USA > Tennessee > Notable men of Tennessee, from 1833 to 1875, their times and their contemporaries > Part 9
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Mr. Carter was also furnished funds to meet the extraordi- nary expenses of this daring enterprise. Its entire execution was left to his discretion. He was to select his own agents to carry out his plans, except that two officers of the army were detailed, possibly at their own request, to aid him, but under his orders. A more suitable man for such a desperate under- taking could not have been found. He was cool, cunning,
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sagacious, and daring, as well as secretive and resourceful. He knew the country and the people. Before he left Kentucky for East Tennessee, in the execution of his plans, the time for the destruction of the bridges was fixed between him and the Federal commander, General Sherman. General Thomas, with an army, was to move toward East Tennessee, and be ready on the border to march and seize the railroads at the critical moment.
In pursuance of the plan agreed upon, in October, 1861, Mr. Carter started for Tennessee to make arrangements for its execution, and was soon inside of the Confederate lines. No messenger could now reach him. His agents had all been selected to apply the torch to the different bridges. General Thomas, with his little army, had advanced to Barboursville, within thirty miles of Cumberland Gap, and only waited for the appointed hour to pass on into East Tennessee. Now, when all things seemed to be ready, General Sherman, no doubt for good reasons, changed his mind, and ordered General Thomas to retrace his steps. Thus Carter and his agents were left, in the most perilous circumstances, ignorant of the change of plans, to execute alone their daring scheme, and to escape as they could from the enemy's country. Elsewhere the details of this daring attempt are given more fully .*
Mr. Carter, after the partial success of his plans, finding that the Federal Army had not advanced into East Tennessee, as he expected, and as he was assured should be done, with deep disappointment and mortification, secretly threaded his way back into Kentucky. His life would have been worth but little had he been caught at that time, for it soon became well known that he was the leader of the bridge burners. Whatever merit there may be in this military enterprise (for it was a military enterprise, undertaken with the express sanction of the govern- ment and with that of the commander of its armies), the credit of its conception belongs exclusively to Mr. Carter. He did his part well toward its execution, and the failure to accomplish the results contemplated can in no sense attach to him. With manly honor he has always refused to divulge the names of those he associated with himself in this perilous undertaking, though many of them have long since been known. All honor to him for this silence !
*"East Tennessee and the Civil War," by the author.
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After the partial accomplishment of the destruction of the bridges, Mr. Carter, as we have seen, returned to the North, where he waited with ill-repressed impatience, for nearly two years, until the entrance of the Federal Army, under General Burnside, in September, 1863, made it safe for him to return with a happy heart to the home of his birth, the land he loved so well.
In the spring of 1864, the Knoxville-Greeneville Convention again assembled in Knoxville, this being its third meeting. Mr. Carter was present with a number of its old leaders-Johnson, Brownlow, Nelson, Baxter, and Fleming. The gloomy condi- tion of affairs existing at the time of its last meeting, in Greene- ville, nearly three years before, had passed away. Men could scarcely realize the change. That imperious power which then dominated the State, and held in subjection the minds of men, had been swept from its confines. The national government now exercised its old dominion and sovereignty over Tennessee. With this change, there had also come a change in the opinions of some of the former prominent Union leaders. I know not the cause of this change never did know-but some of those who in 1861 were most bitter, were now complaining of the administration, were clamoring for an armistice with the view of treating for peace, were demanding "the Constitution as it was." The Convention lasted four days, and was marked by angry debates and divisions from beginning to close. Mr. Carter was perhaps the leader of the conservative or opposi- tion forces. He was the author of their resolutions. Mr. John- son, Mr. Brownlow, and Colonel D. C. Trewhitt were the leaders in sustaining the policy of Mr. Lincoln. Finally, Mr. Milligan, the life-long and intimate friend of Mr. Johnson, and probably at his suggestion, seeing that only harm could result from fur- ther discussion, moved that this celebrated Convention should adjourn forever. The motion was adopted, and the angry resolutions on both sides were left to die.
Mr. Carter still lives (June, 1901), in the eighty-first year of his age, but alas! a physical wreck .* He has been prostrate for many years, and recently there has fallen on him the additional affliction of total blindness. In a letter to me a few months since he said: "I am still cheerful, and trust in God."
