other signs of coming evils: — the growing desire,
especially of politicians in the South who were ex-
tremists, not only to preserve slavery within its
existing limits but to fortify its perpetuity by ex-
tending its area; and also the widened direction of
an intense and long-cherished animosity against
abolitionists, so as to include in it all "Yankees"
or " the North " in general. These sectional senti-



7§ THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.

merits were not shared by the great body of East
Tennesseeans. The large majority of them were
not slave-holders. Cotton was not grown in the
region, except that a very few farmers had small
" patches " for domestic use. Even where slaves
were owned, " the peculiar institution " most often
wore a homely aspect. The negroes after a patri-
archal fashion, were part of one household — the
white and black children played together without
fastidious reserve, and mutual kindly affections
prevailed throughout the whole family. In i860
the slaves were about one-tenth only of the popu-
lation, and in over one-third of the counties less
than one-seventeenth. The unlikeness of the
mountainous region which is located centrally in
the Atlantic States, to that of the planting States,
is positive, and the dissimilarity in social and other
conditions between their respective inhabitants
could scarcely have escaped the observation of sa-
gacious minds at the period named, when contem-
plating the political future. It may have been not
without reference to possible coming emergencies,
and to the promotion of sympathy with sectional
sentiments among these mountaineers that one of
the "Southern Commercial Conventions" which
were feeders to disunion, was held in 1857 at the cen-
tral town of East Tennessee. For its population
then was only something over four thousand and its
commercial vitality was small. Conspicuously ap-
parent in the deliberations of that Convention was
a spirit of sectional zeal, which once fairly excited
and diffused, might easily upon opportunity or need



SHADOWS OF COMING EVENTS. 79

be turned into a political dissolving temper. It
would be interesting to know how many of those
who were prominent in that and other " Southern
Commercial Conventions" were also not long after-
wards, active in the work of secession. Of the
lawyers who figured in the Knoxville mercantile
assembly was a Virginia " Hotspur." A few years
later he told the South Carolinians who stood
ready, if possible, to dissolve the Union; "strike a
blow and Virginia will go out !" The blow was
struck, Fort Sumpter fell, and Virginia went out.
As the ante-bellum decade drew nigh its close,
a South Carolina gentleman of distinction visited
the same very interior town. Currently told, he
was father of the saying that "the Yankees know
nothing of government; their only idea of it is
that the majority shall rule." To this sentiment a
ready-witted editor responded, that its author
"differed from the Yankees in but one particular,
his only idea of government being that the minor-
ity shall rule." This gentleman was of an aristo-
cratic turn of mind. Evidently he considered the
country men among whom he dwelt for the time fit
subjects for a study, the precise nature and conclu-
sions of which others could only conjecture. One
day at his hotel he was wrapped in long and quiet
but intent contemplation of the people on the
street. A citizen friend who had looked on him
as he mused, fancied in the light thrown back on
memory by the flames of war shortly afterwards
kindled, that the silent reflections of the stranger
had reference to the impending conflict; not as an



8o THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.

emissary from a dissaffected State, much less bent
individually upon unfriendly espionage of the land,
but as a political philosopher, forming an estimate
of the capacity of the people before him for sharing
in a life and death national struggle, and weighing
in the scales of his judgment the relative proba-
bilities of their inclining to favor one or the other
of the antagonists in that struggle.

In i860, late in the canvass for the Presidency
of the United States, a political discussion took
place at Knoxville between three of the candidates
for Elector from the State at large: Mr. W. C.
Whitthorne on the Breckenridge ticket, Mr. Na-
thaniel G. Taylor on the ticket for Bell, and Mr.
Hopkins on that for Douglass. Mr. Whitthorne
spoke respectably well. Mr. Taylor was truly
eloquent. His description of the civil war, which
he declared the friends of Mr. Breckenridge were
contriving to bring upon the country in the event
of their party being defeated and the Republican
candidate's election to the Presidency, was vivid
and powerful. Few, if any, of his hearers, how-
ever, had a real expectation that the calamity he
so graphically depicted would shortly befall the
land. He said that the people of East Tennessee
were "determined to maintain the Union by force
of arms against any movement from the South
throughout their region of country to assail the
Government at Washington with violence, and
that the secessionists of the cotton States in at-
tempting to carry out their nefarious design to
destroy the Republic, would have to march over



POLITICAL HARANGUES. 8 1

his dead body and the dead bodies of thousands
of East Tennessee mountaineers slain in battle."

