USA > Tennessee > Bradley County > History of the rebellion in Bradley County, East Tennessee > Part 11
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The sudden effect of this petition upon the authorities at Knoxville is also evidence that, so for as signatures were concerned, it was a triumphant success. The effect was Brown's immediate release. This shows that the peti- tion embodied the strength of the rebel element of Cleve- land. Had it represented an insignificant clique, or few, it could not have had this effect.
It is perfectly unavoidable, therefore, that not only the twenty persons, whose names are here given were guilty, and are held responsible for endorsing Brown's conduct and for turning him loose to continue his depredations, but we might with propriety add to the above list, and publish the names of every other rebel then in, and around Cleveland, for the names of all such were as surely upon the petition, as were those we have given.
When this petition was gotten up Brown was under arrest for grave, serious offences and cruelties -com- plained of, and charged with these by one of his own party before his superiors ; and had it not been for this petition he would have been tried and doubtless convicted, and his career of cruelty and shame brought to a close. This.
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petition, however, turned him loose with encouragement to rob, steal, and murder with less fear of being brought to justice than before. Bradley rebels, therefore, were the perpetrators, equally with Brown himself, of all his sub- sequent villainies.
It is not remarkable to find in any community, however civilized and moral, a few unprincipled men, or even some who are notoriously wicked, whose lives are a continued scene of rascality and dire oppression; but it is remark- able, that the ruling portion of a civilized and Christian community, should voluntarily indorse the conduct, and publicly justify the career of one of the worst men in existence. Indeed this fact is so remarkable, that it is not to be accounted for upon any of the ordinary principles governing civilized and Christian society. A solution of the problem, that such a case contains, can be reached only upon the supposition that the cause by which the parties were driven forward, was nearer a personification of satan, than a scheme originating with a society of rational and dispossessed human intelligences.
The parties whose names are here given, as well as the entire rebel element of Cleveland and vicinity, are re- minded that this rebellion is the subject of history; and that history is for the benefit of present and coming gen- erations ; consequently must include the errors and vices that corrupt as well as the virtues that bless and redeem the times narrated. Individuals, as much as communities, who engaged in this rebellion, thereby made themselves the property of history. This was the contract voluntarily entered into by them at the time; and he who faithfully details the conduct of the bad as well as that of the good, individually and collectively, is only holding both parties to their own proposals thus voluntarily made at the be- ginning. Those who were in the wrong have no more right to complain that a record is made of their errors fol- lowed with legitimate deductions, than those in the right that the same course is taken with their virtues. Those who had the misfortune to fall into wrong, and especially those who embraced it from preferences of disposition,
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must be held to their position and compelled to meet the consequences. There is no other alternative, the vital interests of history are at stake, truth is required. Con- sequently all parties must be historically classed among the followers of him whom they delighted to serve as their acknowledged master.
In our conversation with Union people in East Tennes- see upon the malignancy of the rebellion in that part of the country, it was very frequently their remark that they never even imagined the actual depravity of mankind till it was taught them by the conduct of the rebels towards themselves. That the human heart could reduce itself to such outrageous beastliness, that it could be guilty of con- duct so fiendish as was the case with the rebels in some instances, had escaped all their former observations upon the character and actions of mankind.
Among many Union people in Tennessee whom we heard speak of the same thing, relating instances of the same fact, namely, that the rebellion, in many cases, actu- ally developed the spirit of the devil, one of the most intelligent and influential ladies in Cleveland, one whose talents, position and refinement entitle her statements to unlimited credit, in relating her sore experience among the rebels,-especially among the lady rebels-declared it as her honest and religious conviction, that in many cases she had to fight the Devil face to face in the persons of her rebel enemies. That not only the men manifestly displayed the tyranny and wickedness of attending and prompting demons, but many of the women, from "the loss of their rights," passed from one degree of individual rebellion to another, till they were no longer themselves, no longer the same women-till the malignant excite- ment had transformed them into the very embodiment of furies, and left them a prey, she believed, to actual demo- niac possession.
