Bench of the United States District Court before
Tennessee seceded. He had warmly espoused the
cause of the Southern Confederacy and was ap-
pointed by it to a similar office under its Govern-
ment. As preliminary to his new duties, he
announced from the Bench his determination to
punish all treason and rebellion against the author-
ity he represented. Union men were arraigned
before him upon various charges. The only crime
of a majority of them was love of the Union. For
their political purgation, an oath of allegiance was
thought to be sufficient, and upon taking it they
were summarily released.

The compulsory swearing of fealty during the
progress of the war had in many instances a de-
moralizing effect. It made familiar to men the
idea of an oath as having in itself no binding force,
and therefore tended to increase the lenient regard



I4 2 THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.

which was before too prevalent for the crime of
perjury. No doubt an oath of allegiance was ad-
ministered to many men on both sides of the con-
flict, under compulsion of their wills, who in their
hearts considered it null and void. They felt as
Hudibras puts it :

"He that imposes an oath, makes it,
Not he that for convenience takes it :
Then how can any man be said
To break an oath he never made."

Said a Union man, when rumor was current that
everybody would soon be made to swear loyalty
to the Confederacy, he would take such an en-
forced oath "from the teeth out." And so too, an
ex-Confederate soldier, made to swear loyalty to
the United States, muttered to his friend the words
of Galileo when compelled to abjure the Coperni-
can system: "It still moves!" Yet both the
Unionist and the Confederate were conscientious,
worthy citizens, who alike in times of peace, would
esteem the oath before a court of justice as "a
recognizance to heaven," and again, to quote pithy
lines from Hudibras, as —

Being " not purposed more than Law
To keep the good and just in awe,
But to confine the bad and sinful,
Like moral cattle in a pinfold."

However, despite all ethical objections to the
miscellaneous administration of the oath of allegi-
ance, and the numerous instances of its futility in
the war, its reputation still held good as a specific
for curing disloyalty; or at least, as a certain pre-
ventive of ill consequences from that political



OATHS OF ALLEGIANCE. 1 43

sickness through men afflicted with it. Therefore
the extensive use of it by Judge Humphreys in
his court-room with Union citizens indicated no
lower degree of intelligence in him, although in
the opinion of some it might show his lack of ju-
dicial wisdom. Instances were not wholly want-
ing in which the use of that requirement was
denied him, because the patient thought the pre-
scribed dose too astringent for health of conscience,
as may be seen by the following from the Knox-
ville Whig of that period:

"On Saturday evening, Mr. Perez Dickinson, for the last thirty
years a successful merchant of Knoxville, returned from the North
whither he had gone with a written permit from Governor Harris,
to attend to business connected with the two firms of which he is
a member. On Monday morning he was arrested upon a warrant
based upon an affidavit by Attorney Ramsey, setting forth that said
Dickinson was born in the State of Massachusetts, and that he had
been to the North and held intercourse with the Northern people.
This was the charge, and this affidavit was all the proof offered
against him. His Honor Judge Humphreys, bore testimony to the
good character and high standing of Mr. Dickinson, and proposed
to him that he should at once and without any investigation (by the
court), take an oath of allegiance and fidelity to the Confederate
States. Mr. Dickinson rose and responded in a brief address —
spoke of his coming here when a boy some thirty years ago — of his
being an orderly and law-abiding citizen — of his all being here, and
of the bones of his mother, sisters and brother being here — denied
that he had held any intercourse with the people of the North in
violation of his parole to Governor Harris, and declined, under the
circumstances of compulsion surrounding him, to take the oath.
His Honor then instructed him that he would have to give a bond
of ten thousand dollars for his good behavior during the few days
allotted him to remain in the State."

The reputable merchant refused to give the
bond, and was prepared to depart. Notwithstand-
ing that refusal, the Judge, upon advice of politi-
cal friends, permitted him to remain.



^44 THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.

