USA > Tennessee > Notable men of Tennessee, from 1833 to 1875, their times and their contemporaries > Part 19
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DANIEL C. TREWHITT.
Lawyer-Chancellor-Circuit Judge-Mind Clear and Quick.
THE subject of this sketch was a young man engaged in the practice of law in Hamilton County when the Civil War broke out in 1861. He was born and reared in Bradley County, East Tennessee. The well-known lawyer and highly esteemed citizen, Levi Trewhitt, was his father, whose sad death in a Southern prison is still talked of and remembered with sorrow by thousands of East Tennesseeans. In his old age he was seized, and after being in close confinement some time at Knoxville, he was carried off to prison at Tuscaloosa, thence to Mobile, without a trial, for no other crime except being a Union man. One of the deepest stains on the character of the Southern Confederacy is the treatment of this innocent old man.
Daniel C. Trewhitt was a Union man in 1861, and as such he canvassed Hamilton County, making speeches against seces- sion. He was a pointed and incisive speaker, clear and logical, and full of earnest conviction. His speeches therefore had considerable weight in shaping the opinions of the people of Hamilton County. He was so active and outspoken against se- cession that he had to flee from his home and seek refuge in Ken- tucky in 1861, when the Southern Confederacy became dominant in Tennessee. There he enlisted in the army and was made Lieutenant Colonel of the 2d Regiment of Tennessee Infantry, and afterward he became General Spears' Adjutant-General, Morgan's Division. He was a most capable officer, and well suited for the position he held.
In 1865 he was appointed Chancellor for the Chattanooga Chancery Division, and held the Chancery Courts until 1870, when the new Constitution went into effect. He then went back to the bar, and practiced law until 1878, when he was elected Circuit Judge for the Chattanooga Circuit. In 1886 he was re-elected, and held that office until his death, January 4, 1891, having served as Chancellor and Circuit Judge al- together nearly eighteen years.
Both as Chancellor and as Circuit Judge he was considered
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by the members of his profession an able and an impartial presiding officer. He grasped and solved the questions coming before him for determination with almost intuitive knowledge. His mind was singularly clear and quick. It did not require a moment's deliberation for him to decide all ordinary ques- tions. The result was that he dispatched business with great rapidity. He was endowed by nature with the mind of a high grade lawyer and an able judge. With all this he was honest, and loved justice, and was quick to discover it. He was in fact an exceptionally able and upright judge .*
*I applied to one of Judge Trewhitt's near relatives for fuller informa- tion concerning his life, but was unable to obtain it.
JUDGE CONNALLY F. TRIGG.
Born in Abingdon-Defeated for Congress in 1853-In 1855 in Partner- ship with Author-Delegate to State Convention in 1861-Favorite with Union People-Left Tennessee in 1861-Took Part in Guberna- torial Canvass in Ohio in 1863-Appointed U. S. Judge in 1864- Crowded Docket-Sympathizes with Those Lately Opposed-U. S. vs. Moses Gamble-Never Severe.
CONNALLY F. TRIGG, one of the prominent Union leaders in East Tennessee, in 1861, was born in Abingdon, Va., in the year 1810, and died in Bristol, Tenn., April 25, 1880, at the age of seventy years. He belonged to an old and highly respectable family. In some way he was related to the Campbells, the Prestons, and to most of the old families of Abingdon, a town famous for its aristocracy. In 1833 he obtained license to practice law, and at once entered upon his profession. He became a good lawyer, and secured a fair share of the business there was at that time in Southwest Virginia. The business in the Courts was not large, and there were many able lawyers to share it. Mr. Trigg had a natural fondness for politics, and often took part, as a volunteer, in political canvasses. He was an ardent Whig. In 1853, per- haps, he was urged by his friends to become a candidate for Congress, and yielded to their solicitations. His competitor was the somewhat noted Fayette Mullins-made famous by the pen of William G. Brownlow. The contest was hot and exciting, and became for the time being somewhat celebrated, at a distance. But as Mullins was backed by a Democratic ma- jority, Trigg was defeated. Notwithstanding this defeat, he gained considerable celebrity in this canvass, by the ability he displayed as a debater and orator.
