USA > Tennessee > Notable men of Tennessee, from 1833 to 1875, their times and their contemporaries > Part 24
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42
In 1839 I first saw James K. Polk and heard him make a notable speech of nearly three hours' length, in Greeneville, as a candidate for Governor. I often heard him afterward in 1841, and 1843, in his celebrated discussions with James C. Jones. Mr. Polk was unquestionably a man of a high order of ability and of very great power as a speaker. He dealt with facts and ideas with great fluency, skill, and force. But few men equaled him in the power of holding men, by clear and convincing presentation of political issues. Nothing but the phenomenal power of Jones, in his own peculiar way, could have triumphed over him. The country has never given Mr. Polk his due for ability, neither as an orator nor as a statesman, nor has Tennessee done so since his defeat by Jones.
In 1837 or 1839, I heard Bailie Peyton speak. He was
264
NOTABLE MEN OF TENNESSEE
then a very handsome young man, in the meridian of his fame, and a brilliant member of Congress. He and Harry A. Wise had led in the house the fiercest assaults ever made on Jackson and on Van Buren's administration. He was a game, noble, chivalrous, brilliant man, ever ready for a fight, or to assist in a matter of honor. In later years I knew him well.
In 1840 Felix Grundy, returning from Washington in com- pany with Senator Hopkins L. Turner and Henry Watterson of the house came through East Tennessee, making speeches in favor of Van Buren. They spoke at Greeneville before an immense assemblage. Of course Grundy was the "observed of all observers." He was one of the greatest orators in a certain way this country has ever produced, fit to be, as he was in his young days, the rival of Henry Clay. His eloquence was soft and gentle and persuasive, moving an audience with a bewitching and irresistible fascination. On this occasion the scene was enlivened and rendered in the highest degree picturesque by the appearance on the stand of General Thomas D. Arnold, who demanded a division of time on behalf of the Whigs, which was granted, but he was sandwiched in between Watterson and Turney on the one side, and Grundy on the other. Such a scene of wit, ridicule, sarcasm, repartee, and occasional elo- quence as occurred between Arnold and Grundy I never have witnessed. I do not pretend to describe it here. The soft and gentle eloquence of Grundy still lingers in my mind as one of my most cherished recollections. Some one (was it Homer, in reference to the eloquence of Ulysses?) has compared this kind of eloquence to the gentle falling of snow.
In that same year, 1840, I heard John J. Crittenden make one of the greatest speeches of his life, to an audience which was estimated at the time to be forty thousand, at the great interstate mass meeting at Cumberland Gap, held by the people of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina. I after- wards met him two or three times in Frankfort and in Washing- ton. He had the reputation in his day, and I think he deserved it, of being second only to Mr. Clay and one or two others, both in oratory and statesmanship. He was an amiable and a lov- able gentleman and one of the purest and noblest statesmen of his generation.
In the same year I met and twice heard William C. Preston, the great Virginia-South Carolina orator, at a Whig mass
265
NOTABLE MEN OF TENNESSEE
meeting at Brushy Creek camp ground, now Johnson City. The first day he spoke in advocacy of the Whig cause, and in favor of the election of General Harrison, and the second day on the battle of King's Mountain, the anniversary of that event occurring on that day. Mr. Preston was unquestionably an orator of nearly the first magnitude, ranking but little below Mr. Clay, in the power to stir men's blood, and above him in the classical beauty of his diction. He was most imposing in appearance, being very large and portly, and about 6 feet 5 Inches in height. His hair was sandy colored, with the ruddy complexion of his grandfather, Colonel William Campbell, and of his ancestors, the Campbells (Argylies) in Scotland. He came legitimately by his eloquence, being the great-nephew of Patrick Henry. Unquestionably he was one of the grandest orators of this country.
In 1845 John C. Calhoun stopped in Greeneville for a night, on his way to his home in South Carolina from the springs in Virginia. He was traveling with his servants in his own car- riages. Some young law students, studying under Judge R. J. McKinney, among them myself, called on him to pay our re- spects, but quite as much to see so great a man and hear him talk. He received us most graciously and kindly, and talked to us for half an hour or longer, he choosing such subjects as he knew would interest young men. He poured out an in- cessant stream of information and thought, clothed in the most terse, lucid, and striking language. We listened to him as to a sage or an oracle. In my lifetime I have met no man who impressed me more with his pure intellectuality. In appear- ance he was tall, straight, and slender, and of a most graceful personage, and, I thought, handsome. In appearance he was my ideal of what I deem a statesman and a great man should be. His dress was faultless black. In a word, everything about him-his person, his features, his face, his dress-were refined and in the best taste, such as one would expect in a man of delicate organism and the purest intellectuality.