Arraignment of prisoners before the Judge
sometimes rested on no foundation whatever.
Rev. W. H. Duggan, a Methodist minister, of
McMinn County, was charged in the indictment
with having prayed for the United States Govern-
ment: but the evidence showed that the praying
had been done before Tennessee seceded from the
Union, The manner in which he was treated was
described at the time in the Whi% newspaper,
under the eyes of the authorities. It illustrated
the condition of things in the region:

"Some twenty-five persons, citizens of McMinn County, were
brought before Judge Humphreys on Monday, about twenty of
whom were released on the ground that there was nothing against
them. The truth is, they had voted the Union ticket and they had
voted for years against certain men : and this explained their arrest.
They were taxed with small fees to pay costs and required to take
the oath, although they had committed no offense. The other five
were retained for further hearing and sent into camps under a mil-
itary escort for the night. Among these was Rev. W. Duggan, a
member of the Holston Annual Conference, and the preacher in
charge of the Athens Circuit, * * * a man of truth and in-
tegrity.

"He was arrested at a quarterly meeting on Friday night, and
marched on foot on Saturday nine miles, being refused the privilege
of riding his own horse : and on Sabbath he was landed at Knox-
ville. He is a large, fleshy man, weighs two hundred and eighty-
one pounds, and was recovering from a long spell of fever. He
gave out at a spring some seven miles from where he started. The
day was warm, and his feet were sorely blistered. He begged per-
mission to ride ; he was refused, cursed, denounced and threatened
with bayonets ! His horse was" led after him as if to aggravate
him. They even refused him water to drink or anything to eat
until Sunday."

He is represented in the same editorial to have
had "the confidence of men of other denomina-
tions."

That he was "a very poor man, with a wife and



IMPRISONMENTS. 145

six helpless children" could have availed him noth-
ing had he been guilty, but the absence of all
evidence that he had done anything for which he
should be punished, induced his discharge after
three days custody in camp, "without entering
into bonds or taking any oath."

Some of the Union men arraigned before Judge
Humphreys were temporarily imprisoned. It was
not, however, until his departure from the scene
and after the bridge-burnings, that more severe
measures were adopted against that class of cit-
izens.

Commissioner Robert B. Reynolds presided
over these stringent proceedings at first and for
some time. He was a native Tennesseean, had
"the courage of his opinions" and had been con-
spicuous as one of the few and faithful, who at the
home of Hugh Lawson White, adhered to Martin
Van Buren as Andrew Jackson's lineal successor.
Afterwards he was a Paymaster in the United
States Army. Probably his appointment to the
office of Confederate States Commissioner was
more due to two of his qualifications than to any-
thing else. These were, his great zeal for "the
South," according to a current phrase, "in its con-
test for its rights," and his understood inflexibility
of will. There were members of the Bar who
thought his knowledge of the Law to be deficient,
and his adversaries attributed brusqeness and aus-
terity to his judicial manner. On the other hand,
his political friends commended his performance
of duty to the Government he served with such



146 THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEEKS.

full and ardent sympathy. No one could com-
plain of him for want of diligence and energy as a
worker.

A large number of political offenders were ar-
rested. " Union talk" became a more serious mis-
demeanor. The common jail was filled up rapidly.
Some prisoners were sent to Alabama for confine-
ment. One of these was the Hon. Mr. Pickens,
State Senator from the counties of Blount and Se-
vier. He had been already designated by name
as a victim, in a postscript from Secretary of War,
J. P. Benjamin, to Col. Wood. His son had been
of the party that unsuccessfully assailed Straw-
berry Plains bridge, and was there wounded, but
not mortally, evaded the soldiers who pursued
him until his injury was healed, then escaped into
Kentucky and joined the Federal army. Senator
Pickens was a person of superior character and
greatly esteemed by the people. He did not long
survive, a captive and exile at Tuscaloosa, Alabama;
and when death had released him at one and the
same moment from "this prison of the body" and
from a Confederate jail, his wife, too, sickened and
went to the higher freedom into which his spirit
passed.

A number of persons had been arrested at dif-
ferent places, who were accused of having shared
in the assaults upon bridges or their destruction.
Col. Ledbetter, in command of the Post at Greene-
ville (reputed to be a native of the State of Maine),
"stuck in the letter" of Secretary Benjamin's in-
structions that "all such (prisoners) as can be



EXECUTIONS. 147

identified in having been engaged in bridge-burn-
ing are to be tried summarily by drum-head court-
martial, and if found guilty, executed on the spot
by hanging," and also " to leave their bodies hang-
ing in the vicinity of the burned bridges." In
consequence, two men — Hensie and Fry — were
hung at Greeneville by Col. Ledbetter's immediate
authority and without delay. Their bodies, instead
of being quartered and distributed abroad after an
old English custom, were left suspended for four
days near the railroad track. In that exposure,
they seem to have been less of a terror to Union
men of the vicinity, than objects of merry obser-
vation to railway passengers. Had not the execu-
tions been so hasty, it might have been discovered,
in time to save Fry's life, that not he, but another
person of the same surname, was the real offender
in the case.