In 1855 Mr. Trigg removed to Knoxville, Tenn., where he entered into partnership with me. This partnership lasted until 1859. Mr. Trigg was an able, clear-headed, exact law- yer. He had by nature a fine legal mind. He never seemed to read much, and yet he was well grounded in all the leading principles of law demanded in the profession in the region where he resided. He was a skillful pleader under the old
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Common Law forms. I saw his learning and his ability tested in every kind of a case-in cases involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, in every conceivable question of law, in complicated actions of ejectment, in exciting murder trials -- and in all he was equal to the most exciting demands. And yet he disliked labor. Trigg was hardly the equal of Baxter, or Lyon, or Sneed, and yet he was not greatly their inferior. In the forcible presentation of facts, indeed he was the superior. He was somewhat peculiar in this, that he was nearly equally strong in all departments of professional action.
After the removal of Mr. Trigg to Tennessee, he took no part in politics until January, 1861, when the exciting scenes of secession in the Southern States called him from the quietude of his profession. When the Legislature called for the election of delegates to a State Convention, to which was to be submitted the solemn question of the secession of the State, the Union people turned to him as one of those delegates. He was nomi- nated unanimously to represent the Counties of Knox and Roane. He immediately entered the canvass with the most intense earnestness and enthusiasm. His speeches were able, daring, and aggressive. If anyone in the State was more bitter and unsparing in denunciation of the secession movement than he, I fail to recall such a person, unless it was Mr. Baxter. Trigg was in fact an ardent, bold, uncompromising Union man, with the courage to proclaim his opinions in terms sometimes startling. His fearlessness and bravery in those trying days made him a fit companion of Johnson, Nelson, Baxter, and Brownlow. As a public speaker he was but little inferior to the best of them-perhaps only to Johnson and Nelson. While inferior to Baxter in mental power, he was decidedly his superior in effectiveness as a speaker. And, while inferior to Mr. May- nard in well-rounded periods, he was decidedly his superior in the bold portrayal of the mad scheme to disrupt the national Government. When he warmed in his speeches, his whole mind and soul seemed to be on fire. As his excitement grew in in- tensity, and with wild dramatic action of body and voice, he reached some startling point, his audience would be roused into a state of wildest excitement.
Mr. Trigg was a gallant man, who would neither give nor submit to an insult. He possessed in a high degree a genial, sunshiny disposition, and his nature was essentially equable
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and gentle. And yet on the stump, and before juries, his whole being seemed charged with electricity.
He was certainly an effective, powerful, popular speaker. He had no imagination, nor was he a polished orator, but he possessed earnestness, ardor, action, thought, and conviction. This intense ardor, this dramatic action was strange in him, for off the stump, he was deliberate, unexcitable, indeed almost phlegmatic.
In the canvass of the winter and spring of 1861 Mr. Trigg made a considerable reputation, and became a great favorite of the Union people. He justly deserves to be ranked as one of the ablest of the Union leaders. In both the Knoxville and Greeneville Conventions, he was Chairman of the "Business Committee," to which was referred all resolutions. In conse- quence, he took no part in the discussion on the floor, and hence it is impossible to say how he stood in the latter Con- vention on the exciting question that divided that body. It is probable that, like three-fourths of the members, he at first favored the ultra-war-like resolutions of Nelson, since, with- out any dissent, he reported them to the Convention for adop- tion; but that he afterward changed his mind in favor of the "Substitute" finally adopted. Whether or not this be true cannot be certainly known. It is very well known that Mr. Trigg was calm and level-headed. As a member of a secret committee with him I had an opportunity of knowing that after the Greeneville Convention he used all his influence in restraining Union men from any violence or resistance to Confederate authority. I know further that soon after that Convention, he and his committee suppressed and prevented an outbreak of Union men in one of the counties of East Tennessee.
Mr. Trigg was known after the State seceded as a determined Union man. He became restless and dissatisfied under the new government, He may have been, and no doubt was, uneasy as to his personal safety. I know of no prominent Union man who was not. So, in the fall of 1861, he determined to make his escape into Kentucky. This purpose was communicated to a few intimate friends. One night he mounted his fine blooded saddle horse, and rode off alone toward Kentucky. After one or more narrow escapes from capture, in three or four nights' travel, he reached a place of safety inside the Federal lines. He remained in the North until 1864, when he returned to the State
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to open his courts, having been appointed by President Lincoln Judge of the United States Courts for the District of Tennessee. In the gubernatorial canvass of Ohio, in 1863, he took a prom- inent part as a speaker in behalf of Governor Brough, with fame to himself. After the close of the canvass the prominent Union men of Cincinnati gave him a banquet as a testimonial of their high appreciation of his services on the stump.
