USA > Tennessee > The loyalists of Tennessee in the late war : a paper read before the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, April 6, 1887 > Part 1
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01713 0508
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The Loyalists of Tennessee
in the Late War.
"The Loyalists of Tennessee in the Late War." A PAPER
READ BEFORE THE OHIO COMMANDERY
OF THE
MILITARY ORDER
OF THE
Loyal Legion of the United States
APRIL 6, 1887.
BY COMPANION
WILLIAM RULE
(OF KNOXV LLE, TENN. ) Late Adjutant 6th Tennessee Infantry, U. S. Vols.
CINCINNATI : H. C. SHERICK & CO. 1887.
F882.76
THE
Loyalists of Tennessee in the Late War.
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On the first day of May, 1769, a young farmer started out from the banks of the Yadkin River, in the State of North Carolina, accompanied by five stalwart hunters. It was about the time that the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers in Massachusetts were denying themselves the luxury of tea rather than pay tribute to a tyrant king. About the same time the House of Burgesses was dissolved by the Colonial Governor of Virginia for having dared to pass resolutions condemning the Stamp Act ; and Governor Tryon, of North Carolina, was serving his royal master by oppressing the patriots of that colony. The name of the young farmer was James Robertson, the founder of the first colony in Tennessee ; and one of the hunters who accompanied him was Daniel Boone, whose daring ex- ploits have been read by every school-boy and school-girl in the land. They went, as did the messengers sent out by Moses of old, to spy out a land beyond the distant Alleghenies, where they and those who sent them might live free from the restraints and oppressions of British rulers. A year afterward a colony was established beside the swift-rushing, limpid waters of the beautiful Watauga River. It was composed of men and women of heroic mold, filled with inspirations of patriotism, resolved that their abiding place in the wilderness, surrounded by savages, should be " Freedom's home or Glory's grave." The descendants of these patriots who thus fled from British oppression, and were the pioneers in the settlement of East Tennessee. form the basis of my remarks this evening; they have
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made honorable records on the battle-fields of every war in which their country has ever engaged, from King's Mountain to Appomattox.
There were more than one hundred thousand white men in the Union Army from the rebellious States, fully thirty- five thousand of whom were from Tennessee. It is of these of whom I shall speak chiefly, because I know more of them ; though, in passing, I will not fail to pay tribute to those of other sections in the State, and other States in the South. Nor will I forget the thousands of colored men who enlisted from the rebellious States, and did gallant service for the Union cause on many a hotly contested field, and who demonstrated that a black skin is no barrier to manly courage. How to deal with the loyal contingent in the Southern Confederacy was one of the questions that gave the Confederate authorities a great deal of trouble from the outset. When voluntary enlistments became too slow to meet the exigencies of the Confederate service, a sweeping conscript law was passed ; and when its enforce- ment was attempted in East Tennessee, it drove five men into the Union Army to every one secured for the Confed- erate ranks.
The people of this " Switzerland of America" were peculiar in many respects. Living, as they did, about the center of the border slave States, a majority of them were opposed to slavery. It has been stated-and so far as I know never denied -that the first Abolition paper published in the United States emanated from a press in Jonesboro, in Tennessee.
Among the first Abolition societies ever organized in this country were those of Eastern Tennessee. In the year 1816 the Manumission Society of Tennessee held a meet- ing at Greenville, and issued an address advocating the abolition of slavery.
When Abraham Lincoln was elected President, and South Carolina and other Southern States proceeded in hot haste to sever their connection with the Union, Tennessee
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was utterly averse to taking such a step. The secessionists urged that if the slave States would make a common cause, and go out of the Union promptly, the Government would not attempt coercion, and the secession movement would be carried out successfully. It was gravely insisted that the Northern people were too fond of making money to go to war; and if perchance they did make up their minds to fight, one Southern man would prove more than a match for five " Yankees." But.a majority of the people of Tennessee were willing to at least wait until the new President committed some overt act that might afford something like a pretext for secession.
