A NATION of OUTSIDERS: INDUSTRIALISTS, AFRICAN AMERICANS, and VETERANS in EAST TENNESSEE DURING RECONSTRUCTION by Katharine Dahlstrand
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A NATION OF OUTSIDERS: INDUSTRIALISTS, AFRICAN AMERICANS, AND VETERANS IN EAST TENNESSEE DURING RECONSTRUCTION by Katharine Dahlstrand A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida December 2013 Copyright by Katharine Dahlstrand 2013 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks to Timothy Vasser at the Beck Cultural Exchange Center, Charles Sherrill at the Tennessee State Library and Archives, Steve Cotham at the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, the staff at the Special Collection library at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and Mr. Pleas Sawyer for help with accessing valuable primary source material. Travel expenses were eased because of the grant provided by Mrs. Marjorie O’Sullivan and I am very grateful to her for affording my research costs. Steve and Nancy Perkins ran to the McClung for me when I was panicked and Jama Grove talked me off the ledge numerous times. I am grateful for their friendship. My family and friends in California, Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia often feigned interest in my research and I appreciate them for humoring me. Erik Horne, Matt Placido, and Chris Rogers welcomed me into the graduate program and made the hallways echo with laughter. Nick Belotto raced me to the TA office every morning and kept me on my toes. Thanks to Caitlin Connelly and Rhonni Asarch for forcing me to take a coffee break every once in awhile. My time in graduate school was improved because of Zella Linn and I thank her for being someone upon which I can rely. Dr. Kollander and Dr. Lowe showed interest in my progress throughout the program. Dr. Norman and Dr. Leflouria championed me throughout the process and I will always remember their advice and encouragement. I will always be grateful to MAJ Mark Baush for leading me into and out of the days that would test me, and having confidence in my ability when my own confidence iv was shaken. COL Paul Kelly, SSG Darryl Booker, 2LT Ryan Yancey, CW2 Josh Tillery, and SFC George Nipper paid the greatest price. They are the reason I live my life the way I do and why I study what I study. Dr. Bennett and Dr. White offered their ideas, recommendations, fruitful discussion, and unending encouragement. Dr. Engle changed the trajectory of my original course. I value the emails, the discussions, the laughter, the advice, the instruction, and the journey. I consider myself fortunate to be one of his students. His patience for my unending curiosity is not lost on me. My mother demonstrated innate strength and perseverance in the face of upheaval and adversity. Because of her, I know what is capable in a strong woman. My father was born in 1938 and proudly proclaimed he never read anything written by a woman. He died in 1982. I like to think that if he were still alive, he might have changed his mind. He might have read this. My husband always offered eternal support and encouragement. Thank you, David. v ABSTRACT Author: Katharine Dahlstrand Title: A Nation of Outsiders: Industrialists, African Americans, and Veterans in East Tennessee During Reconstruction Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Stephen Engle Degree: Master of Arts Year: 2013 With the end of the American Civil War, the nation created entire populations of outsiders seeking acceptance and participation in the rebuilding of the country. Northern industrialists, African Americans, and veterans returning from military service demonstrated the failures of Reconstruction in their efforts to reconcile their position with the white southern inhabitants of East Tennessee. This region represents a unique place to explore Reconstruction and exclusionary citizenship because of its distinct relationship with both the Union and the Confederacy during the war. This thesis examines the people who lived the life of an outsider because of their background, skin color, or military service. By focusing on those who failed at successfully entering, or reentering, society, this thesis illustrates the informal fight for acceptance that began when the formal battles of the Civil War ceased. vi A NATION OF OUTSIDERS: INDUSTRIALISTS, AFRICAN AMERICANS, AND VETERANS IN EAST TENNESSEE DURING RECONSTRUCION I. Introduction and Literature Review………………………………………………….…1 II. Temporary Triumphs of the Northern Outsider………………………………….…..14 III. Outsiders of Race and the Exclusionary Environment………………………….…..44 IV. Becoming Peaceable Citizens: The Veteran Outsider………………………….…...74 V. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….….…103 Appendixes…………………………………………………………………….…….…106 Bibliography………………………………………………………………….………...132 vii I. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW In 1902, Felix A. Reeve stood before a meeting of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion and recounted how and why East Tennessee participated in the American Civil War. Reeve, who served as a federal officer in a Tennessee Infantry regiment, insisted that the “people of the mountains…breathe their free and wholesome air [and] inherit a spirit of freedom and sublime inspiration little known to the inhabitants of the plain.” Throughout his address, Reeve discussed the local business and political leaders, the innate distastes for slavery, and southern attempts to protect the institution. He then described the East Tennessee volunteer soldiers’ heroic efforts when they returned from war with nothing in reserve “but an impoverished family and devastated home.” His interpretation reflected an expanding trend towards establishing East Tennessee exceptionalism. Representations, such as Reeves, excluded East Tennessee from the national Reconstruction narrative. East Tennessee exceptionalism relied on the inaccurate isolation trope and, therefore, calls for a scholarly reconsideration in the years after the Civil War as the nation attempted to redefine itself. This thesis seeks to examine the same themes offered by Reeve, but from the outsider seeking to make the mountains a home that provided opportunity.1 The following chapters consider elements and themes together that are typically studied in isolation. When the cannons stopped firing, the nation created entire populations seeking acceptance and participation in rebuilding the country. Geographical 1 outsiders like northern industrialist carpetbaggers, moved to East Tennessee to build fortunes and spread radical Republican ideologies. East Tennesseans took the money, bankrupted the mogul, and then cordially invited him to leave. African Americans who exercised their freedom and participated as citizens were at odds with whites who considered the former slaves outsiders within their hometown communities. East Tennesseans enacted environmental exclusionary tactics upon the racial fringe that prohibited agency and access into a national marketplace economy. Civil War veterans, Union and Confederate, returned home to find themselves cast into the periphery as outsiders of battlefield experience. In the decades that followed, veterans recalled the hardship and hostility encountered in their return home and how these experiences shaped their perception of service and status as citizens. When taken together, these chapters illustrate an East Tennessee Reconstruction that encountered the same difficulties as the rest of the country. Far from exceptional, the outsiders of East Tennessee are representative of a nation of outsiders who spent the decades after war redefining what it meant to be American. The first chapter examines northern abolitionist and carpetbagger industrialist, John Wesley North; who moved his family across the United States in search of capitalistic enterprise in regions aligned with his own political and social ideologies. During his brief residency in East Tennessee, North opened a machine foundry and later became president of the Knoxville Industrial Association before moving on to Southern California. Where Reeve projected a vision of East Tennessee that welcomed these outsiders and their efforts to extend industrial capitalism into the Mountain South, I argue 2 that North found assimilation into East Tennessee culture problematic. North’s story illustrated the insurmountable obstacles geographical and ideological outsiders faced in regions that purported and promoted alignment with national intent. His failure to garner support within East Tennessee suggests Reconstruction efforts failed to establish definitive reconciliation between the North and the South, even on a commercial level. The second chapter examines the relationship between people and place by discussing racial outsiders from an environmental perspective. Emancipation forced the South to redefine its participation in a new political economy. As African Americans in East Tennessee attempted to exercise economic autonomy, race mattered more than ever and political leaders enforced white supremacy using environmental restraints. While Reeve insisted that East Tennessee detested the institution of slavery and diminished the role slavery held in the region, he failed to address the effect abolition had on the African American population or the white citizens reaction when faced with the equality. Exploring the exclusionary tactics imposed on the Black population in East Tennessee demonstrates the region proved no easier to live, work, and exist in than any other region in the United States. The Civil War created racial outsiders throughout the country and focusing on a region that some