The speech of Mr. Hopkins was lucid and logical,
and reflected much credit upon his skill and power
in debate. His antagonism was especially to the
followers of Mr. Breckenridge as the authors of a
ruinous breach .in the unity of the Democratic
party that had so long ruled the nation and dis-
pensed its offices and emoluments.

Shortly before the Presidential election in the
autumn of i860, William L. Yancey of Alabama,
came to Knoxville by pre-arrangement with resi-
dent extremists on the subject of "Southern
rights," and spoke to a popular assembly in the
open air. He labored to show that the South did
not receive justice at the hands of the North, that
the negro was never intended by the Federal Con-
stitution and its authors as anything more than
property, that it was the interest of the white man
of the South to perpetuate slavery, because it gave
the South a political power in Congress it would
not otherwise have, and also for other reasons
which he stated.

Among those who then heard him for the first
time some were disappointed that they did not find
in him the able orator whom Fame had heralded.
His voice, without being disagreeable, had no spe-
cial good qualities, and was too monotonous of
tone. He showed, however, great earnestness,
and now and then rose to eloquence. Evidently
he had a quick, high and imperious temper,
a bold and determined will, superior readiness



82 THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.

and skill in debate, and the disposition to domineer
over opponents. His determination seemed to be
not to heal existing dissensions but to maintain by
strife the South's rival power in the nation.

His speech was not well received by many of
those who heard it. At one time being rudely
interrupted by a man in the crowd, he perempto-
rily silenced the intruder. Before concluding his
discourse, a note was handed to him. Having
read it, he asked the writer to come upon the
platform. The note conveyed a desire to know,
if, in the event of Mr. Lincoln's election to the
Presidency, Mr. Yancey would favor the secession
of the Southern States from the Union and forcible
resistance to the Federal Government? The per-
son so unexpectedly elevated to the side of the
orator was Mr. Maney, from Pennsylvania, but
for some years a citizen of Tennessee; endowed
with much good sense, large acquaintance with
public affairs and considerable readiness of speech.
A brief colloquy ensued, in which Mr. Yancey
endeavored without success to bring Mr. Maney
into ridicule. At length it came to light that the
latter was the representative of others in the
assembly whose names were signed to the note,
and which were then called aloud by Mr. Yancey,
with a request that the persons bearing them
should ascend to the platform. They complied
accordingly: Rev. William G. Brownlow, Judge
Samuel R. Rodgers, O. P. Temple, John M.
Fleming, and Wm. R. Rodgers, M. D.

The orator proceeded to read an extract from a



POLITICAL HARANGUES. 83

published speech or letter of the Hon. John Bell
of Tennessee, declaring his mind as to the course
of conduct the slave States ought to adopt, should
Mr. Lincoln be elected. He then desired to know
severally from the gentlemen before him, whether
they endorsed Mr. Bell's sentiments ? Mr. Tem-
ple answered that he approved them, if the words
in which the) 7 were expressed were taken with
their context and rightly interpreted: at the same
time adding, that in his own opinion, any forcible
resistance to the Federal Government would be
improper. Of like purport in general, was the
reply made by each of his companions, except that
of Mr. Brownlow. When called on to answer he
said "that not only would he refuse to join in any
secession or armed opposition to the authority of
the National Government because of Mr. Lin-
coln's election, but that any body of men attempt-
ing to march on Washington City with hostile
purpose through East Tennessee, would find there
thousands of men ready to prevent them by force
of arms. Among those defenders of the Union,
he," Mr. Brownlow, "would take his stand, and
that over their dead bodies they who sought to
overthrow the Government would have to make
their way."