The Governor of the State, however, was an uncompro- mising secessionist. He sent a message to the legislature, urging that body to provide for holding a convention for the purpose of passing an ordinance of secession, which was done. The legislature provided that while electing delegates the voters might at the same time say whether or not the convention should be held. As a result, the propo- sition to hold a convention was voted down by an over- whelming majority. In the counties of Eastern Tennessee, in an aggregate vote of forty-three thousand, the majority against holding the convention was more than twenty-three thousand. This was in February, 1861. But this did not satisfy the leaders of the secession movement, who had determined that they would not accept a negative answer, and that if necessary force should be used to drag the State out of the Union. They redoubled their diligence, and did everything possible to arouse the prejudices and the passions of the people. In April a blow was struck at Fort Sumter. Then came the sounding of trumpets, the rattle of drums, the Confederate recruiting officer in his bright gray uniform, and soon armed Confederate troops were marching upon the streets of the towns and cities.
The Governor convened the legislature again in extra session, and sent in a lurid message, full of dire prophecy as to what was going to happen if the State of Tennessee
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failed to cast her lot with her sisters of the South. That body, under the excitement of the hour, was induced to pass an ordinance of secession, without awaiting the for- mality of holding a convention composed of delegates fresh from the people. An election was ordered to be held on the Sth of June, which everybody knew would be a farce, as it was certain that the people would be over-awed by the military force of the Southern Confederacy. The election was held, and the State was declared out of the Union. The people of East Tennessee, still true to their principles and loyal to their government, gave a majority of twenty thousand against the ratification of the so-called ordinance of secession. The flag of the Union still floated defiantly over their homes, and they now sang " The Star-Spangled Banner" and other national airs with an unction they had never known before.
Anticipating the result of this 8th of June election, a con- vention of Union men had been called to be held at Knoxville on the 31st day of May. That section of the State had been thoroughly canvassed, and the leaders had advocated the cause of the Union upon the stump, at the peril of their lives. This convention met just eight days before the elec- tion, when the town was full of armed Confederate troops. It was presided over by Hon. Thos. A. R. Nelson, then Representative in Congress from the First District. It re- mained in session two days, and adopted resolutions de- nouncing the act of the legislature in passing the ordinance of secession as a gross and wicked usurpation. It then adjourned subject to the call of the president. On the ninth day after the election it assembled again at Green- ville. On this short notice more than three hundred dele- gates, representing all the counties in that section of the State, responded to the call and were present at the con- vention. While it was in session a regiment of Louisiana Confederate soldiers, known as the " The Tiger Rifles," on their way to " take Washington," stopped at Greenville. The commanding officer made a speech in which he
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denounced Johnson, Brownlow, Maynard, and other Union leaders as Tories and traitors. This only embittered the Union men toward the cause of secession, and made them more determined than ever. The convention adopted a de- claration of grievances in which it was emphatically declared that the result of the recent election, ratifying the ordinance of secession, was not binding upon the Union people of East Tennessee. Three commissioners were appointed to mem orialize the legislature for permission to form a separate State out of the counties in that section of the State and such other adjoining counties as might desire to co-operate in the movement. An election was also ordered to be held, at which delegates were to be chosen to a convention to be held at Kingston for the purpose of drafting a constitution, and taking the preliminary steps necessary to the formation of a new State. The date for holding the election was fixed, and it was ordered, but never held, for reasons that will fully appear as we proceed.
