorization from

Breckinridge to conclude an agreement. The commissioners again moved rapidly, and on 1 December Carter and Vaughn signed formal terms of exchange. The agreement was simple, containing only four provisions. First, Confederate authorities would send all East Tennessee civilian prisoners to Union lines. Second, the Union command in turn would release all the hostages it had taken in retaliation for

Confederate arrests. Third, Carter would attempt to gain the release of secessionists formally charged with political offenses, and fourth, both sides would allow all citizens who had fled their homes to return and live unmolested as long as they remained quiet and violated no laws. The two commanders also made a separate oral agreement that Carter would again press for the release of the men indicted for treason and Vaughn would be allowed to hold five hostages until they were freed.

These terms were simple and left much to the discretion of Carter and Vaughn, a fact that would create great difficulties. [48]

Authorities in East Tennessee began to implement the agreement immediately. In early December Vaughn notified Carter that twenty-nine prisoners had been sent to his lines to be exchanged. Carter in turn released several hostages and sent Vaughn a list of their names. He also forwarded a copy of the agreement to Major General Ethan Allan Hitchcock, Union Commissioner for Exchange, and requested that Hitchcock send all East Tennessee civilians now held at Camp Chase and Johnson’s Island to Knoxville. On 23 December Hitchcock approved the 306 agreement on the condition that it was understood to be a local arrangement only, and by 8 February Union authorities had released nineteen secessionist prisoners and had made preparations to free several more. [49]

Yet again the process foundered, partly on the objections of higher authorities and partly on the mistakes of the negotiators. Confederate Secretary of War James

A. Seddon had actually rejected the agreement on 15 December, again because it did not guarantee that all secessionists, including those now in the hands of civil authorities, would be released and was therefore "inequitable." Bad faith between

Carter and Vaughn also jeopardized the exchange. Vaughn’s report that twenty-nine

Unionist hostages had been turned over to him was apparently false, for Richmond had refused to release any civilian prisoners. Likewise, Vaughn did not inform

Carter that Seddon had nullified the agreement, though it is possible that he was unaware of or did not understand Seddon’s action, for he continued to press

Breckinridge to send the East Teimessee prisoners. On the other side, the issue of the treason cases continued to feed Confederate suspicions, and Carter as well as

Vaughn may have been attempting to gain his supporters’ release while avoiding some of his own obligations under the agreement. [50]

Whatever the case, grievances on both sides boiled over in early 1865. On 8

February Provost Marshal General Trowbridge notified Vaughn that Union authorities had now released fifteen prisoners with no Unionists freed in turn, and he pressed Vaughn to fulfill Confederate obligations. Six days later Trowbridge sent

Vaughn the names of three additional men whom he had freed, and this time warned 307 him that if the Confederates did not now release Unionist prisoners "immediate and full retaliation will be visited upon general officers of the Confederate Army now in our hands." Vaughn, in turn, forwarded Trowbridge’s 8 February letter and a list of secessionist prisoners freed to Breckinridge, and demanded, in terms bordering on insubordination, that his superiors send him eighteen Unionists to release in turn.

At the same time, the Confederate commander sent Trowbridge an extremely unpleasant letter that called into question Union good faith. Vaughn asserted that some prisoners whom Trowbridge reported as having died in captivity were in fact still alive, and he claimed that other men reported released were still detained. He also again brought up the dispute about which prisoners were covered under the agreement and demanded that Trowbridge continue to follow the terms of the agreement. Finally, Vaughn accused Trowbridge of violating the Union promise to make no further political arrests and notified him that Confederate authorities were prepared to retaliate in kind. [51]

The final blow to the hoped-for exchange came on 2 March, when

Confederate Secretary of War Seddon informed Vaughn that a national, comprehensive agreement for the release of all citizen prisoners had been concluded.

Tennessee prisoners, therefore, would not be sent to him, but would be exchanged elsewhere. Thus seven months of effort by the East Tennessee authorities had resulted in the release of only a handful of prisoners while increasing the tensions between the two sides. Part of the blame for this failure must be laid on authorities in Washington and Richmond for their refusal to make concessions to the 308 peculiarities of the East Tennessee situation; part also goes to Carter and Vaughn for their errors and bad faith in conducting the negotiations and carrying out the exchange. But ultimately their failure was simply a reflection of the harsh and distorted environment in which they operated. The pressures to take prisoners were stronger than the desire to end this cruel practice, and the continued struggle for control of the population eroded the little trust that Carter and Vaughn had established. The accumulation of bitterness, suspicion, and hostility in East

Tennessee, and the nature of the whole conflict there, were simply too much for them to overcome. [52]

CONTRASTS IN POLICY

A number of differences between Confederate and Union policies emerge from this study. Confederate policy concerning disloyalty was essentially political, and it had two aims: to win the loyalties of the population, and to destroy the political and military institutions that Unionists had created. Union authorities, conversely, took what might be called a police approach. Their appeals for loyalty did not go beyond circulating the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, and the thrust of their policy was to remove or silence anyone threatening Federal control. In part, these differences were a response to variations in the situation that each faced; but in part they also reflected fundamental differences in perspective and philosophy. To Northerners, Tennessee Unionists were still Southerners. 309 A second difference was that the ethic of restraint that significantly shaped

Confederate policy was almost entirely absent from Union thought. For most of their occupation Union authorities did not hesitate to carry out mass arrests and banishments, and nowhere in Union records does one find the references to restraint that were so common in Confederate exchanges. Further evidence for the harshness of Federal policy is the contrast in the number of arrests and imprisonments made by each side. The most complete list of prisoners in the District of East Tennessee shows that during the Union occupation 925 citizens were detained at Knoxville at one time or another, the great majority for political offenses. A separate record lists

492 political arrests in the period September 1863 through April 1864. Given the incompleteness of Union records and the many arrests made by local commands or deputy provost marshals that never appeared in headquarters records, even a conservative estimate would place the number of political arrests at well over one thousand, and likely much higher. Since East Tennessee recorded about fifteen thousand votes for secession in June 1861, this represents a significant portion of the disloyal population. In comparison, Confederate prison records for 1862 list a total of two hundred Unionist detainees out of a Unionist vote of almost thirty-five thousand. This total does not include nearly all those arrested after the uprising and is thus very low. Given the disparity in the threat that the two sides faced, however, the Federal total is still high in comparison with the Confederate. At the same time, the enforcement of conscription by the Confederacy may have been equally destructive. [53] 310 By April 1865 signs of the Union failure to restore order in East Tennessee

were everywhere. Guerrilla activity was still common, and bands of deserters,

guerrillas, and robbers infested many counties. The economy of parts of East

Tennessee was devastated, and the loss of manpower and the destruction or

confiscation of implements, livestock, and even seed had left many farmers unable

even to plant their crops. Secessionists continued to spurn Federal authority, and the

Unionists themselves had split into two factions, jeopardizing their ability to

reconstruct the state’s government.

Several factors explain this Union failure. One was the partisan nature of

Union policy, which encouraged the reestablishment of a loyal government at the

expense of the secessionist population. A second factor was lack of resources. The

initial Union commitment to East Tennessee was generous, but in the spring and summer of 1864 most of these units were either returned to the East Coast or

transferred south to Sherman’s campaign. By 1865 less than ten thousand men garrisoned East Tennessee, far too few to police the whole region. A final factor was the nature of the conflict itself. The fighting in East Tennessee had multiple causes, many of them long-standing and deeply rooted in the region’s history. No outside force could hope to intervene in such a conflict and eliminate all the grievances and passions that drove it, and Union authorities could only hope to limit the violence.

The result was that East Tennessee entered the post-war period in a perilous state. 311

NOTES

1. Orlando Poe to Eleanor Poe, Knoxville, September 4, 1863, Orlando Poe Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D C.; William F. Draper to his father. Lick Creek, Greene County, October 9, 1863, William Franklin Draper Letters, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Chauncy B. Welton to his parents, Greeneville, September 15, 1863, Chauncey B. Welton Letters, Southern Historical Society, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; August Valentine Kautz Diary, October 17, October 23, 1863, August Valentine Kautz Papers, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Major General Ambrose E. Burnside to Rev. Thomas W. Humes, Knoxville, December 11, 1863, Army and Department of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Oliver P. Temple, East Tennessee and the Civil War (Cincirmati: The Robert Clarks Company, Publishers, 1899), p. 480; Thomas William Humes, The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee (Knoxville: Ogden Brothers, 1888), pp. 211-12; William Marvel, Burnside (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), pp. 274-76.

2. Army of the Ohio, General Field Orders Nos. 38 and 39, December 11, 1863, Army and Department of the Ohio, General Orders, December 1863-May 1864, January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Army of the Ohio, General Order No. 17, February 9, 1864, Department and Army of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders No. 1, April 12,1864, General Orders No. 2, January 14, 1865, No. 15, March 9, 1865, District of East Tennessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders Issued, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; District of East Tennessee, General Orders No. 39, May 17, 1865, No. 50, July 4, 1865, District of East Tennessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders Issued, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

3. Marvel, Burnside, pp. 270-94; Orlando M. Poe, Personal Recollections of the Occupation of East Tennessee (Detroit: Ostler Printing Company, 1889) pp. 4-8; August Valentine Kautz Diaiy, September 25, October 18, 1863, August 312 Valentine Kautz, "Reminiscences of the Civil War," pp. 54-55, August Valentine Kautz Papers, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Daniel Lamed to "Henry," Knoxville, September 28, 1863, Daniel Lamed Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

4. Marvel, Bumside. pp. 295-324; James Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1960), pp. 480-96; Poe, Recollections, pp. 9-19; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 253-54; August Valentine Kautz Diary, October 28-31, 1863, August Valentine Kautz Papers, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; David Benfer Diary, November 17, 1863, David Benfer Papers, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Albert A. Pope Diary, November 15-29, 1863, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Permsylvania.

5. Marvel, Burnside, pp. 324-34; Longstreet, Manassas, pp. 497-508; Poe, Recollections, pp. 42-45; Major General John G. Foster to Brigadier General William Elliot, December 14, 1863, Army and Department of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Temple, East Teimessee. pp. 511-15; Jesse C. Burt, "East Termessee, Lincoln, and Sherman," East Termessee Historical Society Publications 35 (1963): 59, 66-71; Major General Ulysses S. Grant to Major General Heruy Halleck, Nashville, Febmary 12, 1864, OR 32, 2, pp. 374-75.

6. Longstreet, Manassas, pp. 509-50; William Randolph Carter, History of the First Regiment of Termessee Volunteer Cavalry in the Great War of the Rebellion (Knoxville: Gant & Ogden, 1902), pp. 114-35.

7. Governor Andrew Johnson to General Henry W. Halleck and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Nashville, June 21, 1862, OR 16, 1, p. 47; Johnson to Joseph S. Fowler, Nashville, September 22, 1863, Joseph S. Fowler Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; L.S. Trowbridge, A Brief History of the Tenth Michigan Cavalrv (Detroit: Friesman Brothers, 1905), pp. 20-39; Clifton R. Hall, Andrew Johnson: Military Governor of Teimessee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 157-58, 186-88; Brigadier General Alvin C. Gillem to Joseph S. Fowler, Knoxville, November 27, 1864, Joseph S. Fowler Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North CaroUna Library, Chapel Hill; William C. Davis, Breckinridge: Statesman. Solider. Symbol (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 1974), pp. 463-67; Stephen Z. Starr, The Union Cavalrv in the Civil War. 3. vols. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), vol. 3, pp. 559-63; Ina W. Van Noppen, Stoneman's Last Raid (Boone, North Carolina: North Carolina State College, 1961), pp. 1-11. For Sherman’s view of Gillem, see Major General 313 William T. Sherman to Brigadier General Joseph D. Webster, Headquarters, Military Division of the Mississippi, June 6, 1864, OR 39, 2, p. 80.

8. Army of the Ohio, General Field Orders No. 9, September 4, 1863, Department and Army of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Samuel P. Carter Memoirs, pp. 132-33, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville.

9. Samuel P. Carter Memoirs, pp. 141-55; Campbell H. Brown, "Carter’s East Tennessee Raid, the Sailor on Horseback Who Raided His Own Backyard," Tennessee Historical Ouarterly 22 (1963); 66-82; Ezra Warner, Generals in Blue (Baton Rouge; Louisiana State University Press, 1964), p. 74.

10. Samuel P. Carter Memoirs, pp. 133-36, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Major General John G. Schofield to Major General William T. Sherman, Knoxville, April 28, 1864, Army and Department of the Ohio, Telegrams Sent, December 1863-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders No. 3, January 20, 1865, District of East Tennessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders Issued, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Office of the Provost Marshal General of East Tennessee, District of East Tennessee, Special Orders Issued by the Provost Marshal General, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

11. Samuel P. Carter Memoirs, pp. 133-36, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; [first entry, no date], Ninth Army Corps, Entry of Prisons and Prisoners, Record 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Brigadier General Edward E. Potter, December 15, 1863, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Carter to Brigadier General Davis Tillson, June 13, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Office of the Provost Marshal General of East Tennessee, Special Orders No. 2, June 14, 1864, No. 18, July 20, 1864, No. 27, August 13, 1864, No. 29, August 16, 1864, No. 30, August 17, 1864, No. 31, August 20, 1864, No. 52, October 19, 1864, No. 76, December 4, 1864, District of East Tennessee, Special Orders Issued by the Provost Marshal General, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Special Orders No. 46, August 3, 1864, No. 51, August 18, 1864, District of East Tennessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Special Orders Issued, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 314 12. Army of the Ohio, Special Field Orders No. 75, November 10, 1863, OR 31, 3, pp. 111-12; Assistant Adjutant General Lewis Richmond to Lieutenant Colonel H. C. Ransom, Knoxville, n.d.. Army and Department of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to the Officer of the Prisoner Guard, Knoxville, October 29, 1863, Carter to Captain W. A. Harris, December 2, 1863, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Samuel D. Sturgis to Major General John G. Foster, Strawberry Plains, December 22, 1863, Department of the Ohio, Letters Sent, 1861-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Colonel W. Y. Dillard to Assistant Adjutant General W. S. Bradford, Cumberland Gap, April 7, 1865, Ninth Army Corps, Special Orders Issued in the Field, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Army of the Ohio, General Field Orders No. 6, August 19,1863, Department and Army of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

13. Army of the Ohio, General Field Orders No. 10, September 15, 1863, Army and Department of the Ohio, Printed Coppies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Samuel P. Carter Memoirs, p. 136, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville. See also Hall, Johnson, p. 178.

14. Army of the Ohio, General Field Orders No. 10, September 15, 1863, Army and Department of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Samuel P. Carter Memoirs, p. 136, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Army of the Ohio, General Field Orders No. 25, November 4, 1863, Army and Department of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General and Assistant Adjutant General William D. Whipple to G. W. Lumpkins, Chattanooga, December 26, 1863, OR 31, 3, pp. 508-09; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Captain Branson, Knoxville, June 3,1864, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Telegrams Sent by the Provost Marshal General, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

15. Assistant Adjutant General Lewis Richmond to Colonel W. C. Lemer, Knoxville, September 17, 1863, Department and Army of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Assistant Adjutant General R. H. Goddard to Lieutenant Colonel Drake, Knoxville, October 4,1863, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Telegrams Received, 1864- 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Major General 315 John G. Schofield to Lieutenant Colonel G. W. Bascom, Atlanta, July 27, 1864, Department of North Carolina and Army of the Ohio, Telegrams Sent, April 1864-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Jacob Ammen to Lieutenant Edward G. Fechet, November 8, December 17, December 24,1864, District of East Tennessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Lieutenant Colonel W. C. Bartlett to Ammen, Cumberland Gap, December 30, 1864, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Major General George Stoneman to Fechet, Knoxville, March 11, March 15, April 1, April 4, April 13, April 19, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also Colonel Daniel Larned to his sister, Knoxville, October 5, 1863, Daniel C. Lamed Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

16. Major General John G. Foster to Major General Ulysses S. Grant, Knoxville, January 16,1864, Department and Army of the Ohio, Telegrams Sent, December 1863-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Carter, First Tennessee, pp. 134-36; Suzanne Colton Wilson, compiler. Column South: With the Fifteenth Pennsvlvania Cavalrv. ed. by J. F. Colton and Antoinette G. Smith (Flagstaff: J. F. Colton & Company, 1960), p. 134; Lieutenant Colonel W. C. Bartlett to Brigadier General Davis Tillson, Cumberland Gap, January 28, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Davis Tillson to Colonel G. S. Gibson, Knoxville, Febmary 10, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Frederick Pettit to Margaret Pettit, Knoxville, September 29, 1863, Frederick Pettit Correspondence, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Deputy Provost Marshal W. W. Corbet, Knoxville, November 1, 1863, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Carter to Tillson, Knoxville, June 4, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Carter to Lieutenant Colonel G. W. Bascom, Knoxville, July 2, 1864, Henry Coleman Memoir, William P. Grohse Collection, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; "Resolutions," Zion Hill Church, Anderson County, October 6, 1864, District of East Teimessee, Letters Received, 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; "Declaration of the Home Guard, Carter County, Teimessee, 1865," Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; J. H. Robinson to William Patterson, Bristol, January 26, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams 316 Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 209, 362-63.

17. E. Merton Coulter, William G. Brownlow. Fighting Parson of the Highlands (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1937), pp. 250-57; James B. Campbell, "East Tennessee During the Federal Occupation, 1863-1865," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 19 (1947): 66-67, 75-76; Humes, Mountaineers, pp. 265-66; Stanley J. Folmsbee, Robert E. Corlew, Enoch L. Mitchell, History of Tennessee (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1960), vol. 2, pp. 74-75.

18. Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter, "Announcement," Office of the Provost Marshal General of East Teimessee, September 28, 1863, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Samuel W. Scott and Samuel P. Angel, History of the Thirteenth Regiment. Teimessee Volunteer Cavalry. U.S.A. (Knoxville: n.p., 1903), p. 336; Coulter, Brownlow. p. 273; Folmsbee et. al, Teimessee. pp. 74-75; Campbell, "Occupation," pp. 66-67; Thomas B. Alexander, "Neither Peace nor War: Conditions in Tennessee in 1865," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 21 (1949): 43-51. Brownlow’s editorial is quoted in James Welch Patton, Unionism and Reconstruction in Tennessee. 1860-1869 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934), pp. 69-70. 19. Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Captain J. W. Reilly, Knoxville, October 22, 1863, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Carter to Lieutenant Underdown, Knoxville, June 3, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Assistant Adjutant General H. H. Tbomas to Wade Newman, Knoxville, June 20, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Lieutenant Colonel G. W. Bascom to Captain S. F. Bryan, Knoxville, May 4, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

20. Assistant Adjutant General H. H. Thomas to Captain S. C. Honeycutt, Knoxville, June 22, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

21. Andrew Johnson and Horace Maynard to Major General Don Carlos Buell, Washington, D.C., December 7, 1861, Leroy P. Graf and Ralph Haskins, eds.. The Papers of Andrew Johnson. 9 vols., (Knoxville: University of Tennessee 317 Press, 1967), vol. 5, pp. 43-44; Johnson to Brigadier General George W. Morgan, Nashville, May 14,1862, Johnson Papers, vol. 5, pp. 396-97; Mrs. Horace Maynard to Washbume Maynard, Westboro, March 27, 1863, Horace Maynard Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Hail, Johnson, p. 56; Johnson to Major General George H. Thomas, Nashville, August 16, 1862, Johnson Papers, vol. 5, p. 617. See also Hall, Johnson, pp. 61-62; Patton, Unionism, pp. 58-60; Horace Maynard to Andrew Johnson, Washington, November 13, 1861, April 30, 1862, Johnson and Maynard to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Nashville, March 16, 1862, Johnson Papers, vol. 5, pp. 32-34, 352-53, 205.

22. Coulter, Brownlow. pp. 205-42; Burt, "East Tennessee," p. 55.

23. Army of the Ohio, General Field Orders No. 2, August 14, 1863, Department and Army of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Major General Ambrose E. Burnside to His Excellency A. Lincoln, Cumberland Gap, September 10, 1863, OR 30, 3, p. 323; Army of the Ohio, General Field Orders No. 13, September 17, 1863, Army and Department of the Ohio, Printed Copies of Generd Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also First Division, Ninth Army Corps, General Orders No. 55, September 8, 1863, Ninth Army Corps, General Orders, November 1862-November 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

24. For Union policies in other occupied areas, see Clifton R. Hall, Andrew Johnson: Military Governor of Tennessee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1916); Peter Maslowski, Treason Must Be Made Odious (Millwood, Kentucky: KTO Press, 1978); Steven V. Ash, Middle Tennessee Society Transformed. 1860-1870: War and Peace in the Upper South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988); Richard S. Brownlee, Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Pres, 1958); Michael Fellman, Inside War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Frank Friedel, "General Orders 100 and Military Government," Mississippi Valiev Historical Review 32 (March, 1946): 541-556; Wayne W. Smith, "An E;geriment in Counterinsurgency: The Assessment of Confederate Sympathizers in Missouri," Journal of Southern History 35 (1969): 361-80; C.E. Grant, "Partisan Warfare Model 1861-1865," Military Review 38 (1958): 42-56; Department of the Cumberland, General Orders No. 199, August 18, 1863, OR 30, 3, p. 33-34.

25. Marvel, Burnside, pp. 221-38; also Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders No. 8, July 2, 1863, No. 14, July 24, 1863, Twenty-Third Army Corps, 318 General Orders Issued and Received, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

26. Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Colonel John M. Foster, Knoxville, September 12, 1863, Carter to Lieutenant Colonel Thomas S. Young, Knoxville, September 19, 1863, Provost Marshal General, District of East Teimessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Army of the Ohio, General Orders No. 150, September 15, 1863, Department and Army of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Office of the Provost Marshal General of East Tennessee, Circular No. 9, December 22, 1863, Ninth Army Corps, Entry of Prisons and Prisoners, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

27. Mary Jane Reynolds to S. B. Reynolds, Loudon, June 5, June 20, 1864, Reynolds Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville.

28. Major General William T. Sherman to Brigadier General Stephen G. Burbridge, Big Shanty, Georgia, June 21,1864, Military Division of the Mississippi, Letters Sent in the Field, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also Sherman to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Big Shanty, Georgia, June 21, 1864, Military Division of the Mississippi, Letters Sent in the Field, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

29. Headquarters United States Forces, Kingston, Teimessee, General Orders No. 4, June 25, 1864, John Wilson Hines Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Captain J. M. Branson, Knoxville, August 6, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Teimessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

30. Oath of Allegiance, n.d.. Ninth Army Corps, Entry of Prisons and Prisoners, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C; Oath of Allegiance, First Brigade, Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, n.d.. District of East Tennessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also Hall, Johnson. p. 119; Harold Hyman, Era of the Oath (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1954).

31. Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Lieutenant Colonel James P. Brownlow, Knoxville, January 10,1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 319 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Mary Jane Reynolds to S. B, Reynolds, Loudon, March 13, April 18, 1864, Reynolds Letters, Special Collections, University of Teimessee Library, Knoxville.

32. Major General John G. Schofield to Brigadier General William D. Whipple, Knoxville, April 26, 1864, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Carter to Major John McGaughy, Knoxville, August 5, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Carter to Brigadier General Thomas Meegher, Knoxville, December 28, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Carter to Lieutenant Colonel Patterson, Knoxville, August 5, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Connelly F. Trigg to Oliver P. Temple, Cincinnati, August 11, 1864, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Major William G. Allen, "Back in the Sixties: An Incident of the Late War," William G. Allen Memoirs, Confederate Collection, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

33. Major General John G. Schofield to Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter, Lost Mountain, Georgia, June 14, 1864, Department of North Carolina and Army of the Ohio, Telegrams Sent, April 1864-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Carter to George W. Ross, Knoxville, June 14, 1864, Carter to Major J. A. Campbell, Knoxville, June 14, 1864, Carter to Major John McGaughy, Knoxville, June 18, 1864, Carter to Major General J. A. Webster, Knoxville, June 27, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Schofield to Carter, Marietta, Georgia, July 3, 1864, Department of North Carolina and Army of the Ohio, Letters Sent, April 1864-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

34. Mary Jane Reynolds to S. B. Reynolds, Loudon, May 1,1864, Reynolds Letters, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Fourth Division, Twenty- Third Army Corps, General Orders No. 9, July 1,1864, District of East Tennessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders Issued, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Recently, scholars have begun to examine changes in the roles and activities of women brought on by the Civil War. For accounts of resistance by white women to Federal occupation, see Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber, eds., Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); George C. Rable, Civil Wars 320 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989); Bell Irvin Wiley, Confederate Women (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1975).

35. Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders No. 24, October 19, 1864, District of East Tennessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders No. 10, January 31,1865, District of East Tennessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders Issued, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Major General George Stoneman to Mr. M. L. Hall, Knoxville, May 17,1865, District of East Tennessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

36. For compromises of loyalty, see Chapter Four, pp. 234-35, 252-53; Assistant Adjutant General Lewis Richmond to Colonel William Elliot, Knoxville, December 4,1863, Department and Army of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863- January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Memoirs of Thomas H. McCallie, published in Chattanooga Free Press. September 21, 1938, Wells Family Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

37. Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Lieutenant Colonel G. W. Bascom, Knoxville, June 21, 1864, Carter to Hon. David S. Patterson, Knoxville, October 3, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

38. Roy G. Lillard, Bradley Countv (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1980), pp. 62-63; Edward Maynard to Dr. Peck, Knoxville, November 17, 1863, Horace Maynard Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Knoxville Post Commander, Knoxville, December 28, 1864, Carter to Lieutenant S. F. Shaw, Knoxville December 29,1864, January 10,1865, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; William G. Swan to J.G.M. Ramsey, February 13,1865, Ramsey Family Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Temple, East Tennessee, p. 410; James W. Livingood, A History of Hamilton County. Tennessee (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1981), p. 206; Ellen McClung to her brother, Knoxville to her brother. Sing Sing, New York, October 13, 1864, William B. Campbell, Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham.

39. Captain H. H. Thomas to Colonel W. Y. Dillard, Knoxville, November 9, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, 321 Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Post Commandant, Knoxville, December 30,1864, Carter to Lieutenant S. F. Shaw, Knoxville, January 26, 1865, Lieutenant Colonel Luther S. Trowbridge to Shaw, Knoxville, February 9, 1865, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Edward Maynard to Washburn Maynard, Knoxville, February 7, 1864, Horace Maynard Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Carter to Major John McGaughy, Knoxville, August 7, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Carter to Major Campbell, Knoxville, November 16, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Office of the Provost Marshal General of East Tennessee, Special Orders No. 12, July 8, 1864, No. 19, July 23, 1864, No. 39, September 21, 1864, No. 40, September 22, 1864, No. 41, September 23, 1864, No. 51, October 18, 1864, No. 52, October 19, 1864, No. 55, October 31, 1864, Nos. 62 and 63, November 9, 1864, No. 70, November 19, 1864, No. 83, December 17, 1864, No. 89, December 30, 1864, No. 7, January 9, 1865, No. 10, January 14, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Special Orders Issued by the Provost Marshal General, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Carter to Lieutenant S. F. Shaw, Knoxville, November 10, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; W. M. Clarkson to T.A.R. Nelson, Johnson’s Island, June 2, 1864, John Murell to Nelson, Johnson’s Island, October 30, 1864, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Lizzie Key to "Aunt Katie," Knoxville, March 8,1865, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.

40. Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders No. 10, July 12,1864, No. 19, August 30, 1864, No. 22, October 1,1864, No. 4, January 23, 1865, District of East Teimessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders Issued, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Army of the Ohio, General Orders No. 87, October 13, 1864, No. 93, October 27, 1864, No. 7, December 31, 1864, Department and Army of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also Office of the Provost Marshal General of East Tennessee, Special Orders No. 56, November 1, 1864, Special Orders No. 57-65, November 2-November 12, 1864, District of East Tennessee, Special Orders Issued by the Provost Marshal General, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 322 41. For Carter’s request for military commissions, see Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Brigadier General Jacob Ammen, Knoxville, January 4,1865. For the nature of Union justice, see Office of the Provost Marshal General, District of East Teimessee, Special Orders Issued by the Provost Marshal General, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Provost Marshal General, District of East Teimessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; District of East Tennessee, Records of the Provost Marshal General, Roll of Prisoners in Custody, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; District of East Tennessee, Records of the Provost Marshal General, Record of Political Prisoners Confined in Citizens Prison, Knoxville, April 6, 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; District of East Tennessee, Records of the Provost Marshal General, Register of Names of Political Prisoners Confined in U.S. Military Prison at Knoxville, Tennessee, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Ninth Army Corps, Entry of Prisons and Prisoners, Record 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Lieutenant Colonel E. L. Hayes to Colonel J. W. Foster, September 8, 1863, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Letters Received, 1863-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Captain T. A. Stevenson to Captain Dean, Athens, January 31, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; W. M. Clarkson to T.A.R. Nelson, Johnson’s Island, June 2, 1864, John Murell to Nelson, Johnson’s Island, October 30, 1864, Mrs. Sarah Meek to Nelson, Jonesborough, April 19, 1865, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Lizzie Key to "Aunt Katie," Knoxville, March 8, 1865, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; W. C. Kaine and J. R. McCann to William B. Campbell, Knoxville Jail, January 15,1866, William B. Campbell Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham.

42. Major General John G. Schofield to Lieutenant Colonel G. W. Bascom, Atlanta, July 24, 1864, Department of North Carolina and Army of the Ohio, Letters Sent, April 1864-Januaiy 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Assistant Adjutant General Lewis Richmond to Lieutenant Chamberlain, Knoxville, October 17, 1863, Department and Army of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Mary Jane Reynolds to S. B. Reynolds, Loudon, February 17, June 5, June 20, 1864, Reynolds Letters, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; "Statements," Brigadier General 323 Samuel P. Carter, June 28 1864, Carter to Captain J. W. Branson, Knoxville, June 28, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Statements, Carter, January 2, January 14, 1865, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Lieutenant Colonel G. W. Bascom to Captain Calvin Minott, Knoxville, April 21, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Bascom to Carter, Knoxville, August 15, 1864, Department and Army of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863- January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Colonel James B. Brownlow to Oliver P. Temple, Bulls Gap, September 9, 1864, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville.