Among the many prisoners at Knoxville, were
some under like accusation with the two hung at
Greeneville: but proceedings against them were
more deliberate. They were tried by a court-
martial, organized under Gen. Carroll, of Middle
Tennessee, successor of Col. Wood at the Post,
and by common repute of dissipated habits. For
nearly one month, Wm. G. Brownlow was an in-
mate of the jail. He states that at the time he
was cast into it, the prisoners numbered about one
hundred and fifty; that on the lower floor where
he was kept, there was not room for all to lie down
at one time, and therefore they stood on their feet
and rested alternately; that the only article of fur-



148 THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.

niture in the building was a dirty wooden bucket,
from which the prisoners drank water with a tin
cup; and that their food consisted of meat and
bread, scantily supplied, sometimes half raw, some-
times burned. To the truth of his description, in
the main, there is extant, corroborative testimony.
Some prisoners shook his hand silently with tears;
some faces lighted with joy to see him; some man-
ifested a sense of humiliation wrought by their
condition, and many were depressed in spirits. A
few notes taken from his diary in jail will show the
nature and extent of the work carried on by the
military towards suspected and convicted Union
people:

Saturday, Dec. 7. — This morning forty of our number, under a
heavy military escort, were sent off to Tuscaloosa. Thirty-one
others arrived to take their places from Cocke, Greene and Jefferson
Counties. They bring us tales of woe from their respective counties
as to the treatment of Union men and Union families, by the
* * * * cavalry in the rebellion. They are taking all the
fine horses they can find and appropriating them to their own use ;
they are entering houses, breaking open drawers and chests, seizing
money, blankets and whatever they can use.

Monday, Dec. 9. — More prisoners arrived this evening. Twenty-
eight are in from Jefferson and Cocke counties.

Wednesday, Dec. 11. — Fifteen more prisoners came in to-day
from Greene and Hancock counties, charged with having been
armed as Union men and accustomed to drill.

Thursday, Dec. 12. — Fifteen of our prisoners were started to
Tuscaloosa this morning to remain there as prisoners of war. They
had no trial, but were sent upon their admission that they had been
found in arms as Union men, preparing to defend themselves
against the assaults and robberies of the so-called Confederate cav-
alry. Poor fellows ! They hated to go.

Friday, Dec. 13. — Three more prisoners in to-day from Hancock
and Hawkins Counties. Charge as usual — Union men, attached to
a company of Home Guards.



IMPRISONMENTS. 1 49

Saturday, Dec. 14. — Three more prisoners from the upper conn-
ties were brought in to-day. They speak of the outrages perpe-
trated by these rebel troops, and of their murderous spirit.

Sunday, Dec. 15. — Started thirty-five of our lot to Tuscaloosa to
be held during the war. Levi Trewhitt, an able lawyer, but an old
man, will never get back.* His sons came up to see him, but were
denied the privilege. Dr. Hunt, from the same county of Bradley,
has also gone. His wife came sixty miles to see him, and came to
the jail door, but was refused admittance.

Monday, Dec. 16. — Brought in Dr. Wells and Col. Morris, of
Knox County, two clever men and good citizens. Their offence is
that they are Union men, first, and next they voted and election-
eered as old Whigs, * * * * years ago.

Tuesday, Dec 17. — Brought in a Union man from Campbell
County to-day, leaving behind six small children, and their mother
dead. This man's offence is holding out for the Union. To-night
two brothers named Walker, came in from Hawkins County,
charged with having " talked Union talk."

Wednesday, Dec 18. — Discharged sixty prisoners to-day who
had been in prison from three to five weeks — taken through mistake ?
as was said, there being nothing against them. Business suffering
at home — unlawfully seized upon and thrust into this uncomfortable
jail — they are now turned out.

Thursday, Dec 19.— To-night twelve more Union prisoners were
brought in from lower East Tennessee, charged with belonging to
Col. Clift's regiment of Union men, arming and drilling to go over
to Kentucky and join the Federal army.