The two months preceding the dates of these conventions were pregnant with stirring events. Personal collisions were frequent, and already blood had been shed and lives ยท lost. On the 7th day of May, 1861, a Union flag was pub- licly raised in Knoxville, and a strong Union speech made by the late Judge Trigg. Charles S. Douglass, a courage- ous but indescreet Union man, became involved in a quar- rel with a Confederate major named Morgan. Morgan went away and armed himself. Returning, he commenced firing upon Douglass, who was unarmed, inflicting a slight flesh wound. Douglass was a dangerous man, and Morgan and his friends determined to get rid of him. The next day, two companies of Confederate troops were paraded in front of a hotel nearly opposite to were Douglass lived. He was attracted to the front of his residence, and while looking upon the soldiers, was shot down by the side of . his wife, by some one concealed in an upper room of the hotel. A business man who resided in the town, in writing a private letter to a friend in New Haven the next day,
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related the details of Douglass' assassination. The letter was printed in a New Haven paper with the name of the writer suppressed. It found its way back to Knoxville, and was republished in the local secession paper with bitter curses heaped upon the writer. The real author was suspected, . and the first notice he had of the publication of his private letter was a deluge of anonymous notes coming to him through the post-office, filled with threats of vengeance. He is yet living, one of the leading business men of the South, and owes his life to the exercise of good judgment and a high order of courage in that particular emergency. His only offense was speaking the truth and calling things by their right names. These things are mentioned as a slight illustration of the condition of affairs in East Tennes- see at that time.
In one month after the Greenville convention, the first battle of Bull Run was fought with its discouraging results. It served to arouse the people of the North to the magni- tude of the great rebellion. To the Union men of East Tennessee it was doubly disheartening Their leaders were being arrested on a charge of treason against the Southern Confederacy, and there was now no telling when deliverance would come, and the flag they loved again wave in triumph over their mountain homes ; but their principles remained unchanged, their purposes inflexible, and their devotion unwavering.
About the first of August, 1861, they began to cross the Cumberland Mountains into Kentucky at points not guarded by Confederate troops, and to organize loyal East Tennes- see regiments. Among the first to go was Joseph A.Cooper, of Campbell County, who now resides in the State of Kan- sas. He became Captain of Company A, in the First Tennessee Infantry. He was afterward Colonel of the Sixth Infantry. While marching with Sherman through Georgia, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General. and at the close of the war he was a Major-General by brevet, in command of a division in North Carolina. In a
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few weeks the First and Second Tennessee Infantry were organized at Camp Dick Robinson, with Colonel R. K. Byrd commanding the former, and Colonel Carter the latter. By the first of the following April, six regiments of infantry were organized and in the field, two more were in process of organization, and three regiments of cavalry were par- tially recruited.
Leaving the loyalists of the Southern Confederacy now already in the field, let us go back for a moment to their homes within the Confederate lines, and see what is going on there. On the night of the Sth of November, 1862, an event happened which startled the whole Southern Con- federacy. Three bridges were burned on the line of the railroad between Chattanooga and Bristol. In the language of one of the publications of the times, it was the work of "Lincolnite traitors," being a preconcerted movement en- tered into by East Tennessee loyalists, the purpose of which was to obstruct the transportation of troops to, and supplies for, the Confederate army in Virginia. The situation is described in a letter from Colonel Wood, commanding the post at Knoxville, to the Adjutant-General of the Confederate States at Richmond, who wrote : " The whole country is in a state of rebellion. They [meaning the Union men] must be punished, and some of the leaders ought to be punished to the extent of the law. Nothing short of this will quiet the country. I felt it my duty to proclaim martial law. as there was a large majority of the people sympathizing with the enemy and communicating with them by the unfrequented mountain paths, and to prevent surprise and the destruction of commissary and quartermaster stores."
When this report was made by this Confederate colonel, there was not a Union soldier nearer than one hundred miles of his headquarters. On the 12th of November, 1861, the day after Colonel .Wood wrote that letter, A. G. Graham, a prominent secessionist at Jonesboro, wrote to Jefferson Davis, saying that civil war had broken out in Tennessee, and that the hostile element would " neither
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abate nor be conciliated." Speaking of the loyalists, he said : "They look confidently for the re-establishment of the Federal authority in the South, with as much confidence as the Jews look for the coming of the Messiah ; and I feel sure when I assert it, that no event or circumstance can change or modify their hopes." He evidently understood the situation, and as a remedy he urged the Confederate President to take steps to send Union men north with their families, saying that, with their families there, they could do no great harm.