43. William B. Carter to Andrew Johnson, Bryantsville, Kentucky, February 19, 1862, William S. Speer to Johnson, New York, February 19, 1862, Johnson to President Abraham Lincoln, Nashville, June 5,1862, Johnson to Major General Lorenzo Thomas, Nashville, August 18, 1862, Thomas to Johnson, Washington, August 18, 1862, Johnson Papers, vol. 5, pp. 149, 150, 445-46, 623; Hall, Johnson, p. 73; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Brigadier General George C. Morgan, Knoxville, August 1, 1862, Department of East Teimessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

44. Judge T. Nixon van Dyke to President Jefferson Davis, Johnson’s Island, January 28,1864, OR II, 6, pp. 890-91; Mrs. E. T. Helms to T.A.R. Nelson, Lexington, December 13, 1864, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Lieutenant S. F. Shaw, Knoxville, August 5, 1864, Carter to Brigadier General Alvin Gillem, Knoxville, October 28, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Teimessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Brigadier General Davis Tillson to Deputy Provost Marshal M. McTeer, Knoxville, February 21, 1865, District of East Teimessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Captain W. A. Cochran to Tillson, Athens, March 2, 1865, District of East Teimessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Captain J. W. Branson to Major General John G. Schofield, Knoxville, August 8,1864, OR 39,1, pp. 460- 61; Carter to Deputy Provost Marshal Thomas Sanderson, Knoxville, November 6, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, DC.; Tillson to Major General George Stoneman, Knoxville, February 15, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Letters Received, 1863-1865, 324 Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also Deputy Provost Marshal Charles Inman to Colonel William Holland Thomas, Sevierville, January 4, 1864, William Holland Thomas Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; Deputy Provost Marshal F. Young to Oliver P. Temple, Kingston, March 19, 1864, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Carter to Captain Branson, Knoxville, June 3, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Samuel Ghormley to T.A.R. Nelson and John Netherland, Johnson’s Island, October 30, 1864, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Captain W. H. Cowell to Captain Deane, Athens, February 6, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

45. Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan to Inspector and Adjutant General Samuel Cooper, Abingdon, July 22,1864, Department of East Tennessee, Telegrams Sent, April 1863-September 1864, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Brigadier General John C. Vaughn to Colonel David M. Key, Carter’s Station, September 28, 1864, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.

46. For informal exchanges, see Captain Albert Bass to Major General Sam Jones, Greeneville, November 1, 1863, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major General John G. Schofield to Lieutenant General James Longstreet, Knoxville, February 10, March 23, 1864, Department and Army of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Colonel F. Foote, Knoxville, June 8, 1864, Carter to Colonel William Hoffman, Knoxville, June 15, 1864, Carter to Brigadier General John C. Vaughn, Knoxville, June 17, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Jacob D. Cox to Major J. A. Campbell, Bull’s Gap, April 6, 1864, Field Dispatches Sent by Brigadier General Jacob D. Cox, March 1864-April 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Jacob Ammen to "Commanding Officer Commanding Forces, Upper E. Tenn.," June 6, 1864, District of East Tennessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Office of the Provost Marshal General of East Tennessee, Special Orders No. 34, September 13, 1864, District of East Tennessee, Special Orders Issued by the Provost Marshal General, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. For Morgan’s proposal and the Union 325 response, see Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan to Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter, Abingdon, August 7, 1864, Department of East Teimessee, Letters, Orders, Circulars, April 1863-October 1864, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Lieutenant Colonel G. W. Bascom to Major General John G. Schofield, Knoxville, August 12,1864, Bascom to Brigadier General Alvin Gillem, Knoxville, August 23, 1864, September 27, 1864, Army and Department of the Ohio, Telegrams Sent, December 1863-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Schofield to Bascom, Atlanta, August 13, 1864, Department of North Carolina and Army of the Ohio, Telegrams Sent, April 1864-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Carter to Morgan, Knoxville, August 15, 1864, OR II, 7, p. 597.

47. Samuel P. Carter Memoirs, pp. 137-40, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Lieutenant Colonel G. W. Bascom to Brigadier General Alvin Gillem, Knoxville, August 23, 1864, OR 39, 2, p. 289; Major General John G. Schofield to Gillem, Atlanta, September 2, 1864, Department and Army of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Gillem, Knoxville, September 22,1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Gillem to Colonel W. Y. Dillard, Knoxville, September 22,1864, District of East Tennessee, Letters Received, 1863- 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Brigadier General John C. Vaughn to Major General John C. Breckinridge, October 26, 1864, OR II, 7, p. 1046; Adjutant and Inspector General’s Office, Special Orders No. 267, November 9, 1864, OR II, 7, pp. 1114-15; Colonel Robert Ould to Secretary of War James A. Seddon, November 17,1864, OR II, 7, p. 1125. For J. B. Heiskell, see Office of the Provost Marshal General of East Tennessee, Special Orders No. 43, September 27, 1864, District of East Tennessee, Special Orders Issued by the Provost Marshal General, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

48. Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Major General John G. Schofield, Knoxville, November 20, 1864, OR II, 7, p. 1145; Schofield to Carter, Pulaski, November 20, 1864, Department of North Carolina and Army of the Ohio, Telegrams Sent, April 1864-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; "Articles of Agreement for Exchange," Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter and Brigadier General John C. Vaughn, December 1, 1864, OR II, 7, p. 1175; Carter to Captain Robert Morrow, Knoxville, December 3, 1864, Lieutenant Colonel Luther S. Trowbridge to Captain Robert Morrow, Knoxville, March 5, 1865, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, 326 National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Vaughn to Secretary of War James A. Seddon, December 5, 1864, OR II, 7, pp. 1192-93.

49. Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Major General George C. Stoneman, Knoxville, December 10, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Teimessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Carter to Brigadier General John C. Vaughn, Knoxville, December 10,1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Carter to Major General Ethan Allan Hitchcock, Knoxville, December 10, 1864, OR H, 7, p. 1208; Hitchcock to Carter, Washington, December 23, 1864, OR H, 7, pp. 1263-64; Office of the Provost Marshal General of East Tennessee, Special Orders No. 80, December 12, 1864, Carter to Vaughn, Knoxville, December 21,1864, District of East Tennessee, Special Orders Issued by the Provost Marshal General, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

50. Secretary of War James A. Seddon to Brigadier General John C. Vaughn, Richmond, December 15, 1864, OR II, 7, p. 1299; Lieutenant Colonel Luther S. Trowbridge to Captain Robert Morrow, Knoxville, March 5, 1865, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Samuel P. Carter to Major General Ethan Allan Hitchcock, Washington, January 8, 1865, OR II, 8, pp. 25-26.

51. Lieutenant Colonel Luther S. Trowbridge to Brigadier General John C. Vaughn, Knoxville, February 8,, February 14,1865, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Vaughn to Major General John C. Breckinridge, Bristol, February 19, 1865, OR II, 8, p. 267; Vaughn to Trowbridge, Bristol, February 20, 1865, OR II, 8, pp. 272-74; Trowbridge to Captain Robert Morrow Knoxville, March 5, March 10, 1865, Provost Marshal General, District of East Teimessee, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

52. Samuel W. Melton to Brigadier General John C. Vaughn, Richmond, March 2, 1865, OR II, 8, p. 335; see also Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge to Colonel Robert Ould, Richmond, March 8, 1865, and Indorsement, Colonel Robert Ould, OR II, 8, p. 368.

53. District of East Teimessee, Records of the Provost Marshal General, Roll of Prisoners in Custody, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; District of East Teimessee, Records of the Provost Marshal General, Record 327 of Political Prisoners Confined in Citizens Prison, April 6, 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C; District of East Tennessee, Records of the Provost Marshal General, Register of Names of Political Prisoners Confined in U.S. Military Prison at IGioxville, Tennessee, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Department of East Tennessee, Record of Political Prisoners, 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C. CHAPTER VI

"I AM HEARTILY SICK OF EAST TENNESSEE"

The final group of combatants in the East Tennessee war were the soldiers of the two armies. The men who fought guerrillas, enforced Confederate conscription and the Union loyalty oath, arrested resisters, and overawed the population were vital to the success or failure of the policies devised at the department headquarters. Their skills in implementing these policies, their relations with the population, their restraint or lack thereof, and their effectiveness in discouraging resistance all shaped the outcome of the conflict.

This chapter examines some of the roles that Confederate and Union soldiers played in the East Tennessee struggle. The first section discusses their war with the guerrillas, including the nature of this war, the effectiveness of the soldiers’ tactics, their attitudes toward their enemies, and the atrocities that they committed. The second section then explores other elements of soldier life in

East Tennessee, including the ways in which troops viewed this region and its people, their relations with the population, and the impact of their behavior on the attempts of Union and Confederate authorities to win over East Tennessee.

328 329 THE COUNTER-GUERRILLA WAR

The war against the guerrillas divides roughly into two categories:

individual, planned campaigns against a specific band of bushwhackers or a

particular area, and engagements that resulted from routine operations such as

scouting, garrison duty, and picketing. The first was the more visible and more

dramatic part of this war, and it corresponds more closely with conventional

military campaigns. These expeditions originated with information about a

particular band and were planned and ordered by the department commander or

another high-ranking officer. They were also designed to achieve a particular aim

at a particular time. Actions in the second category were less visible, but they in

fact comprised the bulk of the soldiers’ war against the guerrillas.

On the Confederate side, most planned anti-guerrilla campaigns had two

purposes. Their specific aim was to suppress Unionist bushwhacker activity in a

particular area. Their larger goal, equally important, was to break up Unionist

political organizations, assert Confederate authority, and overawe the population.

In September 1862 Major General Sam Jones directed Colonel L. M. Allen to take 250 infantry and seventy-five cavalry into Sevier County to disperse an armed band reported there, capture as many bushwhackers as possible, and arrest any citizens "aiding or abetting" the guerrillas. After defeating the bushwhackers Allan was to return to Knoxville with the infantry while leaving the cavalry in Sevier to

"carry out certain instructions from the provost marshal." These instructions were 330 not preserved, but based on Confederate policy it is likely that the cavalry’s duties

were to arrest known Unionist leaders, confiscate weapons, and generally threaten

the disloyal population. That same month Jones ordered three companies to

Johnson County to capture a group of North Carolina loyalists reported preparing

to escape to Kentucky. In October 1862 the East Tennessee commander sent a

detachment of the Thirty-First Alabama to Newport, Cocke County to "break up and destroy all parties banded together in opposition to the laws of the

Confederate Government and in defiance of its authority," and he again ordered troops into Johnson and Carter to deal with several bushwhacker bands there. [1]

The largest Confederate expedition of this kind occurred in late March

1862 when Major General Edmund Kirby Smith ordered Brigadier General

Danville Leadbetter to organize a force at Kingston for an expedition into Scott and Morgan Counties. The immediate object of this expedition was a Unionist camp near Montgomery where, according to the General’s information, at least six hundred armed Unionists had assembled. Kirby Smith’s larger aim was to crush the loyalist organizations in this area, a center of Unionist defiance.

Leadbetter’s orders were to move as rapidly and secretly as possible into the area, destroy the bands at Montgomery, disband all loyalist organizations, confiscate all weapons found, and strip Scott County of supplies. [2]

Large-scale Confederate expeditions, therefore, were directed against the

Unionist population at large. Major Union campaigns, conversely, were aimed more specifically at secessionist bands. Most of these occurred in the last year of 331 the war, when the Union command launched a number of massive expeditions

designed to sweep large areas of East Tennessee clear of guerrilla bands. The

first was ordered on 30 October 1864, when Major General George Thomas sent

three regiments on a long, indirect march from Nashville to Athens "via

Murfreesboro, Shelbyville, Fayettville, and New Market." Thomas ordered the

expedition commander. Colonel Horace Capron, to "capture and kill all guerrillas

in the country over which you pass" and if necessary to send out detachments to

destroy guerrillas in remote areas. (See Figure 3) Similarly, in April 1865 Major

General George Stoneman sent the Ninth Tennessee Cavalry to "scour" the entire

area between the Holston River and the Cumberland Mountains. Stoneman later

sent additional forces to protect the court at Rutledge and to clear the

mountainous area north of that town. [3]

The last major Union campaign occurred in late May 1865, when Thomas launched two simultaneous expeditions designed to eliminate the last guerrilla bands still plaguing East Tennessee. He ordered the Fourth Tennessee Mounted

Infantry first to pacify White, Overton, and Fentress Counties and then move into

Montgomery and Morgan. Thomas also requested Stoneman to send a force of cavalry north of Knoxville to restore order in Knox, Anderson, Campbell, and

Montgomery Counties and then link up with the Fourth Tennessee in Morgan.

After this rendezvous the cavalry were to deal with the guerrillas in Roane, Rhea, and Hamilton, while the mounted infantry had the task of clearing the area between the Little River and the Holston. Thomas may have hoped that these 332 separate forces would act as converging columns and sweep the guerrilla bands

into Morgan where they might be destroyed. (See Figure 4) These campaigns were apparently effective, for most guerrillas had fled or disbanded by the summer

of 1865. [4]

Large planned expeditions did accomplish certain purposes. They scattered guerrilla bands, drove disloyal organizations into hiding, and led to numerous arrests of known dissenters. They also served as a reminder of governmental authority, spread fear of official retribution, and occasionally tempted guerrillas to stand and fight, encounters that almost always favored the regular forces. But in general large expeditions were blunt instruments and their effectiveness limited.

It was virtually impossible for a large force to move undetected in East Tennessee, and thus the chances of surprising a guerrilla band were small. Furthermore, such expeditions often antagonized the population, for the troops frequently made house-to-house searches, ate up local supplies, and arrested innocent persons along with the guilty. But commanders often had no other choice. They lacked sufficient troops to police every county of East Tennessee, and their intelligence was rarely accurate or rapid enough to enable them to locate a guerrilla band precisely.

Most of the effective counter-guerrilla work in East Tennessee, therefore, was small scale, undramatic, and seemingly endless. It was an integral part of garrison duty, cavalry scouting, and the enforcement of conscription, and it soon acquired a routine like any other task. Soldiers frequently referred to these 333

S?5;i"°slTY # _ A 1 / GREENE ^o. \ w il s o n\ ^ KNOX D#K* CUMBER- WHITE S l a n d ‘''"■‘•'AMso^SRUTHErTS SEVIER b U N T

mx^ V onroe

GILES MARION ï ■#' LINCOLN

FIGURE 3

UNION COUNTER-GUERRILLA OPERATIONS, OCTOBER 1864 334

) SULUIVAMX^

I 1 !**»«• / W*wO*%k»*d** GREENE

KNOX 'T wh.A‘ï!1Îo“- SEVIER BLOUNT

^^fAwONROE

POLK

FIGURE 4

UNION COUNTER-GUERRILLA OPERATIONS, MAY 1865 335 operations as "hunting," a term that Ella Lonn also noted in her work on

desertion, or "playing the detective." [5] Both hunting and police work were

appropriate analogies. In remote areas troops labored to track guerrillas down

and flush them out of their hideouts; in populated regions they gathered evidence

to identify, locate, and arrest or kill bushwhackers. This work was often very dangerous, and many men died in this service. It was also monotonous, however, consisting of an endless number of long marches, routine patrols, pickets, house- to-house searches, and missed encounters. The counter-guerrilla war was fatiguing, tedious, frustrating, and brutalizing, and it is little wonder that the morale and discipline of troops in East Tennessee sagged.

Several soldiers left vivid accounts of this service. One of the most revealing on the Confederate side was that of William Sloan, a recruit with the

Third Tennessee. Sloan’s narrative began on 28 February 1862 when his company was sent to the Holston River near Strawberry Plains to cut off "the various small bands of renegades who are almost daily crossing on the way to Kentucky . . ."

After five days of watching the company coimnander secured information about a particular band of escapees, and Sloan and a small group of men went to

McMillen’s Station to waylay them. The Confederates lay out all night in a cold rain, but the escapees never appeared. After a few more days of this service

Sloan’s regiment was ordered back to Knoxville, where they "had no duty to perform for more than a week except to guard the jail, which is full of government prisoners, mostly Tennessee Bushwhackers." On 17 March the Third Tennessee 336 moved to Clinton; then on 27 March it was sent to Kingston as part of

Leadbetter’s expedition into Scott and Morgan Counties. Here Sloan had his first

major encounter with the Unionists, for on 4 April the regiment skirmished with

bushwhackers in Scott County and lost four killed and seven wounded. For the

rest of the spring and summer Sloan largely performed garrison duty, serving at

Clinton, Knoxville, Tazewell, and Cumberland Gap. Then in late fall he

transferred to the Second Battalion of Tennessee Cavalry and spent the remainder of his service in East Tennessee chasing conscript evaders and bushwhackers around remote areas. [6]

This was the typical pattern of service in East Tennessee. Thomas Smith

Hutton, a Unionist recruit, left an account very similar to Sloan’s. On 21 February

1865 Hutton’s regiment was sent to occupy Greeneville. Confederate guerrillas raided their pickets the first night, but the Union soldiers drove them off and killed one. The next day the bushwhackers again attacked, and again the Union troops repulsed the attack. On 23 February Hutton’s regiment moved on to

Warrensberg and captured four "rebels" on the march. Over the next three weeks the Fédérais made expeditions to Lick Creek and Collinsville; then on 12 March they moved across the Chick River, where they captured one deserter and killed two Confederates. Until his discharge in May Hutton continued this routine: scouting in upper East Tennessee, skirmishes with secessionist bushwhackers and

Confederate cavalry, and occasional guard duty on a bridge or garrison duty in town. [7] 337 Not all counter-guerrilla work involved campaigning or scouting. Small

detachments were also frequently sent to particular towns to ferret out members

of guerrilla bands and arrest them. Fuller Manly wrote in August 1862 that his

regiment had been ordered to Clinton to deal with Unionist guerrillas who had

been terrorizing secessionists there. Similarly, one Union regiment spent several weeks in early 1864 capturing bushwhackers plaguing the population in the

Loudon area. This service required soldiers to engage in what was hterally police work: securing information from residents of the neighborhood, surveillance of the homes and reported haunts of suspected guerrillas, patrols, and searches for arms and stolen property. In July 1862, for example. Major General Edmund Kirby

Smith asked Provost Marshal Colonel William Churchwell to watch the house of a man near Knoxville suspected of being a Unionist guerrilla and of carrying communications to and from Kentucky. Union troops carried out similar duties; one Confederate soldier home on leave was almost captured when Union soldiers, who had been watching his house for several days, had rushed it when he stepped outside one night. Union deputy provost marshals frequently kept detailed information on the population in their area; the deputy at Loudon, for example, compiled a list of all the families in his jurisdiction, divided them into loyal and disloyal, and noted known or suspected disloyal activities. [8]

Garrisons permanently stationed at strategic points also devoted a significant portion of their time to fighting bushwhackers. In October 1862 Major

General Sam Jones instructed Colonel J. R. Palmer to use "the men of your 338 command to put down the bushwhackers in your neighborhood." On the Union

side, the garrison at Cumberland Gap was constantly engaged in a war with local

guerrillas. Lieutenant Colonel William C. Bartlett employed not only his own

troops but also companies of Unionist Home Guards for this purpose, and his

constant scouting brought results. In January 1865 Bartlett reported two successful expeditions, one by the Second North Carolina Mounted Infantry (Union) that killed at least twelve guerrillas and captured ten, and another that killed an additional dozen. Similarly, in April 1864 a scout by troops based in Greeneville surprised a band of guerrillas and killed ten. [9]

Commanders did find some units reluctant to undertake counter-guerrilla service. In January 1864 Provost Marshal General Samuel P. Carter sent a detachment of the Second East Termessee under Lieutenant William Estrada into

Scott and Fentress Counties to destroy the numerous bands of bushwhackers and robbers that plagued that area. Instead of actively himting for the guerrillas, the expedition commander simply quartered his men in Wartburg, and Carter had to prod him into action: "This was not the design of sending you into that section.

You are expected to scour the country, and arrest horse thieves and robbers who have so long infested that region and been a terror to the citizens. The General expects you to be vigilant and active, and do everything in your power to bring the villains . . . to justice ..." Likewise, the Unionist historian J. S. Hurlbut claimed that even after loyalists made numerous pleas for protection against secessionist raids the post commander at Cleveland refused to pursue guerrillas under the 339 notorious Gatewood, stating that he was there to guard the post and not to undertake field operations. Hurlbut’s charge appears valid, for the records show only one Federal engagement with Gatewood. [10]

Regulars faced a number of problems in their war against the guerrillas.

The first was simply locating them. Guerrilla bands were elusive, and the information that officers received was often misleading. Field officers, therefore, had to rely on their own scouts and their ability to extract reliable information from the local population, and their success or failure depended on their relations with the population, their knowledge of the area, and their intelligence skills. In some counties regulars received assistance from local Home Guard units, but this was not always available.

A second problem was the terrain, particularly that in the mountainous regions. This was a topic on which almost every soldier engaged in this service commented. William Sloan dwelt repeatedly on the harsh landscapes of upper

East Tennessee: "I will say here that all of Scott County, and a great deal of contiguous territory, both in Tennessee and Kentucky, is a solid bed of rugged and precipitous mountains, cut and gashed in all directions, and deep ravines, and all having rough streams of water in them The roads alongside these steams are often mere trails, and the mountains bordering the streams are often so steep and craggy that bushwhackers can conceal themselves in good rifle range of a road and fire into a column of cavalry with perfect impunity, as it would often require an hour of hard climbing on foot to reach them . . ." Sloan related one attempt to 340 surprise a bushwhacker camp located high up on a ridge. His unit divided into

two wings and attempted secretly to scale the ridge, but the guerrillas spotted

them and fled long before they reached the top. Similarly, Danville Leadbetter

described Cocke County as "a tumultuous mass of steep hills, wooded to the top, with execrable roads winding through the ravines and often occupying the beds of

the water-courses." The weather also hampered regular operations against the guerrillas. Lieutenant Colonel Luther S. Trowbridge remembered numerous expeditions in heavy snow, ice, fog, or freezing rain, with horses’ hoofs balling up from the snow and animals and men sliding dangerously on steep trails. For Sloan also the weather was one of the greatest obstacles: "It must be understood that in all our service this winter in these high cold bleak mountains we never had a tent, or other shelter from the snow and rain, and it is hard to imagine greater hardships than we had to endure." [11]

A final difficulty that the troops faced was simply pinning the guerrillas down and forcing an engagement before they dispersed. Guerrillas often possessed a number of advantages, including superior knowledge of the terrain and superior speed, that enabled them to escape. In the summer of 1864

Trowbridge sent twenty-five men to rescue a Union officer captured by a secessionist band. The Union troopers followed the band into the mountains but were never able to overtake them, and after two days they gave up the chase and turned back. On their return the soliders were themselves ambushed by the guerrilla band that they had been pursuing and lost one man. The troopers drove 341 the bushwhackers off and inflicted several casualties, but once again failed to catch them. Major Thomas H. Reeve experienced similar frustrations in his attempts to pursue the guerrillas who stole five hundred horses from a Union corral near Kingston in July 1864. Reeve immediately went in pursuit, but he . could not move quickly enough and managed to recover only a few mounts.

Reeve then returned to Kingston, assembled reinforcements, and rode into the

Sparta area to capture Ferguson’s band, but again he located only a handful of horses and not a single bushwhacker. The discouraged major reported that the secessionists had likely dispersed into the mountains where they would never be found. [12]

To offset these advantages, officers in East Tennessee devised a variety of tactics designed to bring guerrillas to bay. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Kleem of the Third Indiana Cavalry described one attack on a band camped on the bank of the Little Tennessee River near Chilhouee. Kleem split his force, moved simultaneously down both banks of the river, and converged on the camp at dawn.

This tactic worked marvelously, for Kleem achieved surprise and claimed to have captured twenty-three guerrillas. Colonel Thomas J. Harrison of the Eighth

Indiana Cavalry employed a similar tactic when he was sent to Sparta to suppress guerrilla activity there. Harrison divided his regiment into four groups, positioned them at different points around Sparta, and then converged simultaneously on the town. At the end of five days the Union commander reported four guerrillas killed, six wounded, and fifteen captured, as well as the recovery of stolen property 342 from "Champ" Ferguson’s farm. Lieutenant Colonel Gowin of the Sixth Tennessee

Mounted Infantry (Federal) employed simpler, but equally effective, methods.

Sent into north Georgia to track down a band of seventy-five guerrillas in

February 1865, Gowin simply ascertained the band’s location, trailed them at a safe distance, waited until they had set up camp, and then surrounded them with his detachment. Gowin reported that his men killed several guerrillas and recovered a large supply of arms. [13]

Such tactics occasionally worked magnificently, but they probably miscarried at least as often. In late November 1861 Confederate Colonel Danville

Leadbetter described for Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper his difficulties in suppressing the rebellious Unionist bands: "At present they seem indisposed to fight, and the great difficulty is to reach them. Scattering in the mountain paths, they can scarcely be caught, and as their arms are hidden when not in use, it is almost impossible to disarm them." Two weeks later Leadbetter elaborated further on his troubles. He reported that he had pursued one loyalist band into the Newport area of Cocke County and had then devised a plan to trap them. He sent a regiment of his own troops toward Newport from the south and ordered up a second unit from Morristown to converge on the area from the opposite direction. Leadbetter admitted that after four days marching the total accomplishment of the expedition had been one wounded Unionist. As he concluded, "these people cannot be caught in this manner." Similarly, Union

Brigadier General George Morgan reported in July 1862 that he had devised an 343 expedition to destroy a guerrilla band that had been particularly troublesome to

Union forces around Cumberland Gap. Morgan stated that he had sent a regiment "on a four-nights circuitous march around another mountain ridge" to close the trap, but "I am not sanguine of the success of the expedition." [14]

In many cases, therefore, success against guerrillas depended not on clever tactics but on patience, hard work, and luck. Commanders could send troops into an area at any time, but whether those troops accomplished anything depended on their knowledge of the area, their relations with the population, and their skills.

After a Unionist bushwhacker shot a Confederate soldier near Richmond,

Kentucky, in October 1862 James Bennet McCrey went out with a detachment to track him down. "I started at about One P.M. with forty men to hunt the bushwhacker. Marched all evening, searched and ransacked every house for miles around, found some army equipment, consumed the whole night in the service and became much exhausted . . . but did not find the bushwhacker." J. W. Gash, a trooper with the Seventh North Carolina Cavalry (Confederate), described a similar frustration. Gash’s unit was sent in October 1862 to restore order in

Johnson County. On the night of 28 October Gash and twenty-five men went out to capture a group of North Carolina bushwhackers reported in the area. "They being thoroughly skilled in the art of dodging got wind of us being in the neighborhood and skedaddled ...," and their only catch that night were four men arrested for harboring outliers. On Gash’s next expedition his luck turned, for his detachment captured seventeen Unionists suspected of bushwhacking and evading 344 conscription as well as a Union officer on recruiting service. By 30 October the

Seventh North Carolina had collected thirty prisoners, [15]

SOLDIER ATTITUDES AND ATROCITIES

In his work on the internal war in Missouri, Michael Fellman emphasized

the way in which that conflict blurred the line between the guerrilla and the

soldier. Troops involved in guerrilla hunting frequently followed the same code

as their enemy, recognizing no restrictions, taking no prisoners, and participating

in the same "blood sport," Some Union soldiers in Missouri even took on the role of bushwhackers, breaking into houses and robbing and abusing citizens, [16] This kind of distortion also occurred in East Teimessee, Although soldiers from both armies despised guerrillas, their mode of fighting them frequently descended to the same base level. That this occurred is not surprising, for both soldiers and guerrillas were products of the same society and the same war. The only barriers that separated the soldier from the guerrilla were a military code of conduct and military discipline, and when these eroded a uniform was not always sufficient to separate a soldier from a bushwhacker. In the field the issue frequently settled down to one factor, survival, and the war between the guerrillas and the soldiers became simple, primitive, and brutal. In this environment soldiers and guerrillas found themselves on the same level, and militaiy orders, discipline, and trappings disappeared. 345 A number of factors combined to poison the attitude of the regular troops

toward guerrillas in East Tennessee. First was the lack of reciprocity. Guerrillas

did not follow the recognized rules of war, nor was their conduct considered fair

and honorable even by ordinary standards. Thus when guerrillas failed to "fight fair," soldiers felt little obligation to do so. One Confederate cavalryman described bushwhacking as "a very annoying sort of warfare, that of the assassin- shooting you in the back and running off." Marshall P. Thatcher, a Union trooper with the Second Michigan, similarly condemned guerrilla methods: "Next to rebel prison pens the meanest thing ever encouraged by the Confederates was guerrilla warfare . . . they were too cowardly to stand shoulder to shoulder and face an honorable foe in common warfare, and were a disgrace to the army whose cause they pretended to espouse." Thatcher also described one particularly frustrating encounter: "And on this march the command was terribly annoyed, on flank and rear, by parties they could not stop to fight, and we lost some good men while going over the mountain. It was murder, nothing but murder." In the soldiers’ view, therefore, guerrillas were not legitimate combatants and thus did not deserve the honorable treatment accorded to enemy troops. [17]

Many soldiers transferred this anger into contempt. Unable to fight bushwhackers effectively, troops attempted to dismiss them as cowards lacking honor and manhood. Joel Haley, worn out by almost a month of chasing Unionist bands around the Greeneville area, concluded that "East Tennessee Tories will never fight if there is any avenue by which they can escape by running." William 346 Gibbs Allen, a Confederate officer, adopted this same attitude in his

reminiscences. After complaining of frequent sniping and harassment by

guerrillas, he recorded with relish this story. Allen’s regimental commander had been in the habit of ignoring guerrilla sniping, but one day when he was

thoroughly drunk he ordered his men to charge the woods from which shots had come and kill everyone found. The harried Confederate troopers killed seven bushwhackers, and Allen claimed that, after a taste of real fire, the bushwhackers disappeared and bothered his unit no more. William Sloan also admitted the effectiveness of guerrilla sniping, but then reverted to mocking, stating that "the crack of a gun seems to inspire within them an irresistible inclination to run." [18]

The appearance of the bushwhackers added to this contempt. Weeks of lying out in the woods, constantly on the move and on guard, left them gaunt, dirty, and ill clothed, an appearance that hardly excited respect. Soldiers, thus, frequently viewed bushwhackers as not quite human. The hunting metaphor was a reflection of this attitude, for by this means guerrillas were transformed from human enemies into animals, prey for the hunt. These attitudes eroded moral restraints and justified treatment that would have been unacceptable for real soldiers.

A second factor that corroded the attitudes of many soldiers was their perception of their service in East Tennessee as meaningless and unrewarding.