This lady stated that in some of the worst specimens the diabolical spirit seemed to take possession of the phy- sical as well as the mental constitution, that it was unmis- takably present in every look, word and action; that it
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pushed itself out upon every lineament of the features, where it couched a visible demon, changing the whole countenance from that of a human being to that of a rankling and malignant fiend.
The above is but the statement of a historical fact-a fact for which the historian is no more responsible than he is for other facts, and from the statement or recording of which he has no more right to shrink than he has to shrink from the recording of other facts.
This rebellion presents us with a moral as well as a political problem; and before the former can be solved we shall doubtless find it necessary, especially in view of the character of the rebellion in East Tennessee, at An- dersonville, Belle Island, and other particular places, to deal with such facts as the above.
As a subject of special attention, with the following summary remarks, we shall now take our leave of Capt. Brown, although his name will occasionally appear in the remainder of this work.
As already seen, Brown was Captain in the 4th East Tennessee Rebel Cavalry, commanded by Col. J. F. Rogers. Many of Brown's company, as well as many of the whole regiment, were Union men forced into the rebel service. The regiment was first ordered to Knox- ville, then to the vicinity of Cumberland Gap, where it remained a few months, during which many of the men deserted to the Federal lines. On account of its Union- ism, in the spring of 1862, this regiment, we believe, and certainly the 36th Tennessee Infantry, otherwise the squirrel brigade, because of the Union spirit which it be- trayed, and the number that daily deserted from it to the Federals, were ordered to report to Savannah, Georgia. In June, 1862, what were left of these troops were recalled from Savannah to Cleveland, and there disbanded. Thus released, those of these men who were rebels at heart en- listed in other rebel commands, some, however, from their love of plunder, connecting themselves with different guerrilla bands, in which they served not only to the end of the war, but as long as the mountains of northern
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Georgia and of North Carolina could afford them protec- tion.
As a soldier, as it naturally would be, Brown's career was short. He commenced recruiting his company early in the fall of 1861, and resigned when his regiment was disbanded at Cleveland, making his term of service only about seven months. After this his patriotism did not prompt him to fight for the Southern Confederacy. He remained in Bradley from his resignation, exercising his office of Justice of the Peace, collecting specific taxes for the Rebel Government, and robbing both parties, till he was compelled to leave his family and flee to Dixie before our army in the winter of 1863-64. After an absence of some months he had the audacity to write to his former minister, Rev. Hiram Douglas, enquiring if it would be safe for him to return to his family in Bradley on condi- tion that he would take the oath of allegiance to the Gov- ernment of the United States. What advice he received from his spiritual adviser is not known. Mrs. Brown counselled with lawyer J. H. Gaut, of Cleveland, to the same effect, who frankly informed her, that if her husband valued his life, the farther he could keep from the Union people of Bradley the safer he would be. Shortly after this, Mrs. Brown stealthily left Cleveland, assisted by the Rev. Mr. McNutt, another implacable rebel Christian, and it is supposed joined her wretched husband in some part of Georgia, where, unless he is detected and brought to justice, both may linger out the remainder of their mis- erable earthly existence.
As we are about to take formal leave of Capt. Brown as a distinct subject in this history, it may be appropriate in this connection to sketch the character and take leave also at the same time of his son, already introduced in this chapter.
The name of this precocious scoundrel was Samuel, who at the opening of the rebellion was but sixteen years of age. Serving as a rebel soldier in the same regiment with his father till the latter resigned, the son, from this time, floated loosely away upon the inland sea of the re-
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bellion in northern Georgia and southern East Tennessee, assuming the character of rebel soldier, guerrilla, bush- whacker, horse-thief, robber, murderer, or whatever guise was best suited to perfect his criminal course and render him a finished specimen of the illustrious stock from which he descended, and by which he had been effectu- ally schooled in iniquity. Some time after his father resigned, he went South and pretended to be a member, for some months, of a Tennessee regiment of rebel cav- alry.