Saturday, Dec 21. — Took out five of the prisoners brought here
from the Clift expedition — liberated them by their agreeing to go
into the rebel army. Their dread of Tuscaloosa induced them to
go into service. They (the Confederate authorities) have offered
this chance to all, and only sent off those who stubbornly refused.

Sunday, Dec 22. — Brought in old man Wampler, a Dutchman
seventy years of age, from Greene County, charged with being an
"Andrew Johnson man and talking Union talk."

Friday, Dec 27. — Harrison Self, an industrious, honest and here-
tofore peaceable man, a citizen of Greene County, was notified this
morning that he was to be hanged at four o'clock, p. m. His daugh-
ter, a noble girl, modest and neatly attired, came in this morning
to see him. Heart-broken and bowed down under a fearful weight

*He died in prison.



15° THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.

of sorrow, she entered his iron cage and they embraced each other
most affectionately. My God, what a sight! "What an affecting
â–  scene! (The prisoners looking on were moved to tears.) But her
short limit to remain with her father expired, and she came out
weeping bitterly — shedding burning tears. Requesting me to write a
dispatch for her and sign her name to it, I took out my pencil and
a slip of paper and w r rote the following :

Kxoxville, Dec. 27, 1861.
Hon. Jefferson Davis:

My father, Harrison Self, is sentenced to hang at four o'clock
this evening, on a charge of bridge-burning. As he remains my
earthly all and all my hopes of happiness centre in him, I implore

you to pardon him.

Elizabeth Self.

With this dispatch the poor girl hurried off to the office tw r o or
three hundred yards from the jail ; and about tw r o o'clock in the
afternoon the answer came to General Carroll telling him not to
allow Self to be hung. Self was turned out of the cage into the
jail with the rest of us, and looks as if he had gone through a long
spell of sickness. But what a thrill of joy ran through the heart of
that noble girl ! Self is to be confined, as I understand, during the
war. This is hard upon an innocent man ; but it is preferable to
hanging."

There follows in the diary an account of an in-
terview — at first refused, and finally granted for
twenty minutes — between a small farmer from Se-
vier County, bearing the name of Madison Cate,
and his wife — she with a babe in her arms, and the
prisoner too ill with a fever to stand on his feet,
but lying on the floor in one corner of the jail with
"a bit of old carpeting" for a bed and " some sort
of bundle as a pillow."

During the month of December three of the
prisoners, having been convicted by court-martial
of bridge-burning, were executed by hanging.
One of these, C. A. Haun, was a young man, but
the head of a small family. He was hanged
alone on the eleventh day, and maintained a



EXECUTIONS. 151

courageous spirit on the scaffold. The other two,
whose name was Harmon, were father and son.
They died after the same method six days later,
and protested their innocence to the end. Whether
for the sake of economy or for some other unknown
reason, the military authorities had not provided
for the solemn occasion suitable means for ushering
more than one of the two souls into eternity at a
time. The omission is to be deplored, as it left
room for imputing to the managers of the pitiful
spectacle a singular want of humanity in compel-
ling the father to witness his son's ignominious
death, while awaiting his own*

* See Appendix Note J.



CHAPTER X.

Reign of Terror — A Noted Patriot — His
Painful Experiences and Final Deliver-
ance — A Refugee's Perilous Journey —
Conscription — Capture of Fleeing Men.

"Go, say, I sent thee forth to purchase honor;
And not the king exiled thee. Or suppose
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou comest."

Shakspeare, Bichard II.

FOR a considerable time, including that in which
these trials, imprisonments and executions oc-
curred, there was a reign of terror over Union
people. The vigilance of the party in power sub-
jected even citizens of better social position to
arraignment for slight or insufficient reasons. To
have been born in a Northern State was -prima
facie a ground of suspicion, unless the person
were a pronounced friend of the rebellion. Equally
so was the fact that one had been a conspicuous
Unionist before the secession of Tennessee, more
especially if his position in reference to public
affairs generally, was prominent. Dr. R. H. Hods-
den, of Sevier, and Representative of that county
and Knox, was hunted for, but evaded the search
until he was induced to believe that he would not





HON. C. F. TRIGG.