After describing his regiment’s attempts to disperse Unionist bands and capture resisters after the November uprising, Joel Haley concluded that "there is certainly 347 no Laurels to be garnered by the conquest of such a force." Similarly, William

Sloan, after chasing bands of conscript evaders, complained that "our duties for the past two weeks have not been worth recording. We all spent the larger part of the holidays at home with our friends, and we might as well have spent all our time there, so far as any good we have done is concerned." These soldiers, after all, had signed up to fight Yankees or Rebels, not to chase poor starved mountaineers around the wilds of East Tennessee, and many expressed a desire to transfer to Virginia or the west where the real fighting was occurring. Adding to this sense of futility were the conditions in which soldiers lived. Troops were frequently posted in small units at remote garrisons, making their sense of identity and purpose difficult to maintain. Like other factors, this sense of meaninglessness produced frustrations that soldiers took out on their guerrilla enemies. [19]

Such attitudes paved the way for the large number of atrocities committed by both sides. While it is true that both Unionists and secessionists were quick to level exaggerated or fabriacted charges against soldiers, it is equally true that solid evidence reveals a significant number of excesses. William Sloan bluntly described the hanging of two bushwhackers in October 1862 and suggested that summary executions were a common practice; he also admitted that he and his men had put a rope around the neck of another Unionist to force him to admit that he was a guerrilla. J. C. Gruar, an East Tennessean, was equally direct in describing executions carried out by his unit: "Here is said to be 60 out Lyers in 348 this country. The boys killed 4 or 5 since I came out. I did not see either I saw

them put the rope around one fellows neck ..." When a Georgia regiment made a raid into East Teimessee the men got drunk and executed a bushwhacker whom they had just captured. Another story by Major William G. Allen also suggests the willingness of Confederate soldiers to kill bushwhackers without ceremony.

One night in November 1864 Allen was fired on by a guerrilla near Jonesborough.

He let off two shots in return and then rode off. The next day a request came into Brigadier General John C. Vaughn’s headquarters for a surgeon to operate on a man who had been shot. Assuming that this was the bushwhacker, Allen urged Vaughn to allow him to go with the surgeon and kill the man. Vaughn initially agreed, but then reversed his decision, though only for fear of Unionist retaliation against local secessionists. [20]

The most notorious Confederate atrocity was perpetrated in January 1863 by members of the Sixty-Fourth North Carolina. As Philip Shaw Paludan demonstrated, this incident had a long history. The border area of upper East

Tennessee and North Carolina was a center of dissent, and in April 1862 Major

General Edmund Kirby Smith had sent troops into the Laurel Valley of North

Carolina to pursue bushwhackers who had fled there for refuge. This force endured three days of sniping and ambushes before reaching Laurel, but managed to trap only a few Unionists. Then, in January, Unionists and deserters raided the town of Marshall and plundered several homes, including that of Colonel

Lawrence M. Allen, former commander of the Sixty-Fourth North Carolina. 349 Lieutenant-Colonel James Keith, who had taken over from Allen, marched the

Sixty-Fourth into Laurel Valley, arrested a number of those suspected of the raid

and other activities, and started with them to Knoxville. Before reaching

Confederate headquarters, however, Keith took the thirteen men and boys off the road into the woods, executed them, and buried the bodies. [21]

The Union record is equally spattered with such atrocities. Chauncey

Welton left this revealing account:

The regiment had gone up the Railroad. They went up as far as Jonesborough, and then came back destroying the railroad as they came. On their way up there we had one man shot by a bushwhacker he belonged to our company his name was Isaac Rimer, They afterward captured a man in the woods who they think done it he was turned over to the Provost Guard of the Brigade, and as it consists of boys from owr regment as well as some others a musket happened to go accidentallv and the ball happened to hit the bushwhacker, of course the soldier who was so unfortunate as to have sutch an accident happen with his gun was sevierlv reprimanded by his officer but I believe he was not arrested.

After guerrillas in the Cumberland Gap area attempted to hang a group of foragers whom they had captured, the commanding officer made it known that thereafter his men would take no prisoners. And Amanda McDowell asserted that

Union soldiers stationed near Sparta routinely gave no quarter when fighting bushwhackers or renegade cavalry. These and other accounts again suggest that 350 it was not unusual for regulars to "deal with" bushwhackers by performing summary executions, torturing bushwhackers to obtain information, or shooting guerrillas on sight. [22]

The attitudes of Confederate and Union officials toward the conduct of the guerrilla war exhibit a number of similarities. Both Confederate and Union authorities distinguished between legitimate and illegitimate combatants in similar terms, and both established formal judicial procedures for the legal punishment of guerrillas. They defined "bushwhacking," "harboring guerrillas," and "suspected of being a guerilla" as crimes, established courts martial to try these and other related offenses, required formal charges, evidence, and witnesses, and sentenced those convicted to various punishments, including jail terms, hard labor, and occasionally execution. Both sides, therefore, possessed legal mechanisms for punishing bushwhackers, and dozens of Unionist and secessionist guerrillas were in fact tried and punished. [23]

At the same time, significant differences in official attitudes also existed.

To the best of my knowledge, there is only one certain case, and two other possible incidents, in which Confederate authorities formally sanctioned the summary killing of guerrillas. The one clear case is the summary execution of five men acused of helping burn the bridges in November 1861. In accordance with the orders of Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, these men were tried by a drumhead court martial and hung on the spot. The two possible exceptions revolve around Brigadier General Harry Heth and Major General Edmund Kirby 351 Smith. In his work on the Laurel Valley atrocity, Paludan concluded that Heth deliberately issued ambiguous orders to Lieutenant-Colonel Keith and thereby encouraged him to execute captured bushwhackers. The final case is less certain.

When Kirby Smith sent Colonel Danville Leadbetter into Scott and Morgan

Counties in March 1862, he gave these instructions: "I give you carte blanche, and will support you in whatever course you find necessary to take." These orders can be interpreted in several different ways. Kirby Smith may in fact have been sanctioning the summary execution of Unionist irregulars, especially since

Leadbetter’s ruthlessness was well known. He also may have simply been authorizing Leadbetter to use whatever force necessary to put down resistance, a legitimate order in light of the strength of the loyalist organizations in this area.

[24] Beyond these cases, Confederate policy is hidden. Confederate commanders almost certainly knew that their forces were committing atrocities, but whether they actually approved these actions or were simply unable to halt them is uncertain. What is clear is that Department commanders did not openly authorize such actions as a general policy, and in several cases Kirby Smith and

Jones issued orders to expedition commanders setting out strict limits on the use of force.

Union policy was much clearer and more openly ruthless. From the beginning of the Federal occupation, several officers in East Tennessee had adopted a policy of taking no prisoners. This created a dilemma that the District commanders and other high-ranking officers solved in different ways. Provost 352 Marshal General Carter’s response was blunt. In June 1864 the deputy provost

marshal of Morgan County requested clarification of official policy toward

bushwhacker bands. Carter replied that "with regard to guerrillas, they are, by the

law of nature and Army Regulations, not to be treated as prisoners of war, but,

if caught in arms, are to be shot on the spot." District Commander Brigadier

General Jacob Ammen, conversely, resorted to subterfuge. In December 1864

Lieutenant Colonel William C. Bartlett reported to Knoxville that he had captured a guerrilla from the notorious Litrell band and asked what should be done with him. Ammen sent this carefully worded response: "I reply that these men, if captured, must be sent to the Provost Marshal General of the District with charges, and a list of witnesses. In my opinion, it is best not to take such characters prisoners-to show them no quarter. If, unfortunately, they are taken, we will have to obey existing orders." Finally, other officers solved this dilemma by establishing tribunals to try guerrillas on the spot. One example was the garrison at Tullahoma, which was heavily engaged in running down guerilla bands in East and Middle Tennessee. Bushwhackers captured by these forces were tried by a military court and if found guilty were immediately executed. But officers at

Tullahoma continued to act with some discretion; as one soldier explained, "when ordered to take our prisoners away, and not bring them back, we understood the meaning of the command." [25]

By 1865 the practice of giving no quarter was openly sanctioned. The requirement that guerrillas taken prisoner had to be tried remained in place; 353 officers, therefore, simply encouraged their men not to take prisoners. In March

1865 Brigadier General Davis Tillson wrote Captain W. A. Cochran of the

Seventh Tennessee Mounted Infantry: "I am exceedingly pleased with your success and especially with your not taking any prisoners." In April Major General

George Stoneman instructed Colonel James Parsons of the Ninth Tennessee

Cavalry that "the persons with whom you have to deal are outlaws, so long as they are at liberty, and as such should be treated. When taken prisoners, they must be treated as prisoners, and are entitled to trial, which takes time and entails trouble and expense. Give them to understand that... every man found in arms . . . will be treated as a public enemy and an outlaw, and killed like a mad dog ..." That same month the post commander at Jonesborough issued orders that "in the future no quarter will be shown guerrillas and robbers; they will be shot down whenever found." Finally, in May 1865 Major General George Thomas made it official policy for the District of East Tennessee that henceforth guerrillas who refused to surrender would be shot on sight and not taken prisoner. [26]

ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR TOWARD THE POPULATION

The guerrilla war was the most prominent element of service in East

Tennessee. But troops in this theater spent only a part, in some cases a small part, of their time fighting bushwhackers. The bulk of their service was devoted to routine tasks, such as guarding railroad bridges, garrisoning towns and strategic 354 points, foraging, picketing, and scouting. Despite their routine nature, the way in which troops performed these services also affected the outcome of the East

Tennessee war. Soldiers were the representatives of their competing governments, and their behavior had a major impact on the success, or failure, of government policies. When disciplined and respectful, they sometimes won the good will of the communities that they occupied. More often, their destructive behavior angered the population and damaged the reputation of occupying authorities.

Well before the Civil War East Teimessee possessed a reputation in the

South as a backwards, impoverished region inhabited by ignorant mountaineers.

Many Southern troops brought these images with them, and while a few eventually changed their beliefs many did not, for the intransigent Unionism and the palpable hostility of the population further strengthened the Southern troops’ prejudices. The result was that many Southern soldiers resented their assignments to East Tennessee, hated their service there, and eagerly anticipated a transfer elsewhere.

Southern soldiers conveyed their impressions of East Tennessee in stark but frequently humorous terms. Fuller Manly, who served in this department for most of 1862, dismissed the people as unworthy of the soldiers’ efforts: "As to the people, they have less refinement and cultivation about them than any set of people I ever did see; the men are an idle, worthless set of fellows who look to, and compel, the women to do all of the work that is done . .. What I have seen of East Tennessee, the Yankees are perfectly welcome to it... I am thoroughly 355 disgusted with East Tennesseans . . William D. Cole professed his disgust in

similar terms: "I do hope to get out of the state of Tennessee soon never to visit

it any more, for it is one of the worst places Mississippi excepted that is in the

Confederacy . . . Tennesseans are the most ungrateful people that I have ever

seen." G. W. Hunt, an officer with Morgan’s cavaliy, similarly characterized East

Tennesseans as degraded, though unlike Manly he singled out the women for

criticism: "Did I stay long in this country, I should fear losing that respect and regard for the female sex, which I have been raised to have-here they unsex themselves, and by their conduct, lose all claim to be respected and regarded as ladies . . . Was I in authority here, I should treat them as men . . Hunt, like

Cole, concluded that "I am heartily tired of this country and want to get back to

Virginia . . And Paul Turner Vaughn complained that he was "thoroughly sick of East Tennessee, where we are not only surrounded by a poor ignorant and hostile people but where the government seems to have forgotten that we are dependent on it for our supply of shoes and cloth." [27]

A few soldiers did change their perceptions after serving some time in the region. Joel Haley recorded that his company was very disappointed when they were ordered to East Tennessee, but he admitted that "I believe it will prove to be a pleasanter place than I at first anticipated." Similarly, Alexander Coffee conceded that "this is a much better country than I had thought better land and better people . .. but very little enterprise." Nonetheless, most soldiers retained their negative perceptions. [28] 356 East Tennessee was not a particularly prosperous region, and war and occupation had pinched its modest economy. Poverty and disease were common, and their marks were no doubt evident. At the same time, at least some of this contempt was fueled more by the hostility of the population than by their physical characteristics. Fuller Manley complained that East Teimesseans routinely gave

Confederate officers confusing or incorrect directions and exhibited no desire to be rescued from Yankee despotism. Similarly, Hunt’s main charge against East

Tennessee women was that they regularly rode into Kentucky carrying information for Union authorities there. William E. McCoy described East Teimessee as "a perfect hole or ‘hill’ of Lincolndom." while Joel Haley contemptuously dismissed the region as "the Headquarters of Toryism and rebellion." Likewise, the charge of ignorance that Confederate troops frequently leveled against the population seems to have stemmed largely from the refusal of the region to embrace the

Confederate government, which Southern soldiers naturally interpreted as cowardice, stupidity, or obtuseness. [29]

The attitudes of the Federal troops toward East Tennessee were more mixed. Some of their descriptions were strikingly similar to Confederate accounts and even employed the same phrases and terms. Colonel Daniel Lamed,

Burnside’s Chief of Staff, was appalled at the people he observed: "but such poverty, such people-some of the most dilapidated specimens of humanity I ever saw . . ." Colonel Orlando Poe dismissed Knoxville in disgust as "a small, insignificant town," with signs of decay and ruin everywhere. Soldiers stationed in 357 the mountain regions frequently referred to their post as a "desolate place" or "the most forsaken place I ever saw." And like their Confederate counterparts, many

Union soldiers were amdous to escape this assignment. George P. Hawkes remembered that "the order [to leave East Tennessee] was most welcome," while

R. E. Jameson wrote "I had rather be somewhere else ... at any rate I don’t want to stay here all winter unless by moving we should get into a worse place." The most devastating expression of this view was that of Robert Shuman. In February

1864 Shuman identified his location as "some place in Tenn. 40 miles out of God’s knowledge" and complained to this wife that "we are still in this God forsaken country of East Tenn I wish we would only be ordered out of this department. If the rebs does get it as it is not worth killing men and horses for the possession of it." [30]

Again, a few Union soldiers were won over by their observations of East

Tennessee. Chauncey Welton asserted that East Teimessee was "almost a paradise" in comparison with Kentucky, while William Draper wrote that "the country in East Tennessee is much superior to that in Southern Kentucky and the inhabitants much more intelligent and enterprising." Draper, Earned, and others were enraptured by the mountain landscapes, while other soldiers saw evidence of prosperity. [31]

Confederate and Union soldiers stationed in East Tennessee both commonly engaged in petty thefts, irregular foraging, and general destruction, and both acquired a reputation among the population as undisciplined and destructive. 358 In November 1861 Confederate Alexander Coffee admitted that his unit’s

"depredations" were causing a great deal of discontent among the citizens; "We will cause a famine in a county where we stay long . . ." Knoxville secessionist

William G. McAdoo complained in October 1862 that passing soldiers had completely stripped his mother’s farm near Clinton, including the fence rails, wood lot, fields, and orchards, while Oliver Paine conceded that in some places

Southern soldiers carried away all the chickens, hogs, and corn they could find.

Horse theft was also a significant problem, and in October 1862 Major General

Sam Jones had to order Major General John P. McCown to investigate a number of charges of "confiscations" of horses by cavalry units. And Amanda McDowell complained that "the people cannot keep a nag fit for anything even if they had anything to feed on. The soldiers steal them so." [32]

It was the Confederate cavalry that drew the most complaints and acquired the worst reputation. Captain William Stringfield, an East Tennessee native and provost marshal of Carter County, charged that numerous Confederate soldiers, particularly those in the so-called scouting companies, regularly carried off slaves, horses, and property and sold these goods in Georgia and South Carolina. Major

General Edmund Kirby Smith described the cavalry in East Tennessee as "without any discipline, and with worthless officers and marauding habits," while both Major

General Sam Jones and Major General Simon B. Buckner complained of "the lawlessness so prevalent in this command." Reports from other areas supported these characterizations. A Confederate lieutenant sent charges from Allegheny 359 County, North Carolina that while in that area Brigadier General John Hunt

Morgan’s men had stolen horses and property from Unionists and Confederates

alike, tried to rape one woman, and shot a man who tried to protect her. Calvin

J. Cowles, a wealthy North Carolina conservative, painted equally black pictures

of the behavior of Brigadier General John C. Vaughn’s men when they marched through his area. Cowles charged that the Confederates troopers carried off horses and cattle, stole money, forced one man at gunpoint to hand over his supplies of brandy (which they promptly drank), and thoroughly stripped the area.

Rumors of Vaughn’s ill reputation reached as far as Richmond, and Vaughn himself admitted that his men had gotten drunk and behaved extremely badly. [33]

Theft was a common activity of Civil War soldiers. Southern and Northern troops regularly stole chickens, stock, and food, violated impressment regulations, and broke into houses and barns. These acts were a reflection of the inadequacies of Civil War supply systems, the age of the soldiers, and their boredom. [34] But many offenses in East Tennessee went far beyond the ordinary depredations of

Civil War soldiers. From an early date. Confederate soldiers in East Tennessee began to carry their war against the guerrillas into the population at large. This was perhaps inevitable, for Confederate troops faced a population that was mobilized on a wide scale and very hostile. The resentments that the troops felt against guerrillas soon expanded to embrace all East Tennesseans; similarly, atrocities against guerrillas lapped over into the population. Department commanders sympathized with the frustrations of their men, and their attempts to 360 impose discipline were often limited or ineffective. On the one hand, this violence

was legitimate, for the majority of the population were in fact at war with the

Confederacy. On the other hand, the excesses of soldiers not only increased

Unionist resistance, but also alienated moderates and even Confederate

supporters.

Unionist histories are full of accounts of Confederate atrocities. Thomas

William Humes charged that Southern soldiers frequently whipped and robbed

Unionists. J. S. Hurlbut claimed that in the fall of 1863 Confederate soldiers murdered a man near Cleveland who had recruited a company for the Federal

Army; he also asserted that other soldiers, in an attempt to get information about the Unionist pilot Thomas Spurgeon, tortured three men by hanging them. Daniel

Ellis asserted that in March 1863 Confederate cavalry, aided by secessionist Home

Guards, murdered five men in Carter County; he also charged that in December a Virginia company hunting for conscripts in Carter and Johnson Counties killed eight men. And Samuel W. Scott and Samuel P. Angel set out forty pages of similar atrocities at the end of their history of the Thirteenth Teimessee Cavalry

(Union). [35]

Many of these stories were no doubt untrue, while others were exaggerated.

The weight and variety of evidence suggests, however, that Unionist charges of atrocities were, on the whole, valid. In 1862 Confederate forces burned at least twenty, and perhaps more, houses in the town of Tazewell, and in July 1864 Calvin

J. Cowles noted reports that about three hundred of Morgan’s men had burned 361 thirty-seven homes in Johnson County, driven the families out of the region, and killed several men. That same month D. L. Boren gave the names of two men recently killed by Confederate cavalry in upper East Teimessee; he also claimed that Southern troops had beaten several women. Confederate authorities themselves admitted that their men illegally forced Unionists into Confederate service, seized wagons and teams for their own use, and appropriated property that Unionists had abandoned when they fled to Kentucky. [36]

In some cases the frustrations of the guerrilla war led immediately and directly to depredations. In December 1861 Colonel Danville Leadbetter, failing in his attempts to capture bands of Unionists in Cocke County, compensated by sending troops into Parrotsville and Warrensberg to impress horses and provisions, seize all arms found, and arrest "troublemakers." "The whole country is given to understand that this course will be pursued until quiet shall be restored . . ."

Similarly, William Sloan admitted that after an unsuccessful attempt to trap a guerrilla band on top of a ridge he and his men burned down the house the guerrillas had been using. And after Confederate troops in Polk County failed to track down a group of Unionist bushwhackers who had ambushed them they reportedly shot two men and three boys whom they encountered on the road. [37]

The depredations of Confederate troops were motivated by need and by hostility, and in many cases their acts were deliberately vicious and cruel.

Considering the provocations they faced, however. Confederate soldiers were generous and restrained in comparison with their Northern counterparts. Union 362 troops, even if not hostile to the population, were generally indifferent, and this lack of concern, combined with deficiencies in their supply system and their larger numbers, created an astonishing level of plundering in East Termessee.

Despite numerous reminders that they would be operating in friendly territory. Union troops began to behave badly as soon as they entered East

Tennessee. As early as 9 September 1863 Provost Marshal General Samuel P.

Carter reported to Major General Ambrose Burnside that he was receiving

"hourly" complaints of soldiers carrying off provisions and tearing down fences for fires. One month later Carter again pointed out that troops in the Strawberry

Plains area were indiscriminately plundering Unionists and secessionists alike. In

December an East Teimessee recruit admitted that "our cavalry is robbing the citizens wherever they may do so, making no distinction between rebel and Union.

.. This, without a doubt, is very hard." Two influential Unionists, T.A.R. Nelson and David Anderson Deaderick, concluded in 1864 that the Federal Army was far more destructive than the Confederates had ever been. And from all over East

Tennessee secessionists and Unionists alike wrote angry complaints about Federal soldiers ruthlessly carrying off horses and stock, stripping fields and storehouses, and entering homes to steal food, blankets, and possessions. [38]

Some Union crimes were particularly brutal. A private from the First Ohio

Heavy Artillery was convicted of entering a home in Roane County, beating the owner with a pistol, and carrying off a horse, a bridle and saddle, food, clothes, and watches and knives. Similarly, a private from an Illinois battery was charged 363 with breaking into several houses, beating one man with a "metal object," and

shooting another. Another soldier from the Second Ohio Heavy Artillery was

convicted of shooting a woman, while in April 1864 a Tennessee lieutenant deliberately ambushed and killed a Jefferson County man in Rogersville. William

Gibbs Allen claimed that Federal soldiers entered a home near Sweetwater, took the owner to the bam, and hung him up to force him reveal where he had hidden his money. And numerous Union soldiers were tried for murder, assault, and rape. [39]

As described below, much of this predatory behavior originated in the conditions in which troops found themselves. But some depredations were deliberate and were motivated by the contempt and hostility that soldiers felt toward secessionists. Daniel Larned admitted that after hearing numerous

Unionist accounts of Confederate outrages he felt "but little hesitation in appropriating the property of rebels in this vicinity." Another officer, George P.

Hawkes, conceded that on a march to Cumberland Gap he had deliberately camped his troops on a secessionist farm. After learning that the owner had served in the Confederate Army, Hawkes went further: "I told the boys to help themselves." Robert A. Rodgers accounted for Federal depredations in a similar fashion: "The boys don’t like to spare secesh men when the Rebels did not spare

Union men." Even colder was a statement submitted by Major General James G.

Spears after investigating an attempt by a Union soldier to shoot a civilian: "I visited the house of Mrs. Maxy and after an examination of herself & daughter am 364 satisfied that Lt. Gamble was justified in using his arms. & will recommend that

he be released from arrest, & instructed to practice the use of firearms, that the

next time he has so good an opportunity, he may rid the army of a nuisance." And

as on the Confederate side, in some cases Union frustrations toward guerrillas were taken out on the population. When Major Thomas Reeve failed to recover several hundred horses stolen by "Champ" Ferguson in July 1864 and was unable to pry any information from the people around Sparta, he told his men to plunder every house in the town. [40]

The presence of native East Tennesseans in the Army of the Ohio caused particular discipline problems. These were men who had experienced enemy occupation personally, left their homes and families in danger, and had a personal stake in this war. Burnside had recognized this danger and specifically warned

"that any desire which may exist on the part of soldiers to avenge their private wrongs must yield to a proper observance of the well-established usages of civilized warfare." Brigadier General George Morgan, likewise, recommended that the East Tennessee troops be transferred to another theater. [41]

In the event, there was no bloodbath when these men returned, but some did seek revenge. In February 1864 Colonel Edward Maynard reported to his father that "I think the boys have been much more quiet and obedient than the

Authorities expected them to be-Yet a few Rebs have felt their weight . . ."

Maynard then gave the names of one secessionist who had been killed and two others who had been whipped by Union soldiers. In March 1864 several East 365 Tennessee Fédérais stationed near Mossy Creek went to Strawberry Plains, hunted up a former secessionist neighbor who had fled there for protection, rode him on a rail for two hours, and then beat him up. Robert Ragan located and arrested three Confederate acquaintances who had provided information concerning local

Unionists to Confederate authorities, and Colonel John Brownlow freely impressed wagons and teams from secessionists for the use not only of his unit but also of loyalists. Brownlow justified his actions as policy; "Nothing can be made for our cause by attempting to conciliate rebels, the only way to restore peace is to kill and subjugate them. Their wagons, mules, horses, com, oats and every species of property they possess should be made subservient to the convenience and interests of loyal men." [42]

Confederate commanders were neither indifferent to the behavior of their men nor unmindful of the effect that these depredations and atrocities had on the population. Officers made frequent, vigorous attempts to maintain discipline, and publicly they deplored their men’s crimes. At the same time, commanders gave considerable latitude to their field officers and made allowances for the strains under which their men operated. Furthermore, as argued in Chapter Four

Confederate policies, particularly conscription, themselves led directly to excesses against the population.

The tone for the early Confederate occupation was set by Brigadier

General William Caswell, who organized the mobilization in the first months of the war, and by Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, Department Commander 366 in 1861. Caswell issued orders in May warning troops against taking civilian property. That same month, and again in October, he responded to complaints of theft by requiring officers to turn the offenders over to the civilian authorities for punishment. Caswell clearly recognized the ill effects of depredations, for he appealed to the East Tennessee troops to protect "our reputation and the credit of the service in which we are engaged." Caswell also warned that lawless behavior would undermine Confederate policy, for it would "falsify the assurances given by the military authorities" concerning the protection of private property.

Zollicoffer, likewise, insisted that supplies must not be taken from citizens unless absolutely necessary, and ordered that all citizens be paid for property taken. [43]

Throughout this early period Confederate officers maintained a relatively conservative view of military discipline and the treatment of civilians. In theory.

Confederate troops were required to respect the property of East Tennesseeans regardless of their political attachments. Furthermore, only quartermasters, commissaries, or specially appointed officers had the authority to take food and supplies from the population. They were to resort to foraging only when essential for the well-being of the troops, and they were required to leave families sufficient supplies for their subsistence. Finally, foragers were instructed to pay "fair" prices and remit either Confederate money or receipts. Confederate troops were also forbidden to arrest or molest any citizen simply on the basis of his or her political beliefs; arrests could be made only for actual offenses. [44] 367 Confederate discipline did decline somewhat in 1862 and 1863. As the war

began to overburden the Southern economy, supplies became scarce, and troops

increasingly resorted to living off the country. At the same time. Confederate

attitudes toward the population became harsher, and many scruples concerning the

mistreatment of civilians disappeared. In response. Confederate authorities made increasing allowances for the needs of their troops and relaxed some of the restrictions on foraging. In March Kirby Smith altered these regulations to allow officers to take supplies first from Unionists, so that they would bear most of the burden of supporting the army. But Kirby Smith still insisted that even Unionists be paid and left sufficient supplies to live. Both he and Major General Sam

Jones, month after month and with increasing insistence, repeated the Confederate rules for foraging and insisted that officers could not unilaterally seize abandoned property that was covered under state and Confederate sequestration laws. They alternately appealed and threatened, reminding Confederate troops of the need to maintain a good reputation and warning that they would personally hold officers responsible for the behavior of their men. [45]

All these pronouncements had only a limited effect, and despite these strict regulations Confederate troops continued to steal, pilfer, and prey on the population. Efforts to restrain the partisan ranger companies particularly illustrate the frustrations of Kirby Smith and Jones in enforcing discipline. In March 1862

Kirby Smith ordered Colonel Leadbetter to inspect all cavalry companies and report on their discipline. Kirby Smith warned that he would disband any unit 368 that failed to pass inspection, for "the Department must be purged of every marauding mounted company . . But he apparently failed to carry out this threat, for in September 1862 Jones reported that he had received numerous complaints of lawless behavior by the ranger companies. Jones, likewise, sent officers to restore discipline, but they also failed to restrain these units. By

October complaints of the rangers in East Tennessee had reached all the way to

Secretary of War George W. Randolph, who ordered Jones to restore discipline.

Jones replied with some asperity that he had already instituted measures to end the depredations of these companies, but he suggested that the best solution would be to disband them. [46]

Like their Confederate counterparts. Union officers made sincere efforts to maintain discipline and avoid antagonizing the loyal population. On 14 August

1863, and again in September, Burnside reminded his men that the people of East

Teimessee were predominantly loyal and therefore deserved protection and kind treatment. Burnside stated that officers would be held responsible for depredations committed by their units, and as a further warning he spelled out the punishment that soldiers guilty of stealing from citizens would receive: "The

Commanding General directs that any person found guilty of such disgraceful conduct be stripped of his uniform, his head shaved, then branded on the left cheek with the letter 'T as a thief, and drummed out the service." Burnside put this threat into practice almost immediately; in early September he marched two 369 men found guilty of theft through the streets of Knoxville, applied the stated

punishment, and drummed them out. [47]

But even such dire threats proved insufficient to restrain Union troops. By

the first week of September Major General George L. Hartsuff, commander of the

Twenty-Third Army Corps, and other officers reported receiving numerous

complaints of irregular foraging and outright theft. On 8 September, therefore,

and again on the fifteenth, Hartsuff spelled out in detail Union foraging

regulations, which were similar to Confederate, and demanded strict compliance.

Hartsuff conceded that the army might have to subsist heavily on the population,

and he sanctioned the common practice of taking supplies first from secessionists.

