USA > Tennessee > Bradley County > History of the rebellion in Bradley County, East Tennessee > Part 8
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THE FIFTH DISTRICT ELECTION.
Although it will place us for the time in advance' of some parts of our narrative, yet as we have been sketch- ing Capt. Brown's private character, that the reader may without too much surprise meet the facts in the history of his military career; and as this election illustrates Brown as a public man, also as a civil officer, and as it reveals the animus of the rebellion in this section at the time, we shall introduce it here.
As already stated, Brown entered the rebel service in the fall of 1861. His military career was short. In June, 1862, he resigned his commission, becoming once more a private citizen, and residing upon his farm with his family in the fifth district, about three miles from Cleveland.
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IN BRADLEY COUNTY, EAST TENNESSEE.
Early in the spring of 1863 an election was to take place in that district, at which, among other officers, a Justice of the Peace was to be chosen. Brown was the rebel candidate for this office against Mr. Hiram Smith of the Union party. The Union party in this district, as well perhaps as in others at this time, was considerably in the ascendancy : and a fair trial at this election could have resulted only in the success of the Union candidate. Be- ing aware of this, in conformity with the general charac- ter of the rebellion, Brown and his friends must make preparations to counteract this Union advantage. At this time the whole of East Tennessee was writhing in the jaws of a rebel military despotism, by the aid of which power it was easy for rebel citizens to control elections as well as all other matters throughout the country.
Mr. James Donahoo, one of the most bitter and relent- less rebels in the district, working in the interest of Brown, managed to get himself appointed by the Sheriff of the county as President or Conductor of this election. The duties of this officer are to open and close the polls at the proper hours, to see that the balloting is legal, and that the election throughout is held strictly in accordance with law and in a manner to preserve inviolate to all par- ties the right of the elective franchise. Utterly ignoring these obligations, however, Donahoo, after procuring his appointment, connived with the rebel military authorities at Cleveland, stealthily effecting an arrangement, perhaps the day before the election, that all under the age of forty-five who appeared at the polls must have permits from the Provost Marshal to do so. Then, as a clincher to this, news of this arrangement was to be immediately circulated among the rebels, that Brown's friends could have ample time to get their permits; but kept a pro- found secret from the Union men till the moment of the opening of the polls. The election was at the Blue Springs school house, just five miles from Cleveland.
Brown and Donahoo were old and crafty performers in the work of rebellion, and in this particular case engi- neered their scheme through with so much stealth and
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skill that it succeeded entirely to their own wishes, allow- ing them to have entirely their own way at the polls, whisky and all. Every rebel voter perhaps in the district having been secretly posted in regard to the treacherous game, was promptly at the polls with his permit concealed in his pocket, ready to fulfill the farcical obligation of being there by military authority. In regard to the Union voters, however, just the contrary was their condi- tion. Not a Union voter in the district. knew that it was his duty to obtain a permit to attend the election till the balloting commenced. To spring this villainous trap, however, with additional certainty, Donahoo, although sworn to open the polls at nine o'clock in the morning, delayed to do so, purposely dallying away time, till be- tween eleven and twelve in the day. Some Union men present asserted that it was even after this time when the polls were opened. This put it beyond the power of the Union voters to comply with Mr. Donahoo's military reg- ulation. Not one in ten, unprepared as they were with animals, at that late hour could reach Cleveland, a dis- tance of five miles, obtain his permit, and return in time to vote.
By the success, therefore, of this infernal scheme, every Union man in the district under the age of forty-five was debarred from voting, for Mr. Donahoo refused to allow any of them even to approach the polls for the want of these permits, having in the meantime brought with him a guard of six rebel soldiers whom he had already sta- tioned at the door to enforce these abominable regula- tions. As a matter of course the Union voters were in- dignant at such treatment, some of whom expostulated with Mr. Donahoo and Capt. Brown, asserting that this regulation should have been published to all the day be- fore, that they as well as the rebels could have been pre- pared. These expostulations, however, were met by these men with all that insolence and positive abuse that one would expect from those endeavoring to carry an election by such measures.
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IN BRADLEY COUNTY, EAST TENNESSEE.