In 1850 I made my first trip to Washington, going by way of Chattanooga and Charleston, and traveling alternately by boat and by railway. While in Washington I attended one of President Taylor's receptions. His frank, simple, cordial man- ners were strikingly refreshing. He grasped the hand and ex- pressed delight at seeing one with an energy equal to Roose-
266
NOTABLE MEN OF TENNESSEE
velt at the present time. It was the warm-hearted greeting of an unaffected soldier. I was quite as much struck with the elegant manners and the unostentatious simplicity of the dress of the daughter, the first lady of the land, Mrs. Bliss, who was doing the honors of the White House. She wore a plain, a very plain, crossbarred lawn, absolutely without trimmings or ornament. And yet it was so neat and fit her fine person so well that I thought she looked quite queenly.
I saw Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, and Mr. Benton -- the three most distinguished characters then in Congress-very frequent- ly. Mr. Calhoun had just died a short time after delivering his last, and one of his greatest, speeches on the absorbing ques- tions of 1850. As I went on I met his remains, with the funeral escort, in North Carolina. Indeed he was dying when he made his last speech, and I believe it had to be read by some one for him. I saw every day for two or three weeks, Senators Seward, Ber- rien, Badger, Mason, Clayton, Bayard, Soule, Houston, Rusk, Crittenden, Davis, Foote, and Bell, and Representatives Toombs, Stephens, Douglas, Corwin, and all of the great men of that time. I heard a part of the speech of Alexander Stephens on the admission of Oregon as a State. Mr. Toombs was by his side, all excitement, prompting and making suggestions to him. The house was all alive, and showing the most intense interest as the eloquent little Georgian delivered his fearless speech. At the time I was sitting beside Andrew Johnson. He remarked to me that Stephens was a greater man than Toombs.
One of my life-long regrets has been that I did not avail myself of the kind offer of a Member of Congress to go with him to call on, and be introduced to, Mr. Clay (and perhaps Mr. Webster also). I very foolishly felt timid about appear- ing in the presence of so great a man, and therefore postponed going from time to time until too late. But I had the privilege of a greater pleasure-that of hearing Mr. Clay deliver one of his set and greatest speeches. A short time before my arrival Mr. Webster had made his great and patriotic speech of the 7th of March, which so provoked the rage of the Abolitionists, and which finally put him out of public life, and caused his pre- mature death.
At the time of the intense excitement in the country, in 1849, and the threatened secession of the Southern States, Mr. Clay came forth from his voluntary retirement, and re-entered
267
NOTABLE MEN OF TENNESSEE
public life, going into the Senate, with the avowed purpose of trying to save the country, as he had done in 1820, by offer- ing a compromise of the differences between the North and the South. After many measures and resolutions had been offered in Congress, and much angry debate, a committee of thirteen was appointed, of which he was chairman, to which were re- ferred his and other resolutions. After anxious and long de- liberations, Mr. Clay at length submitted a report embodying his plan of a compromise, which in substance, after a long de- bate, was adopted, not as a whole, as proposed, but in separate bills.
It was upon these measures, involving the peace of the country and the integrity of the Union that Mr. Clay, after due notice, arose in the Senate to open debate. For hours before, the Sen- ate gallery (it was the old Senate chamber) was packed with people anxious to hear the great orator and venerable Senator. I was there early and got a good seat, where I could both see and hear the speaker. For two or three hours he held the Senate and galleries spellbound by his matchless eloquence. The most profound silence prevailed, lest the listeners might lose a word that fell from his honeyed lips and persuasive tongue, save only when a pleasant colloquy took place between Mr. Mason and him. I need not say that he was the most graceful orator, the most perfect in action, the most easy and natural in manner, the most frank and fearless in the avowal of his opinions, and that his voice was the richest and the most melodious I ever heard, and at the same time that he was the most courteous to his fellow Senators. This would be but re- peating what has been said of him by millions of people for fifty years. His voice, whether in its highest or its lowest notes, was music itself-it was indeed grander and sweeter than music. After the lapse of more than fifty years, I can yet distinctly catch its sound and feel its thrill in my own mind. It has been said often that Mr. Gentry of this State had a better voice than Mr. Clay. Mr. Gentry unquestionably had a grand voice. It rang out like a bugle, sweet, loud, and sonorous. But it lacked the divine melody, the soul enrapturing symphony of the voice of Mr. Clay.