Mr. Yancey replied. He gave it as his opinion
that the statement from Mr. Bell that had been
read, favored the idea of resistance under certain
circumstances. Declining to answer at once and
in few words the inquiry first propounded, he went
into a historical statement of the question of se-



84 THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.

cession as it had been agitated in Alabama, and of
his connection with it. Finally he said, that as a
loyal son of that State, he would abide by its de-
cision in the case and go as it might go. "As for
this man," he said, turning to Mr. Brownlow,
''who talks of confronting the sons of the South
in a contest for their rights, with the armed oppo-
sition of East Tennesseeans, — if his (Mr. Yancey's)
State determined upon resistance, he would meet
Mr. Brownlow in the bloody strife, and" making a
violent gesture towards Mr. B.'s person, "would
give him the bayonet up to the muzzle." At this
utterance and action, a strong sensation passed
through the assembly. The orator went on to
reproach his opponent, that being by profession a
minister of the Gospel, he should be a fomenter
of strife, and counseled him to amend his con-
duct. Mr. Brownlow replied in his peculiar
style with pungent words, and soon the people
dispersed.

The Alabamian's friends seemed to be jubilant
over the victory they claimed to have won in the
wordy encounter. The other party were less
demonstrative but more determined than before,
and were moved to various degrees of wrath by
the disunion sentiments to which they had listened.
Some, while stirred to indignation by the senti-
ments, which they considered atrocious, and at the
speaker's audacity in uttering them, had yet a feel-
ing of regret that their own champions were put on
the platform at disadvantage; had been subjected
in turn to questioning by their adversary, as wk-



A SUSPECTED INCENDIARY. 85

nesses might be in court by an adroit attorney; and
were compelled to relative silence, while he, on
the point at issue, fully delivered his mind with
an air of triumph to the exhilaration of his friends.

When the result of the Presidential election was
known, the political excitement greatly increased.
There had been no electoral ticket in Tennessee
for the Republican candidates: and had any citizen
of the State openly advocated Mr. Lincoln's elec-
tion, he would have had to suffer indignity and
injury, or to flee from his home. The general
public sentiment was hostile to the Republican
party and at the same time friendly to the contin-
uance of slavery where it existed, without inter-
ference from abroad. As between secession and
the preservation of the Union, opinions differed
both in kind and degree of strength. A single
incident will illustrate the situation:

A citizen of Ohio, selling fruit-tree scions arrived
at Knoxville from Asheville, North Carolina. He
was closely followed by the newspaper of that vil-
lage, fixing strong suspicion upon him from slight
evidence, as a peregrinating Abolitionist with a sin-
ister purpose. Meanwhile he with his chattels
personal, had found temporary lodgment on the
Deaf and Dumb Asylum grounds. Some medical
students at Philadelphia from Mississippi and Ala-
bama, influenced by political fervor, when the
work of secession began, incontinently abandoned
their professional studies, and departed homewards.
Arriving at Knoxville on their way, and hearing of
the alleged anti-slavery Ohioan, they went without



86



THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.



delay and demanded his expulsion from the com-
munity. But because of the Asylum's Principal,
they failed in their errand, and as rumor told, were
humorously rebuked by him for their impertinent
wrath and intolerance.

Their visit was soon succeeded by one of more
formidable proportions from indignant citizens,
with a local office-holder of the United States at
their head. The suspected political " incendiary"
was arrested and led a prisoner to the court-house.
There excited people gathered, until the room w T as
filled to its utmost capacity. Nor could this fact
justly occasion surprise. Slaves bore the fatal
stigma in public estimation, generally, of being not
â– persons, but things. Their classification therefore,
in common with houses, goods and whatever else
could, like them, be bought and sold, was under
the head of property. And any alarm raised that
peaceful possession of them was endangered, nat-
urally enough assembled a crowd. A citizen, at-
tracted to the meeting by its understood object,
entered the court-room, as Parson Brownlow in
concluding a speech, gave no opinion pro or con
about the stranger, but advised the people to watch,
for that fomenters of trouble with the negroes were
abroad in the country.