A part of these Union voters, compelled to do so by the rebel authorities, were then at work, not as soldiers, but simply as employees of the Confederate government, on the railroads, getting timber, procuring wood, etc., all of them, we believe, within the District; and Mr. Donahoo in answer to their complaints replied, that having left their work to attend that election without permits, they were all deserters, rebel deserters, and ought to be re- ported and arrested as such.
Most of these Union employees were at work near the polls, a quarter and a half mile from them, and had they all been permitted to vote, as they had a right to do, could have done so with the loss of but very little time, without going out of the District. Many of them would have voted during the hour of recess at noon, without being absent from their work at all. Besides, doubt- less, none of the men did leave their work without the consent of their gang boss, hence their absence was no injury to his business. Yet, notwithstanding these pal- liating circumstances, Mr. Donahoo calls these men deserters, simply because they were there without per- mits. Inasmuch then, as this was Mr. Donahoo's own position, voluntarily taken, he cannot object to having his own conduct brought forward and put to the test by it. No man can complain when he and his theories are tried by rules which he has made himself.
Now, if these men were deserters, because without permits they left their work to attend this election, then by the same rule, they would have been deserters, had they left their work and gone five miles to Cleveland to get the permits he required of them. And not only so, but the latter would have been a much stronger case of desertion than the former. In this case some of the men-those whose work was a mile or two south of the school house-would have been compelled to travel from five to seven miles to Cleveland, entirely out of the district, and back, being absent from their work perhaps the whole day, while, as we have seen, in the first instance, none of them had to go out of the district. Many of them 7
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had to walk but a short distance, necessarily being absent from their work but a few minutes. Some of these men were but a few yards from their work when Donahoo was accusing them of desertion. According to Mr. Donahoo's own interpretation of desertion, therefore, it was impos- sible for these Union voters to comply with his regula- tion, not only without being guilty of desertion simply, but without being guilty of it in a much more aggravated sense, than they were in coming to the election as they did. Even Mr. Hiram Smith himself, Brown's opponent, had he at the time been an employee of the Confederate government, could not have attended that election and cast a vote for himself without first being guilty of de- sertion, and laying himself liable to be arrested and tried for the crime. Had these Union voters by some accident discovered Mr. Donahoo's military clap-trap in time, and early on the morning of the election, left their work and. hurried to Cleveland for their permits, very likely Dona- hoo or Brown, or both, would have met them at the Pro- vost Marshal's and had them all arrested and punished for desertion. According to Donahoo's own theory, he could have done so. The management of this election, therefore, was such as to drive a portion of the Union voters of the district, effectually from the polls, or drive them into desertion, and consequently to subject them to arrest and punishment by the rebel authorities. There is no escape from this conclusion. All the rebels in Brad- ley county, with the sophistical editor of the Banner thrown in, can never extricate these men from this humil- iating and disgraceful dilemma. Little did Donahoo, Brown and Shugart, think at the time, that their villainy was thus preparing a hook to be put into their own jaws, and by which they were to be historically drawn up and left exposed and helplessly dangling before the whole country, a disgrace to themselves and their posterity, while their names are known in Bradley county.
The above, however, is not the whole of the rebel his- tory of this election. Major D. G. McCulley, a Union man of the district, and living near the polls, was, as a
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IN BRADLEY COUNTY, EAST TENNESSEE.
mere pretense to fairness, put on the bench as one of the judges, Dr. Shugart also of the district, and a Mr. Reed of Georgia, both relentless rebels, being the other two. At the discovery of Mr. Donahoo's military valve for shutting off Union votes, Major McCulley promptly entered his protest against it, and as other abuses and violations of law developed themselves through the day, raised his voice against them, also. At the closing of the polls, he told Mr. Donahoo and the other judges that Union men had been prevented from voting by intrigue and the presence of rebel bayonets; that as they had conducted the election, throughout, it was not only illegal but a positive fraud; that consequently, he should not sign the scrolls, but, as one of the judges, send up his protest against the whole affair. Donahoo and the other judges attempted to win him over but without effect; and after exhausting their powers of persuasion their patience gave way, and threats were employed instead. He was told that if he did not sign the scrolls he would be arrested by the military. One of Donahoo's guards, one that had indulged too freely in artificial stimulants to his patriotism, also was allowed to abuse the Major as a Lin- colnite, a traitor, a tory, and so on. He swore that he would sooner run his bayonet through him than to do any- thing else. The Major, however, was not more easily frightened at their threats, than cajoled by their importu- nities, persisting in his refusal to append his name to the scrolls ; and the returns went up under his protest as one of the judges of the election.