*He died in 1902.
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His mind burns with the brightness of 1861, when he was a power among the loyal people of his mountain-encircled region.
Mr. Carter was in person tall, straight, slender, and grace- ful. If he was not in his prime superbly handsome like his brother, Admiral Samuel P. Carter, he was certainly striking in appearance. His peculiar dark complexion, his foreign look, (perhaps due to his Pocahontas blood), his delicate features, his neat, elegant dress, his lithe form and graceful carriage, his soft, musical voice, his bright, keen eyes and peculiar smile, all tended to attract attention, and to cause men to gaze at him. But, above all, his remarkble intellect was the magnet that drew men to him and gave him his power. He was born in the midst of hallowed associations, on the banks of the his- toric Watauga, the cradle of civilization in Tennessee. Off in the distance, only a few miles, there rises in lofty outline, stretching east and west, a panorama of mountains as grand as ever met human vision. Here John Sevier and John Carter, great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, had wisely administered for a number of years their new government, the creation of their own minds,-the first free representative government in the Mississippi Valley. Here too, on this very spot, James Robinson and John Sevier had successfully de- fended the Watauga Settlement against the attack of the power- ful Cherokees. Near this spot, September, 1780, the expedi- tion to King's Mountain, under Colonels Shelby, Sevier, and Campbell, started on its long and perilous march through the wilderness of mountains for the purpose of destroying the army of Colonel Ferguson. Surely this is an historic spot. "Ay, call it holy ground!"
COLONEL WILLIAM CLIFT.
Born 1795-A Whig, but Became a Democrat in 1855-Violent Unionist- Defiant of Confederate Government-Wooden Cannon-Agreement with James W. Gillespie - Courier Line Between Knoxville and Chatta- nooga-In Prison-Atlanta-Escape-Died in Ninety-first Year.
ONE of the most interesting characters living in East Ten- nessee in 1861, was William Clift of Hamilton County, who was born in Greene County, in 1795. His parents moved to Knox County, where he grew into manhood. In 1828 he married Nancy Arwin Brooks, a daughter of Moses Brooks, who resided near Knoxville. Shortly after this he removed to Hamilton County, settling at Soddy. He invested largely in lands in the neighborhood, which, by reason of the development and growth of the country, became valuable, proving a source of independence to his children. A man of enterprise, he em- barked in the construction and operation of a saw and grist mill; he encouraged the building of railroads, and by his in- fluence promoted all schemes calculated to stimulate the growth of the country. In a word, he was public spirited, ever doing his duty to his county and his State as a good citizen.
William Clift was originally a Whig, but in 1855, in the days of Know-Nothingism, he became a Democrat, and remained so for life. In 1860 he supported Stephen A. Douglas for the presidency. When the dark clouds of secession were gathering, in 1860-61, the government had no truer or braver friend than him. He was indeed a violent Unionist. In the Knoxville and Greeneville Conventions, he was a member of the "Business Com- mittee" of thirty, advocating the most extreme measures pro- posed. As a member of the Committee he helped to report the quasi war resolutions of T. A. R. Nelson in the Greeneville Convention, supporting them by a speech. In conversation he was one of the most ultra among the ultraists of East Ten- nessee in opposition to secession.
After the Greeneville Convention, he became a leader of the Union men for a considerable region of country. These were largely mountain people. His son I. W. Clift, writes me:
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"During these trying times my father's home was a refuge to those sharing his sentiments-which were to support the old government at all hazards-and it was not an uncommon thing to see hundreds of stalwart men, men from the mountains, the citadel of freedom, men from the hills, the hollows and the plains, men from all parts of lower East Tennessee, assembled at our home for advice and protection. The writer has seen from five hundred to a thousand men so assembled, and so bold did they become that, right in the heart of the Confederacy, as they were, they proceeded to a military organization. Several companies and a regiment were organized for the Federal Government by my father in Hamilton County, in the summer of 1862."