Perhaps after all it was not the marvelous voice, the super- lative distinctness of enunciation, the grace of action, the nat- uralness of manner, the easy flow of apt words and bright
268
NOTABLE MEN OF TENNESSEE
thoughts, the sincere and earnest conviction that captivated all audiences in Mr. Clay, so much as the inner spirit of the man-his greatness of soul, his high honor, his open frankness, his courage, his warm heart, and his wonderful power of catch- ing and holding, as if by a spell, the fancy and the hearts of men. Thus, for a life time he was loved and idolized by a large part of the American people as no other leader ever was. His very name sent a thrill through their hearts.
Next after his melodious voice and wonderful gracefulness of manner, I think the effect of his oratory was owing to the sur- passing distinctness of his utterance and enunciation ; you could hear nearly every letter in his words. For example, he pro- nounced California as it is divided thus Cal-i-for-ni-a, with- out halting on the letters or parts, and with the rhythm of music.
He spoke with the vigor and fire of young manhood. There was no cessation in his flowing sentences, no halting, no hesitat- ing for words or thoughts. His oratory was kept sustained and at high tide throughout, like the current of a full and mighty stream.
In a few months after hearing Mr. Clay, I heard the cele- brated Tom Marshall speak. He was considered, and was in fact, a great orator-sensational, erratic, and emotional. He was a type of the brilliant orators, after the style of William T. Haskell, though I thought him inferior. His too partial friends, however, considered that he was the equal of Mr. Clay. He doubtless thought so himself, for he attacked the latter in a powerful speech in Lexington, I believe, their mutual home. Mr. Clay answered him and afterward neither his friends nor Mr. Marshall himself ever entertained that opinion.
Mr. Clay's oratory was of the simplest character, except his grand and impressive manner. It was earnest and full of life and vehemence, yet in the very "torrent, tempest, and whirl- wind" of his speaking, there was a "temperance" that gave it "smoothness." Every sentence, as uttered by him was alive with thought and passion. That wonderful voice and his magnifi- cent, yet simple manner, were back of all and through all. There was not the slightest effort at what is supposed to be brilliant oratory, no skyscraping, no eagle flights, no flinging of rain- bows across the heavens. His own mind was burning with great thoughts, and he was deadly intent on telling them to others.
269
NOTABLE MEN OF TENNESSEE
Much of the so-called flights of fancy in public speaking is not to convey ideas, but to conceal the want of them. We have had great floods of this in Tennessee. "How stale, how flat, and unprofitable."
In 1850 I spent six months in Texas, in an official capacity that brought me into intimate relations with officers of the regular army stationed there. I became well acquainted with General Brooks, commanding that department, then the most important in the United States ; with Colonel Joseph E. John- ston, Colonel Hardee (afterward general), with General Gar- land, the son-in-law of General Worth, with the daring General Harney, the successor of General Brooks, as department com- mander, and was introduced to Albert Sydney Johnston. Colonel Joseph E. Johnston was then, as he was after he had won his fame as one of the greatest generals of the Civil War, modest, quiet and gentlemanly, and a man of great intelligence. He was considered by the officers one of the most promising men in the army. General Harney was then a little past his prime. He had won considerable reputation in the Mexican war, as a dar- ing and dashing cavalry officer, and in fighting Indians on the frontier. As he was from Tennessee, he was naturally drawn to me, and we became fast friends. He was a giant in size, being 6 feet 6 or 7 inches in height. His wife was a St. Louis lady of great wealth. The result was that he lived on the frontier in great extravagance. The most elegant and costly dinner I ever attended was given by him in honor of our com- mission. He was indeed a big-hearted as well as a brave fellow.