At the same time, Hartsuff ordered that property be seized only when necessary for the preservation of the army, that seizures be made only by quartermasters, commissaries, or other designated officers, that receipts be given for all items taken, and that every family be left sufficient provisions for its own use. Likewise, on 17 September Burnside again appealed to his men for discipline and reiterated the foraging regulations. That same day Burnside established a board to examine all claims made by citizens against the army. Reflecting the Union policy of partnership with the loyal population, Burnside selected three prominent

Unionists, Samuel Morrow, Perez Dickinson, and John Williams, but only one officer for this board. [48]

Throughout the fall and winter of 1863-1864 Burnside and other officers devised increasingly drastic and desperate measures to control their men. One of 370 the most destructive habits of the Army of the Ohio was burning fence rails for

firewood. Pulling up fences was of course easier than cutting and hauling wood,

but it was also a terrible blow to the region’s farmers. Fences represented a large

investment of labor and resources, and without them crops were likely to be eaten

or trampled by stock. Determined to halt this damaging practice, Burnside

ordered that guilty units be assessed three times the value of the fence, with the

costs taken out of the officers’ pay, half each from commissioned and

noncommissioned. Burnside also intensified his efforts to end pilfering. He

increased the number of guards placed around camps, stiffened the penalties for

soldiers found outside lines without a pass, and began assessing soldiers the value

of the stock they killed. [49]

These measures, likewise, proved largely futile. Throughout December and

January Provost Marshal General Carter, whose office bore the brunt of civilian complaints, sent increasingly anguished pleas to Major General John G. Foster and the corps commanders to limit the spiralling depredations. Carter claimed that foraging regulations and even safeguards were ignored and loyal citizens insulted. To reinforce his pleas. Carter forwarded a number of letters from civilians, including this eloquent appeal from T.A.R. Nelson, that demonstrated the damaging effects of poor troop behavior:

Supposing that Governor Johnson and Mr. Maynard had in charge the interests of our people. I, in common with others, cherished the hope that they 371 would use their influence with the President to cause the army to be instructed before they came here that they were about to enter the country of friends and not of enemies, and that by their good conduct, they should make the contrast broad and deep between the behavior of the hostile armies, and especially that as the Union population had suffered greatly from the rebels, they should be promptly paid for everything that might be taken by the Fédérais . . . I suppose that the exertions which it is to be presumed our members of Congress have made have been unavailing, as the Union Army is more destructive to Union men than the rebel army ever was. Our fences are burned, our horses are taken, our people are stripped in many instances of the very last vestige of subsistence, our means to make a crop next year are rapidly being destroyed, and when the best Union men in the country make appeals to the soldiers, they are heartlessly cursed as rebels; or when certificates are given as to property taken, they are generally for much less than the true amount, and a citizen in attempting to enforce a claim against the govermnent has to run the gauntlet of "the circumlocution office," until, discouraged and disheartened, he turns away, feeling that the government which he loved and honored and trusted, and which never did him any harm before the war, has at last become cruel and unjust, and cares nothing for his sorrows and sufferings. [50]

Burnside, Foster, Sturgis, and the three corps commanders all conceded the truth of Carter’s charges and admitted that Union troops had become uncontrollable. On 4 January, Sturgis issued a circular, similar to many others, that revealed the extent of the depredations and the frustrations of the Union command: "The General Commanding, regrets to say that he is forced to listen 372 hourly to the complaints of loyal citizens, of the cruel treatments they receive at the hands of many of the troops of this command. Soldiers, it appears, are permitted to wander away from their camps alone or in squads, with no intent but to plunder and rob helpless families, whose male members are bearing arms in the cause of their country." Sturgis ordered all soldiers found one mile from camp without a pass immediately arrested, threatened to execute any man who violated a safeguard, and stated that he would replace any officer who failed to end depredations. Foster, Hartsuff, and Major General Gordon Grainger also confessed that they had to listen to the daily complaints of citizens suffering from predatory soldiers, and they continued to appeal, threaten, and deplore the behavior of their men. [51]

But in the end no appeal, no threat, and no punishment, no matter how grim, could restore discipline in the Army of the Ohio. Relief came to East

Tennessee only with the departure of most of that Army. In March the Ninth

Corps returned to the Army of the Potomac, and in May the Fourth Corps and three divisions of the Twenty-Third went south with Sherman toward Atlanta.

These departures, combined with the coming of spring, temporarily eased the burden on East Tennessee. The return of winter, however, again raised the spectacle of suffering. In September 1864 Major General John G. Schofield instituted a new system to maintain discipline and manage the resources of the region. He gave the District Commander and the United State Treasury Agent together authority to set the amount of supplies to be taken from each county and 373 ordered officers to enforce these quotas. This system also apparently failed, however, for when winter came officers were again harassed by a chorus of complaints and again had to issue a stream of warnings and reminders. [52]

The poor behavior of the Army of the Ohio resulted partly from practices that had become standard among Union troops and partly from a failure to perceive East Teimessee as friendly territory. It also stemmed from defects in the supply system and from the conditions that that Army faced. The winter of 1863-

64 was exceptionally severe, one of the coldest that most inhabitants could remember. Many parts of East Tennessee, particularly the mountain regions, suffered several heavy snows, and the temperature frequently fell below zero.

These conditions significantly increased the Army’s appetite for food, fuel, and other supplies. At the same time, Sherman’s decision to leave the Fourth Corps in East Tennessee until the spring of 1864 placed further demands on the supply system and the East Tennessee economy.

As early as the summer of 1861 Union commanders had identified transportation as the greatest obstacle to an East Tennessee campaign, and in

1863 their fears were proven correct. East Tennessee could be reached directly neither by railroad nor by river craft. Obstructions at Muscle Shoals, Alabama made it difficult for boats on the Tennessee River to reach Knoxville, while the

Cumberland River only skirted the northwest comer of the theater. Thus only limited amounts of supplies entered East Tennessee by water. Likewise, owing to the peculiarities of the Southern railroad network supplies could reach central and 374 northern East Tennessee only through a long indirect haul: Louisville to Nashville to Chattanooga and finally up to Knoxville and the upper valley. The difficulties of rail transportation into East Tennessee were further complicated by Union strategy. From November 1863 until the spring of 1864 the Army of the

Tennessee and the Army of the Cumberland were stationed near Chattanooga in preparation for the campaign against Atlanta, and they largely monopolized rail transportation out of Nashville. The solution to East Tennessee’s supply problems, recognized by Thomas and other officers in 1861, was to construct a line directly from Louisville to Knoxville, but though the Union command had proposed this project early in the war and Union engineers had made surveys the railroad was never constructed. [53]

The result was that the Army of the Ohio was forced to rely largely on wagon transportation, a system with numerous defects and limitations. The main depot for the Army lay at Nicholasville, Kentucky, almost two hundred miles north of Knoxville, and the length of this haul required that a sizable portion of every load be reserved for forage for the draft animals. Furthermore, the roads over which the wagons passed barely deserved the name, and even soldiers who had seen other parts of the South were astonished at the route by which they entered

East Tennessee. William F. Draper asserted that "I have seen and written of bad roads before but the road down the East Tennessee side of the mountain was the worst of all..." Chauncey Welton described the mountain roads as "nothing but a path picked out by these people with scarcely room for a team to pass." Colonel 375 Orlando Poe concluded that the terrain was far rougher than that in West

Virginia, and another Union soldier claimed that each wagon had to pulled up the steepest hills by sixty men. William Humes calculated that ten thousand draft animals died on this route, an estimate supported by soldiers’ descriptions and by reports on the depletion of draft animals in East Tennessee. [54]

Such conditions would have hampered even the most efficient supply system. But the supply arm of the Army of the Ohio was itself defective from the beginning, and preparations for the campaign inadequate. On 27 August 1863 W.

H. Bradbury, a clerk to one of the commissaries in the Twenty-Third Army Corps, wrote that "things are badly arranged and I am afraid we shall suffer for want of supplies." Two weeks later Bradbury reported that his division was already short of provisions and was living off the country. Similarly, D. C. Bradley wrote that

"it will be a very difficult matter to subsist an Army in East Teimessee . . . This

Army intends living off the country for some time to come." And in January 1864

Major General Foster conceded that from the beginning of the campaign the army had been short on quartermaster and commissary officers. [55]

These defects began to manifest themselves almost immediately. On 25

September Franklin Pettit admitted that Union troops around Knoxville were already getting most of their supplies from the population, and Chauncey Welton complained that "we have been marching about 25 miles a day with nothing but two crackers for 3 days, no coffee meal or any thing else, except what little we could steal from secesh ..." A lieutenant from the Seventy-Fourth Indiana 376

rilU

ImI

lOUfN CIIOilMA

- WAGON ROUTES

FIGURE 5

UNION SUPPLY LINES, 1861-1865 377 attributed depredations by his company to the fact that his men had received no supplies except crackers for many days. He asserted that conditions were the same in other units and stated that irregular foraging was already so common that he believed no one would take notice of his unit’s activities. Another soldier stationed near Tazewell described a typical day’s ration as, at most, a pint of com meal and a small portion of "blue, skinny beef, killed before it had a chance to drop dead of starvation." And an officer admitted that on some days the only ration that could be issued was an ear of com: "I never saw the army in worse condition for rations before." [56]

In great measure, then. Union soldiers plundered out of need. They realized that the population would suffer from their acts, but they were very hungry and inevitably tumed to the only supplies available. They were also cold, for troops lacked not only provisions but also supplies, including warm clothing and tents. When Brigadier General August Valentine Kautz inspected a number of cavalry regiments in November 1863 he discovered that they were still in summer uniforms, that many were without boots and coats, and that no unit was fully equipped. These same conditions existed in a number of infantry regiments.

Soldiers, therefore, had no way to avoid freezing except by building cmde shelters and massive fires out of whatever was available, including the fences, wood lots, and buildings of East Termessee farmers. [57]

Officers in East Tennessee were fully aware of these conditions and of the suffering of their troops. On 14 December 1863, and again in January, Foster 378 reported to Major General Henry W. Halieck that his men were living on one-half

or one-quarter rations and whatever they could get from the country, and stated that he had already accumulated over $100,000 in claims against the government.

He asserted that as a result East Teimessee was "nearly destitute" and urged authorities immediately to begin work on the railroad to Knoxville. Brigadier

General Jacob D. Cox likewise painted a disturbing picture of the sufferings of

Union troops from lack of food and clothing, and he urged that Major General

Ulysses S. Grant make some the of rail transportation around Chattanooga available for the supply of the East Tennessee troops. [58]

Even so, the prospects for improving the supply situation were limited, and for this reason officers in East Tennessee, while continuing to issue strict orders against plimdering, resigned themselves to the inevitability of depredations. In reply to a query by Foster concerning citizen complaints. Major General Gordon

Grainger admitted "I have issued . . . the most stringent orders and done everything in my power to prevent marauding, but hungry men are difficult to control after fasting for five months on half and quarter rations. Nothing has pained me so much as being compelled to strip the country; friend and foe must fare alike, or the army must starve." Similarly, Sturgis conceded that "no laws, nor orders, nor regulations, nor activity on the part of a commander, can prevent the demoralization . . . of an Army compelled, by the necessity of the case, to subsist on the country in which it may be operating ..." Even department commanders, including the compassionate Burnside, were not without sin in the matter of 379 depredations. Daniel Lamed recalled returning to camp one cold night in

October 1863 to find Burnside and several other officers comfortably sitting in

tents that "each . . . had a roaring big fire of fence rails in firont of it." [59]

CONCLUSIONS

The war against the guerrillas was gmelling and often unrewarding. It was highlighted by a few dramatic encounters, but in the main it consisted of a tedious routine of marching, scouting, chasing, and skirmishing. The counter-guerrilla war was also largely a decentralized conflict. Department and district commanders monitored the war from Knoxville and ordered several expeditions of their own, but most counter-guerrilla operations were directed by the officers in the field.

Most of the burdens of pacification fell on the privates, lieutenants, and captains of the East Tennessee forces, and as Fellman suggested for Missouri, it was they who shaped the nature of this war. [60]

This study has discovered no significant differences between the way in which Confederate and Union troops conducted the counter-guerrilla war. They displayed similar attitudes and behavior toward their enemies, suggesting that the conditions of this conflict overruled other factors such as policy. They also employed similar tactics and methods and enjoyed an equivalent measure of successes and failures. The one major difference was at the level of theater command. Formally, at least. Confederate commanders required observance of 380 the recognized laws of war, a stance that was part of the general Confederate

ethic of restraint in East Tennessee. Conversely, Federal commanders, first

covertly and then openly, sanctioned the established practice of refusing to take guerrillas prisoner.

The success of the soldiers was mixed. On the one side, even allowing for exaggerated reports. Confederate and Union troops did capture or kill hundreds of bushwhackers. Furthermore, the troops clearly possessed superior discipline and tactical skills, and in an open encounter they almost always triumphed. On the other side, neither the Confederacy nor the Union had much success in permanently reducing the guerrilla threat. While the soldiers could at any time control any particular area that they wished, neither side could claim to rule the region. Unionist resistance organizations effectively controlled most counties in

East Tennessee, and while Confederate troops periodically suppressed these organizations and arrested their leaders, the Unionists always resurfaced. Likewise, despite multiple advantages the Union failed to eliminate the secessionist bands that terrorized several counties in lower East Tennessee. And neither side could offer effective protection to its supporters.

These failures were due not so much to deficiencies on the part of the troops as to circumstances and policy. The Confederacy faced a population that was largely hostile and mobilized, and only a comprehensive political and military campaign could have shifted the loyalties of the East Tennessee Unionists. To a

Confederate government beset with multiple problems, this was virtually an 381 impossible task. The Union, conversely, faced a smaller, more confined threat.

Secessionist bands were more fragmented and enjoyed far less support from the

population, and effective suppression was a realistic aim. But it was not a priority

in Union strategy. Thus on neither side did the officers fighting this war have the

numbers that they needed effectively to police East Tennessee.

The attitudes and behavior of the regulars had a significant impact on the

occupation policies of both sides. Confederate and Union troops generally showed

contempt for the people of East Tennessee, and they committed a large number

of excesses that alienated the population. Even so, on the Union side the most

important factor may have been the mere presence of so many soldiers. The

number of Federal troops in East Tennessee in the winter of 1863-1864 far

exceeded the capacity of the supply lines, and thus the regulars turned to preying

on the people. The indifference of the Union troops toward the population, and

the general readiness to plunder, contributed to the crisis. But this situation was not unusual. All Civil War armies, to a greater or lesser extent, depended on the countryside, for the supply systems simply had not caught up to the size of the armies.

The results to East Tennessee were devastating. By January 1864 the region was so stripped that Sturgis had to send almost all of his horses to

Kentucky. By spring Union authorities were so fearful of severe shortages that they issued a circular encouraging farmers to plant their fields and promising protection to those who did so. East Tennessee recovered somewhat in the spring 382 and summer of this year, but the following winter again brought shortages and suffering. By 1865 conditions had become so perilous that the Reverend

Nathaniel G. Taylor went North to raise money for relief, and sympathetic

Northerners in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and elsewhere responded with several thousand dollars. This money, distributed through the East Tennessee

Relief Association, went to buy food, cloth, seeds, tools, and other necessities, and was vital in bringing East Tennessee through the post-war period. Even with this infusion of aid some families in the remotest regions reportedly starved, and East

Tennessee probably did not begin to recover until 1867 or 1868. [61] 383

NOTES

1. Major General Sam Jones to Colonel L. M. Allen, Knoxville, September 30, 1862, Jones to Lieutenant Colonel George N. Folk, Knoxville, September 26, 1862, October 13, 1862, Jones to Colonel D. R. Hundley, Knoxville, October 20, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September- November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

2. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Brigadier General Danville Leadbetter, Knoxville, March 27, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also Chapter 3, p. 186.

3. Brigadier General R. M. Johnson to Colonel Horace Capron, Nashville, October 30, 1864, Horace Capron Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Major General George Stoneman to Colonel James Parsons, Knoxville, April 21, 1865, Stoneman to Captain J. W. Harrington, Knoxville, April 25, 1865, May 1, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

4. Brigadier General William D. Whipple to Major General L. H. Rousseau, Nashville, May 25,1865, Whipple to Major General George Stoneman, Nashville, May 25, 1865, Whipple to Major General George Thomas, Nashville, May 30, 1865, Whipple to Stoneman, Nashville, May 30, 1865, OR 49, 2, pp. 904- 905, 931, 933. For other Union operations, see Brigadier General Jacob Ammen to Colonel G. S. Gibson, Knoxville, Februaiy 10, 1865, Gibson to Colonel James Parsons, Knoxville, April 19,1865, District of East Tennessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

5. Ella Lonn, Desertion During the Civil War (New York: The Century Co., 1928), pp. 80-81.

6. William Sloan Diary, February 21, 1862-April 9, 1863, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville. 384 7. Thomas Smith Hutton Diary, February 21, 1865-July 13, 1865, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

8. Fuller Manly to his parents, Knoxville, August 26, 1862, Basil Manly (Sr.) Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Mary Jane Reynolds to S. B. Reynolds, Loudon, January 26, 1864, Reynolds Letters, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Colonel William Churchwell, Knoxville, July 9, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

9. Major General Sam Jones to Colonel James R. Palmer, Knoxville, October 1, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Lieutenant Colonel William C. Bartlett to Brigadier General Davis Tillson, Cumberland Gap, January 28, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Jacob Cox to Major General John Schofield, Bull’s Gap, April 16,1864, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Dispatches Sent by Brigadier General Jacob D. Cox, March 1864-April 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also Lieutenant Colonel G. M. Sorrel to Brigadier General Alfred E. Jackson, Morristown, January 25, January 31, 1864, OR 32, 2, pp. 610- 11, 637; Captain W. A. Cochran to Brigadier General Davis Tillson, Athens, February 14, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Colonel H. G. Gibson to "Comm. Officer, Seventh Tenn. Vol. Inf.", Knoxville, March 21, 1865, OR 49, 2, pp. 46-47.

10. Provost Marshal General Samuel P. Carter to Lieutenant William Estrada, Knoxville, June 7, 1864, Provost Marshal General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; J. S. Hurlbut, History of the Rebellion in Bradley Countv. East Tennessee (Indianapolis: Downey & Brouse, 1866), Appendix, pp. 11-13.

11. William Sloan Diary, March 9, 1862, February 10, 1863, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Colonel Danville Leadbetter to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Greeneville, December 8,1861, OR 7, pp. 747-48; L. S. Trowbridge, A Brief History of the Tenth Michigan Cavalrv (Detroit: Friesman Bros., 1905), p. 10. See also Daniel Sullins, Recollections of an Old Man: Seventy Years in Dixie (Bristol: The King Printing Company, 1910), pp. 205- 06. 385 12. Trowbridge, Tenth Michigan, pp. 18-19; Major Thomas H. Reeve to Lieutenant P. S. Abbott, Kingston, July 9, 1864, July 20, 1864, OR 39, 1, pp. 351- 54. See also Brigadier General W. L. Elliot to Brigadier General J. J. Reynolds, Sparta, December 3, 1863, OR 31, 3, p. 320.

13. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Klein to Assistant Adjutant General, Department of the Ohio, Maryville, January 14, 1864, OR 32, 1, p. 70; Colonel Thomas J. Harrison to Brigadier General William D. Whipple, Cedar Grove, January 14, 1864, OR 32, 1, pp. 65-66; Lieutenant Colonel George A. Gowin to Major General James B. Steedman, Ringgold, Georgia, February 2, 1865, OR 49, 1, p. 33.

14. Colonel Danville Leadbetter to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, Greeneville, November 28, 1861, December 8, 1861, OR 7, pp. 712-13, 747-48; Brigadier General George W. Morgan to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Cumberland Gap, July 13, 1862, OR 16, 2, p. 142.

15. James Beimett McCrey Diary, October 12, 1862, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; J. W. Gash to Mr. Eli Patton, Camp near Taylorsville, Tennessee, October 30, 1862, J. W. Gash Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh.

16. Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 166-72, 184-90.

17. Colonel Baxter Smith, Eighth Tennessee Cavalry, "History of the Regiment, 1862-1868", Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Marshall P. Thatcher, A Hundred Battles in the West: The Second Michigan Cavalry (Detroit: The Author, 1884), p. 159.

18. Joel Haley to Enoch Farr, Lick Creek, December 11, 1861, Joel Haley Letters, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; William Gibbs Allen Memoirs, supplemental material, pp. 5-6, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; William Sloan Diary, March 9, 1862, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville. See also Richard R. Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or. a History of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry (Nashville: Branden Printing Company, 1867), p. 78; Joseph Espey to Margaret Espey, Cleveland, April 20, 1863, Joseph Espey Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Major General R. H. Milroy to Major B. H Polk, Tuliahoma, March 1, 1865, OR 49, 1, pp. 809-10. 386 19. Joel Haley to Enoch Farr, Lick Creek, December 11, 1861, Joel Haley Letters, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; William Sloan Diary, January 11, 1863, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

20. William Sloan Diary, September 28, 1862, October 22, 1862, February 6, 1863, Teimessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Captain W. F. Parker to [illegible], Spartenberg, South Carolina, October 17, 1864, Samuel Wheeler Worthington Collection, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; J. C. Gruar to his wife, Elizabethton, [January or February 1864], J. C. Gruar Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; William Gibbs Allen Memoirs, supplemental material. Confederate Collection, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville. See also Henry M. Doak Memoirs, pp. 17-18, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

21. Philip Shaw Paludan, Victims: A True Storv of the Civil War (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981), pp. 56-99.

22. Chauncey B. Welton to his parents. Charleston, Tennessee, May 1, 1864, Chauncey B. Welton Letters, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Hugh T. Carlisle Reminiscences, pp. 124-25, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Amanda McDowell Bums and Lela McDowell Blakenship, Fiddles on the Cumberland (New York: Richard R. Smith Co., 1943), p. 232. See also Mary Jane Reynolds to S. B. Reynolds, Loudon, May 1, 1864, Reynolds Letters, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

23. Department of East Termessee, Record of Political Prisoners, Knoxville, 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; District of East Teimessee, Records of the Provost Marshal General, Roll of Prisoners in Custody, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; District of East Termessee, Records of the Provost Marshal General, Record of Political Prisoners Confined in Citizens Prison, Knoxville, April 6,1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; District of East Termessee, Records of the Provost Marshal General, Register of Names of Political Prisoners Confined in U.S. Military Prison at Knoxville, Termessee, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

24. Paludan, Victims, pp. 85-88; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Brigadier General Danville Leadbetter, Knoxville, March 27, 1862, Department of East Termessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C. For restrictions on Confederate action, see Assistant Adjutant General Henry L. Clay to Brigadier General C. S. Stevenson, Knoxville, June 26, 1862, Clay to Colonel A.W. Reynolds, Knoxville, July 8, 1862, 387 Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, March-September 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major General Sam Jones to Colonel L. M. Allen, Knoxville, September 30, 1862, Jones to Colonel D. R. Hundley, Knoxville, October 20,1862, Jones to Lieutenant Colonel George N. Folk, Knoxville, October 13, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

25. Provost Marshal General Samuel P. Carter to Captain S. C. Honeycutt, Knoxville, June 22, 1864, Provost Marshala General, District of East Tennessee, Press Copies of Letters and Telegrams Sent, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Lieutenant Colonel William C. Bartlett to Brigadier General Jacob Ammen, Cumberland Gap, December 10, 1864, Ammen to Bartlett, Knoxville, December 21, 1864, January 6, 1865, District of East Teimessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Harvey Washington Wiley Diary, June 16, 1864, Harvey Washington Wiley Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; John Emerson Anderson Memoir, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

26. Captain William A. Cochran to Brigadier General Davis Tillson, Athens, March 2, 1865, Tillson to Cochran, Knoxville, March 2, 1865, District of East Termessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major General George Stoneman to Colonel James Parsons, Knoxville, April 21, 1865, District of East Termessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Post Commandant, Jonesboro, General Orders No. 2, April 24, 1865, Hines Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Major General George Thomas to Major General James Steedman, Major General George Stoneman, Major General Cadwallader Washburne, Major General Lovell Rousseau, Colonel Smith, Colonel Gilfillan, Nashville, May 1,1865, OR 49, 2, pp. 552-53. See also Assistant Secretary of War P. H. Watson to Brigadier General George Morgan, Washington, D.C., May 11, 1862, OR 10,2, p. 186; Colonel Edward M. McCook to Brigadier General Edward E. Potter, Motley’s Ford, February 13, 1863, OR 32, 2, pp. 386-87; Lieutenant Colonel George A. Gowin to Major General James B. Steedman, Ringgold, Georgia, February 2, 1865, OR 49, 1, p. 33; Fellman, Inside War, pp. 86-89, 112- 25.

27. Fuller Manly to his parents, Knoxville, August 26, 1862, Basil Manly (Sr.) Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; William D. Cole to Cornelia Cole, Chattanooga, July 17, 1863, William D. Cole Letters, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, 388 Pennsylvania; G. W. Hunt to Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan, Mossy Creek, November 26, 1864, Duke-Morgan Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Paul Turner Vaughn to his father, Morristown, January 20, 1864, Paul Turner Vaughn Letters, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.

28. Joel Haley to Enoch Farr, Elizabethton, January 7, 1862, Joel Haley Letters, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Alex D. Coffee to his wife, Knoxville, August 23, 1861, Alex D. Coffee Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.

29. Fuller Manly to his parents, Knoxville, August 26, 1862, Basil Manly (Sr.) Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; G. W. Hunt to Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan, Mossy Creek, November 26, 1864, Duke-Morgan Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; William E. McCoy to his parents, Knoxville, February 19,1862, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; Joel Haley to Enoch Farr, Elizabethton, January 7, 1862, Joel Haley Letters, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

30. Colonel Daniel Larned to his sister, Knoxville, October 18, 1863, Colonel Daniel Lamed Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D C.; Colonel Orlando Poe to his wife, Knoxville, September 4,1863, September 5,1863, Orlando Poe Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D C.; George P. Hawkes Diary, January 7, 1864, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; R. E. Jameson to his mother, Knoxville, October 3, 1863, Robert Edwin Jameson Letters, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; George Shuman to his wife, Febmary 15, 1864, George Shuman Letters, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. See also Jefferson Gray Thomas Diary, May 5, 1864, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Permsylvania; D. F. Beatty to Matty Patton, Elk River, June 9, 1864, Boren Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Asa Zeller Diary, August 26, 1863, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

31. Chauncey B. Welton to his parents, Greeneville, September 13, 1863, Chauncey B. Welton Letters, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; William F. Draper to his wife, Morristown, September 25, 1863, William F. Draper Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D C.; Colonel Daniel Lamed, Joumal, September 29,1863, Colonel Daniel Lamed Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 389 32. Alex D, Coffee to Ann Coffee, Wartburg, November 20,1861, Alex D. Coffee Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; William G. McAdoo Diary, October 1,1862, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Oliver Paine to Hannibal Paine, Washington, Tennessee, November 20, 1862, Paine Family Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Jones to Major General John P. McCown, Knoxville, October 16, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; McDowell, Fiddles, p. 188.

33. Captain Charles Stringfield, "History of the Sixty-Ninth North Carolina Infantry," pp. 13-14, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, March 29, 1862, Smith to Brigadier General Danville Leadbetter, Knoxville, March 26, 1862, Department of East Teimessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major General Simon B. Buckner to Brigadier General Grade, Knoxville, May 28, 1863, Department of East Termessee, Letters, Orders, Ciculars, April 1863-October 1864, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Lieutenant Don Edwards to Lieutenant J. K. Burle, Allegheny County, North Carolina, May 6, 1864, Duke-Morgan Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; L.B.K. Cowles to William Holden, Wilkesboro, December 3, 1863, January 2, 1865, Cowles to Governor Zebulon Vance, Wilkesboro, May 5, 1864, Calvin J. Cowles Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; F. S. Blount to R. S. Patterson, Richmond, May 24, 1865, Patterson Family Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; Brigadier General John C. Vaughn to Colonel David M. Key, Carter’s Station, September 28, 1864, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. See also Military Governor Andrew Johnson to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Nashville, June 21, 1862, OR 16, 1, p. 47.

34. James I. Robertson, Jr., Soldiers Blue and Grav (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988); Bell I. Wiley, The Life of Johnny Reb (Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merril, 1943); Bell I. Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952).

35. Thomas William Humes, The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee (Knoxville: Ogden Brothers, 1888), pp. 138-39; Hurlbut, Bradley, pp. 100-04, 220- 21, 283; Daniel Ellis, Thrilling Adventures of Daniel Ellis (New York: Harper, 1867), pp. 105, 138, 185, 210-11, 321, 347-51; Samuel W. Scott and Samuel P. Angel, History of the Thirteenth Regiment. Tennessee Volunteer Cavalrv. U.S.A (Knoxville: n.p. 1903), pp. 322-360. 390 36. William F. Draper to his wife, Morristown, September 23, 1863, William Franklin Draper Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Robert Moffet Diary, September 21, 1863, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Peimsylvania; George P. Hawkes Diary, October 11, 1863, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Peimsylvania; D. L, Boren to David C. Boren, Knoxville, June 30, 1864, D. L. Boren to John and David C. Boren, Knoxville, July 21, 1864, Boren Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; L.B.K. Cowles to William Holden, Wilksboro, July 26, 1864, Calvin J, Cowles Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; "Minerva Thompson vs. William Peoples, L. Peoples, Nathan L. Brown, Fimeth Brown, Jacob D. Akarrd," November 1865, "John Burchfield vs. Jesse E. Moore and L. Taylor," no date, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Major General Sam Jones to Captain Fitzgerald, Knoxville, October 18,1862, Department of East Termessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C. See also Robert A. Ragan, Escape from East Tennessee to the Federal Lines (Washington: J. H. Dony, 1910), p. 24; L.B.K. Cowles to A. S. Callaway, Wilksboro, December 14, 1864, Calvin J. Cowles Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; Abraham Jobe Memoir, p. 138, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Chris D. Livesay Reminiscences, vol. 1, pp. 1-2, Chris D. Livesay Papers, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Sarah Thompson, "Morgan’s Defeat by Sarah Thompson (herself)," pp. 15-21, Sarah Thompson Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perldns Library, Duke University, Durham; M. J. Minns to T.A.R. Nelson, Newport, November 3, 1865, "State vs. William Brazelton," August 1867, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Attorney General George Davis to Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge, Richmond, March 7, 1865, Confederate States Attorney-General Opinion Book, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Jefferson Gray Thomas Diary, January 15,1864, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

37. A. J. Williams, Confederate History of Polk Countv. Tennessee. 1860- 1866 (Nashville: McQuiddy Printing Company, 1923), pp. 27-28.

38. Provost Marshal General Samuel P. Carter to Lieutenant Colonel George B. Drake, Knoxville, September 9, 1863, Carter to Lieutenant Colonel L. Richmond, Knoxville, October 22, 1863, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Letters Received, 1863-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Thomas Doak Edington Diary, December 20,1863, Special Collections, University of Termessee Library, Knoxville; Mary Jane Reynolds to S. B. Reynolds, Loudon, n.d., Reynolds Letters, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Thomas B. Alexander, T.A.R. Nelson of East Termessee (Nashville: Termessee Historical 391 Commission, 1956), p. 112; David Anderson Deaderick Journal, "The State of Things in and about Knoxville, December 30, 1863," pp. 54-57, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville. See also William Clift to his wife, Knoxville, October 15, 1863, Clift Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Mary Jane Reynolds to S. B. Reynolds, Loudon, January 21, 1864, February 26,1864, March 23,1864, Reynolds Letters, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; M. J. Brarmen to Sarah, n.p., January 12, 1864, William Holland Thomas Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; R. C. Williams to Rufus Williams, Knoxville, January 15, 1864, John and Rhoda Campbell Williams Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Margaret Hall to Martha Hall, Knoxville, February 21, 1865, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Oliver O. Spaulding Diary, September 3, 1863, Spaulding Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

39. District of East Termessee, General Orders No. 47, June 14, 1865, General Orders No. 33, May 9, 1865, General Orders No. 38, May 17, 1865, General Orders No. 23, September 2,1864, District of East Termessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders Issued, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; William Gibbs Allen Memoirs, supplemental material, p. 2, Confederate Collection, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; District of East Termessee, General Orders No. 12, February 15, 1865, General Orders No. 25, April 24, 1865, General Orders No. 61, August 18,1865, General Orders No. 70, October 5,1865, District of East Termessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders Issued, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Provost Marshal General Samuel P. Carter to Lieutenant Colonel Keith, Knoxville, January 24,1864, Carter to Brigadier General Jacob D. Cox, Knoxville, September 27, 1864, District of East Termessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Carter to Lieutenant Colonel Perrington, Knoxville, November 2, 1863, District of East Termessee, Provost Marshal General, Press Copies of Letters Sent, September 1863-1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Twenty-Third Army Corps, Special Orders No. 88, October 5,1863, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Special Orders, June 1863-May 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also Fellman, Inside War, pp. 29-38, 66-73.