There was no spot in all East Tennessee, excepting Carter County at the time of the bridge burning, where there was such flagrant and open defiance of Confederate authority as at the home of Colonel Clift. He was the head and soul of it. He flung defiance in the face of the young, haughty and imperious power, as though it were governed by imbeciles and cowards. He openly organized companies of troops, and proceeded to erect fortifications around his house, as if expecting to stay there permanently. He also manufactured a cannon. The tradition is that it was a wooden cannon made by boring a hole in a log of the right size, putting hoops of iron around it and mounting it. The tradition is also that it ex- ploded the first time it was discharged. But I. W. Clift, from whom I have quoted above, says that the report that it was a wooden cannon is in part a mistake. "It was constructed," says he, "of a copper boiler tube, perhaps three inches in diameter, fitted into two pieces of timber split open at the saw mill, the center of each piece grooved out so as to fit around the tube, the timbers put together with the tube in the center, and almost solidly bandaged with iron bands made in the shop."
Such notorious opposition to the Confederate authority could not be tolerated, and accordingly Colonel James W. Gillespie of the Confederate Army, was sent to break up the encampment at Clift's. Instead of attacking and dispersing the rebellious Union men, the two chiefs entered into a treaty of amity and peace, duly signed and sealed by the two high contracting parties, by which they "mutually agreed to let each other alone." Here was a model for the nations which are seeking to
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settle international disputes by arbitration! Gillespie agreed that the Union people of lower East Tennessee, and especially those who had been so aggressive in upholding the Federal Government, should not be molested, provided they ceased their public assemblies, returned to their homes, and attended to their own affairs. I. W. Clift, from whom I have quoted, says : "This agreement was consented to and signed by all parties, by Colonel Clift and his men, and Colonel Gillespie for the Confederate Government."
Colonel Gillespie, living in the adjoining county, was a neigh- bor of many of these men, and was a kind-hearted and honorable man. The generous treatment he accorded Colonel Clift's men -indeed, manifested toward the Union men throughout the war, was in harmony with his fine nature. It would have been in- finitely better for the Confederate Government if in dealing with Union men the magnanimous spirit displayed by Gillespie had prevailed in all East Tennessee. It would have made thousands of friends, instead of sending tens of thousands of refugees over the border, to return in the course of time as armed enemies.
This agreement between Clift and Gillespie produced peace for a time, but it did not endure long. It is well-nigh, if not alto- gether, impossible, for antagonistic populations to live together in peace in the same community in time of civil war. There arose in this case mutual distrust, and unrest and disquiet were soon manifest. Mutterings were heard from the Union men of the violation of good faith on the part of the Confederate authori- ties. This was especially caused by some arrests of Union men. The Union supporters once more flocked to Colonel Clift's house, and open defiance of the Confederate government became as bold as before. It was at this stage of the war that Colonel Clift manufactured his cannon and erected the fortifications around his house. Before these were finished, however, the Confederate authorities sent troops to destroy the puissant power which had lifted its haughty crest in their very midst. The 7th Alabama Infantry approached from the South, and mounted Tennessee troops from the North. These forces com- ing upon Colonel Clift before he was ready to fight "stampeded all his forces," and destroyed the rising power of the Unionists in lower East Tennessee. It then fell out that each man pro- ceeded to save himself by flight, remembering, no doubt, that
"The paths of glory lead but to the grave,"
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and reflecting that the government needed living soldiers rather than dead heroes, they discreetly saved themselves that they might "live to fight another day." There was in all this no dis- position to avoid fighting, but at that time they had simply been taken unawares. Colonel Clift, like the old Roman he was, was all fight. He knew no fear.
I do not know of the date of these transactions, but they must have occurred in November, 1861. On the 11th of that month, the Rev. W. B. Wood, commanding the post of Knox- ville, telegraphed to Adjutant General Cooper, at Richmond, as follows: "Five hundred Union men now threatening Straw- berry Plains ; fifteen hundred assembling in Hamilton County, and a general uprising in all counties."
On the same day the Rev. Colonel wrote to General Cooper : "Five hundred Unionists left Hamilton County to-day, we sup- pose to attack Loudon bridge." Loudon bridge was about eighty-five miles from Colonel Clift's encampment. No doubt these communications had reference to the forces assembled there. The wildness of the statements is not surprising for this was only two days after the railroad bridges of East Ten- nessee were burned (on the night of November 8th, 1861). The nerves of the Reverend gentlemen were too much shaken for careful sifting of facts.