When the United States Courts in Tennessee were opened by Judge Trigg he found crowded dockets and a vast number of cases demanding attention. These involved grave questions growing out of the Civil War. There were confiscation cases, treason cases, and revenue cases, all involving new legal questions. He brought to the consideration of these questions judicial fairness, and unfailing patience. I do not recall that a single decision of his upon these war questions was ever overruled. It would have been remarkable if he had given universal satis- faction. He did not. There was much complaint that his decisions were all favorable to those lately hostile to the govern- ment. The public mind was greatly excited, and the evil pas- sions aroused by the late Civil War were still dominant, but in the light of experience and reason, it is manifest now that decisions that tended toward peace and good will were wisest and best for all classes.
Not many months passed after Judge Trigg ascended the bench before it became evident that his sympathies and feelings were all on the side of those to whom he had been lately so hostile. This was the more striking when it was considered that he was not a fickle, emotional man, a man of hot impulses and bitter prejudices, but the very reverse. He was conspicuous for his fairness, his coolness, and his tenacity of opinion. And yet he changed, and never returned to his old life-long party affilia- tions. No one ever knew the reason. Perhaps he did not him- self. Possibly the subtle influence of social recognition and position, then as now, so strong in the State, silently and even unconsciously, touched his ambition, or his pride, and did its potent work. It is not ungrateful even to a judge to receive the flattering attention of the powerful and the rich, and to find the doors of elegant and hospitable homes at all times open to him.
It is a somewhat singular fact that the five Union leaders of East Tennessee-Johnson, Nelson, Baxter, Carter, and
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Trigg-who were the most implacable in 1861, should all have found themselves in 1866 and afterward in full fellowship with their old enemies. In some cases the change can be easily ex- plained, but in others it cannot be.
Among other novel cases that came before Judge Trigg at Knoxville was that of United States vs. Moses Gamble, for treason. Under an Act of the Legislature, Governor Harris appointed Mr. Gamble, an agent in Blount County, to seize and bring in to the Confederate authorities all arms belonging to the people. This act was designed to disarm Union men. Mr. Gamble was a Union man, and accepted the office in all proba- bility only to avoid being suspected by his Confederate neigh- bors. He discharged his duties with gentleness and kindness. Nevertheless he had to take some arms from his neighbors, and this gave offense to the Union men. When the United States Court was opened, he was indicted for these acts, being charged with waging war against the United States and of giving aid and comfort to its enemies. The trial before the court and jury consumed two days. I appeared as counsel for the defend- ant. The law as expounded by Chief Justice Marshall in the celebrated case of the United States vs. Aaron Burr was relied on for the defense. Judge Trigg charged the jury in that way, and it accordingly returned a verdict of not guilty. The case is unique; it was the only trial in the county for treason, so far as I recall, growing out of the great Civil War in 1861-5, and this, too, the trial of a Union man. Many indictments were found against persons engaged in hostilities against the Govern- ment, but all were dismissed. This was best. No stain of blood- shed for treason tarnishes the fair record of the United States. This is an imperishable monument to the magnanimity of the triumphant party.
In inflicting punishment on the violators of the law, Judge Trigg could never find it in his heart to be severe. His kind nature was pained and shocked at the thought of suffering. Every violator of the law found in him, if not a friend, a sympa- thizer. He punished the guilty, but with the utmost humanity.
In person Judge Trigg was tall, slender, erect, and athletic. He was highly sociable in disposition, generous and magnani- mous. He had his faults, but where there was so much that was good, so much to love, let the faults be forever covered by the mantle of charity.
DAVID K. YOUNG.
Born and Lived in Anderson County-Circuit Judge-Exceptional Land Lawyer-Arrested-Captain of Tennessee Artillery-Good Financier.
IT is with pleasure that I write of my more than fifty years' friend and companion in my profession, Judge David K. Young. Away back in our careers, and later, too, when the lengthening shadows were being cast toward the East, together we rode and chatted and merrily laughed at passing incidents, or recalled from the silence of the past those of other years. Together we traversed the pleasant valleys and climbed the rugged mountains in pursuit of our profession. Together we slept in log cabins and ate corn bread, such as is made only in good mountain homes, and feasted on fresh venison and wild turkey. To- gether we ascended the eastern slope of life's journey, and to- gether we are now far down on the western, while our com- panions who started with us, some a little earlier, some a little later, have one by one dropped out by the wayside, and we are left almost alone to finish our brief remaining course.
And our other friend and companion, in later years, the third of the trio-Judge William A. Henderson, the most genial, the brightest of men, the life of every company-should have a notice in these sketches, but alas, in early years he wandered down into "Dixie's land to take his stand, and live or die for Dixie," and therefore, can have no place in this gallery of familiar faces !