His most noted career, however, after he became detached from his first regiment, was perpetrated in the summer and fall of 1864 as a guerrilla in the rear of Sher- man's army. He was with Gatewood, a leading guerrilla chief, an account of whom will be given hereafter, and at one time when on an excursion of plundering, boasted in the presence of a Union family, or in the presence of Union people, of having cut the throat of a Union Ten- nesseean-whose name we have unfortunately lost-after his victim had been shot down and rendered helpless by himself and his guerrilla companions. He displayed and flourished the knife with which he performed the deed, and swore to the satisfaction it gave him to "cut the throat of the d-d Lincolnite."
On the 17th of August, 1864, Gen. Wheeler appeared in the vicinity of Cleveland from the direction of Dalton, and tore up the railroad connecting the two places, seven miles south of Cleveland, near the residence of Mr. Hiram Smith. Young Brown and another young guerrilla fol- lowed in Wheeler's wake near enough to keep under his protection, robbing and plundering all the Union families they could reach.
In Bradley, Brown, with pistol in hand, first robbed Mr. Benjamin Hambright, taking ten dollars in greenbacks from his person, after which he demanded his hat; but Mr. Hambright immediately turned from him and passed on, the stripling thief cursing and threatening to shoot him, but Mr. Hambright disregarding, was soon out of his sight and saw him no more.
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Brown and his companion next assaulted the premises of Mr. Hiram Smith, which they plundered while Wheel- er's men were tearing up the railroad track within sight and but a few yards from Mr. Smith's door. Mr. Smith was not at home. He, his father and brothers, were strong Union men, and had done good service against the rebellion. Young Brown cursed and abused Mrs. Smith, alleging that her husband and brothers-in-law had been the principal cause of the troubles that came upon his father and mother-that the Unionism of her husband and brothers-in-law drove his father and mother out of the country, &c. He made a sentinel of his companion to watch for Mr. Smith or other persons who might ap- proach the house, while he, vandal like, tore through the house opening chests, ransacking bureau drawers, and insultingly invading, in Mrs. Smith's presence, every other private apartment in the dwelling that he could discover, in quest of money, watches, revolvers and other valuables. In prospect of visitors of his stripe, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, long before that time, had deposited in a place of safety all the valuables in their possession of the kind he so much desired, consequently his search was fruitless. En- raged at his failure, Brown levied upon an army oil-cloth and a half worn out hat, swearing that Mrs. Smith's father was rich, and must have by him a plenty of money ; that he knew him to be the owner of a gold watch and valua- ble black mare, and he'd be d-d if he did not pay him a visit.
Mr. B. F. Jones, Mrs. Smith's father, sixty-seven years of age, lived a half-mile to the west over a ridge in another valley. The two thieves then mounted their ani- mals and dashed up the ridge at a furious rate, Brown, to be ready for any emergency, swinging his revolver over his own head and over the head of his animal in a menac- ing manner, in which plight they disappeared over the hill in quest of more valuable booty. They found Mr. Jones, his wife, and Mrs. Martin V. Jones, a daughter-in- law, at home. As in the previous case young Gregory was made sentinel, while Brown, with revolver in hand, took
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possession of the premises. He first, with curses and threats, thumping his revolver against him, searched the person of Mr. Jones for money and the gold watch. He examined his person closely for a money-belt, which he hoped to find, and hoped to find it containing a large amount. Money and watch, as well as the black mare, however, had been placed beyond his reach. Through with Mr. Jones personally, bureau and stand drawers, cupboards, pantries, trunks and private rooms of the whole house hurriedly passed under his fiendish and greedy supervision. He demanded of Mrs. M. V. Jones, the daughter-in-law, the keys to her private room, which he entered, tore to pieces and plundered, more like a sav- age hyena or youthful devil incarnate than a natural born human being. In this room he discovered and captured an empty pocket-book, a five dollar powder-flask and a lot of gun caps, property of the husband of the young lady from whom he extorted the keys. He also captured three dollars in Confederate money, which he found in a glass tumbler in one of the cupboards. These were the sum total of his burglarious gatherings from the family of Mr. Jones. Money, gold and silver watches, and similar valuables, had been placed where his robbing propensities were taxed in vain to find them. Three valuable watches belonging to different members of the family were not far from him, yet beyond his reach during the whole of his wicked onslaught upon them.