The alarm created among Confederate troops and Southern sympathisers by the burning of the bridges, indeed, the insane fright that followed, can not be described by word or pen. It would have been laughable as a grand farce, had it not been for the wail of anguish which arose from hundreds of families in East Tennessee, whose fathers, husbands, and sons were thrown into prison on that account. A thousand imprisonments would not measure the number. Despair at once settled on the minds and hearts of Union people. No man, high or obscure, felt himself safe from arrest. The prisons were full to overflow- ing. The gallows was demanding its victims. Prisons farther South were opening their doors to the Union men of the moun- tains, who were hurried thither without trial, some never to return. In this state of unsafety, menaced by danger at every step, they almost with one impulse sought safety in flight, and became exiles from a land they loved as life itself.
When the bridges were burned, by preconcerted arrange- ment, the Federal Army was to have followed into East Ten-
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nessee. But the plans were changed the last moment, and the little army of advance was recalled, and ordered to retrace its steps. At the very time the excitement and the alarm were at their height, there was not a Federal soldier within the bounds of East Tennessee except two, and they were hiding and seek- ing to make their way back to Kentucky. The invading army that was to come was then sadly wending its way beyond Loudon, among the hills of Wild Cat and Rockcastle, toward Camp Dick Robinson. And yet, strange to say, the intense bitterness, and the arrests and imprisonments and occasional executions, continued months after all supposed danger had long gone by. What folly it was to drive these determined Union men, who wished to remain home as producers on their farms, into the ranks of the enemy, whence they finally came back as armed soldiers, with many a wrong to redress.
It was at the time of this excitement that Clift was threatened with an assault by the enemy. His son, from whose statement I have drawn many of my facts, says: "Unfortunately for Colonel Clift the Confederates interrupted him before his gun was entirely completed, and it fell into the hands of the enemy before he had an opportunity to use it. These plans, how- ever, were all interfered with before completion, and all his de- fenses fell into the hands of his vigilant enemy; his cannon was blown up and himself became a fugitive, hunted in the mountains and hills as Saul hunted David." It was not fair that he was "interrupted" before his gun was completed. He should have had a chance to try it.
It may be remarked that in the battle of Cressy, or Crecy, fought in 1346, between the French and English, the latter used wooden cannons with terrific effect. A late writer thus described them:
"These bombards were small cannons made of wooden staves, clamped by iron bands and loaded with gun-powder and stones, . or iron balls. The battle of Cressy was the first in which artillery was used."*
After the disaster to Colonel Clift and his forces, he and most of his men made their way into Kentucky, where he organized the 7th Tennessee Regiment of Infantry. I have the impres- sion that while on his way to Kentucky, or the next spring,
"The Story of France," by Thomas E. Watson, Vol. I, p. 203.
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most probably the latter time, he and his men had a duel with Colonel A. J. Vaughn's Confederate regiment, at Huntsville, in Scott County, Tennessee, at long range, which resulted in no serious damage to either side. He remained in Kentucky, sometimes drilling his men, and was in the advance when the time arrived for the long-expected and long-delayed march into East Tennessee, for the relief of the Union people was com- menced by General Burnside. He was assigned to duty, by written order, under General Shackelford, and by him placed in command of the advance guard and pioneer corps from Crab Orchard, Ky., to Kingston, Tenn. Here he was detailed by General Burnside, and placed in charge of the courier line from Knoxville to Chattanooga. While on this duty, on October 24, 1863, he was captured by a raiding party, and imprisoned for a long time in Atlanta, whence he made his escape, and made his way back through the mountains of North Carolina and East Tennessee, during the extremely cold weather of January, 1864, hiding out by day and traveling at night. He suffered intensely from cold and exposure, from biting frosts, cold rains, and snow. His feet were so frost bitten that he could not wear shoes, and, wrapped in rags as a protection, he arrived at home about the first of February, 1864. The exposures of this trip were almost without parallel in the annals of history or romance. They terminated in a long and severe illness, in which he lost one of his eyes, the sight of the other being greatly impaired. Finally, in August, he again reported for duty, but he was deemed unfit for further service by reason of combined age and affliction. Thus terminated the military service of this remarkable man. He never wavered in his faith in the final triumph of the Union in its mighty struggle.