40. Colonel Daniel Larned Journal, September 29, 1863, Colonel Daniel Larned Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D C.; George P. Hawkes Diary, January 11, 1864, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Robert A. Rodgers Diary, December 11, 1863, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Permsylvania; Lieutenant Colonel James Sterling to Major [illegible], Knoxville, February 6, 1864, Twenty- 392 Third Army Corps, Letters Received, 1863-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major Thomas H. Reeve to Lieutenant P. S. Abbot, Kingston, July 7, 1863, July 20, 1863, OR 39, 1, pp. 351, 354.

41. Army of the Ohio, General Field Orders No. 2, August 14, 1863, Department and Army of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Alexander, Nelson, p. 96.

42. Edward Maynard to Horace Maynard, Knoxville, February 13, 1864, Horace Maynard Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; R. A. Ragan to his wife. Mossy Creek, March 29, 1864, Bull’s Gap, April 11, 1864, Ragan Letters, Special Collections, University of Termessee Library, Knoxville; Ragan, Escape, pp. 38-40; Lieutenant Colonel James P. Brownlow to Oliver P. Temple, Bull’s Gap, September 9, 1864, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville.

43. Brigadier General William R. Caswell, Order 16, May 22,1861, Special Order, October 1861, East Tennessee Brigade, Orders, 1861, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C; Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, General Orders No. 48, January 1, 1862, Orders and Letters Sent, August 1861- January 1862, Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

44. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Colonel James E. Raines, Knoxville, March 29, 1862, Kirby Smith to Brigadier General S. B. Moxey, Knoxville, March 29, 1862, Kirby Smith to Colonel John C. Vaughn, Knoxville, April 14, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

45. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith to Colonel Thomas Taylor, Knoxville, June 28, 1862, Kirby Smith to Colonel James E. Raines, Knoxville, March 29, 1862, Kirby Smith to Brigadier General S. B. Moxey, Knoxville, March 29,1862, Kirby Smith to Colonel John C. Vaughn, Knoxville, April 14,1862, Kirby Smith to "Lieutenant Colonel Davidson, Colonel J. B. Cooke, Comd Officer Thirty-First Alabama & Forty-Second Georgia," June 11, 1862, Smith to Colonel R. G. Faine, August 27, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Department of East Tennessee, General Orders No. 2, September 27, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 393 46. Department of East Tennessee, General Orders No. 6, September 20, 1862, OR 16,1, p. 890; Secretary of War George Randolph to Major General Sam Jones, Richmond, October 24, 1862, OR 16, 2, p. 977; Jones to Randolph, Knoxville, October 29, 1862, Department of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent, September-November 1862, Record Group 109, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

47. Army of the Ohio, General Field Orders No. 2, August 14, 1863, General Field Orders No. 11, August 31, 1863, General Field Orders No. 13, September 17, 1863, Department and Army of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

48. Major General George L. Hartsuff to Colonel Frank Wolford, September 2,1863, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Letters Sent, June 1863-May 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders No. 29, September 8, 1863, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders and Circulars, May 1863-May 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Twenty-Third Army Corps, Special Orders No. 59, September 3, 1863, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Special Orders, June 1863-May 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Army of the Ohio, General Field Orders No. 14, September 17, 1863, Department and Army of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

49. Second Division, Twenty-third Army Corps, Special Orders No. 15, September 12,1863, Special Orders No 31, October 17,1863, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders and Special Orders Received, August 1863-June 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; First Division, Ninth Army Corps, General Orders No. 75, November 5, 1863, Ninth Army Corps, General Orders, November 1862-March 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. For problems with the destruction of fences, see First Division, Ninth Army Corps, Circular, September 23, 1863, Ninth Army Corps, Circulars, December 1862-March 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Army of the Ohio, Circular, November 22,1863, General Field Orders No. 40, December 12, 1863, Department and Army of the Ohio, General Orders, December 1863-May 1864, January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

50. Provost Marshal General Samuel P. Carter to Lieutenant Colonel Selfridge, Knoxville, December 10, 1863, Carter to Brigadier General Edward E. Potter, Knoxville, December 19, 1863, Carter to Potter, December 26, 1863, T.A.R. Nelson to Carter, Flat Creek, December 26, 1863, OR 31, 3, pp. 372, 447- 394 48, 506-08; G. W. Mabrey and H. S. Heiskell to Carter, Knoxville, January 27, 1864, OR 32,2, p. 245.

51. Cavalry Corps, Army of the Ohio, Circular, December 28, 1863, Circular, January 4, 1864, Brigadier General Samuel D. Sturgis to Major Coates, Mossy Creek, January 4, 1864, Department of the Ohio, Letters Sent, 1861-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Sturgis to Brigadier General Edward E. Potter, Sevierville, January 24, 1864, OR 32, 1, pp. 114-15; Major General John G. Foster to Major General John G. Parke, Knoxville, January 27, 1864, Army and Department of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863- January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Edward Potter to Colonel Daniel Lamed, Knoxville, January 14, 1864, Department of the Ohio, Letters Sent, January-April 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Potter to Major General Gordon Grainger, Knoxville, January 26, 1864, Army and Department of the Ohio, Telegrams Sent, December 1863-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders No. 8, January 28, 1864, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders and Circulars, May 1863-May 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Ninth Army Corps, Circular, January 29, 1864, Ninth Army Corps, General Orders and Circulars, October 1862-March 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major General John Schofield to Major Patterson, Knoxville, Febmary 2, 1864, Army and Department of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863- January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Provost Marshal General Samuel P. Carter to Lieutenant Colonel G. M. Bascom, Knoxville, June 22, 1864, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864- 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

52. Army of the Ohio, General Orders No. 79, September 2, 1864, Department and Army of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Jacob Ammen to Lieutenant Colonel Patterson, Knoxville, September 7, 1864, District of East Tennessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Aimy of the Ohio, Circular, January 6, 1865, OR 45, 2, p. 524; Brigadier General Davis Tillson to Major L. S. Powell, Knoxville, January 31, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Letters Sent, April 1864-March 1866, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Third Division, Fourth Army Corps, Circular No. 16, March 22, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Circular, March 22, 1865, OR 49, 2, pp. 54-55; Post Commandant, Jonesboro, General Orders No. 2, April 24,1865, John Wilson Hines Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. 395 53. Stanley J. Folmsbee, Robert E. Corlew, Enoch L. Mitchell, History of Tennessee. 4 vols. (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1960), vol. 2, pp. 371-400.

54. Chauncey B. Welton to his parents, Cumberland Mountains, August 27, 1863, Chauncey B. Welton Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Colonel Orlando Poe to his wife. Smith’s Ferry, August 23, 1863, Orlando M. Poe Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C; William F. Draper to his wife, Morristown, September 23, 1863, William F. Draper Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D C.; William H. Bradbury to his wife, Jamestown, Termessee, August 23, 1863, William H. Bradbury Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washingtorr, D.C.; Humes, Mountaineers, p. 216. See also Brigadier General Samuel D. Sturgis to Brigadier General Edward Potter, Mount Sterling, Kentucky, March 1, 1864, Department of the Ohio, Letters Sent, 1861- 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; August Valentine Kautz Reminiscences, p. 54, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Frederick Pettit to Margaret, Knoxville, October 1,1863, Frederick Pettit Correspondence, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Albert A. Pope Diary, October 14, 1862, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

55. William H. Bradbury to his wife, Jamestown, Termessee, August 27, 1863, William H. Bradbury Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; David C. Bradley to his mother, Chitwood, Tennessee, August 23, 1863, David C. Bradley Letters, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Permsylvania; Army of the Ohio, General Orders No 14, January 28, 1864, Department and Army of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

56. Frederick Pettit to his parents, Knoxville, September 28, 1863, Frederick Pettit Correspondence, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Chauncey B. Welton to his brother, Henderson’s Station, September 29,1863, Chauncey B. Welton Letters, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Brigadier General John Beatty to Major General George Thomas, Chattanooga, October 14,1863, OR 30, 4, pp. 366-370; Hugh T. Carlisle Reminiscences, pp. 134-35, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Albert A. Pope Diary, January 3, 1864, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. See also Curtis C. Pollack to his mother, Knoxville, December 19, 1863, Curtis C. Pollack Letters, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Franklin Pettit to his family, Blaine’s Cross Roads, December 25, 1863, Pettit 396 Correspondence, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

57. August Valentine Kautz Diary, November 3,1863, December 12,1863, December 18, 1863, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; James W. Bartlett to his wife. Blame’s Cross Roads, December 25, 1863, Lewis Leigh Collection, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. For a comparison with Union troops in Missouri, see Fellman, Inside War, pp. 154-55.

58. Major General John G. Foster to Major General Henry W. Halleck, Knoxville, December 14, 1863, Januaiy 11, 1864, Army and Department of the Ohio, Letters Sent, August 1863-January 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Foster to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Knoxville, December 25, 1863, Army and Department of the Ohio, Telegrams Sent, December 1863-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General Jacob D. Cox to Brigadier General Mahlon D. Manson, January 1, 1864, Twenty-Third Army Corps, Letters Sent, June 1863- May 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

59. Brigadier General Edward Potter to Major General Gordon Grainger, Knoxville, January 26, 1864, OR 32, 2, p. 218; Cavalry Corps, Army of the Ohio, Circular, February 26, 1864, Department of the Ohio, Letters Sent, 1861-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Colonel Daniel R. Larned Journal, October 21,1863, Colonel Daniel R. Larned Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

60. Edward Maynard to Washburn Maynard, Knoxville, February 7, 1864, Horace Maynard Papers, Special Collections, University of Termessee Library, Knoxville; Cavalry Corps, Department of the Ohio, General Orders No. 14, February 28, 1864, Department of the Ohio, General Orders, 1861-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Army of the Ohio, General Orders No. 47, April 11,1864, Department and Army of the Ohio, Printed Copies of General Orders, August 1862-December 1864, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

"WAR AT EVERY MAN’S DOOR": THE STRUGGLE

FOR EAST TENNESSEE, 1860-1869

VOLUME II

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of the Ohio State University

By

Noel C. Fisher, B.A., M.A.

*****

The Ohio State University

1993

Dissertation Committee Approved by

Allan R. Millett

Joan E. Cashin Advisor Michael Les Benedict Department of History Copyright by Noel Charles Fisher 1993 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

VII. "NO ONE CAN LIVE HERE SAFE AND SECURE THAT DOES NOT SWEAR BY BROWNLOW"...... 397

CONCLUSION...... 440

APPENDICES

A. CROP PROFILE, TENNESSEE, 1860 ...... 452

B. FARM PROFILE, TENNESSEE, 1860 ...... 455

C. MANUFACTURING, TENNESSEE, 1860 ...... 458

D. SLAVEHOLDING, TENNESSEE, 1860 ...... 461

E. WEALTH, TENNESSEE, 1860 ...... 464

F. VOTE ON SECESSION, TENNESSEE, JUNE 1860 . . . 467

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 470

Vlll CHAPTER VII

"NO ONE CAN LIVE HERE SAFE AND SECURE THAT DOES NOT SWEAR BY BROWNLOW"

The end of the formal hostilities in April 1865 had little immediate impact

on East Tennessee. The conflict there had not been resolved, and residents who

longed for peace would have to wait many months for their desire to be fulfilled.

Skirmishing between guerrilla bands and Federal troops would persist well into

the summer, while Unionists and secessionists continued their attacks on each

other. For more than two years life in East Tennessee would continue to be

disturbed by threats, assaults, killings, and battles in the courts. Attempts at

political restoration, likewise, would be marred by hatreds, vicious partisanship,

and attempts at vengeance.

Much, though not all, of the continued upheaval in East Tennessee was the

work of the Unionist faction. The campaign of terror against the secessionist

population continued unabated, and while Unionist bands continued their attacks

on Confederates other loyalists turned to the newly opened courts for satisfaction.

But the Unionists also devoted their energies to the more ambitious aim of seizing

control of the entire state. Guided by William G. Brownlow, the Eastern loyalists, in alliance with radicals from Middle and West Tennessee and eventually with

397 398 blacks, would attempt to remake the political structure of the state and thereby ensure their dominance. But divisions within the Unionist camp, as well as the realities of Tennessee politics, would doom this attempt, and by 1869 the Eastern

Unionists would be forced once again to retreat to their own region.

THE END OF THE GUERRILLA THREAT

The formal surrender of the Confederate armies did not immediately end the conflict between secessionist guerrillas and Union troops. Confederate bands continued to plague several areas of East Tennessee well into the summer of 1865, and Union forces maintained, and indeed intensified, their efforts to run the guerrillas down. Fortunately the guerrilla bands surrendered or dispersed more readily than many had feared, and by the fall of 1865 one threat to peace in East

Tennessee had disappeared.

In some areas of East Termessee secessionist guerrillas apparently did cease their operations almost immediately after peace was aimounced. On 13 April

Major General David S. Stanley claimed that only a few Confederate bushwhackers had been seen recently in the Greeneville area; he also reported that Unionist bands were killing or chasing away those who remained. Likewise, on 5 May Brigadier General Davis Tillson passed on reports that guerrilla bands in the mountains of northern East Tennessee were dispersing or fleeing, while on

16 May Colonel James Parsons stated that the area north of the Clinch Mountains 399 was quiet except for a few robber bands. But not all these reports were accurate,

and some reflected more wishful thinking or even deception than reliable

observation. On 22 April, for example, Stoneman wrote Thomas that he had

received no reports recently of guerrillas on the railroad line and stated that "the

most perfect quiet exists throughout East Tennessee, except now and then a

private difficulty." But only two days previously Stoneman himself had sent the

Ninth Tennessee Cavalry to Talbott Station to pursue a guerrilla band that had

destroyed a train there. [2]

Some secessionist bands continued to challenge Federal troops for control.

On 23 April an officer reported that a band of seventeen bushwhackers, believed

to be the same group that had burned the train at Talbott’s Station, had just

moved into the vicinity of Morristown, while on 27 April a military courier was

waylaid and robbed near Warm Springs. In lower East Tennessee, secessionists

also continued to terrorize Unionists. On 17 April B. W. Howard, speaking for

a number of citizens of Sevier County, wrote the post commander at Knoxville and

begged him to send troops for their protection. Howard reported that secessionist

bushwhackers operating out of Cocke County had become so numerous and bold

that farmers were afraid to work their fields and many Unionists were hiding in the woods or leaving the county. He also claimed that Southern guerrillas had recently killed several Unionists and threatened to shoot anyone participating in the restoration of the courts and the govermnent. This fear of Confederate bushwhackers existed in other places as well. One Federal soldier wrote his father 400 from Knoxville that he could get a position as circuit court clerk if he wished, "but

being a northern man I would not like to trust myself down here after the military

leaves for in my opinion the guerrillas will rule here for the next twenty years."

Likewise, Captain James Harrington reported on 30 April that Unionist citizens

at Rutledge had petitioned his company not to leave that area, for many,

especially those who had given testimony against "rebels," feared retaliation. [3]

With the conventional war now over, the Union command at last took

effective measures to stamp out the guerrilla bands. On 17 April Thomas

instructed Stoneman and Tillson to use their forces to suppress guerilla activity

and restore order to East Tennessee and western North Carolina, and the two

men quickly complied. In late April the Ninth Tennessee Cavalry was sent to

pacify the Clinch River area in northern East Termessee, while on 5 June

Stoneman directed Brigadier General Alvin C. Gillem to send a force "to scour

the county between the Little River and the Holston . . . to destroy the guerrillas

and restore quiet to the country." Stoneman also borrowed forces from Middle

Termessee, including the entire Eleventh Michigan Cavalry, for several counter­ guerrilla campaigns. Union forces carried out numerous smaller expeditions as well. On 26 May Lieutenant Edward Cobb reported that he had arrested John

Kirk, a suspected guerrilla, and had sent him to Knoxville, while on 10 June fifty soldiers were sent to Warm Springs "to look for some bad guerrillas in that vicinity." [4] 401 These operations were apparently effective. On 30 April Captain

Harrington of the Ninth Tennessee Cavalry reported that most guerrillas had fled

the Rutledge area after the Union troopers arrived. He also stated, however, that

he had arrested nine men suspected of bushwhacking. Colonel James Parsons,

likewise, reported that he had encountered little resistance around Rogersville.

In late May Amanda McDowell recorded that most guerrillas in the Sparta area

had surrendered, while on 4 June one Union officer reported that a number of

known "outlaws" were assembling in northwest Knox County and preparing to flee

to South Carolina. One of the few secessionist irregulars who refused to submit was the notorious "Champ" Ferguson. Ferguson was eventually captured, taken to Nashville, tried for murder and other crimes, and executed. [5]

Union officers took little mercy on guerrillas in the post-war period. On

1 May Thomas, after consultation with Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, instructed commanders in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi to call on all bushwhacker bands to surrender on the same terms that Grant gave Robert E.

Lee. If they refused to submit and continued their operations, "they will hereafter be regarded as outlaws, and be proceeded against, pursued, and when captured, treated as outlaws." The civil authorities also took a harsh stance against guerrillas. One of the first acts of the newly-established Tennessee legislature was to pass laws making bushwhacking, house burning, house-breaking, bridge burning, and other recognized guerrilla acts capital crimes. Some local officials followed this same practice. Authorities near Sweetwater advised citizens to shoot 402 bushwhackers on sight and themselves summarily executed at least one suspected

guerrilla. Even so, the number of legal prosecutions of guerrillas seems to have

been small. Ferguson’s was the only major trial, and only a few men were tried

in the county courts for bushwhacking. [6]

In the first months after the war the Union military also used its power to

aid the civilian authorities in their attempts to restore order. In May 1865 seventy-five men were sent to Jonesborough to assist the United States Marshal there in arresting men in the area indicted for treason, and in June ten soldiers were sent to apprehend horse thieves in Sullivan County. In September Major

General Alvin C. Gillem ordered twenty-five men to Cleveland to "investigate" attacks on the Freedmen’s Bureau School there, and small garrisons were maintained in many other towns to keep order. In these and similar actions the military played an important role, for it would take time to reconstitute the courts and other law enforcement mechanisms, and Federal troops represented the only force for order. But for the most part the influence of the Federal Army in the

East Termessee declined after April 1865, for officers generally refused to interfere in the political struggles of Reconstruction. Events would reveal, however, that the Eastern Unionists did not require the military’s aid, at least not in their own region. [7] 403 CONTINUING UNIONIST VIOLENCE

Continued violence by Unionists posed a far greater threat to peace in East

Tennessee than the operations of secessionist bands. The Unionist intimidation

of secessionists did not end in April; rather, it seems to have intensified. There

were several reasons for this. First, the end of the war sent both Confederate and

Union veterans back to East Tennessee, and the peculiar proximity of these two

groups inevitably increased tensions in the region. A second, related factor was

that some Federal veterans came home determined to avenge the wrongs that they

and their families had suffered at Confederate hands. Third, the collapse of the

Confederacy meant that Unionists no longer had to fear Confederate retribution,

and thus they may have acted more boldly than they had during the war. Finally,

Unionists were determined to control the process of reconstruction and thus

sought to secure their dominance by ridding the region of as many secessionists

as possible.

One group that particularly suffered from the Unionist passion for

vengeance were returning Confederate solders. Lyman Spencer, a Federal soldier

stationed in Knoxville, stated that by 1 May Unionists had already killed three or four veterans from the Army of Northern Virginia and had also sworn vengeance against a group of Confederate cavalry who had come to Knoxville to surrender.

Likewise, Carrie Stakely claimed that Unionists had threatened to shoot a group of Brigadier General John C. Vaughn's men and that the provost marshal in 404 Knoxville had had to protect them. Shortly after his return to Blount County

Confederate veteran James Harris was waylaid by fourteen Unionists, threatened with a pistol, and "given 34 licks with a two-handed brush." Two other

Confederates in Grainger County were similarly trapped and beaten. Colonel

William Gibbs Allen gave the names of four soldiers killed, and claimed that he knew many others in Rhea and Washington County who had been severely beaten.

[8]

Attacks on Confederate veterans appear to have been widespread in 1865.

In June Elizabeth Caswell wrote that Confederate veterans in Knoxville were keeping very quiet in the face of threats and violence. David Anderson

Deaderick, similarly, remembered that numbers of veterans fled Knoxville after several Unionist attacks. In May 1865 a detachment of troops had to be sent to

Concord to prevent violence between Federal and Confederate veterans, and in

September one man wrote President Johnson from Greeneville that many

Confederate soldiers had been "beaten severely and ordered to leave in five days

..." Confederate veterans also experienced some official harassment. Stoneman issued an order that forbade the wearing of the uniform or insignia of a

Confederate officer and threatened to arrest anyone found doing so; he also required returning veterans to take a loyalty oath or be sent to Georgia. Other

Confederates were briefly imprisoned or had their weapons taken away. [9]

But Confederate veterans were not the only victims of Unionist vengeance.

Known secessionists, particularly those who had held official positions in the 405 Confederate government, also suffered. In May 1865 one man attempting to flee

East Tennessee was waylaid near Loudon and killed, while in July a band of

Unionists broke into the house of a secessionist in Morristown, shot him, and

attempted to kill his brother. David Key reported that at the opening day of court

in Harrison Unionist mobs badly beat a number of secessionists. Unionists also

continued their campaign to control the regions’s churches, and several secessionist ministers were beaten, whipped, or driven away. Knoxville was the scene of some of the worst violence. One night in August 1865 a man named

Foster and four other Unionists went to the home of a man named Cox, a secessionist whom Foster had accused of shooting at him. The five men surrounded Cox’ house, fired off several shots, and eventually killed him. This incident so terrified secessionists that many fled the town, while others refused to appear in District Court to answer charges against them there. John G. King reported to Nelson that "many of your clients feel some apprehension in going to

Knoxville for fear of violence from the mob," while W. W. Wallace, who also claimed to have been threatened by Foster, stated that "I don’t think duty requires me to appear there to be shot down like a dog without provocation as Cox was .

. . ." This fear was so great that District Court Judge Connelly F. Trigg had to postpone many proceedings until the next term. [10]

Not all secessionists, of course, suffered attacks, and not all areas were racked with partisan violence. Chattanooga appears to have been quiet, and two well known secessionists, W. L. Bakin and Colonel David M. Key, returned there 406 and experienced no trouble. Robert A. Ragan, likewise, claimed that in Cocke

County returning Confederate veterans suffered no harm, for "these boys went into the rebel army at the beginning of the war in 1861, and did not stay to rob and kill Union men . . . But most reports indicate that partisan violence was common. In June 1865 Bird G. Manard concluded sadly that "not a day passes but what some ’rebel’ receives his 400 lashes or its equivalent-the contents of a minnie rifle-Even persons whose names have not been associated with the armies of this or any adjacent department share the same brutal fate . . . ." Father

Abraham Ryan asserted that Knoxville was "worse in scenes of blood and acts of violence than even Nashville was. Scarcely a day passes that is not signalized by some murder or other crime." And in August 1865 Felix A. Reeve queried O. P.

Temple about rumors he had heard of "’Idllings,’ ’knockings down,’ draggings out’" in Knoxville. By October 1865 reports of these attacks had reached as far as

President Andrew Johnson, who wrote Major General George Thomas to ascertain their truth. [11]

Many acts of revenge were perpetrated by Federal veterans. In June 1865 one Knoxville woman recited a grim litany of attacks carried out by returning

Fédérais: "Dr. Massengill was terribly cowhided - Bob West had his skull broken -

- Epps was beaten all most to death -- and a good many more -- a man by the name of Beard was severely beaten by Shade Harris -- Bob Hinds -Pryor Gawan and several others were used in the same way in Dandridge." Lyman Spencer asserted that in mid-May East Tennessee soldiers "cowhided" one Knoxville 407 secessionist, clubbed another, and would have beaten a third to death if an officer

had not intervened. Another group of veterans in Washington County killed a

man whom they suspected of mistreating Unionists during the Confederate

occupation, while in Knoxville a group of Fédérais broke into the jail, took out a

man accused of shooting a Unionist, and hanged him. [12]

There is little evidence of secessionists in East Tennessee making organized

attempts to fight back against this persecution, either in guerrilla bands or in

organizations such as the Klu Klux Klan. This was true even in later years when

the Unionists’ power was declining. The leading historian of the Reconstruction period in Termessee, Thomas B. Alexander, concluded that the only evidence of

Klan activity in the Eastern counties were a few notices posted in Knoxville in

1868 and a small number of warnings sent to radical leaders that same year.

Secessionists in East Termessee did make a few other attempts to influence politics by using violence. In July 1867 Governor Brownlow reported that "a rebel" had shot a black man in Knoxville and that threats of violence had prevented the sheriff of Hawkins County from executing the franchise laws. James

Campbell claimed that Klan pamphlets were also published and distributed in

Chattanooga and that in 1868 Klansmen in Sullivan County skirmished with members of the Loyal League. But it is clear that Unionists were responsible for most of the violent acts committed in East Termessee during the Reconstruction period. [13] 408 These Unionist attacks were simply a continuation of the wartime campaign

to suppress and drive out the secessionist population. In July 1865 one woman

claimed that in Rogersville a Unionist "mob" had conspired to deny southerners schools, churches, and employment, while another secessionist asserted that

Unionists were deliberately chasing away "southern men." O. R. Broyles concluded that "the Union party of the border states" had "united as one man to drive the friends of the Southern cause from their homes, confiscate their real estates, and shoot them down as wild beasts." Lizzie Key wrote that Unionists had tried to force her mother to abandon her farm near Loudon, while in Knoxville

Father Ryan asserted that "no one can live here safe and secure that does not swear by Brownlow." And David Anderson Deaderick recorded that in many places "self-constituted patriots" were driving away secessionists, and that in Blount

County Unionists were even exiling women. [14]

Unionists themselves admitted that their aim was to force the exile of East

Tennessee secessionists. In July 1865 three veterans asked their father to relay this message to secessionists in Carter and Washington counties: "They was for separation and we a posed it all we cold they said when they got thear independence that the Union famelyes cold not stay hear no how now we expect to come hear shortly and we have concluded that separation is Best and they must leave thear before we come . . . ." Another group of Federal veterans posted a very similar notice in the New Market area. Mrs. Horace Maynard, likewise, attributed violence by Unionists to their determination not to live with 409 secessionists: "You know they used to say that the Union men and ‘Southern’ men

could not live together, and the former have taken them at their word and sent

them away, rather hurriedly." [15]

The exact impetus for this campaign to rid East Tennessee of secessionists is difficult to pinpoint. Bird G. Manard attributed it to the influence of Brownlow, and indeed the editor had explicitly encouraged revenge against Confederates, both in articles in the Knoxville Whig and in proclamations as governor. David

Anderson Deaderick and David Sullins both claimed that the violence was perpetrated by "low and irresponsible men," and believed that the more respectable Unionists opposed these acts of revenge. From their perspective, these assertions may have been true, for by 1865 many conservative Unionists, whom Deaderick and Sullins considered respectable men, had broken with the radicals and were appalled by the continuing violence in East Tennessee. To put the whole blame for this violence on deviants, however, is too convenient.

Unionist attacks during Reconstruction were simply a continuation of their campaign to rid the region of secessionists and take control of the political and legal institutions. Unionists and secessionists had indeed determined that they could not live together, and many Unionists were simply putting this belief into practice. [16] 410 THE UNIONIST LEGAL CAMPAIGN

While some Unionists pursued their enemies with violence, others turned to the newly opened courts to exact vengeance. Their campaign of legal harassment had two prongs. First, loyalists entered dozens of private damage suits against Confederates for losses supposedly suffered during the war. At the same time. Unionist officeholders attempted to prosecute thousands of East Tennessee secessionists for treason or similar offenses. These legal actions were closely linked to the campaign of violence, and their purpose, as well as their effects on the secessionist population, were the same.

Loyalists initiated private damage suits against two different groups of secessionists. The first were officers or officials who had actually enforced

Confederate policies against Unionists. One Confederate officer claimed that he had had his land in Hamilton and Bradley Counties taken from him in the settlement of a damage suit for his role in enforcing the Confederate draft. James

A. Rhea was sued by two different men whom he had imprisoned while post commander at Jonesborough, while another officer claimed to have suffered three different suits, totalling fifty thousand dollars, for the arrests of several Unionists.

Officers involved in occupation duty or enforcing the draft particularly suffered, but those who had committed depredations during the war were also pursued. In

January 1867 Levi Lynes requested T.A.R. Nelson to enter a suit against a

Confederate captain named Frank Phipps for beating him with a club, blinding 411 him in one eye, permanently damaging his hips, and driving him out of Termessee.