This bridge-burning was wholly the work of civilians. Those who participated in it were scattered over a wide territory nearly 250 miles in extent ; yet they acted in con- cert, without betraying their secrets, except to a faithful few. The history of this event is imperfectly understood. and never can be fully written, for the reason that the parties who were engaged in it were pledged to the strictest secrecy at the time, which pledge was kept with remarkable fidelity ; and the additional fact that a majority of them are now dead. Every man engaged knew perfectly well that if he should be exposed and arrested, his punishment would be an ignominious death ; yet what was done was without fee or hope of reward, solely because it was believed that it would advance the cause of the Union. As a result. five men were arrested by the Confederate authorities and hung. Many others were arrested on a mere suspicion that they had some foreknowledge of the act, and without the slight- est proof were cast into prison. Martial law was pro- claimed, and the Union people disarmed as far as possible. A reign of terror prevailed, and it really seemed as if the devil had been turned loose and was having everything his own way.
I can never forget the Sunday evening following the burning of the railroad bridges. A rumor prevailed in Knoxville that a thousand " Lincolnites" were marching upon Strawberry Plains for the purpose of burning the bridge over the Holston River at that place. Then there
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was hurrying to and fro. The "long roll " aroused the soldiers in the camps, and soon they were marching double- quick to the depot, where a special train was waiting to hurry .them off to the scene of action. Officers on swift chargers were dashing about the streets as if they believed that the safety of the Confederacy depended upon the celerity of their movements. With bated breath, brave men and fair women hoarsely whispered, " The Yankees are coming.". But the cause of all this alarm and excite- ment was only a story, without foundation, that a few citi- zens unfriendly to the Confederacy were about to make a second attempt to burn a railroad bridge. A few days before this time, the late Wm. G. Brownlow, editor ar.d proprietor of the Knoxville Whig, the last Union newspaper published in the Southern Confederacy, had closed out his paper, at the same time announcing that he expected to be arrested on a charge of treason. I was an employe in his office at the time. He had gone out into the country a few days before, and when the bridges were burned his name was frequently connected with the act, and threats were freely made as to what would be done with him if caught. On the eventful Sunday evening some of his friends held a consultation, and decided that he ought to be made acquainted with the situation. It was further decided that I should go as a special messenger to carry him the informa- tion. The edict had gone forth that no one should go beyond the limits of the town without a pass from the Con- federate authorities, to procure which it was necessary to take an oath to support the Southern Confederacy. Later on, one's conscience might have become elastic enough to take the oath with a mental reservation ; but I decided that I would not, and would go without asking permission. Through the kindness of Mr. E. J. Sanford, now one of the leading business men of the city, I was furnished with a small boat and a skilled man to row it. We embarked in the boat within a few rods of the rebel pickets, and rowed as noiselessly as possible across the Tennessee River.
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arriving safely on the other shore. At the home of Mr. Caleb Baker, a good Union man, I procured one of his best horses for my journey. Riding that night and a part of the next day through the mountains to Wears Cove, I arrived late in the afternoon at the home of Valentine Mat- tox, at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains, where I found the " Fighting Parson." During the day I had seen hundreds of farmers and their sons armed with sporting rifles and shot-guns, prepared to give a warm reception to any Confederate troops who might come in that direction in search of the bridge burners. I found Mr. Brownlow free from excitement, and seemingly perfectly indifferent to the threats being made against him.
The eyes of the loyalists of East Tennessee had been turned longingly toward the Cumberland Mountains for two months, from which direction it was believed that the Union forces were approaching. The burning of the bridges was accepted as positive evidence that the day of deliverance was at hand. The Union men gathered in armed bands at various points. Near Chimney Top Mountain in Greene County, a regiment had been regularly organized. An armed Confederate force was sent out to disperse this regiment, and finding that the arrival of relief was delayed, the command was disbanded, and the men looked to their own'safety, each one taking care of himself. Most of them went immediately to Kentucky and enlisted under the three years' call in the Union service, while many were arrested and imprisoned.