When the war closed, strife ceased with Colonel Clift. He was the friend alike of those who had worn the blue and of the destitute wearers of the gray. The latter needed and often secured his assistance. How noble it would have been if all persons had acted with the same magnanimous, forgiving spirit toward their late misguided fellow citizens, who were equally honest with themselves in the course they had pursued. Each side, excepting the few ambitious leaders who inaugurated the war, was honest and pursued the right as it saw it. After the lapse of more than forty years men everywhere begin to see that each party from a certain point of view was right.
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Colonel Clift was a stern, brave, conscientious man. He made no compromise with duty or principle. He was outwardly in action and speech what he was inwardly in thought and con- science-an honest man through and through. I do not know from what race he was descended, but he was in all his ways of the similitude of a sturdy old Scotch-Irish Covenanter, always seek- ing to do his duty and God's will. He was a Presbyterian in faith, and a ruling elder in the Soddy Church.
He was a devoted friend of the poor, and his son tells of the cunning methods he devised to give them work. One was this: he would have men prepare the ground for planting corn by the hoe only, although he had numerous plows and teams, in order to lengthen out the job of the dependent laborers. Noble man !
Thus passed the declining old age of this stern man of war, peacefully and calmly, until, in his ninety-first year, like a well- ripened sheaf of wheat, he was gathered to his Father.
GENERAL JOSEPH A. COOPER.
Father from Maryland-Mexican War-Greeneville Convention-Drilled Men on the Farms-Second Refugee-At Cumberland Gap, Chicka- mauga, Nashville-Internal Revenue Collector at Knoxville-Greatest Union Soldier.
IN writing of Union leaders the name of Joseph A. Cooper cannot be omitted. While he was not an orator, and could not dazzle men by beautiful words and phrases, yet withal he was a leader of men. His sharp, quick voice, with its tone of authority, and with a positiveness inborn of strong conviction, made men yield to him. He was naturally but unconsciously imperious, though strictly regardful of the rights of others. His conduct arose from an inward consciousness of strength, and from positive opinions.
General Cooper was born at Cumberland Falls, Ky., Novem- ber 25, 1823, and came with his father when a child to Cove Creek, Campbell Co. The father, John Cooper, was a native of Maryland and served in the War of 1812. His son was reared on a farm amid the hardships incidental to the frontier life. Schools were few and poor, with the result that he had but little education. But nature supplied a bright intellect, clear judgment, and keen moral sense. In all his instincts he was an honest man, and he had no patience with anything that was not open and straightforward. His spirit was too independent for any concealment or equivocation. These qualities were conspicuous in him through all his eventful life.
Joseph A. Cooper enlisted in September, 1847, as a volunteer, to serve in the army in Mexico. He reached the City of Mexico, in January, 1848, and left it to return home the June fol- lowing.
After his return, he cultivated a small farm in Campbell County, not far from Jacksboro. In the civil contest of 1860 and in the early part of 1861, he was an attentive observer of passing events. Being an old-line Whig, he naturally supported the Union ticket for the Presidency in 1860. There was no more ardent Union man than he in all the borders of East
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Tennessee, and but few private citizens who exerted so much influence. He was a delegate to the great Union Convention in Knoxville. By it resolutions declaring an unalterable at- tachment to the Union were passed unanimously. When this convention again assembled in Greeneville, Tenn., on the 17th of June, Mr. Cooper was the only delegate from Campbell County. He served on the "Business Committee," consisting of thirty-one members, one for each county, to which was referred, without debate, all resolutions submitted to the Convention, Judge Connally F. Trigg being its chairman. The excitement in the convention was bitter and intense. An overwhelming majority of the members were opposed to submitting to the action of the State in allying its destiny with the fortunes of the Southern Confederacy. There were at first only a few members who were opposed to this mad scheme of resistance. The great body of the Convention could not realize that they had already passed under the rule of a young but powerful revolutionary-military government, amply able to suppress in any quarter of its dominion the first uprising of the people. They were to find this out a little later on. They had not the faintest conception of the strength and the rage of the young giant born at Montgomery only a few months before. Mr. Cooper, in common with his whole committee of thirty, shared in this feeling.
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