In justice it should be stated here, that two others of this guard, while this contest was going on, interfered in Major McCully's behalf, rebuking the drunken guard for the abuse he was heaping upon him, and saying that the Major had as good a right to his opinion as the other judges had to theirs; that he had a right to express his opinion, that as to the election, they believed the Major was right in holding that the election had not been fair, and that they were sorry it had been necessary for them to have anything to do with it.
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Under the circumstances, only six Union votes were cast, and only sixteen rebel votes, notwithstanding an unusual effort was put forth by the rebels to get their friends to the polls. By actual count, at the time, of the Union voters in the district, it was demonstrated that had the election been legal, the Union majority would at least have been two to one.
Mr. Hiram Smith, Brown's opponent, discovering early in the day the intervention and proscription inaugurated, and so insolently enforced by Donahoo, considering him- self insulted as well as disgraced by such company, im- mediately left the polls in disgust, advising his friends to do so also, and save themselves the shame of attending such a farce. In fact Mr. Smith objected in the beginning to having his name announced as a candidate in opposition to such a man as Wm. L. Brown.
One would suppose that the foregoing combination of disgraceful means would have been thought sufficient by these rebels, not only to carry this election, but as com- prising all the corruption and wickedness that one occa- sion of the kind ought to bear. The fact, however, was otherwise. Even the exhilarating effects of whisky, as well as the temptings of bribery were added to complete the list of abominations with which these rebels were polluting the polls of the fifth district.
Early in the day, Brown procured of Mr. Joseph Hen- derson, then manufacturing liquor not far from the polls, a quantity of the needful article, which was slyly, though liberally distributed by Brown to all that would accept of it, at the election, to induce them to vote for him, and to prepare them to more effectively electioneer in his favor. The first supply being soon exhausted, Brown arranged with Mr. Henderson to furnish the article through the day as it was needed. The contract was faithfully kept by Mr. Henderson till the closing of the polls, Brown's money footing the bills. In addition to this contemptible business, Brown offered this same Mr. Henderson a bribe of five dollars for his ballot. Mr. Henderson was a Union man, and Brown's offer was indignantly refused. No ways
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IN BRADLEY COUNTY, EAST TENNESSEE.
abashed at this, Brown instantly raised his bid to twenty- five dollars, providing Mr. Henderson would, besides giving him his own vote, interest himself and secure him the votes of certain other parties. This proposal, how- ever, was as quickly rejected as the other.
The polls being finally closed, Brown was declared elected; and although the returns went up under the pro- test of Major McCulley as heretofore given, yet this proved no impediment to Brown's claim, not even elicit- ing the least inquiry, or causing the least hesitation. His name was immediately forwarded to Governor Harris as the legally elected candidate, and forthwith his creden- tials were returned installing him as the lawfully elected and authoritative justice of the peace in the fifth dis- trict. He held and exercised his office until he fled before our army to Dixie in the winter 1864.
ARREST OF MR. SAMUEL WYRICK.