Captain William W. Stringfield was sued for burning a field in Carter County in

1862, while two other officers with reputations for harshness against Unionists,

Colonel William Brazelton and Colonel William Gibbs Allen, were also pursued in court. [17]

The second group to be targeted were prominent secessionists who had supposedly encouraged the arrests of particular Unionists or had supplied information to Confederate authorities. One of the most publicized of these suits was that entered against several influential Confederates, including John Crozier,

William Sneed, and Confederate commissioner D. B. Reynolds, on behalf of

James Pickens. Pickens had been arrested in December 1861 on the suspicion that he had had some involvement in, or advance knowledge of, the bridge burnings. He had been jailed in Knoxville and then sent to the Confederate military prison at Tuscaloosa. Pickens, who was sixty years old and in poor health, had suffered greatly from his imprisonment, and his heirs were now seeking to punish those secessionists who, they believed, were responsible for his arrest. In a similar case, James W. Trewhitt sued three prominent secessionists for the arrest, imprisonment, and subsequent death of his father, Levi Trewhitt. Like

Pickens, Levi Trewhitt was an outspoken Unionist who was arrested in the wake of the bridge burnings and whose health was also damaged by the poor conditions suffered during his imprisonment. And in 1865 Brownlow himself sued Sneed, 412 Crozier, Reynolds, and Confederate District Attorney John Crozier Ramsey for

arranging his arrest in 1861. [18]

The suits involving Pickens, Trewhitt, and Brownlow received particular

attention. Both sides employed the best legal talent in East Tennessee, and these

cases took many months to resolve. But the county courts of East Tennessee were

full of similar suits in 1865 and 1866. In January 1866 David Key reported from

Chattanooga that "every rebel of prominence or property is sued for damages and

the dockets of the courts are groaning under this class of suits." David Anderson

Deaderick, likewise, remembered that many Unionists who had lost property

during the war or had been imprisoned were eager to sue known secessionists.

And as late as June 1868 Tom Brabson wrote that the county court at Greeneville was "trying damage cases they are giving the rebs HELL." [19]

The results of these damage suits were mixed. Many Unionists initially won large settlements in the county courts. James Trewhitt received a judgment for $35,000, while the representatives of James Pickens won a $100,000 settlement in Sevier County Court. Brownlow likewise won his suit in Knox County Court and was awarded property belonging to Sneed. Numbers of these decisions were later overturned by higher courts, however, while in other cases Unionists were forced to settle for much smaller amounts. In Brownlow’s case, for example, the defendants appealed the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court and got the judgement overturned, and Brownlow’s only monetary gain were the rents he collected while in control of the property. [20] 413 Unionists faced at least two obstacles in their attempts to punish their

enemies in the courts. The first was that frequently there was little of value for

the plaintiffs to collect, for many secessionists had suffered great losses during the war or had had their lands confiscated by the Federal government. The second difficulty was the changing legal and political climate in Tennessee. Not only

Confederates, but also many conservative Unionists, took the position that

Confederate officers and civil officials had been acting as agents of a de facto government and therefore could not be prosecuted for their actions unless those actions were actually criminal. By the late 1860s, this view had prevailed in the higher courts of the state as well as in many county courts. Many defendants, through procedural delays or through appeals, were able to postpone final decisions on their cases until 1867 or 1868, and thus benefitted from this changing legal situation. President Johnson’s conciliatory policies also helped to undercut the Unionist campaign, for after secessionists received their special pardons and had their lands restored it was difficult for Unionists to proceed against them in the courts. [21]

While private damage suits wound their way through the county and state courts. Unionist officials likewise attempted to use the Federal District Court to their advantage. The District Court allowed East Tennesseeans to reach beyond their own region and prosecute their enemies on very serious charges, and thus potentially gave them great power. Unionists attempted to exploit that power by indicting numbers of secessionists for treason or similar Federal offenses and 414 thereby not only punish their enemies but also strike directly at the concept of

secession. Ultimately the Unionists would discover that they had overestimated

their power, and like legal efforts in the state courts this campaign would achieve

few of its immediate objectives. Its effects on the secessionist population were

significant nonetheless.

The United States District Court of the Eastern Division of Tennessee

(Knoxville) reopened on 16 May 1864, with Judge Connelly F. Trigg presiding.

Officers of the court set to work immediately, and by 28 May a grand jury comprised of some of the most uncompromising Unionists in East Tennessee had issued its first presentments for treason. Beginning with Confederate President

Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee, they proceeded to name practically every prominent Confederate who had implemented or might have influenced

Confederate policy in East Tennessee, including Major Generals Simon B.

Buckner, James Longstreet, Edmund Kirby Smith, William Hardee, Braxton

Bragg, John C. Breckinridge, and John P. McCown, as well as Brigadier Generals

John C. Vaughn, William Carroll, Humphrey Marshall, John Hunt Morgan,

Danville Leadbetter, Alfred E. Jackson, George Crittenden, and Nathan Bedford

Forrest. Unionist grand juries continued their work steadily throughout the next three terms of the court, and by January 1867 the court had before it at least 2090 presentments either for treason or for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Most of East Tennessee’s prominent secessionists, including John Crozier, William

Sneed, John Crozier Ramsey, Tandon Carter Haynes, William G. Swan, C. W. 415 Charleton, William W. Wallace, and Colonel David M, Key, had been targeted.

[22]

Though initially successful, these prosecutions soon foundered. In their

zeal to punish every last secessionist, the Unionists had overwhelmed the

capacities of the court. For practical reasons, if for no other. Judge Trigg had to

find means to settle these cases quickly. Furthermore, the absurdity and futility

of these proceedings eventually became apparent even to many Unionists. Finally, the loyalists were also once again frustrated by the shifting political and legal climate. Johnson’s special pardons protected many secessionists from prosecution, as did the legal recognition of the Confederacy as a de facto government. The legal theory on which most of the suits were based, that secession was a conspiracy to overthrow the United States government in which any one who had voted for separation or had served as a Confederate official had participated, also could not be sustained.

The legal system shifted against the Unionists very quickly. At the beginning of the winter term of 1864-1865 Judge Trigg instituted the practice of dismissing most treason cases if the defendant took the oath of allegiance, demonstrated that he had received a pardon from President Johnson, and paid the court costs, which were about thirty dollars. The court continued this practice throughout 1865, 1866, and 1867. [23] A few secessionists did find the court less merciful. Three of Brownlow’s enemies, John Aikin, James Sperry, and Robert

P. Fox, were denied bail and imprisoned for several weeks in Knoxville, where 416 they were threatened by Unionist mobs and mistreated by their guards. Sperry

settled his case in January 1865, but Aikin was not released until December 1866,

and Fox died sometime in 1865. John Crozier Ramsey also experienced

considerable difficulty in having the charges against him dismissed, as did Colonel

Brazelton. [24] But for the most part the court cleared the charges against

secessionists almost as quickly as the grand juries could bring them. By May 1866

794 charges of treason and giving aid and comfort had been dismissed, and the

court continued this pace into 1867. Ultimately the United States Supreme Court

simply threw out all remaining cases. Oliver P. Temple asserted that, in the end,

not a single defendant had been convicted of treason in the District Court at

Knoxville, and the court records confirm this assertion. [25]

EFFECTS OF THE UNIONIST PERSECUTION

The Unionist legal campaign thus failed to achieve its immediate aims of

convicting and imprisoning secessionists and stripping them of their property.

Nonetheless, legal harassment, coupled with the continuing violence, had a profound effect on the secessionist population. It prevented some Confederate veterans from returning to East Tennessee at all, and it forced hundreds of secessionists to flee the region. This result pleased the Unionists, and almost certainly it was what they had intended from the beginning. The secessionist flight 417 ‘purified’ East Tennessee; it also enabled the Unionists to control the process of political and legal restoration.

The magnitude of the secessionist exodus was astonishing. In July 1865

William Stakely listed thirty-one prominent secessionist families, including the

McAdoos, Sneeds, Croziers, Swans, McClungs, Doaks, Charletons, Wallaces, and

Ramseys, who had left Knoxville or been sent away by Federal authorities.

Another secessionist asserted in August that Unionist violence had driven out most influential secessionists in East Tennessee, and John Crozier Ramsey agreed:

".. . no prominent Southern men [from Knoxville] have returned and those who are there are making arrangements to leave." In December 1865 Frank McClung claimed that he "saw East Tennesseans at almost every town, depot, and station in Georgia," while in August 1866 David Anderson Deaderick concluded after a visit to Jonesborough that "many of its best citizens have been driven out, or have thought it prudent to leave." David T. Patterson, Andrew Johnson’s son-in-law, testified to Congress that by early 1866 there were few secessionists left in East

Tennessee. And as late as April 1867 John Crozier Ramsey reported that while some secessionist refugees in North Carolina were planning to return to their homes others had chosen to remain there permanently. [26]

The fate of these exiles varied widely. Some remained away only a short time and returned to East Tennessee when it was safe to do so. William G.

McAdoo spent the last years of the war and the first years of reconstruction doing business in Georgia, but he came back to Knoxville in December 1867. Charles 418 McClung, likewise, took refuge in Georgia, but he also returned to East Tennessee in 1867. J.G.M Ramsey fled to North Carolina in 1864 but finally came back home in 1870. But other secessionists went far away from East Termessee and never came back. William Sneed moved to Atlanta and was still living there in

1867, while Landon Carter Haynes spent the rest of his life in Memphis. And other secessionists made homes in Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, or even Brazil. [27]

Of course not all secessionists became refugees. David M. Key secured a special pardon in May 1865, got the treason charges against him dismissed, was admitted to the bar, returned home to resume his law practice, and eventually enjoyed a distinguished political career. [28] Even so, it is painfully clear that many East Termessee secessionists were made to suffer for their role in the war.

Even those who did not become permanent exiles had great difficulty resuming normal lives. David Sullins, who was indicted for treason for his role in discouraging Nelson and Johnson from speaking at Blountville in May 1861, had to flee to Virginia and could not come home for two years. Captain William W.

Stringfield was jailed for thirty days, indicted for treason, threatened by Unionist bands, and eventually driven from his home at Strawberry Plains. William Gibbs

Allen was also harassed by Union authorities, threatened several times by

Unionist bands, and robbed at least twice. Colonel Henry M. Doak likewise received several threats after returning to Jonesborough and eventually had to flee to Louisiana. [29] 419 The story of Brigadier General Alfred E. Jackson illustrates the effects, as well as the intent, of Unionist harassment. Jackson, another Confederate officer indicted in the District Court, was initially assured that the presentation of his pardon and payment of court costs would be sufficient to have the treason and confiscation cases against him dismissed. But in May 1866 Jackson was informed that he would have to be present at the spring term of the court to settle his cases.

The general asserted that he simply did not have the resources both to pay the court costs and spend several days in Knoxville, for most of his land had been seized by the Federal government as abandoned enemy property. Jackson also knew that he had been indicted for several offenses in the Washington County and

Knox County Courts and feared being arrested if he appeared in Knoxville.

Jackson attributed his difficulties to "the radical policy inaugurated in E. Tenn of persecution and impoverishment" and to the feeling that he had "not been sufficiently humbled and impoverished." Many other secessionists drew the same conclusions. [30]

UNIONISTS AND THE RECONSTRUCTION GOVERNMENT

The ultimate aim of the Eastern Unionists was not only to dominate their own region but also to seize control of the whole state. The policies of the

Lincoln Administration and the Congressional radicals allowed the loyal Eastern counties to dominate the initial reconstruction process, and the disruption of 420 normal political processes and the disabilities placed on Confederates gave the

East Tennesseans the greatest opportunity they would ever enjoy of escaping their minority position. The first three governors of Reconstruction Tennessee were all Eastern Unionists, the majority of voters in the first few elections came from the East, and the Unionists also were influential in the legislature. The attempt to revolutionize Tennessee nonetheless failed, a failure that reveals a great deal concerning both the possibilities and the limitations of self-reconstruction.

The rise and fall of the radical regime in Termessee has already been traced in three excellent works, James Patton’s Unionism and Reconstruction in

Tennessee. Clifton R. Hall’s Andrew Johnson: Militarv Governor of Tennessee. and Thomas B. Alexander’s Political Reconstruction in Tennessee, as well as in numerous articles and state histories. The purpose of this section, therefore, is not to retell that story, but rather to discuss the attempts of the Eastern Unionists to expand their power and examine the reasons for their failure. [31]

The East Tennessee Unionists won a number of initial victories in their struggle for control of the state. The first was the selection of Andrew Johnson as military governor in 1862. Johnson received broad powers from President

Abraham Lincoln, and although much of his energies were devoted to matters of defense and occupation, he also attempted, both through persuasion and through threats, to bring the population of Middle and West Termessee back into the

Union and build a loyal political base there. The first test of these efforts came in March 1864 when Johnson took the risky step of holding state elections in 421 selected counties in Tennessee. These elections were intended both as a

vindication of his policies and as a prelude to the reestablishment of civilian

government, and Johnson had attempted to ensure a favorable outcome by

instituting strict voting requirements, including the taking of a loyalty oath. The

results, nonetheless, were disappointing. Many voters refused to come to the polls

at all, while most of those who did appear elected men whom Johnson considered

disloyal. Johnson’s first experiment toward restoring civilian govermnent had failed. [32]

In hopes of reviving these efforts, Johnson turned to his home region for support and asked T.A.R. Nelson to reassemble the old Unionist Convention.

Nelson agreed, and on 12 April the Unionist leaders once again met in Knoxville.

Johnson discovered, however, that the war had transformed the Convention and rendered it useless for his purposes. The Unionists themselves had divided into two groups, radicals and conservatives, and their views had diverged so far that they could not begin to agree on a platform. After three days of acrimonious and futile debate, therefore, the delegates agreed to adjourn. But Johnson was not to be denied. The following day the radicals reassembled in their own convention, where they passed resolutions endorsing Johnson’s policies, including the disfranchisement of Confederates. These resolutions were written by Johnson himself and presented by Brownlow and Oliver P. Temple. Johnson had found a political base, but as he and his successor would discover it was much too weak for their purposes. [33] 422 The next major step toward reestablishing civilian government in Tennessee came in January 1865, when loyal delegates met in Nashville for yet another convention. The stated purposes of this gathering were to arrange for elections for delegates to a constitutional convention, who would then write a new constitution, reorganize the state government, and authorize elections for the legislature and state and county offices. In a move that would become the mark of the radical regime, however, the delegates chose to bypass established processes and instead assumed for themselves the power to reestablish the state government.

They justified this action by the argument that based on previous experiences many elected delegates would be disloyal and thus unable to produce a government acceptable to the Lincoln administration. This argument had validity, but it was irregular actions such as these that would help doom the radicals. [34]

The convention at Nashville took three decisive steps. First, it framed two amendments to the state constitution, one abolishing slavery and the other prohibiting any body in Tennessee from ever again recognizing that institution as legal, and submitted these to the voters. Second, it authorized elections for state offices on 4 March and nominated Brownlow as governor. Finally, the Nashville delegates repealed the Tennessee ordinance of secession and the state’s Military

League with the Confederacy and declared all actions of the Harris

Administration after 6 May null and void. As expected, the amendments were 423 approved in February with only forty-five dissenting votes, and in March the voters

sent Brownlow, as well as a legislature dominated by radicals, to the state capital.

[35]

The election of Brownlow gave the East Tennesseans their second and

most important victory. Brownlow came to office with the avowed intention of punishing rebellion and rewarding loyalty, and his supporters were not disappointed. The new governor advocated, and the legislature passed, a number of measures designed to harass and humiliate secessionists, including one that forbade the wearing of the Confederate uniform and another that offered a five thousand dollar reward for the capture of former Governor Harris. The legislature also passed a number of more substantial acts. It approved the

Thirteenth Amendment to the United States constitution and submitted it to the voters, and it nullified all acts of the special legislative session of May 1861. Most importantly, in June the radicals passed a series of acts designed to reserve political power exclusively to loyal men. Only three groups-men who had been discharged honorably from the Federal Army, who had voted in the elections of

March 1864 and March 1865, or who could prove their unconditional Unionism- would be allowed to vote in upcoming elections. All military and civilian officials of the Confederacy, all who had left Federal or state offices to serve the new government, and all who had revealed their disloyalty by abandoning homes that came within Union lines during the war would be denied the right to vote for fifteen years. Remaining secessionists were disfranchised for five years. To guard 424 against fraud, every voter had to obtain a certificate testifying to his loyalty and

his right to the franchise, and those who wished to vote after the five-year ban also had to meet rigorous requirements, including finding witnesses to their loyalty and taking an ‘iron-clad’ loyalty oath. [36]

The fi-anchise restrictions aroused tremendous resentment in Middle and

West Tennessee, and in August Brownlow persuaded General George Thomas to send troops to several counties to guard the polls. Despite all precautions,

Brownlow, like Johnson before him, found the election results disappointing. Five conservatives, but only three radicals, were elected to seats in the United States

House. The governor therefore took a number of additional steps. On 11 August he sent notices to election officials in every county requiring them to explain the registration process that they had followed. Based on their responses, Brownlow proclaimed that the elections had been marred by numerous irregularities and threw out the results in twenty-nine Middle and West Tennessee counties. This allowed one additional radical, Samuel Mays Arnell of Nashville, to represent

Tennessee in Congress. [37]

Brownlow’s second move was to persuade the legislature to pass stricter franchise laws. These measures permanently disfranchised anyone who had voluntarily fought against the United States government, held any office in the

Confederacy, or voluntarily supported a government hostile to the United States.

They also made it more difficult to acquire a voting certificate. Only Union veterans would automatically receive these documents; all others would have to 425 prove their loyalty in a county court by taking an iron-clad loyalty oath and

securing the testimony of two persons who already possessed voting certificates.

The legislature also gave Governor Brownlow potentially complete control over

the election process by granting him the authority to appoint Special

Commissioners to register voters in every county. Third, after General Thomas

refused to provide troops to police the elections in 1867 Brownlow secured the

power to form state militia companies to keep order and prevent resistance to the

franchise laws. Finally, the Governor, who had once defended the institution of

slavery, persuaded the legislature to pass laws allowing a selected group of

African-Americans to vote. [38]

Brownlow’s power crested in 1867, when he won his campaign for reelection against Emerson Etheridge. By that year opposition to the radical program had become widespread, however, and it was clear that the franchise restrictions could not be maintained much longer. In addition, the list of

Unionists who had turned against Brownlow had grown long, and his political support had declined considerably. In response, Brownlow moved his office from

Nashville to Knoxville, where he found refuge from the hostile climate of Middle

Tennessee, and spent thereafter less and less time on state affairs. [39]

Perhaps sensing his impending defeat, Brownlow resigned from the governor’s position in February 1869 and persuaded the state legislature to send him to the United States Senate. Brownlow appointed DeWitt Senter, yet another

East Tennessean, as his successor. Senter’s Unionist credentials to that point had 426 been impeccable. He had campaigned against secession in February and June

1861, been arrested in May 1862 and briefly imprisoned for his actions, suffered numerous threats from secessionists, and finally fled to Kentucky. He had returned to East Tennessee with the Union Army in 1863, supported the radical program throughout 1864, and been elected to the Tennessee Senate in March

1865, where he faithfully supported Brownlow’s policies. But by 1869 Senter had moved away from the radical position. Shortly after his appointment Senter signalled his political shift by disbanding the despised state militia. Then in

August he ran for the governorship against the radical William B. Stokes on a platform that promised to end the franchise restrictions and dismantle most of the

Brownlow program. Senter won by a large majority, and with his victory radical reconstruction in Tennessee came to an end. The East Tennesseans retreated to their own region, and the rest of the state reverted to the control of the

Democrats. [40]

The Eastern Unionists won a number of victories in their quest to seize control of the state. They played a critical role in the reestablishment of civilian government, sent three men to the governor’s office, and enjoyed considerable influence in the legislature. Both Johnson and Brownlow stretched their powers as governor to the utmost. They punished disloyalty through the franchise laws and used the threat of force to suppress resistance to their policies. They also made some attempts to conciliate the population of Middle and West Tennessee and sought to find a solid political base, even to the point of enfranchising the 427 freedmen. Even so, their attempts permanently to alter the political structure of

Tennessee faltered.

The failure of Johnson and Brownlow to revolutionize Tennessee was, in part, simply a reflection of the realities of Southern politics. Middle and West

Termessee had been alienated by the sufferings of the war and the policies of

Lincoln and Johnson, and ultimately their resistance undermined the radical govermnent. Furthermore, like every other reconstruction governor Johnson and

Brownlow found it impossible to create a viable coalition that could support a loyalist govermnent. The white Unionist population, even in Termessee, was simply too small, and the interests of white loyalists and blacks could not be successfully blended.

The Unionist governors suffered from other liabilities as well. Johnson was a skillful and experienced politician who had held practically every office in

Termessee. Brownlow was a brilliant propagandist and agitator. Even so, both men were outsiders in Termessee politics, both were most at home in the role of the opposition, both were widely hated in the rest of the state, and neither possessed much flexibility or willingness to compromise. All these factors limited their ability to build political support and successfully restore civilian government.

Finally, in too many cases the immediate aim of punishment won out over the more fundamental end of creating an effective government. In the end, these many difficulties forced Brownlow into the same destructive cycle that Johnson had begun: as his political support waned, he relied increasingly on extralegal 428 actions to maintain his power, but each step of this kind alienated more voters and further diminished his political base.

Both Johnson and Brownlow found even the Unionism of East Tennessee to be a less reliable foundation than they had hoped. The pressures of war and revolution had significantly altered the old Unionist faction in East Tennessee, and the Unionist Convention that met in Knoxville in April 1864 hardly resembled the powerful organization that had led two campaigns against secession. The

Unionists had divided into two groups, the radicals and the conservatives, and the number of influential Unionists who now opposed the policies of the Lincoln

Administration and Military Governor Johnson was startling. T.A.R. Nelson, John

Baxter, John Fleming, John Motherland, and even William B. Carter, organizer of the 1861 bridgebumings, had all broken with their old allies. They had not only attempted to organize support for General George B. McClellan in the 1864 presidential election but also publicly criticized Johnson’s policies and attempted to challenge the legality of the franchise restrictions in court. Horace Maynard,

Oliver P. Temple, and Andrew Jackson Fletcher remained in the radical camp, but the number of prominent Unionists on whom Johnson and Brownlow could depend had seriously declined. This was a process that would continue throughout

Brownlow’s governorship. [41]

There were many reasons for the division of the Unionist leadership. The wartime policies of the Lincoln Administration, particularly emancipation and the imprisonment of large numbers of dissenters, drove numerous Southern white 429 loyalists into the opposition. The destruction and seeming futility of the war alienated others, as did the behavior of Federal troops in East Tennessee.

Brownlow’s egotism and ambition further diminished his support, while his increasingly desperate measures to maintain power finally drove away all but the most resolute. But in the end one characteristic, the conservatism of many

Eastern Unionists, may have been the most important factor. Men such as Nelson and Baxter were devoted to the law and constitutional processes, which they saw as the bulwarks of order and civilization. They could not, therefore, tolerate such seemingly illegal actions as emancipation and mass disfranchisement, no matter what the ends of such actions were. The same conservatism that had turned the

Greeneville Convention away from open rebellion in June 1861 also made it impossible for many Unionists to continue to support the Brownlow regime. 430

NOTES

1. For a general account of violence in Tennessee during this period, see Thomas B. Alexander, "Neither Peace nor War: Conditions in Tennessee in 1865," East Termessee Historical Society Publications 21 (1949): 33-51. For a comparison with Missouri, see Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 233-40.

2. Major General D. S. Stanley to Major General George Thomas, Greeneville, April 13, 1865, OR 49, 2, p. 343; Brigadier General Davis Tillson to Major George Bascom, Greeneville, May 5,1865, OR 49,2, p. 625; Colonel James Parsons to Major George Bascom, Rogersville, May 16, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major General George Stoneman to Thomas, Knoxville, April 22, 1865, OR 49, 2, p. 437; District of East Tennessee, Special Orders No. 70, April 20, 1865, OR 49, 2, p. 420.

3. Major H. L. Barnes to Captain Dean, Morristown, April 23, 1865, Lieutenant Thomas B. McKenzie to Colonel Thomas J. Harrison, Wadies Mill, April 27, 1865, B. W. Howard "to Gen. Gibson or the Commander of the Post at Knoxville," n.p., April 17, 1865, District of East Tennessee and Fourth Division, Department of the Cumberland, Letters and Telegrams Received, 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.,; James H. Wiswell to his father, Knoxville, April 6, 1865, James H. Wiswell Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; Captain James W. Harrington to Major General George Stoneman, Rutledge, April 30,1865, OR 49, 2, pp. 528-29.

4. Major General George Thomas to Brigadier General Davis Tillson, Nashville, April 17, 1865, OR 49, 2, p. 381; Captain James W. Harrington to Major General George Stoneman, Rutledge, April 30,1865, OR 49,2, pp. 528-29; Colonel James Parsons to Major George Bascom, Rogersville, May 16, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.,; Captain Robert Morrow to Brigadier General Alvin C. Gillem, Knoxville, June 5, 1865, District of East Tennessee, 431 Telegrams Sent, July-November 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C.; Lieutenant Ed Cobb to Dr. Claiborne Walker, Strawberry Plains, May 26, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent by the Assistant Provost Marshal, May-June 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Colonel Croft to Captain Robert Morrow, Greeneville, June 10, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Sent, May- September 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Brigadier General William D. Whipple to Brigadier General R. W. Johnson, Nashville, June 1, 1865, OR 49, 2, p. 946.

5. Captain James W. Harrington to Major General George Stoneman, Rutledge, April 30, 1865, OR 49, 2, pp. 528-29; Colonel James Parsons to Major George Bascom, Rogersville, May 16,1865, District of East Termessee, Telegrams Received, 1864-1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.,; Amanda McDowell Burns and Lela M. Blakenship, Fiddles on the Cumberland (New York: Richard R. Smith Co., 1943), p. 278; Captain W. O. Beeb to Captain W. W. Bradford, Strawberry Plains, June 4, 1865, Second Brigade, Fourth Division, Department of the Cumberland, Letters and Telegrams Received, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Thurman Sensing, Champ Ferguson. Confederate Guerrilla (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1942).

6. Thomas to Major General James Steedman, Major General George Stoneman, Major General Cadwallader Washburne, Major General Lovell Rousseau, Colonel Smith, Colonel Gilfillan, Nashville, May 1, 1865, OR 49, 2, pp. 552-53; Thomas B. Alexander, Political Reconstruction in Tennessee (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1950), p. 72; Emmet Ramsey to Carrie Stakely, Sweetwater, May 5,1865, Sue Coffee to Margaret Stakely, Sweetwater, March 19, 1866, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

7. Fourth Division, Department of the Cumberland, Special Orders No. 29, May 10,1865, District of East Tennessee and Fourth Division, Department of the Cumberland, Special Orders Issued, March-September 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Major Lawson to Major Wright, Jonesborough, June 10, 1865, District of East Tennessee and Fourth Division, Department of the Cumberland, Letters and Telegrams Received, 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.,; Major General Alvin C. Gillem to Lieutenant Colonel M. L. Courtrey, Chattanooga, September 15, 1865, District of East Tennessee, Telegrams Sent, July-November, 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D C; "G. S. Frague to Headquarters, Third Brigade, Fourth Division," Concord, June 2, 1866, Second Brigade, Fourth Division, Department of the Cumberland, Letters and Telegrams Received, 432 Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See also John P. Hammer to William G. Brownlow, Bristol, April 21, 1865, Papers of the Governors, William G. Brownlow, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, and IJeutenant Ed Cobb to Captain S. Bryan, Strawberry Plains, April 25, 1865, District of East Termessee, Letters and Telegrams Sent by the Assistant Provost Marshal, May-June, 1865, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

8. Lyman Potter Spencer Diary, May 1,1865, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D C.; Martha Stakely to her sister, Knoxville, April 21, 1865, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Fred Arthur Bailey, Class and Termessee’s Confederate Generation (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), p. 106-11, 117; William Gibbs Allen Memoirs, Supplemental Material, pp. 3-6, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Colonel Henry M. Doak Memoirs, pp. 46-47, Henry M. Doak Papers, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

9. Elizabeth Caswell to William Caswell, Knoxville, June 19,1865, William R. Caswell Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; David Anderson Deaderick Journal, May 1865, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Marion S. Wofford to President Andrew Johnson, Bull’s Gap, September 11, 1865, Johnson to Major General George Thomas, Washington, D. C., October 4,1865, Andrew Johnson Correspondence, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Bailey, Class, p. 17; Major J. B. Atkins to Lieutenant Bradford, Loudon, May 25, 1865, Second Brigade, Fourth Division, Department of the Cumberland, Letters and Telegrams Received, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; District of East Termessee, General Orders No. 31, May 6, 1865, General Orders No. 27, April 29, 1865, District of East Termessee and Fourth Division, Twenty-Third Army Corps, General Orders Issued, Record Group 393, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

10. Mary Stakely to Callie, Knoxville, May 28, 1865, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, I&roxville; A. L. Minns to T.A.R. Nelson, Ringgold, Georgia, May 17, 1866, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; David M. Key to Lizzie, Chattanooga, February 14, 1866, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; David Sullins, Recollections of an Old Man: Seventv Years in Dixie (Bristol: The King Printing Company, 1910), p. 307; William Gibbs Allen Memoirs, Supplemental Material, pp. 6-7, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; W. W. Wallace to T.A.R. Nelson, Concord, August 26, 1865, John G. King to Nelson and John Netherland, Big Spring, October 23,1865, Wallace to Nelson, Atlanta, August 23, 1865, Wallace to Nelson, Covington, Georgia, November 20, 1865, Wallace to 433 Nelson, Big Meadows, Jan 8, 1866, Nathaniel M. Taylor to Nelson, Bristol, October 28, 1865, W. W. James to Nelson and Netherland, Bristol, October 31, 1865, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Brigadier General Alfred E. Jackson to Oliver P. Temple, Abingdon, Virginia, June 28, 1866, Charles R. Vance to Temple, Bristol, October 28, 1865, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville. See also "Millie to Reverend Fred and Teacher," Cave Spring, Tennessee, January 8, 1866, Sue Coffee to Carrie Stakely, Sweetwater, February 27, 1866, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Dr. John Shields to Oliver P. Temple, Greene County, April 23, 1866, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; W. G. Headrick to Major W. W. McEwen, Greeneville, June 17, 1865, McEwen Correspondence, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

11. W. L. Eakin to David M. Key, Chattanooga, September 20, 1865, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; David M. Key to Rufus T. Lenoir, Chattanooga, January 15,1866, Lenoir Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Robert A. Ragan, Escape from East Tennessee to the Federal Lines (Washington: J. H. Doney, 1910), p. 47; Bird G. Manard to T.A.R. Nelson, Morristown, June 28, 1865, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Father Abraham Ryan to Miss Carmy, Knoxville, September 12, 1865, Father Abraham Ryan Correspondence, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; Felix A. Reeve to Oliver P. Temple, Greeneville, August 28, 1865, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Termessee Library, Knoxville; President Andrew Johnson to Major General George Thomas, Washington, D. C., October 4, 1865, Andrew Johnson Correspondence, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

12. Elizabeth Caswell to William Caswell, Knoxville, June 19,1865, William R. Caswell Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Lyman Potter Spencer Diary, May 16, May 18,1865, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D C.; David Anderson Deaderick Journal, May 1865, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

13. Thomas B. Alexander, "Klu Kluxism in Termessee, 1865-1869," Tennessee Historical Ouarterlv 8 (1949): 203; Alexander, Reconstruction, p. 183; James B. Campbell, "Some Social and Economic Phases of Reconstruction in East Termessee, 1864-1869," unpublished thesis. University of Termessee, 1946, pp. 96- 97, 103-04; William G. Brownlow to General Joseph A. Cooper, Knoxville, July 25,1867, Papers of the Governors, William G. Brovmlow, Termessee State Library 434 and Archives, Nashville; F. A, Brabson to C. W. Slagle, Washington County, February 21, 1868, Jacob Siler Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. See also James Welch Patton, Unionism and Reconstruction in Tennessee. 1860-1869 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934), pp. 150, 179, 195.