Afterwards, the committee of citizens appointed
to consider and determine the extent of grievance
inflicted upon the community and what should be
its redress, reported through its chairman, — who
had led in making the arrest, — that the stranger
was guilty of Abolitionism and should be ordered



A SUSPECTED INCENDIARY. 87

to leave the town which his presence put in dan-
ger. But further proceedings in the direct line of
a vote upon the proposition, were halted by the
courageous interposition of the Deaf Mutes' Asy-
lum Principal in behalf of the prisoner, with whom
he had conversed, and who, he averred, was not
an extreme and dangerous anti-slavery man. This
reduction of the guilt of the accused, was promptly
and hotly resented by the committee's chairman
as a denial of his personal veracity, not to be
borne. The Principal, without disputing the logi-
cal sequence of that deduction, stoutly maintained
the truth of his statement, and an altercation en-
sued that threatened to end in a general row. The
assembly became tumultuous. Men ready for
fight with sticks and pistols sprang upon the plat-
form, where stood the disputants, between whom
a third person, urged on by others, had interposed
himself and essayed to speak. But he could not
be heard because of the great clamor, accompanied
by violent gesticulations, of the assembly. At
length a few words from the tertium quid, minim-
izing the difficulty into a mere difference of opinion
between two gentlemen, were listened to, and the
excitement subsided.

As for the troubled Ohioan, he " stood not upon
the order of his going" from a locality inhospitable
and dangerous to strangers who felt free to say
that they did not rind their Bibles and human
slavery altogether harmonious. It is to this day,
however, an unsolved question, whether as he
went, righteous indignation at the treatment he



ss



THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.



had received or sincere joy at his escape from
worse ills, prevailed in his soul.

The mental agitations of people living in towns
and in less remote parts of the country, caused
by the work of secession as it progressed, were
painfully shared by many older and conservative
persons. They could not bear the thought of a
dissolution of the Union, and in some instances
were moved by it to tears, alternating with anger.
As the possibility of so dire an event grew in their
apprehensions, they shrank back from witnessing
its occurrence, as one might do from looking on at
the death of a beloved kinsman.* But the dwell-
ers in the more mountainous parts of East Ten-
nessee, " far from the madding crowd," were com-
paratively free from all such agitations and griefs.

In the autumn of i860 a Colporteur of the
Knoxville Bible Societyf distributed the Book
among the people of Scott County, Tennessee,
a very elevated region near the Kentucky border
line. On returning home, he made a report of
his labors to Mr. C, — Depositary of the society, —
who greatly deplored the possible destruction of
the Union. The Colporteur soon afterwards met
another Unionist, and said:

" Do you know that Mr. C. is going to Scott
County to live?" The other, knowing Mr. C. to
be a person of wealth, who would by such an ex-
change lose comfortable surroundings, answered:

"No! how is that?"

"O," said the Colporteur, "I told him that I

* See Appendix, Note C. + Note D.



BIBLE SOCIETY COLPORTEUR. 89

asked the people over in Scott County 'how were
times with them,' and they said, 'not very good.'
I inquired if that was because of the troubles in
the country? They asked, 'what troubles?' I
said: 'Troubles to the Union. Haven't you
heard that South Carolina has seceded ?' They
answered, 'no!' "

"Now," the Colporteur added, "I told this to
Mr. C. and he says he is going to Scott County
to live: for if the Union should be dissolved, he
will never hear of it over there?"*



CHAPTER VI.

The State for the Union — A Stranger in
Town — Secession of Tennessee Pre-ar-
ranged — Biblical Coincidence — Union Or-
ators — An Assassination.

"Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream ;
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council ; and the state of a man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection."

Shaks. ; Julius Ccesar.

TENNESSEE was unwilling to depart from her
wise sisters in the Union and join the others
in committing what one of her adopted sons, — a
General of the Confederate army, — said to his
friend after the war had ended, "was one of the
greatest blunders in history." The Legislature of
the State proposed a convention to decide what
the State should do concerning its national rela-
tions. Governor Isham G. Harris and his sympa-
thizers, no doubt considered the secession of Ten-
nessee could be most conveniently accomplished
through that instrumentality: and it was ordered
that the question of holding such a convention
should be determined by the people at the ballot-
box, February 9, 1861.







j^st^s^



â– *euA




HON. T, A. R. NELSON.