We will now follow Capt. Brown for a moment as a civil officer, and view the harmony that existed between the means by which he obtained his office and the manner in which he subsequently distributed its justice to the people. Having opened his office for business in Cleve- land, soon after he obtained his commission from the supreme authority of the State, Brown ascertained through some of his rebel advisers, or through some of his rebel spies, that Mr. Samuel Wyrick of the ninth dis- trict, a Union man, had purchased for a sick woman, the wife of a Union soldier then in the Northern Army, a quart of spirits as a medicine. Brown kept the matter quiet, but watched his opportunity to ensnare Mr. Wyrick, remembering, perhaps, the amount of whisky fees it had cost him to obtain his sacred office. In a few days the opportunity presented itself, when Brown issued a pro- cess against Mr. Wyrick, and had him arrested and brought to trial for the offence of buying spirits for a sick woman. The process was founded upon some temporary regulation established by the rebel military authorities, either as a specific tax on sales and purchases, or as a pro-
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hibitory regulation in regard to the sale of spirits in the country. Mr. Wyrick acknowledged that he purchased the liquor, but explained that it was for another person who was actually in want of it as a medicine, and that he was ignorant at the time, that in such a case he was violating any law, or that any tax was imposed on such purchases, saying, that if he had violated any law, he was ready to make restitution to any proper extent. Brown, however, was in no mood for compromises, or for yielding a par- ticle of the advantage in his hands, and at once fixed the penalty to the extreme end of the law, mulucting Mr. Wyrick in a fine with costs, amounting to $106, which had to be paid forthwith. Mr. Wyrick not having that amount in his pocket at the moment, Brown seized upon a quantity of goods in his possession, which he had just purchased in Cleveland, principally for other parties, and for which he had paid $140 in cash. In addi- tion to this, Brown attempted to levy upon the horse which Mr. Wyrick rode into town, but Union friends smuggled the animal out of his reach until Mr. Wyrick finally escaped with him to his home, some eight miles from Cleveland, where he had to settle with his neigh- bors for his loss of their goods as best he could.
Thus was Mr. Wyrick robbed by this infernal brute, and that upon the hypocritical pretence only, that he had violated a law which the wretch, but a short time before, had so shamefully violated himself in order to obtain the office, by the authority of which he now prosecuted and fined Mr. Wyrick. The facts of this transaction were fur- nished by Mr. Wyrick himself, and may therefore be relied upon. They will not be doubted by those who know Mr. Wyrick. All the information in regard to the election narrated in this chapter, was furnished by the most reliable Union men in the fifth district, and although in some instances we may have used strong language- for none other is suitable in describing such abuses, yet it is believed, that as a general description the abuses of this case have not been exaggerated, and that Union men who were present, and saw for themselves all the facts,
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IN BRADLEY COUNTY, EAST TENNESSEE.
will testify to the general truthfulness of the statements here given.
In fact this account is not the aggregate of the villainy and demonstrations of treason connected with this affair. Dr. Shugart in particular, at this election, availed himself of the opportunity to falsify and berate the Government, stating in substance that the Government had become an engine of oppression, persecuting and grinding the South- ern States generally; that in view of the prohibitory enactments of Congress in regard to the institution of slavery, the Union ought to have been overthrown and completely demolished twenty years before, etc.
Such delineations of the separate, distinct rebel crimes and abuses in the South are tedious and laborious. They require great patience and industry in the collection as well as in the arrangement of the facts, but we deem them of the utmost importance, for nothing else will save to history, or place before the country in its true light, the studied wickedness and unrelieved depravity of the rebellion.
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HISTORY OF THE REBELLION
CHAPTER IX.
UNION PEOPLE OF BRADLEY ROBBED OF THEIR PRIVATE ARMS.
INTRODUCTORY to this chapter we will give an extract from the Cleveland Banner, taken from an issue dated July 19, 1861. The extract closes with a sentence of edi- torial advice which we take the liberty to put in italics. Unquestionably this editorial was the first instance in which the idea of robbing the Union people of Bradley of their private arms, was thrown, broadcast, before the rebel masses of East Tennessee. The extract is as follows :
"A MOVE IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION .- Gov. Pettus, of Mississippi has issued a proclamation calling on the State and county officers to collect up all the arms, rifles and shot guns new or old, in or out of order, and send them to Jackson, the capital of the State, where they may be repaired and held in readiness for the use of the soldiers. He also notifies all citizens to arm themselves with double-barrel shot guns, and hold themselves in readiness at an hour's notice. By these means the State will be in possession of a large quantity of good arms that might otherwise be useless. We hope the proper authorities will follow up the more of Gov. Pettus."
We are not in possession of the exact date at which this "move in the right direction" commenced in Bradley; but from other dates in our possession of the times at which individuals had their guns taken from them by Brown and his men, it appears that the movement was in progress in September, 1861. The work was continued through the following winter, or as long as rebel soldiers could find Union guns to confiscate.