But the most celebrated person I met in Texas, and I met many, was General Sam Houston. He made a speech in Hous- ton on the Fourth of July, 1851, the day I arrived there, re- turning home. The next day I traveled with him on a boat to Galveston, and put up with him in the same house, where we were together for two or three days. Of course I had heard him speak in Houston. As a speaker he was strong, rough and effective, but not an accomplished or eloquent popular orator. But the fighting qualities in him made his speeches quite attractive. He struck right and left with ponderous force at his enemies. He openly hurled defiance at them and damned them to perdition. When he got through with them there were not many fragments left. No man had warmer friends or more
270
NOTABLE MEN OF TENNESSEE
pronounced enemies. I was told by scores of men that he was an arrant coward, and that he skulked in the battle of San Jacinto. Even the late admiral of the Texas navy, while it was a republic, enlivened the passengers on our crowded stage coach, going from Houston to Austin, for a whole day de- nouncing him as a coward, and in every way as dishonorable and unworthy. Many others, indeed a large majority of per- sons in Texas, of equally as much standing, believed and af- firmed that Houston, while not a saint, was a pure patriot, a brave soldier, and justly entitled to be called the defender and the father of the republic. Through a pitiless storm of abuse and detraction he proudly held on his way, the central figure, and by long odds the foremost man in Texas from 1836 to 1861. No ordinary man could have withstood and triumphed over such bitter and long continued opposition.
WILLIAM GANNAWAY BROWNLOW.
CHAPTER I.
Brownlow a Native of Virginia-A Mechanic-Methodist Preacher- Established Tennessee Whig at Elizabethton, 1838-In 1839 Removed to Jonesboro, Paper Taking Name Jonesboro Whig and Independent- Editorial Contest Between Haynes and Brownlow-1849, Removed Family and Paper to Knoxville-Bitter Quarrel with Knoxville Regis- ter -- Controversy with John H. Crozier, William and James Williams, and William G. Swan-In 1860 Circulation of Whig 14,000-Personal Characteristics-Public Spirit-As a Public Speaker-Influence in 1861.
OF the Union leaders in East Tennessee, in 1860-61, the next after Andrew Johnson in national importance and political in- fluence was unquestionably William Gannaway Brownlow, a native of Virginia. He was a unique and a remarkable charac- ter. Like Mr. Johnson, his early education had been incom- plete, but he possessed a natural ability which enabled him to overcome this deficiency much more completely than the former ever did. By reading and association with others he acquired to a considerable extent the graces and diction of an educated man. He also, like Johnson, had been an apprentice and a mechanic, having learned and worked at the trade of a carpenter when quite a young man. But unlike Johnson, he was not al- ways ostentatiously parading this fact before the world. He was not ashamed of his early calling, but never felt the need of constantly proclaiming it. There was not in his nature the slightest trace of the demagogue. He never found it necessary to array one class against another in order to gain popularity. He was always the friend of the poor and helpless, and they all knew it, not by his words, but by his daily acts of beneficence. While he did not obsequiously court the rich and the powerful, he was uniformly just toward them, and never for political or personal effect sought to array laboring men against them. He was just to both classes, and had the respect and esteem of both.
Early in manhood Mr. Brownlow became a Methodist preach- er. In this capacity he soon became distinguished. His fame spread far beyond his immediate circuits. He was unprece-
271
272
NOTABLE MEN OF TENNESSEE
dently aggressive against every sin and vice, and against every creed he did not like. His motto was, "Cry aloud, spare not." With an unparalleled audacity he attacked systems, creeds and sects, and all offending persons. This, of course, soon brought him into bitter controversies. One of the first of these was with a Baptist minister named Humphrey Posey of North Carolina. Finally a libel suit was the outcome of this controversy. In a book published by Mr. Brownlow in 1838 he immortalized poor old Posey, and then turned him over to the gaze of posterity. This book is entitled: "Helps to the Study of Presbyterianism." It was both personal and controversial. In it the Presbyterians came in for the larger part of his attentions. That was a period of almost universal controversy and disputation among religious sects in East Tennessee and Southwestern Virginia. Men fairly burned with zeal for their respective churches, and were almost ready to die for their faith, though they preferred seeing their religious enemies die. In this there was more hot blood than grace, charity, or good will.
Mr. Brownlow early became the champion of the Methodist Church in the South, and so continued until approaching age began to quench the fiery ardor of his younger days. Any attack on his own church was sure to call forth from his facile pen a scathing reply not easily forgotten. For this purpose he generally used the columns of his own paper, but when the con- troversy became exciting, by reason of the importance of the question involved or the greatness of the opposing contro- versialist, he resorted to serial magazines of his own.