History furnishes no parallel to the manner in which these loyalists of the Southern Confederacy enlisted in the army of their choice. Their recruiting stations were not decorated with waving banners nor enlivened by the soul- stirring strains of martial music. Like criminals fleeing from justice, they stole away from their homes, relying for pro- tection upon the friendly darkness of the night. their own strong nerves, sinews and will, and the mercies of an ever watchful Providence. In some mysterious way-one can
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hardly tell how-the news would be whispered around that on such a time and at such a place there would be a gather- ing of those who wished to " go to Kentucky." The time was always after nightfall, and the place some secluded spot, removed from the frequented public highways. Then there was a day of busy preparation. Patriotic women with heavy hearts were preparing rations for sons, husbands, and brothers who were about to leave them, and upon whose faces they might never look again. When the sun had gone down behind the western hills, hasty good-byes were said, farewell kisses were imprinted on baby's cheek as it peacefully slept in its plain crib, perchance in the log cabin or cottage home, and hot tears expressed the grief of loved ones where language failed. Frail women, with burdens too heavy for mortal flesh to bear, were sustained, God only knows how. Then stalwart forms stole silently away, through forest and field, and a company of unconquerable spirits, whom the powers of the whole Southern Con- federacy were impotent to subdue, were on their way, seeking .a place where they would have the privilege of fighting-perhaps dying -for the flag they loved, and for a freedom which was their proud birthright. If the history of these silent night marches across the valleys and rugged mountains could be accurately written, it would make a volume of more thrilling interest than was ever produced in fiction's most fertile field, and a story more wonderful than was ever wrought out by the liveliest imagination in its loftiest flights.
My own experience as one of the "renegade Lincolnites" of the period is very tame compared with most others, but it may serve as a slight illustration. One beautiful evening in the early autumn I set out with six others, not knowing whether our destination was the Union Army or a Southern prison. One of the first obstacles to overcome was the Tennessee River. We got across by the aid of an old colored man whom we knew would not betray us. Cross- ing the valley west of Knoxville, we kept off the road until
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we reached Beaver Creek. Here, to avoid wading the creek, we ventured to take the road for a short distance and cross over a bridge. The venture proved a dangerous one. After crossing at the bridge, we were passing through a lane, with a field of ripened corn on either side, when suddenly we heard a clattering of hoofs and clanging of sabres. Looking ahead, we saw a company of Confederate cavalry riding rapidly toward us. Jumping over the fence, we lay down quietly in the field of corn, and fortunately had not been seen. Our brothers in gray rode quickly on, much to our relief ; for whatever may have been our inten- tion about fighting the Southern Confederacy, we were not ready to begin there, especially as we were unarmed, and the other side greatly superior in numbers. Before the dawn of morning we had reached what is known as the Bull Run Hills, on the north side of the creek of that name, and lay down in the leaves for rest and sleep. We traveled a part of next day, being careful to avoid the roads as far as possible, and to keep under cover of the woods when we could. Our next serious obstacle was Clinch River, the Confederate authorities having given orders to destroy all boats, canoes, etc., to prevent escaping Unionists from using them. Here Daniel Ridenour came to our relief. He gave us a good supper, which was greatly relished, and then set us across the river, two at a time, in an old canoe with one end knocked out, which the Con- federate authorities had doubtless concluded was too frail for practical use. It was a risk to attempt to cross in it, but one we took in preference to that of being picked up by the ever vigilant Confederate cavalry, and sent off to Castle Thunder or some other of the numerous Southern prisons. That night we crossed Powell's Valley in a cold rain, and then began to ascend the Cumberland Mountains above Big Creek Gap. Daylight next morning found us on the north side of the mountains in " the promised land," free from danger, and feeling that really and truly we were in " God's country." Often those who crossed went as many as two
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hundred or three hundred together, in which case the suffer- ing and inconvenience was much greater. Many were overtaken by the enemy and some were shot down, their names going to swell the long list of martyrs to the national cause in the rebellious States. 1687294
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