14. Mrs. Joseph B. Heiskell to T.A.R. Nelson, Rogersville, July 26, 1865, O. R. Broyles to Nelson, n.p., July 24, 1865, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Lizzie Key to Mrs. Rufus T. Lenoir, Loudon, November 10, 1865, Lenoir Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Father Abraham Ryan to Miss Canny, Knoxville, September 12, 1865, September 16, 1865, Father Abraham Ryan Correspondence, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; David Anderson Deaderick Journal, May 1865, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

15. George L., John C., and David C. Boone to their father, Sweetwater, July 28, 1865, Boren Family Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Patton, Unionism, p. 106; Mrs. Horace Maynard to Washburne Maynard, Knoxville, September 26, 1865, Horace Maynard Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville.

16. Bird G. Manard to T.A.R. Nelson, Morristown, June 28, 1865, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Knoxville Whig. January 9, 1864, April 9, 1864; David Anderson Deaderick Journal, May 1865, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Sullins, Recollections, pp. 195-96.

17. Wright McKissick to T.A.R. Nelson, Memphis, March 31, 1866, James A. Rhea to Nelson, Blountville, October 11, 1865, W. R. Neilson to Nelson, April 22, 1866, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; James M. Hickman to Oliver P. Temple, Moruroe County, April 24, 1865, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Termessee Library, Knoxville; Levi W. Lynes to Nelson, Wilkesboro, North Carolina, January 16, 1867, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; William Williams Stringfield, "History of the Sixty-Ninth North Carolina," pp. 78-79, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; William Gibbs Allen Memoirs, Supplemental Material, pp. 5-6, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

18. "James Pickens vs. W. H. Sneed, John Crozier, W. B. Reynolds," February 1865, "James M. Trewhitt vs. William H. Tibbs, Thomas J. Campbell, James W. Gillespie, Elizah F. Johnson, William L. Brown, Robert L. McClung, C. 435 L. Hardwicke, J. M. Horton, Joseph Tucker, Robert S. Holt, John M. Dunn, James Donahue, John B. Coxie," September 8,1865, D. Watterson to T.A.R. Nelson and Colonel Butler, Nashville, November 8, 1864, T.A.R Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; E. Merton Coulter, William G. Brownlow: Fighting Parson of the Highlands (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1937), pp. 274-75.

19. David M. Key to Rufus T. Lenoir, Chattanooga, January 15, 1866, Lenoir Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; David Anderson Deaderick Journal, 1868, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Tom Brabson to C. W. Slagle, Braborstown, June 13, 1865, Jacob Siler Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. See also Peter Turney to Oliver P. Temple, Sparta, September 30, 1865, William Burrett to Temple, Sevierville, June 10, 1865, S. P. Gorl to Temple, Cleveland, January 25, 1866, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville.

20. George W. Bridges to Oliver P. Temple, Cleveland, May 11, 1866, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Thomas William Humes, The Loyal Mountaineers of Termessee (Knoxville: Ogden Brothers, 1888), pp. 346-47; United States District Court, Eastern District, Termessee, Knoxville, Minute Book A, 1864-1865, January 27, 1866, February 1, 1866, Minute Book B, 1865-1870, January 3, 1866, January 7, 1868, Record Group 21, Eastern District of Tennessee, National Archives, Southeast Region; William G. Brownlow to Oliver P. Temple, Nashville, January 25, 1866, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Termessee Library, Knoxville; Bro\Wow to T.A.R. Nelson, Knoxville, May 9, 1867, "William G. Brownlow vs. Robert B. Reynolds, Thomas J. Campbell, John H. Crozier, William H. Sneed, John C. Ramsey," November 23, 1867, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

21. Thomas B. Alexander, Thomas A.R Nelson of East Tennessee (Nashville: Termessee Historical Commission, 1956), pp. 147-52.

22. Clifton R. Hall, Andrew Johnson: Military Governor of Tennessee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1916), p. 131; United States District Court, Eastern District, Termessee, Knoxville, Minute Book A, 1864-1865, April 11,1864, May 16, 1864, May 19, 1864, May 21, 1864, May 28, 1864, June 3-June 14, 1864, December 13, 1864-January 11, 1865, May 23, 1865-June 10, 1865, Minute Book B, December 14, 1865-January 13, 1866, January 22, 1867, Record Group 21, Eastern District of Termessee, National Archives, Southeast Region; "State vs. 436 William H. Sneed," October 10,1864, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville.

23. United States District Court, Eastern District, Tennessee, Knoxville, Minute Book A, 1864-1865, June 10, 1864, Record Group 21, Eastern District of Tennessee, National Archives, Southeast Region.

24. United States District Court, Eastern District, Tennessee, Knoxville, Minute Book A, 1864-1865, June 14, 1864, December 29, 1864, January 5, 1865, January 11, 1865, June 9, 1865, Minute Book B, 1865-1870, December 1, 1866, January 11, 1866, January 12, 1866, Record Group 21, Eastern District of Tennessee, National Archives, Southeast Region.

25. Oliver P. Temple, Notable Men of Tennessee from 1833 to 1875 (New York: The Cosmopolitan Press, 1912), p. 212; United States District Court, Eastern District, Tennessee, Knoxville, Minute Book A, 1864-1865, June 10-June 16, 1864, November 29, 1864-January 17, 1865, May 20, 1865-June 12, 1865, November 27, 1865-December 1, 1865, Minute Book B, 1865-1870, November 30, 1865-January 22,1866, May 21,1866-June 25,1866, December 1 ,1866-January 25, 1867, May 21, 1867-June 30, 1867, November 26, 1867-January 8, 1868, Record Group 21, Eastern District of Tennessee, National Archives, Southeast Region; Colonel Henry M. Doak Memoirs, p. 68, Henry M. Doak Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

26. William M. Stakely to Martha, n.p., July 18,1865, Hall-Stakely Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Hiram Boyle to Mr. Kirkpatrick, Winchester, August 26, 1866, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; John Crozier Ramsey to his sister, Nashville, August 4, 1865, J.G.M. Ramsey Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Frank McClung to Mrs. McClung, Knoxville, December 20, 1865, William B. Campbell Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; David Anderson Deaderick Journal, August 20,1866, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; Alexander, Reconstruction, p. 66; John Crozier Ramsey to J.G.M. Ramsey, Knoxville, April 9, 1867, Ramsey Family Papers, Special Collections, University of Teimessee Library, Knoxville.

27. William G. McAdoo Diary, December 5,1867, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Charles McClung to Sue Ramsey, Eatonton, Georgia, June 8, 1866, Ramsey Family Papers, Special Collections, University of Teimessee Library, Knoxville; David Anderson Deaderick Journal, 1867, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; J.G.M. Ramsey to Lizzie, Bristol, October 12, 1864, Diary of Mrs. 437 Margaret Ramsey, J.G.M. Ramsey, Autobiography. Volume I, J.G.M. Ramsey Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; William G. McAdoo Diary, July 8, 1867, Floyd-McAdoo Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D C.; James W. Bellamy, "The Political Career of Landon Carter Haynes," unpublished thesis. University of Tennessee, 1952, pp. 74-75; Charles F. Bryan, "The Civil War in East Tennessee: A Social, Political, and Economic Study," unpublished dissertation. University of Tennessee, 1978, pp. 182-86. See also Joseph W. Lillard to Newton Lillard, Sweetwater, April 8, 1867, Lillard Family Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville; H. M. Brown to T.A.R. Nelson, Jonesborough, July 25,1865, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; B. D. Brabson to Oliver P. Temple, Winchester, December 27, 1865, W. L. Headrick to Temple, VameU’s Station, Georgia, September 15, 1865, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; William B. Reynolds to John, New York, January 17, 1865, William B. Reynolds Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; John Crozier Ramsey to J.G.M. Ramsey, Knoxville, October 3, 1865, J.G.M. Ramsey Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. For accounts of migrations by other groups during Reconstruction, see Daniel E. Sutherland, The Confederate Carpetbaggers (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988); Leon F. Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (New York: Knopf, 1979); Nell Irvin Painter, Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction (New York: Knopf., 1976).

28. David M. Key to Rufus T. Lenoir, Chattanooga, January 15, 1866, Lenoir Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Special Pardon from President Andrew Johnson, May 29, 1865, David M. Key Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; Lizzie Key to Sarah Lenoir, Loudon, January 14,1866, Lenoir Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill; David M. Key to William B. Stokes, Chattanooga, March 10,1870, William B. Stokes Correspondence, Termessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

29. Sullins, Recollections, pp. 260-61, 295; Ledger, United Confederate Veterans, May 7, 1908, Captain William Williams Stringfield, pp. 1-3, Hyatt Collections, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; William Williams Stringfield, "History of the Sixty-Ninth North Carolina," North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh; William Gibbs Allen, Supplemental Material, pp. 3-7, Confederate Collection, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville. 438 30. Brigadier General Alfred E. Jackson to Oliver P. Temple, Abingdon, Virginia, June 28, 1866, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville.

31. James Welch Patton, Unionism and Reconstruction in Tennessee (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934); Clifton R. Hall, Andrew Johnson: Militarv Governor of Teimessee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1916); Thomas B. Alexander, Political Reconstruction in Tennessee (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1950).

32. Hall, Johnson, pp. 32-156.

33. Hall, Johnson, pp. 124-26; Patton, Unionism. pp. 44-45.

34. Hall, Johnson, pp. 157-58; Patton, Unionism. pp. 348-50.

35. Alexander, Nelson, pp. 118-20; Alexander, Reconstruction, pp. 18-32.

36. Patton, Unionism, pp. 70-71, 83, 86-88, 92-93, 101-102; Coulter, Brownlow. pp. 302-03; Alexander, Reconstruction, pp. 73-77.

37. Patton, Unionism, pp. 103-14; Alexander, Nelson, pp. 122-23; Alexander, Reconstruction, pp. 33-48.

38. Patton, Unionism, pp. 114-18, 120-29, 135, 175-77, 189-95; Alexander, Reconstruction, pp. 99-110, 122-40.

39. Patton, Unionism, pp. 135, 175-77.

40. Patton, Unionism, p. 226; Alexander, Reconstruction, pp. 20-21, 198- 225; Alexander, Nelson, pp. 145-46; "Agreement Between W. B. Stokes and Gov. Senter," June 18, 1869, Lieutenant A. A. Carter to William B. Stokes, Nashville, August 11,1869, William B. Stokes Correspondence, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.

41. Alexander, Nelson, pp. 113-17, 128-41, 145-46, 158-66; Alexander, Reconstruction, pp. 163-75; "Protest," signed by William B. Campbell, T.A.R. Nelson, James P. Carter, John Williams, A. Blizzard, Henry Cooper, Bailie Peyton, John Lellyett, Emerson Etheridge, John B. Berryman, 1864, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; William B. Carter to Nelson, Lexington, January 19, 1864, T.A.R. Nelson Papers, McClung Collection, 439 Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville; William B. Carter to William B. Campbell, Columbus, Ohio, September 28, 1864, William B. Campbell Papers, Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham; Alexander, Reconstruction, pp. 39-42, 142, 207, 242; Steve Humphreys, That D -d Brownlow (Boone, North Carolina: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1978), pp. 343-66; Patton, Unionism, pp. 227-34; Rhoda Campbell Williams to Rufus Williams, Knoxville, May 1, 1864, November 15, 1864, John and Rhoda Campbell Williams Papers, McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville. For Unionists who supported the Lincoln Administration and then Brownlow, see Horace Maynard, "To the Slaveholders of Tennessee," July 4,1863, Horace Maynard Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Andrew Jackson Fletcher to Oliver P. Temple, Evansville, Indiana, July 22,1864, Oliver P. Temple Papers, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville; Fletcher to Joseph S. Fowler, Cleveland, May 29, 1865, Major General Alvin C. Gillem to Fowler, Chattanooga, December 19, 1865, Gillem to Fowler, Chattanooga, January 25, 1866, Gillem to Fowler, Chattanooga, February 8, 1866, Gillem to Fowler, Vicksburg, March 17, 1867, Joseph S. Fowler Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. CONCLUSION

The purpose of this dissertation has been to examine in detail the political and military conflict between Unionists and secessionists in East Tennessee and explore the way in which the Civil War was fought out in one region of the South.

It has discussed the aims and the methods of the East Tennesseans and the outcome of their struggle, and it has attempted to place the regional struggle within its national context and show the interaction between national policies and local events. These conclusions, then, will first summarize the nature and course of the conflict in East Tennessee and then examine the relationship between this conflict and the national war.

The war in East Tennessee was a product not only of national and local issues and but also political and personal ends. It was precipitated and shaped by the national war, and Unionists and secessionists fought in support of competing governments and nations. But the struggle in East Tennessee was also fueled by individual conflicts and economic and social clashes. The two factions in East

Tennessee struggled not only for Confederate or Union victory but also for local political dominance.

440 441 In other ways, also, the war for East Tennessee was a complex struggle.

It involved not only East Tennessee Unionists and secessionists but also the two

main armies and the two governments. Each faction in East Tennessee, of course,

allied with its friendly army, but the war was not simply a two-sided affair. The

aims of local leaders were not always congruent with national policies, and friction

between the two was not uncommon. Secessionists made frequent attempts to

manipulate state and military authorities for their own ends, while Unionists often

used their official positions and influence in ways that Federal authorities had not

intended. Partisan conflict hampered attempts to restore order in East Tennessee

and undermined the policies of the occupying authorities, and both armies

sometimes had to curb violence even by their own supporters.

Unionists and secessionists fought their war in many different ways. Each

side used the political system, and each employed conventional political methods

to build a party and maintain support. Each also turned to the courts and

attempted to prosecute and imprison enemy leaders. Both Unionists and

secessionists employed propaganda, within East Tennessee and in other areas, to

create sympathy for themselves and influence the policies of the national

governments. They also, of course, used violence, against each other as well as

against enemy soldiers. And both factions attempted to influence the conventional war. Unionists labored for two years to bring the Federal Army into East

Tennessee and gave Union forces information, supplies, and recruits. East 442 Tennessee secessionists, likewise, became spies, guides, and suppliers for the

Confederate forces.

At the center of the war in East Tennessee were the guerrilla bands. In

East Tennessee guerrillas carried out a number of activities. They bushwhacked enemy troops and harassed communications, and they had a significant, though narrow, impact on the main armies. More important, however, were their attempts to suppress enemy civilians and control political institutions and territory.

Unionist and secessionist bands threatened, beat, robbed, and killed persons in the opposite party, burned their homes, and attempted to drive them from East

Tennessee. East Tennessee guerrillas, thus, played very similar roles to those of the militia in the American Revolution. They served as auxiliaries to the main forces, controlled the dissident population, and harassed enemy operations.

The war between the guerrillas and the main armies was largely a stalemate. Guerrillas operated largely on the periphery of the main armies and had little impact on either Confederate or Union strategy or on force commitments to East Tennessee. But bushwhackers were effective in harassing the occupying troops and in complicating routine operations such as supply and communication. They had a powerful psychological effect on men and officers alike, and they made East Tennessee a difficult theater in which to operate.

The success of the soldiers in stemming guerrilla activity was also very mixed. Troops that were engaged in this service for any length of time developed effective methods and tactics, and they captured or killed dozens of guerrillas and 443 broke up numbers of guerrilla bands. But soldiers also frequently spent days

chasing bushwhackers to little effect. In all cases the military was a blunt

instrument, for troops were trained to fight a conventional battle on a large scale, not to run down small bands. The result was that counterguerrilla operations frequently resulted in extensive destruction and annoyance to the population.

Troops engaged in the counterguerrilla war suffered other handicaps as well. The regular forces generally could control any given area that they desired and could defeat the guerrillas in any open encounter. But neither side had sufficient manpower to control nearly all of East Tennessee, and often the guerrilla war was given a low priority. Union and Confederate commanders devised a variety of compensations for these deficiencies, such as recruiting native troops through Home Guard units, employing provost marshals as a police force, imposing collective sanctions on the population at large, and carrying out periodic large-scale militaiy operations designed to intimidate the opposition. The record of the first two was mixed, but the last two were in many ways counterproductive, tending as they did to alienate the population.

Neither Confederate nor Union authorities were very successful in ending resistance or suppressing violence. In the first eighteen months of the war

Confederate authorities made impressive efforts to concihate the Unionist population, even at the expense of the war effort. They chose not to crush

Unionist organizations in the summer and fall of 1861 or to impose strict measures such as a test oath. They also suspended conscription and refused. 444 except in the aftermath of the uprising, to resort to mass arrests. Confederate commanders, particularly Brigadier General Felix K. Zollicoffer, Major General

Edmund Kirby Smith, and Major General Sam Jones, became in effect advocates for the loyalist population and stood between the Unionists and calls for harsher measures from both Richmond and local secessionists. Even so. Confederate policy suffered from three critical flaws: a misunderstanding of the region’s

Unionism, a contempt for the Unionist population, and inconsistencies. It is almost certain that no policy, no matter how lenient or how harsh, would have significantly changed the situation in East Tennessee, but a policy that allowed the

Unionist population to occupy essentially a neutral position might have moderated the worst of the resistance. Conversely, a sweeping policy of mass arrests might have controlled the population, though at a high cost.

Federal authorities made few attempts to conciliate the secessionist population. Instead, they relied on loyalist forces, oaths and mass arrests, and a network of provost marshals to control dissent. They established very strict standards of loyalty, and they freely jailed or exiled anyone considered a possible threat. In some ways this policy was successful, for the secessionist population hardly challenged Federal rule. But the harshness of Union policy aroused great bitterness, even among some loyalists. Furthermore, Federal authorities failed either to protect their own supporters against Confederate bands or to curb the depredations of Union troops, both which cost them support. 445 The outcome of the war in East Tennessee was a decisive victory for the

Unionists. Although their attempts to seize control of the whole state failed,

within their own region the Unionists could claim a clear triumph. They had

exacted a terrible vengeance on their enemies and gained some vindication for

their stance in 1861. They had also, through violence, legal harassment, and

disfranchisement, driven thousands of secessionists from the region and excluded

their enemies from the political process at a critical time. Though some

secessionists would eventually return, others would not, and the Unionist faction

would continue to dominate East Tennessee long after the war. Led by Leonidas

C. Houk, Unionists-turned-Republicans established a powerful political machine

and dominated most elections during the 1870s and 1880s. [1]

The Unionists also won the propaganda war. Brownlow had fired the first shot in 1862 with his Rise. Progress, and Decline of Secession and with his speaking tour of Northern cities. He was followed by the Reverend Nathaniel G.

Taylor, who went North in 1864 and 1865 to raise money for relief work in East

Tennessee. Taylor reinforced the impressions that Brownlow had created of

Unionist suffering and Confederate cruelty. Then in the decade after the war’s end two more accounts of the East Termessee war, Daniel Ellis’ Thrilling

Adventures of Daniel Ellis and J. S. Hurlbut’s Historv of the Rebellion in Bradlev

Countv. were published, followed eventually by Samuel P. Scott and Samuel W.

Angel’s Historv of the Thirteenth Termessee Cavalry ^Unionk These works were all highly partisan, but they were also entertaining, and their tales of Unionist 446 heroics and litanies of Confederate atrocities inevitably created sympathies for the loyalists. [2]

The most influential Unionist works, however, were Thomas William

Humes’ Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee and Oliver P. Temple’s East Tennessee in the Civil War and Notable Men of Tennessee from 1833 to 1875. Both Humes and Temple assumed an air of scholarly detachment and moderation, and both claimed to give an objective account of the East Tennessee war. Temple was in fact a careful scholar, and his recreations of certain events, such as the bridgeburnings in 1861 and the siege of Knoxville, were meticulous. Humes’ and

Temple’s accounts were in fact largely true and have been confirmed by other sources. What they failed to do was tell the whole truth. Neither Humes nor

Temple revealed the full extent of Unionist violence against secessionists, and what they did admit they blamed largely on men from the lowest levels of society.

Temple, particularly, refused to acknowledge the role that he and other leaders had played in arousing the Unionist population or to admit that the Unionist leadership bore some responsibility for the violence against secessionists. What emerged most clearly from these works was Confederate oppression, while the sins of the Unionists were obscured. [3]

East Tennessee secessionists, conversely, had almost no one to write their version of the war. Works giving the Confederate history of Rhea, Meigs, and

Polk counties were published early in the twentieth century, but these were narrow studies with little impact. The secessionist silence was somewhat surprising, for 447 one of the leading historians of antebellum Tennessee was none other than

Knoxville secessionist J.G.M. Ramsey, whose Annals of Tennessee, published in

1853, was highly regarded. Ramsey was so shattered by the losses of the war and his exile, however, that he was never able to resume his academic work in a serious manner. It was the Unionist version of the war, therefore, that was heard most, and this fact has inevitably colored all subsequent histories. [3]

In the process of studying the war in East Tennessee, this dissertation has examined several issues that are central to the whole American Civil War. It is true that conclusions drawn from the East Tennessee conflict are not necessarily applicable to other regions of the Confederacy. Even so, there is great value in viewing the war from the perspective of one small region, and therefore these conclusions offer some propositions concerning the meaning of the East Tennessee war.

One conclusion that emerges from this study is the complexity of the guerrilla war. The guerrillas of East Tennessee defy classification either as military irregulars or as common criminals. The guerrilla war was, at once, a military, political, and social phenomenon, and bushwhacker activities spanned the spectrum from ambitious military operations and county-wide campaigns of political terror to murder, theft, and other criminal acts. Likewise, the motives of this war ranged from defeat of the opposing army to local political control to personal revenge and selfish gain. The war in East Tennessee may have been more politically-directed than guerrilla conflicts elsewhere, and no doubt the exact 448 composition of aims and actions was very different in each region that experienced such conflicts. In every case, however, it is important that Civil War guerrillas be studied within their own political, social, and cultural context.

The conflict in East Tennessee also provides evidence for the importance of ideological factors in creating and sustaining the American Civil War.

Unionists and secessionists divided along many hnes, from economic to political to personal. At the core of the conflict, however, was a perceived opposition in values and ways of life. The divisions between Unionists and secessionists became so intense that the two sides viewed each other as totally separate groups, concluded that they could not both live in this region, and committed the most terrible atrocities against each other. This behavior is strikingly similar to that

^cen in many religious and ethnic conflicts, and it demands further research and explanation. The Unionism of East Tennessee was a peculiar phenomenon, however, both surprisingly strong and startlingly fragile. It was powerful enough to resist secession, sustain a war against the Confederacy, and send thousands of recruits to the Federal lines. At the same time, it was not strong enough to withstand the strains of emancipation and other wartime policies or provide a foundation for radical reconstruction. In part, it was the Southernism of the East

Tennessee Unionists that turned many against those leaders who attempted to remake the South’s way of life. In part also it was the very same political philosophy that first raised opposition to secession, the conservative Whiggery of

T.A.R. Nelson and John Baxter, that prevented them from supporting the radical 449 political and military policies of President Abraham Lincoln, Military Governor

Andrew Johnson, and Governor Brownlow, The political transformation of the

Civil War left men such as Nelson and Baxter with no political home. They could not embrace Republicanism, but they also could not join with their lifelong opponents in the Democratic Party, and they could be at home neither in the

North nor the South.

A third fact that the East Tennessee war suggests is the importance of institutions in controlling the use of force. One of the central causes of the intense conflict in East Tennessee was the weakness of party institutions and the hostilities created by political contests in the antebellum period. Likewise, it was the personalization of the war itself, and the lack of established institutions to charmel the violence, that made the guerrilla war so terrible. The conventional war was marred by numerous atrocities, but it was distinct from the guerrilla war and was fought by generally recognized standards. Sadly, in East Tennessee, as elsewhere, it was the standards of the guerrillas that triumphed, and soldiers, instead of maintaining their identity, descended to the level of their bushwhacker enemies.

Only one institution in East Tennessee, the courts, proved somewhat resistant to manipulation for partisan purposes and helped moderate the conflict.

Dozens of Unionists found refuge in the Confederate District Court in 1861 and

1862, and Confederate justices generally refused to cooperate with attempted persecutions of Unionists. It was this factor that drove Confederate commanders 450 to request a declaration of martial law in 1862. Conversely, during reconstruction

the Federal District Court undermined the attempted prosecution of secessionists for treason, and even the state and county courts eventually blocked attempts at revenge. The courts, particularly at the county level, could be temporarily corrupted, but in the end the ethic of justice and the rule of law won out.

A final conclusion that emerges is the instability of antebellum East

Tennessee. The conflict in East Tennessee was a product not only of the national crisis but also of political conflicts, personal grievances, resentments between slaveholders and nonslaveholders, and perhaps regional hostilities in the period before the war. The actual extent of division in East Tennessee, the roots of these divisions, the effectiveness or lack thereof of institutions and communities in moderating those conflicts, and the extent of class conflict and violence in the antebellum period are all topics that deserve further study. 451

NOTES

1. Gordon B. McKinney, Southern Mountain Republicans. 1865-1900: Politics and the Appalachian Community (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), pp. 9-11, 26-33, 33-41, 77-86, 111-12, 143-51.

2. William G. Brownlow, Sketches of the Rise. Progress, and Decline of Secession (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1862); Daniel Ellis, Thrilling Adventures of Daniel Ellis (New York: Harper, 1867); J. S. Hurlbut, History of the Rebellion in Bradley Countv. East Tennessee (Indianapolis: Downey & Brouse, 1866); Samuel W. Scott and Samuel P. Angel, Historv of the Thirteenth Regiment. Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry. U.S.A. (Knoxville: n.p., 1903).

3. Thomas William Humes, The Loval Mountaineers of Tennessee (Knoxville: Ogden Brothers, 1888); Oliver P. Temple, East Tennessee and the Civil War (Cincinnati: The Robert Clarks Company, Publishers, 1899); Oliver P. Temple, Notable Men of Tennessee from 1833-1875 (New York: The Cosmopolitan Press, 1912).