In these controversies Mr. Brownlow always sustained himself to the satisfaction of his Church and his friends. Generally, when he got through with his adversary, by the use of reason, facts, ridicule, and sometimes cartoons and abuse, there was not much left of him. He had the faculty of always making any cause he advocated appear to be right to his admirers. This was talent, not to say genius. In the popular mind he always triumphed.
In the Church Brownlow's influence was all powerful. In 1832, at the age of twenty-seven, he was elected a delegate to the General Conference of the Methodist Church, which assem- bled in Philadelphia. Perhaps it is remembered by but few persons of this generation that Landon C. Haynes, one of the Senators from Tennessee in the Confederate Congress from
273
NOTABLE MEN OF TENNESSEE
1861 to 1865, started out in life a Whig and a Methodist preacher. It finally came about that he and Mr. Brownlow had a bitter quarrel, and through the influence of the latter he was silenced and turned out of the Church. Mr. Haynes then be- came a Democrat and the editor of a village paper, and finally a lawyer. A fierce and terrible newspaper war followed between these two remarkable men, which lasted for many years. This was in Jonesboro, Tenn., at that time their mutual home. Mr. Haynes was a bright, witty, showy, and an aggressive man. He was a fluent and skillful orator.
Mr. Brownlow's first connection with the press was as editor and proprietor of the Tennessee Whig, the publication of which he began as a weekly, at Elizabethton, Tenn., in 1838. From the first number this paper uttered no uncertain sound. One of the old mottoes flying at the head of his paper was: "Inde- pendence in all things; neutral in nothing." His paper was stalwart in its advocacy of Whig principles, and from the first its bold and fearless utterances attracted attention. The vigor and originality of his style, the fierce and daring attacks made on all kinds of wrong, the astounding boldness with which he attacked men and measures, soon established the reputation of the paper and gave notoriety to its editor far beyond the banks of the beautiful Watauga, the home of the first settlers of Tennessee, where it was published. Let it be remembered that this paper was issued from a little out-of-the-way mountain village of not more than two hundred souls, and with scarcely fifty houses. At that time, and indeed for many years after- ward, Mr. Brownlow fairly wantoned in his strength, his cour- age, and in the wild excitement of personal controversy.
In 1839 Brownlow moved with his paper to Jonesboro, a larger town, about twenty miles west of Elizabethton. Here the paper took the name of the Jonesboro Whig and Inde- pendent. Jonesboro was the oldest town in the State, and con- tained from seven hundred to one thousand inhabitants.
The Jonesboro Whig was a five-column paper, about twenty- five inches long, published at two dollars per annum, if paid in advance, three dollars if paid within the year, and four if paid afterward. Through this little paper, published once a week, its editor gained a national reputation, even away back in 1840. No parallel to it can be found in this country. Extracts were made from it in all the leading Whig papers in the United
274
NOTABLE MEN OF TENNESSEE
States. He became so well known that wherever he went he was a kind of hero. He was gazed at and followed with curious eyes as a wonder. It must be kept in mind that Jonesboro was an interior town, in an interior section of the State, with no railroad, no water communications, and with only a tri-weekly stage coach. The arrival of a single stranger in the little town in those days would create such a sensation as nearly to suspend all business until his name and business were ascertained. In this village, and with this little paper, Mr. Brownlow became famous. There was not in the United States such another vol- cano as this paper became, constantly muttering, seething, and boiling. Woe to the man on whom the storm burst.
With all his patronage it was a hard matter to keep his little craft afloat. Several times Mr. Brownlow embarked in other enterprises to aid him in making a living, but always with disaster. Incompetent or dishonest associates or agents got the better of him every time. The truth is, he was too liberal, too unsuspecting, too negligent of details for a successful business man. He would become the surety of all who called on him, and then when pay day came around and the principal failed to pay, which often happened, he would bravely meet the debt himself, never shirking under any pretense whatever. He would pay security debts as well as his own as long as he had a dollar. With all their malice his malignant enemies never, during his long life, dared to charge him with personal dishonesty. They accused him of nearly everything except dishonesty, drunken- ness, and licentiousness, but never of these offenses.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.