Judge Young was born in Anderson County, his present home, January 1, 1826. He was the son of Samuel C. Young, a most respectable old citizen, whose father was a native of the Highlands of Scotland. In 1849 he obtained license to prac- tice law, and settled in Clinton, the county seat. From that day until the present time he has been continuously connected with the bench and bar of Tennessee, except a brief period during the Civil War. During all that time he has maintained, as a lawyer, judge, and man, a position of considerable eminence.
He was Circuit Judge of his circuit from 1873 to 1886, once by appointment to fill a vacancy and twice by the election
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of the people. During this time, or a part of it, he was by statute assigned to hold the Chancery Court in five of the counties of the circuit.
As a judge he was courteous, prompt, and impartial, and as a lawyer, ready, faithful, and honorable. His speeches at the bar were models of brevity, clearness, and earnestness, never wearing out the court or jury by long, noisy declamation. As a land lawyer his attainments are exceptionally good.
In 1861 Judge Young, being an old-line Whig, was naturally an earnest advocate of the Union. He was active in its support. He and L. C. Houk, then a very young man, were the only Union speakers residing in Anderson County. Soon after the Confederate troops entered that county, he was arrested by them as an influential leader, and held a prisoner for a while. In 1863, after the occupation of East Tennessee by the Federal army, he organized and was made Captain of Battery D, 1st Tennessee Artillery, assigned to the heavy artillery, and placed in command of Fort Johnson, which was the capitol at Nashville. He was under the command of General W. T. Sherman. He re- mained in command of that Fort until he was appointed Attor- ney General of the 2d Circuit, which office he held until the latter part of 1868, faithfully performing the duties thereof.
Judge Young lives about one mile and a half from Clinton, on the famous farm known as "Eagle Bend." It is one of the finest farms of the State, comprising many hundreds of acres, a large part of which is rich bottom land on the Clinch River. Here he is surrounded by every comfort and luxury that an un- corrupted taste can desire. His heart, however, is in his pro- fession, and it has never been particularly fascinated with rural affairs. He has given up the management of the farm to a large extent to his son, James Walter Young, who divides his time between scientific farming and the cultivation of literature. Judge Young has been particularly fortunate as a financier, and has by his shrewd judgment built up the largest fortune ever made by a lawyer in East Tennessee, possibly excepting Judge Robert J. Mckinney. And this, as in the case of Judge Mckinney, has been made honestly and by judicious economy.
Judge Young still delights in the mountains ; he still attends their courts. He is a good horseman, and when the term comes around, true to his early habits, he can still be seen, as fifty
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years ago, mounted on a good horse, setting out for these courts, and he must be a good horseman, whether young or old, who can keep pace with him, or ride as far in one day. He is a remarkably preserved man for his years-young, vigorous, and cheerful, and playful as a boy. In none of his ways, nor yet in his looks or action, does he seem an old man.
JOHNSON AND TEMPLE RACE FOR CONGRESS IN 1847.
Attracted Great Interest-Democratic District-Temple Young, Un- known, Inexperienced-Johnson's Position Impregnable, but Record Vulnerable-First Debate, July 11-Lively Contentions-Disaffection Toward Johnson-Temple's Letter to W. G. Brownlow-Temple Had Good Voice-Ardor, Enthusiasm-Johnson Approaches Competitor to Withdraw - Fifteen Appointments - Less than Three Weeks' Cam- paign-No Personalities-Notice in Brownlow's Paper-Enthusiasm Over Temple at Washington College Among His Fellow-Students- Political Conditions-Temple Fought Johnson with His Own Weapons -Whig Leaders Stood Aloof from Temple-Time Too Short to Over- come Inertia of the Whigs-They Were Too Indifferent to Go to Polls- Johnson's Majority 314-In the County Canvassed Thoroughly by Temple His Vote Largest Ever Given a Whig-Temple Changed Resi- dence to Avoid Politics.
THE race of Andrew Johnson and myself for Congress in 1847 excited considerable interest in the district at the time it was taking place, and still greater interest throughout the State immediately after its result was known. It is still talked of to this day-more than fifty-six years after the event. Un- questionably this was mainly due to the prominence of Mr. Johnson, and the unexpected result of the election. The dis- tinguished position which he afterward attained has naturally stimulated a curiosity to learn every incident connected with his strange and most extraordinary career. I know therefore that I shall but meet a general desire by attempting to give even at this late day some of the leading facts in reference to that race.