4. V. C. Allen, Rhea and Meigs Counties (Tennessee! in the Confederate War (n.p.: The Author, 1908); A. J. Williams, Confederate Historv of Polk Countv. Tennessee. 1860-1866 (Nashville: McQuiddy Printing Company, 1923). APPENDIX A

CROP PROFILE, TENNESSEE, 1860

EAST TENNESSEE

COUNTY TOBACCO COTTONWHEATCORN

ANDERSON 16 0.83 67 572 BLEDSOE 32 0.00 87 1456 BLOUNT 14 0.01 108 567 BRADLEY 12 1.18 125 662 CAMPBELL 15 0.00 48 572 CARTER 15 0.00 121 400 CLAIBORNE 14 0.20 59 549 COCKE 13 0.00 84 587 CUMBERLAND 12 0.00 12 307 GRAINGER 69 0.01 128 781 GREENE 11 0.00 154 546 HAMILTON 16 0.11 148 1139 HANCOCK 26 0.00 62 648 HAWKINS 32 0.00 170 918 JEFFERSON 30 0.01 136 738 JOHNSON 2 0.00 53 230 KNOX 20 0.00 107 604 MARION 43 0.00 78 1071 MCMINN 17 0.01 143 648 MEIGS 16 0.39 106 864 MONROE 37 4.81 110 516 MORGAN 33 0.00 22 273 POLK 12 0.10 127 714 RHEA 26 0.00 96 889 ROANE 98 0.24 126 915 SCOTT 12 0.00 21 392 SEQUATCHIE 25 0.00 50 734 SEVIER 15 0.03 68 488

452 453 SULLIVAN 121 0.03 178 499 UNION 6 0.00 53 476 WASHINGTON 29 0.00 158 378

MIDDLE TENNESSEE

COUNTY TOBACCO COTTONWHEATCORN

BEDFORD 147 0.14 67 572 CANNON 33 0.01 48 499 CHEATHAM 648 0.02 22 587 COFFEE 12 0.02 44 614 DAVIDSON 122 0.37 61 978 DEKALB 75 0.00 44 582 DICKSON 564 0.03 22 484 FENTRESS 32 0.00 22 281 FRANKLIN 14 0.15 56 722 GILES 4 7.52 56 732 GRUNDY 11 0.01 40 623 HARDIN 7 0.95 26 527 HICKMAN 54 0.17 23 722 HUMPHREYS 206 0.27 23 564 JACKSON 816 0.00 33 560 LAWRENCE 14 85.13 34 423 LEWIS 7 0.00 33 609 LINCOLN 9 2.01 62 756 MACON 1687 5.08 24 391 MARSHALL 93 0.64 64 731 MAURY 385 3.26 48 1011 MONTGOMERY 4810 0.23 114 751 OVERTON 98 0.00 52 559 ROBERTSON 1826 0.00 127 747 RUTHERFORD 104 7.44 91 950 SMITH 1716 0.01 48 646 STEWART 1127 1.14 20 616 SUMNER 740 0.24 70 772 VAN BUREN 26 0.04 46 669 WARREN 8 0.03 55 593 WAYNE 4 0.26 35 543 WHITE 33 0.01 41 629 WILLIAMSON 2043 2.01 92 1082 WILSON 394 0.01 75 801 454 WEST TENNESSEE

COUNTY TOBACCO COTTONWHEATCORN

BENTON 1951 0.00 27 540 CARROLL 2125 3.10 52 584 DECATUR 446 0.83 27 622 DYER 3777 1.39 51 833 FAYETTE 1 37.45 63 906 GIBSON 1085 4.27 55 587 HARDEMAN 1 22.21 45 735 HAYWOOD 12 26.43 52 820 HENDERSON 58 5.45 28 443 HENRY 3445 0.15 78 656 LAUDERDALE 179 13.90 40 815 MADISON 66 16.35 44 637 MCNAIRY 6 5.36 36 522 OBION 1211 0.14 47 686 PERRY 4 0.00 28 949 SHELBY 2 24.27 36 806 TIPTON 9 17.41 57 721 WEAKLEY 4567 0.03 64 701 APPENDIX B

FARM PROFILE, TCNNESSEE, 1860

EAST TENNESSEE

COUNTY % IMPROVED % 500+ AVG. PER ACRES ACRES ACRE

ANDERSON 23.9 0.83 $ 6.34 BLEDSOE 26.5 4.63 $ 7.17 BLOUNT 33.3 0.61 $11.03 BRADLEY 39.1 1.10 $13.05 CAMPBELL 25.1 0.81 $ 5.57 CARTER 29.3 0.40 $10.18 CLAIBORNE 26.0 0.60 $ 6.30 COCKE 29.8 0.19 $10.21 CUMBERLAND 7.8 0.38 $ 1.51 GRAINGER 38.9 1.66 $ 9.45 GREENE 43.9 0.65 $14.60 HAMILTON 26.5 1.51 $10.08 HANCOCK 31.9 0.44 $ 8.88 HAWKINS 33.6 2.93 $ 9.54 JEFFERSON 42.9 0.41 $16.26 JOHNSON 24.9 0.00 $ 7.65 KNOX 35.4 0.54 $13.87 MARION 15.5 2.02 $ 4.07 MCMINN 39.1 1.09 $10.68 MEIGS 32.2 0.52 $12.19 MONROE 32.4 1.00 $10.18 MORGAN 4.3 0.00 $ 1.23 POLK 24.0 1.26 $ 8.86 RHEA 27.0 1.51 $ 9.77 ROANE 26.2 1.82 $ 9.34 SCOTT 11.4 0.00 $ 1.73 SEQUATCHIE 16.2 1.57 $ 3.83

455 456 SEVIER 24.5 0.44 $ 6.77 SULLIVAN 41.4 0.80 $12.28 UNION 29.7 0.42 $ 6.83 WASHINGTON 33.7 0.80 $13.44

MIDDLE TENNESSEE

COUNTY % IMPROVED % 500+ AVG. PER ACRESACRES ACRE

BEDFORD 66.7 1.85 $25.51 CANNON 36.7 0.18 $16.04 CHEATHAM 25.9 0.67 $10.61 COFFEE 34.3 0.12 $10.98 DAVIDSON 53.4 2.37 $55.98 DEKALB 29.2 0.11 $10.75 DICKSON 19.3 0.29 $ 5.37 FENTRESS 11.1 0.00 $ 1.59 FRANKLIN 36.1 1.52 $11.74 GILES 50.1 3.89 $23.85 GRUNDY 17.8 1.09 $ 5.19 HARDIN 17.7 0.40 $4.69 HICKMAN 19.4 0.61 $ 6.34 HUMPHREYS 15.0 0.10 $ 5.52 JACKSON 25.5 0.77 $ 6.47 LAWRENCE 18.2 0.00 $ 5.26 LEWIS 15.1 0.00 $ 4.51 LINCOLN 51.4 2.37 $20.80 MACON 27.5 0.00 $ 7.54 MARSHALL 53.7 1.26 $25.09 MAURY 44.8 1.35 $32.59 MONTGOMERY 39.3 3.05 $19.81 OVERTON 28.5 0.32 $ 6.42 PUTNAM 22.3 0.10 $ 4.02 ROBERTSON 44.0 1.28 $18.59 RUTHERFORD 45.6 3.16 $33.32 SMITH 53.1 0.81 $19.61 STEWART 18.4 0.57 $4.87 SUMNER 47.2 1.25 $21.34 VAN BUREN 13.2 0.00 $ 3.15 WARREN 26.3 0.89 $7.60 WAYNE 19.7 0.22 $ 5.52 457 WHITE 36.2 0.40 $ 7.86 WILLIAMSON 47.4 3.46 $28.98 WILSON 64.1 1.11 $31.52

WEST TENNESSEE

COUNTY % IMPROVED % 500+ AVG. PER ACRES ACRES ACRE

BENTON 17.7 0.00 $ 4.27 CARROLL 34.7 0.50 $ 9.83 DECATUR 20.3 0.55 $4.42 DYER 31.5 0.29 $18.71 FAYETTE 51.1 9.45 $12.89 GIBSON 32.4 0.65 $18.02 HARDEMAN 33.9 4.97 $ 9.62 HAYWOOD 39.2 6.58 $18.79 HENDERSON 29.0 0.98 $ 5.34 HENRY 34.7 0.68 $11.92 LAUDERDALE 24.6 0.86 $11.88 MADISON 43.7 3.45 $13.81 MCNAIRY 23.5 0.35 $ 5.37 OBION 24.6 0.50 $14.17 PERRY 15.5 0.00 $ 5.22 SHELBY 42.7 6.70 $29.91 TIPTON 32.6 3.72 $12.41 WEAKLEY 33.7 0.08 $12.39 APPENDIX C

TENNESSEE, 1860, MANUFACTURING

EAST TENNESSEE

COUNTYCAPITAL PER PRGDl CAPITA

BLEDSOE 2000 0.53 7,510 BLOUNT 168,800 14.18 299,618 BRADLEY 85,900 8.16 270,600 CAMPBELL 3,875 0.61 5,350 CARTER 67,260 9.96 154,144 COCKE 25,100 2.63 97,625 CUMBERLAND 0 0.00 0 GRAINGER 37,000 3.74 93.634 GREENE 129,510 7.31 221,546 HAMILTON 209,300 17.68 395,380 HANCOCK 9,715 1.43 15,344 HAWKINS 83,200 5.84 129,180 JEFFERSON 175,000 12.55 260,465 JOHNSON 27,600 5.77 47,440 KNOX 348,580 17.05 586,498 MARION 665,550 120.75 428,974 MCMINN 238,360 20.47 267,868 MEIGS 15,000 3.72 12,000 MONROE 41,750 3.79 84,100 MORGAN 37,800 11.69 27,700 POLK 2,700,000 325.62 404,000 RHEA 0 0.00 0 ROANE 337,970 28.56 294,925 SCOTT 0 0.00 0 SEQUATCHIE 7,000 3.65 5,600 SEVIER 33,000 3.88 83,551 SULUVAN 49,800 3.99 72,795

458 459 UNION 27,000 4.55 23,700 WASHINGTON 281,985 20.32 691,521

MIDDLE TENNESSEE

COUNTYCAPITALPER PRODUC CAPITA

BEDFORD 103,900 7.00 105,925 CANNON 55,300 6.48 105,869 CHEATHAM 148,435 27.61 114,455 COFFEE 54,100 6.63 112,295 DAVIDSON 1,520,000 47.11 2,076,876 DEKALB 47,750 5.00 75,970 DICKSON 135,200 17.38 104,600 FENTRESS 0 0.00 0 FRANKLIN 178,850 17.37 299,787 GILES 181,619 11.86 362,292 GRUNDY 19,070 6.75 43,900 HARDIN 82,900 8.64 100,650 HICKMAN 99,400 13.15 77,623 HUKPHREYS 22,400 2.93 33,365 JACKSON 0 0.00 0 LAWRENCE 245,800 30.12 213,670 LEWIS 41,200 20.66 32,400 LINCOLN 105,127 6.58 173,374 MACON 1,150 0.18 3,800 MARHSALL 44,490 4.40 115,860 MAURY 352,899 19.78 535,511 MONTGMERY 1,443,393 127.27 1,521,082 OVERTON 3,100 0.27 6,310 PUTNAM 0 0.00 0 ROBERTSON 186,738 17.95 279,678 RUTHERFORD 142,300 9.53 252,600 SMITH 44,500 3.67 167,750 STEWART 637,150 85.17 657,971 SUMNER 136,600 9.53 318,983 VAN BUREN 0 0.00 0 WARREN 29,000 3.29 47,818 WAYNE 148,300 18.90 130,252 WHITE 48,400 5.88 66,815 460 WILLIAMSON 44,950 3.92 185,150 WILSON 185,055 10.22 517,691

WEST TENNESSEE

COUNTY CAPITALPER PRODUCTION CAPITA

BENTON 19,700 2.48 63,370 CARROLL 55,309 4.14 193,578 DECATUR 11,950 2.18 18,800 DYER 72,100 9.13 129,700 FAYETTE 58,990 6.66 200,433 GIBSON 97,700 6.25 105,330 HARDEMAN 130,525 12.39 194,420 HAYWOOD 172,995 21.08 371,276 HENDERSON 12,300 1.10 14,000 HENRY 99,400 7.31 155,200 LAUDERDALE 24,300 5.16 45,925 MADISON 124,900 10.84 252,650 MCNAIRY 53,500 4.17 69,494 OBION 49,485 4.75 155,065 PERRY 102,500 18.66 113,206 SHELBY 829,700 26.65 1,689,292 TIPTON 27,528 5.08 51,900 WEAKLEY 108,925 7.78 214,682 APPENDIX D

SLAVEHOLDING, TENNESSEE, 1860

EAST TENNESSEE

COUNTY % SLAVEHOLDERS %PLANTERS % SLAVES

ANDERSON 9.41 0.09 8.25 BLEDSOE 17.29 0.75 15.45 BLOUNT 11.54 0.43 10.27 BRADLEY 14.20 0.23 10.02 CAMPBELL 5.89 0.19 5.45 CARTER 7.12 0.26 5.25 CLAIBORNE 8.91 0.13 7.71 COCKE 9.97 0.23 8.21 CUMBERLAND 5.86 0.18 3.50 GRAINGER 11.26 0.34 9.72 GREENE 9.70 0.06 6.82 HAMILTON 13.03 0.45 10.71 HANCOCK 5.87 0.09 3.50 HAWKINS 12.72 0.49 11.92 JEFFERSON 13.82 1.11 13.06 JOHNSON 7.19 0.00 4.64 KNOX 12.61 0.31 10.39 MARION 12.63 0.51 10.95 MCMINN 19.85 0.48 14.09 MEIGS 15.63 0.67 13.67 MONROE 12.67 0.60 12.69 MORGAN 4.98 0.18 3.58 POLK 5.11 0.28 4.99 RHEA 13.24 0.64 12.32 ROANE 12.97 0.62 12.87 SCOTT 1.75 0.18 1.68 SEQUATCHIE 10.03 0.30 9.48 SEVIER 6.57 0.27 5.90

461 462 SULLIVAN 11.25 0.23 7.93 UNION 5.36 0.00 2.98 WASHINGTON 9.73 0.08 6.42

MIDDLE TENNESSEE

COUNTY % SLAVEHOLDERS % PLANTERS % SLAVES

BEDFORD 35.24 2.34 31.25 CANNON 13.73 0.20 10.24 CHEATHAM 29.61 2.13 25.93 COFFEE 21.11 0.48 15.78 DAVIDSON 37.85 2.43 31.43 DEKALB 13.87 0.24 9.69 DICKSON 22.69 2.56 25.07 FENTRESS 6.82 0.00 3.70 FRANKLIN 31.10 2.11 25.64 GILES 44.14 4.97 41.46 GRUNDY 12.00 0.38 8.60 HARDIN 16.66 0.83 14.47 HICKMAN 22.99 1.28 18.93 HUMPHREYS 21.36 0.77 16.08 JACKSON 12.11 0.32 10.34 LAWRENCE 16.55 0.71 12.50 LEWIS 11.80 0.84 11.02 LINCOLN 30.90 2.19 29.99 MACON 16.69 0.17 12.74 MARSHALL 38.29 1.68 30.70 MAURY 46.77 5.92 45.09 MONTGOMERY 46.61 6.78 45.72 OVERTON 12.09 0.20 8.60 PUTNAM 10.78 0.15 7.97 ROBERTSON 37.64 1.70 31.84 RUTHERFORD 47.66 6.70 46.51 SMITH 29.33 1.26 25.85 STEWART 19.74 1.64 24.41 SUMNER 36.62 3.04 34.95 VAN BUREN 8.98 0.50 9.26 WARREN 22.85 1.06 20.81 WAYNE 17.70 0.37 13.92 WHITE 16.90 0.28 12.21 463 WILLIAMSON 57.29 8.16 51.90 WILSON 41.30 1.81 30.55

WEST TENNESSEE

COUNTY % SLAVEHOLDERS % PLANTERS % SLAVES

BENTON 8.20 0.22 6.31 CARROLL 29.58 1.30 23.30 DECATUR 13.92 0.41 12.49 DYER 28.82 1.94 25.07 FAYETTE 70.78 14.86 63.60 GIBSON 34.96 1.66 41.46 HARDEMAN 35.73 5.95 41.02 HAYWOOD 55.87 10.98 57.33 HENDERSON 24.95 1.95 22.66 HENRY 29.62 2.36 28.90 LAUDERDALE 35.77 3.89 37.76 MADISON 46.76 5.77 46.69 MCNAIRY 15.33 0.43 12.90 OBION 28.35 0.88 18.72 PERRY 12.05 0.20 9.07 SHELBY 33.50 3.47 35.25 TIPTON 48.85 6.59 49.40 WEAKLEY 26.94 1.34 23.13 APPENDIX E

WEALTH PER FREE INHABITANT, TENNESSEE, 1860

EAST TENNESSEE

COUNTY REAL PERSONAL AGGREGATE

ANDERSON $184.27 $187.00 $371.27 BLEDSOE $270.69 $314.23 $584.92 BLOUNT $314.89 $321.96 $636.85 BRADLEY $296.79 $203.07 $499.86 CAMPBELL $130.96 $91.30 $222.26 CARTER $196.75 $146.73 $343.48 CLAIBORNE $178.37 $184.94 $363.31 COCKE $227.32 $242.01 $469.33 CUMBERLAND $ 94.51 $95.86 $190.37 GRAINGER $211.71 $234.26 $445.97 GREENE $313.92 $208.94 $522.87 HAMILTON $308.87 $262.24 $571.11 HANCOCK $147.42 $129.75 $277.18 HAWKINS $241.64 $241.46 $483.10 JEFFERSON $345.99 $383.97 $729.96 JOHNSON $183.55 $152.36 $335.90 KNOX $351.58 $283.42 $635.00 MARION $195.01 $202.86 $397.87 MCMINN $297.86 $272.77 $570.63 MEIGS $341.16 $378.69 $719.85 MONROE $337.03 $298.00 $635.03 MORGAN $145.48 $130.04 $275.52 POLK $141.27 $99.73 $241.00 RHEA $281.65 $286.51 $568.16 ROANE $331.86 $311.28 $643.14 SCOTT $ 89.69 $91.22 $180.91 SEQUATCHIE $208.72 $238.64 $447.36 SEVIER $211.41 $191.02 $402.43

464 465 SULLIVAN $262.11 $209.64 $471.75 UNION $150.54 $108.30 $258.84 WASHINGTON $341.39 $222.24 $563.63

MIDDLE TENNESSEE

COUNTY REALPERSONAL AGGREGATE

BEDFORD $616.63 $477.84 $1094.47 CANNON $317.97 $313.62 $631.59 CHEATHAM $263.73 $392.03 $665.76 COFFEE $260.54 $271.17 $531.71 DAVIDSON $1490.15 $1141.12 $2631.27 DEKALB $211.76 $255.52 $467.28 DICKSON $239.53 $402.29 $641.82 FENTRESS $ 96.36 $142.67 $239.03 FRANKLIN $354.82 $465.73 . $820.55 GILES $730.68 $994.89 $1725.57 GRUNDY $199.12 $311.20 $510.32 HARDIN $205.92 $341.89 $547.81 HICKMAN $248.23 $411.07 $659.30 HUMPHREYS $210.08 $229.40 $439.48 JACKSON $192.22 $244.82 $437.04 LAWRENCE $185.99 $285.63 $471.62 LEWIS $202.05 $259.48 $461.53 LINCOLN $492.49 $525.14 $1017.63 MACON $198.59 $293.05 $491.64 MARSHALL $565.30 $754.46 $1319.76 MAURY $990.00 $1262.05 $2252.05 MONTGOMERY $926.56 $955.15 $1881.71 OVERTON $165.31 $191.87 $357.18 PUTNAM $118.08 $170.44 $288.52 ROBERTSON $566.22 $693.05 $1259.27 RUTHERFORD $1055.29 $1194.30 $2249.59 SMITH $364.10 $519.47 $883.57 STEWART $225.73 $361.35 $587.08 SUMNER $585.03 $713.83 $1298.87 VAN BUREN $164.20 $178.25 $342.45 WARREN $289.15 $417.61 $706.76 WAYNE $202.23 $306.22 $508.45 WHITE $194.49 $246.76 $441.24 466

WILLIAMSON $1023.30 $1285.98 $2309.28 WILSON $685.40 $826.56 $1511.96

WEST TENNESSEE

COUNTY REAL PERSONAL AGGREGATE

BENTON $127.11 $198.08 $325.19 CARROLL $234.60 $390.32 $624.92 DECATUR $175.87 $305.27 $481.14 DYER $456.04 $539.52 $995.56 FAYETTE $941.80 $2357.05 $3298.85 GIBSON $440.10 $569.67 $1009.77 HARDEMAN $462.62 $1089.67 $1552.29 HAYWOOD $1041.80 $1703.06 $2744.87 HENDERSON $201.05 $420.52 $621.57 HENRY $362.09 $627.06 $989.15 LAUDERDALE $442.65 $910.90 $1353.55 MADISON $683.91 $935.20 $1619.11 MCNAIRY $189.51 $330.77 $520.28 OBION $444.48 $359.51 $803.99 PERRY $191.83 $198.90 $390.73 SHELBY $1497.36 $1125.79 $2623.15 TIPTON $552.65 $1099.00 $1651.65 WEAKLEY $304.68 $454.56 $759.24 APPENDIX F

VOTE ON SECESSION, TENNESSEE, JUNE 1861

EAST TENNESSEE

COUNTY YES % NO %

ANDERSON 97 7.1 1278 92.9 BLEDSOE 197 28.3 500 71.7 BLOUNT 418 19.1 1766 80.9 BRADLEY 507 26.8 1382 73.2 CAMPBELL 59 5.6 1000 94.4 CARTER 86 6.0 1343 94.0 CLAIBORNE 250 16.7 1243 83.3 COCKE 518 30.4 1185 69.6 CUMBERLAND NA NA NA NA GRAINGER 586 28.2 1492 71.8 GREEN 744 21.7 2691 78.3 HAMILTON 854 40.4 1260 59.6 HANCOCK 279 30.7 630 69.3 HAWKINS 908 38.3 1460 61.7 JEFFERSON 603 23.3 1987 76.7 JOHNSON 111 12.4 787 87.6 KNOX 1214 27.6 3196 72.4 MARION 414 40.8 600 59.2 MCMINN 904 44.1 1144 55.9 MEIGS 481 64.3 267 35.7 MONROE 1096 58.6 774 41.4 MORGAN 50 7.4 630 92.6 POLK 738 70.0 317 30.0 RHEA 360 64.1 202 35.9 ROANE 454 22.5 1568 77.5 SCOTT 19 3.5 521 96.5

467 468 SEQUATCHIE 153 60.5 100 39.5 SEVIER 60 3.8 1528 96.2 SULLIVAN 1586 71.7 627 28.3 UNIONNA NA NANA WASHINGTON 1022 41.4 1445 58.6

MIDDLE TENNESSEE

COUNTYYES % NO %

BEDFORD 1595 68.7 727 31.3 CANNON 1149 90.0 127 10.0 CHEATHAM 702 92.7 55 7.3 COFFEE 1276 98.0 26 2.0 DAVIDSON 5635 93.3 402 6.7 DEKALB 883 57.9 642 42.1 DICKSON 1141 94.1 72 5.9 FENTRESS 128 16.4 651 83.6 FRANKLIN 1652 100.0 0 0.0 GILES 2458 99.6 11 0.4 GRUNDY 528 98.3 9 1.7 HARDIN 498 32.1 1051 67.9 HICKMAN 1400 99.8 3 0.2 HUMPHREYS 1042 100.0 0 0.0 JACKSON 1483 67.5 714 32.5 LAWRENCE 1124 93.7 75 6.3 LEWIS 223 94.1 14 5.9 LINCOLN 2912 100.0 0 0.0 MACON 447 39.1 697 60.1 MARSHALL 1642 94.2 101 5.8 MAURY 2731 97.9 58 2.1 MONTGOMERY 2631 98.8 33 1.2 OVERTON 1471 80.2 364 19.8 PUTNAMNA NANANA ROBERTSON 3839 99.6 17 0.4 RUTHERFORD 2392 97.0 73 3.0 SMITH 1249 64.9 676 35.1 STEWART 1839 94.9 99 5.1 SUMNER 6465 98.9 69 1.1 VAN BUREN 308 96.0 13 4.0 WARREN 1419 99.2 12 0.8 469 WAYNE 409 31.1 905 68.9 WHITE 1370 91.9 121 8.1 WILLIAMSON 1949 98.6 28 1.4 WILSON 2329 86.8 353 13.2

WEST TENNESSEE

COUNTYYES % NO %

BENTON 798 77.8 228 22.2 CARROLL 967 41.8 1349 58.2 DECATUR 310 36.0 550 64.0 DYER 811 87.5 116 12.5 FAYETTE 1364 98.3 23 1.7 GIBSON 1999 88.2 268 11.8 HARDEMAN 1526 98.1 29 1.9 HAYWOOD 930 87.0 139 13.0 HENDERSON 801 44.2 1013 55.8 HENRY 1746 84.6 317 15.4 LAUDERDALE 763 99.1 7 0.9 MADISON 2754 99.3 20 0.7 MCNAIRY 1318 69.2 586 30.8 OBION 2996 97.9 64 2.1 PERRY 780 82.3 168 17.7 SHELBY 7132 99.9 5 0.1 TIPTON 943 98.3 16 1.7 WEAKLEY 1189 49.7 1201 50.3 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARCHIVAL SOURCES

NATIONAL ARCHIVES, WASHINGTON, D C.

Record Group 109, Confederate Military Records, Department of East Tennessee.

Record Group 393, Records of U.S. Army Continental Commands, 1821-1920, District of East Tennessee.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES, SOUTHEAST REGION, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Record Group 21, United States District Court, Eastern District, Tennessee, Knoxville.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, MANUSCRIPT DIVISION, WASHINGTON, D.C.

John Emerson Anderson Memoir. William H. Bradbury Papers. William G. Brownlow Papers. Horace Capron Papers. David Anderson Deaderick Papers. William Franklin Draper Letters. Robert Edwin Jameson Letters. August Valentine Kautz Papers. Daniel Larned Papers. Marshall Mortimer Miller Papers.

470 471 Orlando M. Poe Papers. Richard Henry Pratt Papers. Francis Bowes Sayre Papers. Matthew Simpson Papers. William Farrar Smith Papers. Spaulding Family Papers. Lyman Potter Spencer Diary. Arthur Vanhorn Papers. Harvey Washington Wiley Papers. James Harrison Wilson Papers.

TENNESSEE STATE LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES

William Gibbs Allen Memoir, Confederate Collection. David Shires Myers Bodenhamer Memoir, Confederate Collection. James P. Brownlow Papers, Small Collections. Chapman Family Papers. Clift Family Papers. Mary E. Couch Scrapbook, Civil War Collection. Henry M. Doak Memoirs. Doak Family Papers. Stockly Donelson Papers, Small Collections. Fergusson Family Papers. Jill Garrett Collection. William P. Grohse Papers. John Calvin Gruar Papers, Civil War Collection. Joel Haley, Jr. Letters, Civil War Collection. Isham Green Harris Papers. Landon Carter Haynes Letters, Civil War Collection. Susan McCampbell (Heiskell) Diary. Walter King Hoover Collection. Thomas Smith Hutton Diary. M. P. Jarnagin Reminiscences, Civil War Collection. Lillard Family Papers. Chris D. Livesay Papers. Curtis McDowell Papers. Mclver Collection. Paine Family Papers. Papers of the Governors, Governor William G. Brownlow. Papers of the Governors, Isham G. Harris. 472 James E. Rains Letters, Civil War Collection. Shah an Family Papers. William Sloan Diary and Memoirs, Civil War Collection. Sneed Family Papers. Robertson Topp Papers, Small Collections.

MCCLUNG COLLECTION, LAWSON MCGHEE LIBRARY, KNOXVILLE

Boren Family Papers. Caimon Family Papers. William Richard Caswell Papers. Crozier Letters, Edith Scott Manuscripts Collection. D. A. and Inslee Deaderick Papers. David Anderson Deaderick Journal. Hall-Stakely Family Papers. Leonidas Campbell and John C. Houk Papers. W. S. McEwen Correspondence, Robert S. Johnson Collection. T.A.R. Nelson Papers. William Burton Reynolds Papers. William Rule Papers. William and Michael Rule Letters, Mrs. F. Graham Bartlett Collection. Watterson Family Papers. John and Rhoda Campbell Williams Papers.

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE LIBRARY, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, KNOXVILLE

Samuel Mays Arnell Papers. Margaret Barton (Crozier) Diary. William G. Brownlow Papers. Thomas Doak Edington Diaiy. S. C. Howard Lewis Diary. Horace Maynard Papers. Ramsey Family Papers. Mary Jane Reynolds Letters. Rhea Family Papers. Robert A. Ragan Letters. John Shrady Letters. Oliver P. Temple Papers. 473 William Walker Ward Diary. Edwin Floyd Wiley War Memoirs.

SOUTHERN HISTORICAL COLLECTION, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA LIBRARY, CHAPEL HILL

Edward P. Alexander Papers. Alexander Donelson Coffee Papers. Confederate States Papers: Opinions of the Attorney General, 1861-1865. Duke-Morgan Papers. Joseph S. Espey Letters. Joseph S. Fowler Papers. Frarddin Gaillard Letters. Gale and Polk Family Papers. John Wilson Hines Papers. Martha Holland Letters. David McKendree Key Papers. Edmund Kirby Smith Papers. Lenoir Family Papers. Cornelius J. Madden Papers. John Hunt Morgan Papers. J.G.M. Ramsey Autobiography. J.G.M. Ramsey Papers. Jacob Siler Papers. Mary Ann Covington Wilson Letters.

WILLIAM R. PERKINS LIBRARY, MANUSCRIPT DEPARTMENT, DUKE UNIVERSITY, DURHAM

William G. Brownlow Letters. Campbell Family Papers. Jefferson Davis Papers. John Buchanan Floyd Papers. Edmund Kirby Smith Papers. Andrew Jay McBride Papers. William E. McCoy Papers. James Bennet McCreay Diary. Samuel Powel III Papers. James Taylor Papers. James Whary Terrell Papers. 474 William Holland Thomas Papers. James H. Wiswell Papers.

NORTH CAROLINA STATE ARCHIVES, RALEIGH

Calvin J. Cowles Papers. Mary Gash Family Papers. Paul E. Hubbell Papers. Evelyn McIntosh Hyatt Collection. Patterson Family Papers. William Williams Stringfield Papers. Colonel William Holland Thomas Papers. Stephen Whitaker Papers. Samuel Wheeler Worthington Collection.

MILITARY HISTORY INSTITUTE, CARLISLE BARRACKS, CARLISLE, PENNSYLVANIA

Quintus Adams Family Papers. John W. Barringer Papers. David Benfer Papers. David C. Bradley Letters, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection. Hought Carlisle Reminiscences, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection. William D. Cole Letters, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection. Henry J. Curtis, Jr. Papers. L. W. Earle Reminiscences, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection. Liberty Foskett Letters. George P. Hawkes Diary, Harrisburg Civil War Round Table, Gregory A. Coco Collection. August Valentine Kautz Papers. John F. Milhollin Letters, Civil War Times Illustrated Collection. Robert Moffet Diary, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection. Levi Neville Diary. Frederick Pettit Correspondence, Civil War Times Illustrated Collection. Curtis C. Pollack Letters, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection. Albert A. Pope Diary, Civil War Times Illustrated Collection. Robert A. Rodgers Diary, Harrisburg Civil War Round Table. George Shuman Letters, Harrisburg Civil War Round Table. Baxter Smith History, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection. David S. Staley Memoirs, West-Staley-Wright Family Papers 475 Frederick W. Swift Diary, Harrisburg Civil War Round Table, Gregory A. Coco Collection. Jefferson Gray Thomas Diary, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection. Charles D. Todd Diary, Harrisburg Civil War Round Table, Gregory A. Coco Collection. Asa Zeller Diary, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection.

PRINTED SOURCES

Barton, William F. The Cumberland Mountains and the Struggle for Freedom. Boston: n.p., 1897.

Brents, John A. The Patriots and Guerrillas of East Tennessee and Kentucky. New York: The Author, 1863.

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ARTICLES

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Govan, Gilbert E., and Livingood, James W. "Chattanooga Under Military Occupation, 1863-1865." Journal of Southern History 17 (1951): 23-47.

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UNPUBLISHED STUDIES

Beamer, Carl B. "Grey Ghostbusters." Dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1988.

Bellamy, James W. "The Political Career of Landon Carter Haynes." Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1952.

Bentley, H. Blair. "Andrew Johnson, Governor of Tennessee, 1853-1857." Dissertation, University of Tennessee, 1972.

Bryan, Charles Faulkner. "The Civil War in East Tennessee: A Social, Political, and Economic Study." Dissertation, University of Tennessee, 1978.

Campbell, James B. "Some Social and Economic Phases of Reconstruction in East Tennessee, 1864-1869." Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1946.

Carroll, Mary S. "Tennessee Sectionalism, 1796-1861." Dissertation, Duke University, 1931.

Cotten, W. D. "Appalachian North Carolina: A Political Study, 1860-1869." Dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1954. 489 Daniel, John S., Jr. "Special Warfare in Middle Tennessee and Surrounding Areas, 1861-1862." Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1971.

DeBerry, John H. "Confederate Tennessee." Dissertation, University of Kentucky, 1967.

Garrett, Beatrice Lydia. "The Confederate Government and the Unionists of East Tennessee." Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1932.

Lowrey, Frank Mitchell. "Tennessee Voters During the Second Two-Party System, 1836-1860: A Study in Voter Consistency and in Socio-Economic and Demographic Distinctions." Dissertation, University of Alabama, 1973.

Russell, Mattie. "William Holland Thomas: White Chief of the Cherokees." Dissertation: Duke University, 1956.

Smith, Frank Prigmore. "The Military History of East Tennessee, 1861-1865." Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1936.

Turner, Ruth Osborne. "The Public Career of William Montgomery Churchwell." Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1954.

Webb, Basha R. "The Attitudes of Members of Congress of Tennessee on the Slavery Question, 1820-1855." Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1931.

Williams, Cratis D. "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction." Dissertation, New York University, 1961.

Whelan, Paul A. "Unconventional Warfare in East Tennessee, 1861-1865." Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1963.