In gathering in these guns, as in every other rebel en- terprise within the county, Capt. Brown and his men were the most conspicuous. In many instances Brown issued orders for these arms to be brought into camp by their owners; and in some cases this was done, the owners hoping by a ready compliance to have their property re- turned, or to receive its value at some future day. Most of the Union guns, however, collected by the rebels in
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IN BRADLEY COUNTY, EAST TENNESSEE.
Bradley were forcibly taken by Brown, or at his instance, his men being sent through the county in squads for this purpose. Everything in the shape of a fire-arm, from the finished rifle to the most insignificant revolver or pocket- pistol, was taken from Union men in this scheme of rebel plundering. Everything in the shape of weapons were taken -old sabres, bowie-knives, and even common butcher-knives were taken. Hundreds of these arms were no better than elder pop-guns for military purposes -were never used by the rebels as such-but were wasted and wantonly appropriated to the amusement and gratification of those whose reckless villainy had made this property an object of plunder.
From the most reliable information on this subject, it appears that at least one thousand arms, of all grades, were taken from the Union people in Bradley in this abominable raid upon personal rights. We make this statement, feeling confident that many Union men in the county, who were in a position to judge, will regard this estimate as below the actual figures. We are aware that rebels will argue that these guns were collected in obedi- ence to an order issued by Gov. Harris. This excuse was made by the rebels when they were engaged in the rob- bery. It was made by Brown himself to Mrs. Harle, of Cleveland, just before his attempt to murder her husband, an account of which affair will be found in the latter part of this chapter.
Fortunately we are able to produce the order from Gov. Harris under the authority of which this master-piece of rebel iniquity was perpetrated upon the Union people of Bradley. It reads as follows :
" To the Clerks of the County Courts of the State of Tennessee :
"You are hereby requested to issue to each constable in your re- spective counties an order requiring them to make diligent inquiry at each house in his civil district for muskets, bayonets. rifles, swords, and pistols belonging to the State of Tennessee, to take them into pos- session and deliver them to you. A reward of one dollar will be paid to the constable for each musket and bayonet, or rifle, and fifty cents for each sword or pistol thus reclaimed. You will forward the arms thus obtained, at public expense to the military authorities at Knox- ville, Nashville, or Memphis, as may be most convenient; and will
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inform the Military and Financial Boards by letter addressed to theni at Nashville, of the result of your action and the expenses incurred. A check for the amount will be promptly forwarded. It is hoped that every offieer will exert himself to have this order promptly ex- ecuted. "ISHAM G. HARRIS,
" Governor of Tennessee. "Nashville. Ang. 10, 1861."
Now, whatever might have been the concealed purpose of Gov. Harris in the premises, this order sufficiently ex- plains itself. It instructs the clerks of the county courts, and the county constables, and these officers only, to ex- ecute its requirements. Besides, the " muskets. bayonets, rines, &c., belonging to the State of Tennessee" were those to be taken, not those that were the private pro- perty of individuals. These constables were to be paid for all the arms " belonging to the State" that they could thus "reclaim," not for all that they could steal and press from the Union people throughout Tennessee. It is in- controvertible that this order was no license whatever for these constables, or the rebel military, or any other class of men or officers to touch private property. Arins, for instance, that individuals, who were or had been members of independent companies, had drawn from the State, and had not been returned, were those, and those only, that this order, ostensibly, at least, contemplated procuring. How disgusting the predicament, therefore, in which the very face of this order places the rebel officials and rebel military, not only. of Bradley, but of other parts of the State. The order not only had no reference to the mili- tary whatever, and conferred upon it no authority in the case, but particularly, in form at least, it did not dictate the favoritism and the cruelties practiced by the rebels under it in Bradley county. Capt. Brown and his men pretended that this order made it their duty to collect in all the surplus or useless arms in the county, both such as were " in" and such as were "out of order," for the benefit of the rebel army. If so, why then did not they proceed to do it justly, civilly, and in a proper manner, as obeying an important order from the highest authority in the State? Why did they in tumultuous gangs, with
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