If possible, more chagrined and enraged at his much unexpected failure to raise a pile from Mr. Jones than he was at his failure at Mr. Smith's, he cursed and terribly threatened the old gentleman as a last resort to make him disgorge ; but all being of no avail he and his com- panion rode off, Brown at the same time striking up a vulgar song as an insult to the women.
Returning in a gallop to Mr. Smith's, the thieves found that their protecting companions, Wheeler's cavalry, had left some time before. Brown, in particular, appearing alarmed at his isolated condition, eagerly inquired of Mrs. Smith the direction his friends had taken, which being
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pointed out, the two suddenly disappeared, following the trail of the rebel cavalry.
A few days previous to committing the foregoing depre- dations, young Brown robbed a Dr. Leach, a Union man, a short distance south in Georgia. Dr. Leach had for- merly lived in Cleveland, Bradley county, and for many years was Capt. Brown's family physician. He sustained this relation to the family when young Samuel was born, and was his mother's physician on that occasion; conse- quently Samuel was regarded in after years by the doctor with more than ordinary interest among the rising gen- eration in and around Cleveland. These semi-paternal feelings, however, were very suddenly cooled when the stripling presented the deadly revolver to the doctor's breast, and with the hardened face of a three-score pirate demanded and took his money (forty dollars,) and a time- keeper that cost him seventy-five dollars. Little did the doctor think eighteen years before, that he was catching a viper that would one day, not only leach him in this manner, but strip the hat from his head, leaving his per- son uncovered and unprotected in the open air. The doc- tor moved from Cleveland, perhaps sometime previous to the war, consequently, he and young Brown, had not, since that time, been very conversant. Brown while he was perpetrating the villainy, assumed a fictitious per- sonality that the doctor might not suspect that it was the identical Samuel Brown of Cleveland, who was robbing him. The doctor informed him, however, that he could not be deceived, that he had not only known him from a child, but was with him when he was born, assisting his mother to bring him into the world, and now to be robbed or murdered by him, was a poor return for such favor. All appeals, however, made to Brown glanced off as though they had fallen upon the head of a young alligator. The vandalism was completed, and the doctor left moneyless, watchless and bareheaded, a pitiful object under the cir- cumstances, especially considering the unclean brute to whose manipulation he had been subjected.
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Young Brown continued his depredations in Tennessee and northern Georgia, upon principles similar to the fore- going, under one guerrilla leader and another, yet as often being leader himself, until sometime, perhaps in the spring of 1865, when he either drifted toward Mexico with Gatewood, or fled south to join his justly execrated and exiled parents.
Young Brown's career is by no means an isolated case in the country where he thus operated.
PERRINE SC
PAYNE PRESENTING HIS PETITION TO CRAIGMILES-page 123.
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CHAPTER XIII.
THE CLEVELAND BANNER.
THE history of the Rebellion in Bradley would be very incomplete without a few paragraphs devoted to the Cleveland Banner.
The Banner had been published in Cleveland, the county seat of Bradley, for a number of years previous to the breaking out of the rebellion. Its editorial depart- ment was under the control of its present editor, Mr. Robert McNelly, we believe, from the commencement of its publication, until it was suppressed by the Federal military authorities, shortly after the battle of Missionary Ridge.
Judge Rowls, a resident perhaps of Polk County, a man of some talent and influence, but an unprincipled rebel leader, was said to have an interest in the concern ; and it was known that his articles contributed to the columns of the Banner, as well as the influence he exerted as a partner, tended very much to make it the bitter, relent- less, dishonest and disgraceful rebel sheet it proved itself to be. Previous to the war, the Banner was a faithful exponent of Southern principles and Southern dogmas. Consequently, when the rebellion came, it is not singular that it so readily espoused a cause, the crime of which its previous labors contributed to induce.