REIGN OF TERROR. 1 53

be harshly treated. He then surrendered himself
to his pursuers, and upon giving security for his
good conduct and declaring his submission to the
Confederate Government, he was released from
custody. Col. Connelly F. Trigg, chairman of the
chief committee in the Union Convention at Knox-
ville and Greeneville, of May and June, feared
with good reason that he would be arrested.
He therefore made his escape speedily but
with difficulty through the mountains into Ken-
tucky. Other lawyers, known to have been
friends of the Union, were admitted to the
practice of their profession before Judge Hum-
phreys, upon their submission to the Confeder-
ate Government.

During this time, General Zolicoffer, whose
camp was on the Kentucky border, made a visit
to Knoxville, and by his direction, as it was under-
stood, the soldiers who guarded the town and also
the requirement of an oath of allegiance for ingress
and egress, were withdrawn. The general condi-
tion of things, however, was so disturbing and
offensive to Union men throughout East Tennessee
that their departure from the country became more
frequent. Among their leaders who had not yet
gone away, the person most obnoxious to the Con-
federate authorities was the Rev. Wm. G. Brown-
low. He had been from the beginning of their de
facto government in the State a thorn in their flesh.
Through his weekly journal, the Whig, he had
annoyed them with complaints of acts of oppres-
sion and violence, and a bold use of the freedom



154 THE LOYAL MOUNTAINEERS.

of the press, which left no room for doubt of his
loyalty at heart to the United States, yet gave no
occasion for his arrest and punishment. These
ills threatened him so strongly about the middle of
October, that he felt compelled to suspend the pub-
lication of his newspaper. In the number issued
on the 21st of that month, he informed its readers
of the indictment impending over him before the
grand jury of the Confederate court at Nashville,
and that he could probably "go free by taking the
oath" which the authorities were " administering
to other Union men," but his "settled purpose"
was f< not to do any such thing." He spoke of
" the wanton outrages upon right and liberty" suf-
fered by the people of East Tennessee "for their
devotion to the Constitution and laws of the Gov-
ernment handed down to them by their fathers and
the liberties secured to them by a war of seven
long years of gloom, poverty and trial;" and con-
cluded with his expectation of " exchanging with
proud satisfaction the editorial chair and the sweet
endearments of home for a cell in the prison or
the lot of an exile." Both these were not far dis-
tant from him. Entreated by friends to be absent
for a time, he went with Rev. Jas. Cumming, an
aged Methodist minister, into Blount County.

Informed that Confederate cavalry were search-
ing for him with deadly intent, he and others —
members of the Legislature, preachers and farmers
— fled into the Smoky Mountains that separate
North Carolina and East Tennessee. There, in
Tuckaleeche and Wear's coves, they were en-



A NOTED PATRIOT. 1 55

camped for days in concealment, but were at length
driven by close pursuit to disperse in pairs, and he,
with Rev. W. T. Dowell, went to a friend's house
six miles from Knoxville. From thence Brown-
low addressed a letter on November 22, by Col.
John Williams to Gen. W. H. Carroll, asserting his
innocence of all complicity in the bridge burnings;
that he had kept the pledge he with other leading
Union men had given Gen. Zolicoffer, " to counsel
peace," and he claimed protection under the civil
law. To this, Gen. Carroll, on November 28, re-
plied that Mr. Brownlow should meet with no per-
sonal violence by returning to his home, and if he
could establish what he had said by letter, he should
have every opportunity to do so before the civil
tribunal, were it necessary: Provided, he had com-
mitted no act that would make it necessary for the
military law to take cognizance. Gen. Crittenden
had succeeded to the chief command at Knoxville,
and to him, eight days before the above named
letter of Gen. Carroll, the following was written:

Confederate States op America,
War Department, Richmond, Nov. 20, 1861.
To Major General Crittenden:

Dear Sir — I have been asked to grant a passport for Brownlow
to leave the State of Tennessee. He is said to have secreted him-
self, fearing violence to his person, and to be anxious to depart from
the State.

I cannot give him a formal passport, though I would greatly pre-
fer seeing him on the other side of our lines as an avowed enemy.
I wish, however, to say that I would be glad to learn that he has
left Tennessee ; and I have no objection to interpose to his leaving
if you are willing to let him pass.

Yours, truly,

J. P. BENJAMIN,

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26