The first Congressional district of Tennessee had been Whig in politics from 1836. It was represented in 1842-43 by Thomas D. Arnold, an old and bitter anti-Jackson Whig. At the same time Andrew Johnson was a Senator in the Legislature, and in laying off the Congressional districts, under the new apportionment, he had a new district carved out for himself, which was Democratic by about fifteen hundred majority. It was his ambition to go to Congress in 1843 and fill the place he had created expressly for himself. But in fixing up the new district, Abraham McClellan, another Democrat, who had
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represented an adjoining district several terms as it had been previously constituted, was transferred as it were to Mr. John- son's district by attaching Sullivan County, his home, to it. Mr. McClellan wished to continue in Congress, but Mr. Johnson, by his aggressiveness, silenced and drove him off. Mr. Johnson was therefore easily elected in 1843 over John A. Aiken, an eloquent and worthy man who ran as a United States Bank Democrat. When the canvass of 1845 came around, a new and brilliant star, glittering with scintillations, Landon C. Haynes, rose in the horizon, crossing in its course the orbit of Mr. Johnson. A collision was imminent, and while passing fearfully near, they missed actual contact for the time being. To drop the figure, Mr. Haynes, after threatening awhile and showing a warlike spirit, deferred his race until 1847. In the meanwhile Mr. McClellan and his large kindred and friends were again watchful, active, and expectant, but they finally retired with mutterings and inward curses against Mr. Johnson. Thereupon W. G. Brownlow, a Whig, became a candidate against Mr. Johnson, and was defeated, as Mr. Aiken had been.
When 1847 came around it was confidently expected that the ambition of Mr. Haynes could no longer be repressed. At the same time the aspirations of Mr. McClellan were by no means extinguished, but Mr. Haynes was by very much the more potent and had the larger following. For a long time, Mr. Haynes, while a quasi candidate, hesitated whether to be or not to be an avowed one. It was universally expected he would announce himself. Mr. Johnson all along had expected it, and on the faith of that belief, and in order to fence against it, he committed in the late Congress the most stupendous political blunder and party crime of his life. Finally, late in the canvass, Mr. Haynes withdrew his pursuit of Congressional honors to the less ambitious but more certain one of a Senatorial seat in the Legislature, followed by the speakership of that body.
Thus Mr. Johnson was left with a clear field. There was no longer any danger of Democratic opposition, and equally as little, apparently less, indeed, from the Whig party. The old Whig leaders did not covet certain defeat. Some of them, indeed, had promised Mr. Johnson that he should have no Whig opposition. While it was yet considered certain that Mr. Haynes would be a candidate, and more certain that no Whig
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would be, Mr. Johnson, feeling that he held an impregnable position, went over the district in the early days of the canvass, in his pride of might and defiance of temper, denouncing, al- most by name, the leaders and their friends who were opposed to him, as an upstart, mushroom aristocracy, who were striving for selfish ends to put him down, and foist one of themselves upon the people. He delivered long harangues in Jonesboro against the Blairs and Haynes, and in Blountville against the McClellans, Gammons, and their friends.
While the situation was as I have described it, Neill S. Brown, then a Whig candidate for Governor, came along in the latter days of June, making speeches, and suggested to me to become a candidate for Congress, saying there never had been such a chance for a bold young man to make reputation as that district presented, and earnestly urging me to become a candidate. A little later Mr. Brownlow, and then another gentleman, with- out concert, urged me to this course. I was then residing in Greeneville, near the home of my ancestors, twenty-seven years of age, with a law license less than a year old, and with virtually no business. At first I was awed at the idea of encountering Andrew Johnson, and quite as much so by the thought of the amazement of my friends at my temerity. To rush in the face of such majority, against such a man, with little experience on my part, and young and unknown, looked on its face like fool- hardiness. But I was ambitious, full of bounding young blood, and cared little for the consequences. What if I should be beaten? I would have excitement and a lively time-the joy of youth. I knew I would receive blows and wounds, but I knew equally well that Mr. Johnson was not invulnerable, and from my well-filled quiver, however feeble my arms, I expected to be able to inflict some wounds also. This was the confidence of young manhood. In middle life no consideration would have induced me to make that race. Perhaps I was emboldened in this course by the recollection of a little encounter between us in 1840, while I was in my minority, in a young men's Whig meeting in Greeneville, where the occasion, the audience, and the circumstances were all unfavorable to Mr. Johnson, in which I had gained my first popular applause at his expense.
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