A faithful portrayal in book form of the Southern press as it existed during, and for some time previous to the rebellion, would constitute a most useful lesson to his- tory. The extremes of good and bad among men are of more importance and are more instructive as subjects of history, than the medium of these qualities. The medium of good and the medium of bad in this life, live together in comparative peace, both comparatively indifferent as
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to ascendancy, while their extremes only are at open war, coming occasionally into fierce and terrible conflict. Consequently, a knowledge of how the distant struggle goes, tells us which way the world is drifting, whether towards good or evil. It is the victory of the active few at these extremes that sets the general tide, in fact, that con- trols the many, moulding the form and shaping the destiny of the massive elements between.
This truth is strikingly illustrated in the instance of the Northern and the Southern press, far many years past. Southern slaveholders, politicians and statesmen, the controling element in the South, were the active extreme of the evil power on that side. The Adamses, Lovejoys, Sumners, Beechers, and Colfaxes in the North, were the active extreme of the good opposing the evil of these Southern leaders. The masses both North and South were comparatively idle, and indifferent about the important struggle between the two sections, kept up by these extremes for the past forty years.
As an instance of the extreme evil, on the part of the Southern press, of which we have been speaking-an instance of low flung falsehood, published with a view to fan the passions of the ignorant and create a thirst for blood, we give the following extract from the Cleveland Banner. It is taken from a number dated April 9th, 1863.
" HANDCUFFS FOR THE SOUTH .- The Southern papers, says the Rich- mond Dispatch, should keep before the people of the South and of the world. the astounding and unparalleled fact, that the army which invaded Virginia, brought with them thirty thousand handcuff's. which were taken with other spoils from the enemy ! This surpasses all that we have ever heard of Russian or Austrian despotism. It is almost impossible to realize, that in the United States, a country boasting itself as the freest-the most deliberate, inhuman and atro- cious plan should have been formed to degrade and enslave a free people, of which there is any record of in this or any other age. Who ever heard, even in despotic Europe, of an invading army tra- veling with thirty thousand handcuffs as a part of its outfit."
The Army of the Potomac, like all other armies, doubt- less, provided itself with a suitable supply of army hand- cuffs, in view of the necessity of their use in extreme cases, and that of course, without especial reference to rebel prisoners ; and it is possible that some few of these
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were captured by the rebels. The idea, however, that this army prepared itself with thirty thousand of these articles, a burden sufficient, in all kinds of weather, and on all kinds of army roads, to load down at least twelve or fifteen six-mule teams, with an intention to send to Washington, thirty thousand rebel prisoners in irons, is so perfectly senseless that the report could not for a moment gain the attention of any respectable journalist. No journalist, even under the corrupting influence of the rebellion, unless he was a natural fool, could give pub- licity to a thing of this kind, honestly thinking it to be true; and certainly, none but a natural and ingrained knave, would do so, knowing it to be false.
Treating this subject in this positive manner, the man- ner in which all subjects of the kind should be treated, there is no escape from this conclusion; and the editor of the Banner can hang himself upon whichever horn of the dilemma he pleases. In all probability, there was not a rebel sheet in the whole South, whose columns were not disgraced, sooner or later, with this ridiculous and heathenish lie.
From the few copies of the Banner that fell into our hands, it would be easy to fill pages of this work with extracts equally false and equally low-bred, with the fore- going. The Banner, like all other rebel sheets, appeared to täke a fiendish delight in venting its rebel spleen, and in pouring out its treasonable venom upon the head of President Lincoln.
The following extract, among hundreds of others of the same revolting nature, that might be given, will not only illustrate this point, but will afford a clue to the moral and intellectual character of the Banner:
We have taken the liberty to italicise a few of the most ominous passages in these extracts.
" The news from the old Government is of rather an unimportant char- acter. The administration at Washington appears to be in a quan- dary-one day it concludes to evacuate the Southern forts-the next day it reconsiders and talks about re-enforcing them, but does nei- ther. The fact is the Black Republican administration of Lincoln, Seward & Co .. to use a common phrase, is " is in a hell of a fix" and
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