THE STATE FOR THE UNION. 9 1

Love for the Union had not yet weakened in
many persons throughout the State, who at later
points of time could not withstand the accumu-
lated force of motives to give it up, — some of whom
in finally surrendering it, hushed their lingering
objections with the plea of necessity. The major-
ity of people were used to think of the Union as a
precious heritage from their ancestors, and they
were unable to see that they ought to throw that
inheritance away, because the Republican candi-
date for Chief Magistrate of the Nation had been
elected. Even at the city of Memphis an en-
lightened public sentiment in favor of maintaining
the Union widely existed in the fall of i860, and
found expression at a large public meeting, called
and participated in by more than a few of the best
citizens. Before the February election the ques-
tion of secession was often discussed, not only by
politicians before assemblies, but by citizens in
conversation. While enthusiastic disputants threw
arguments thick and fast without convincing one
another, they still parted in friendship, that was
sometimes abated by the controversy. The time
had not then come for the wrathfulness of the
political atmosphere and excitement of men's pas-
sions, to prevent colloquial and peaceful inter-
change of opinions. As a general rule, secession-
ists and the disaffected towards the newly chosen
Government at Washington, were more numerous
in East Tennessee among the rich and persons of
best social position, and were greatly out-num-
bered among the middle and poorer classes.



9 2 THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.

The election in February resulted in a majority
of more than sixty thousand voters for Tennessee
continuing in the United States, and also in a de-
cided majority against holding the proposed con-
vention. It was clearly to be seen that the people
were content to continue in old and tried paths,
and did not think it wise or expedient even to send
delegates of their own choosing to discuss the
vital questions that agitated and threatened the
country. Many of them looked upon the conven-
tion with apprehension as a contrivance for
mischief. What if the enemies of the United
States intended and should use it as a hot-
bed to mature an ordinance of secession,
which, like the gourd over the head of the dis-
pleased and murmuring Hebrew prophet at Nin-
eveh, quickly grown, would quickly perish? Has
not experience any lesson to teach on the subject
of unusual gatherings of inflammable materials,
which a spark may kindle into a great fire, when
the air is very dry from intense heats?

With the advent of spring, in 1861, the mutter-
ing of the storm gathering in the national heavens
became louder and longer. The inauguration of
Mr. Lincoln on the fourth of March, was affirmed
by men in Tennessee with others in the South, who
were bent upon separation, to be an ample reason
in itself for a dissolution of the Union. His words
when he took the oath of office, — so full of friend-
ship and good will to the South, fell idly on their
ears, and his abstinence from any act to disturb
its peace, did not abate their hostility a fraction.



A STRANGER IN TOWN. 93

During the month of March a young New
Yorker arrived at Knoxville, returning home from
Havana, where he had dwelt in the winter for the
sake of health. He found New Orleans, through
which his journey lay, all in a ferment over the
cauldron of political troubles in the land. Not
being versed in State-craft nor fully impressed by
the gravity of the national situation, he was dis-
posed to look with a lenient eye upon the insubor-
dination to the Federal Government prevailing in
the Queen City of the South. Louisiana desired to
have a government of its own, and with great
generosity, he said it might be well to let its peo-
ple make the experiment. He, at least, was not
inclined to coerce them into obedience. Now and
then in his leisure at Knoxville, as the times were
ominous, he kept on the alert for news. One day,
being told of the fall of Fort Sumter, he inquired
of an ardent secessionist standing near:

" Was the attack upon the Fort without provo-
cation ?"

The citizen addressed, took the question, not as
it was intended, merely to learn how the fight be-
gan, but as a provocation. At once he spoke with
stern manner and strong words of Southern rights
and as his sectional zeal grew more fervid with its
venting, he asserted that " one Southern man could
whip five or six Yankees." He himself " could
whip three or four."

"My friend," was the reply, "you are mistaken.
We are all of one Anglo-Saxon blood and North-
ern men can fight, as well as Southern."



94 THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.

A few hot-bloods not far off, overheard the con-
versation. One of them told his companions he
knew the stranger by his peculiar speech to be a
Yankee, whom the party at once talked of sub-
jecting to the indignity of u a ride on a rail." He
caught enough of their words to learn the hostile
meaning, and obeying the instinct of his courage,
to which his strength looked unequal, he calmly
walked up to the company and stood, waiting their