CHAPTER VI.

THE STATE FOR THE UNION--A STRANGER IN TOWN--SECESSION OF TENNESSEE PRE-ARRANGED--BIBLICAL CO-INCIDENCE--UNION ORATORS--AN ASSASSINATION.

“Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream; The genius and the mortal instruments Are then in council; and the state of a man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection.” SHAKS.; _Julius Cæsar_.

Tennessee was unwilling to depart from her wise sisters in the Union and join the others in committing what one of her adopted sons,--a General of the Confederate army,--said to his friend after the war had ended, “was one of the greatest blunders in history.” The Legislature of the State proposed a convention to decide what the State should do concerning its national relations. Governor Isham G. Harris and his sympathizers, no doubt considered the secession of Tennessee could be most conveniently accomplished through that instrumentality: and it was ordered that the question of holding such a convention should be determined by the people at the ballot-box, February 9, 1861.

[Illustration: HON. T. A. R. NELSON.]

Love for the Union had not yet weakened in many persons throughout the State, who at later points of time could not withstand the accumulated force of motives to give it up,--some of whom in finally surrendering it, hushed their lingering objections with the plea of necessity. The majority of people were used to think of the Union as a precious heritage from their ancestors, and they were unable to see that they ought to throw that inheritance away, because the Republican candidate for Chief Magistrate of the Nation had been elected. Even at the city of Memphis an enlightened public sentiment in favor of maintaining the Union widely existed in the fall of 1860, and found expression at a large public meeting, called and participated in by more than a few of the best citizens. Before the February election the question of secession was often discussed, not only by politicians before assemblies, but by citizens in conversation. While enthusiastic disputants threw arguments thick and fast without convincing one another, they still parted in friendship, that was sometimes abated by the controversy. The time had not then come for the wrathfulness of the political atmosphere and excitement of men’s passions, to prevent colloquial and peaceful interchange of opinions. As a general rule, secessionists and the disaffected towards the newly-chosen Government at Washington, were more numerous in East Tennessee among the rich and persons of best social position, and were greatly out-numbered among the middle and poorer classes.

The election in February resulted in a majority of more than sixty thousand voters for Tennessee continuing in the United States, and also in a decided majority against holding the proposed convention. It was clearly to be seen that the people were content to continue in old and tried paths, and did not think it wise or expedient even to send delegates of their own choosing to discuss the vital questions that agitated and threatened the country. Many of them looked upon the convention with apprehension as a contrivance for mischief. What if the enemies of the United States intended and should use it as a hot-bed to mature an ordinance of secession, which, like the gourd over the head of the displeased and murmuring Hebrew prophet at Nineveh, quickly grown, would quickly perish? Has not experience any lesson to teach on the subject of unusual gatherings of inflammable materials, which a spark may kindle into a great fire, when the air is very dry from intense heats?

With the advent of spring, in 1861, the muttering of the storm gathering in the national heavens became louder and longer. The inauguration of Mr. Lincoln on the fourth of March, was affirmed by men in Tennessee with others in the South, who were bent upon separation, to be an ample reason in itself for a dissolution of the Union. His words when he took the oath of office,--so full of friendship and good will to the South, fell idly on their ears, and his abstinence from any act to disturb its peace, did not abate their hostility a fraction.

During the month of March a young New Yorker arrived at Knoxville, returning home from Havana, where he had dwelt in the winter for the sake of health. He found New Orleans, through which his journey lay, all in a ferment over the cauldron of political troubles in the land. Not being versed in State-craft nor fully impressed by the gravity of the national situation, he was disposed to look with a lenient eye upon the insubordination to the Federal Government prevailing in the Queen City of the South. Louisiana desired to have a government of its own, and with great generosity, he said it might be well to let its people make the experiment. He, at least, was not inclined to coerce them into obedience. Now and then in his leisure at Knoxville, as the times were ominous, he kept on the alert for news. One day, being told of the fall of Fort Sumter, he inquired of an ardent secessionist standing near:

“Was the attack upon the Fort without provocation?”

The citizen addressed, took the question, not as it was intended, merely to learn how the fight began, but as a provocation. At once he spoke with stern manner and strong words of Southern rights and as his sectional zeal grew more fervid with its venting, he asserted that “one Southern man could whip five or six Yankees.” He himself “could whip three or four.”

“My friend,” was the reply, “you are mistaken. We are all of one Anglo-Saxon blood and Northern men can fight, as well as Southern.”

A few hot-bloods not far off, overheard the conversation. One of them told his companions he knew the stranger by his peculiar speech to be a Yankee, whom the party at once talked of subjecting to the indignity of “a ride on a rail.” He caught enough of their words to learn the hostile meaning, and obeying the instinct of his courage, to which his strength looked unequal, he calmly walked up to the company and stood, waiting their pleasure. They kept silence, being discomfited by his composed bearing and shortly went their way.

This boastful estimate of the greatly superior fighting capacity of Southern men, compared with Northern, was widely entertained and expressed in terms not much less exaggerated. It had its root in the idea that Northern people were not “chivalric,” and were so devoted to money-making that they would not go to war for the sake of any principles involved in the attempt to dissolve the Union. The two notions helped no little to embolden the secessionists in their purpose of disintegration.

The experience of the young stranger with the effervescence of warlike feelings on the street, did not end with the above incident. Not many days afterwards, the town postmaster was seen emerging from his office with an unnatural paleness of face, that indicated intense mental excitement. The cause was soon explained by his mounting a goods’-box on the principal business street, for want of a better rostrum, and reading aloud to the crowd which immediately gathered. President Lincoln’s Proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand men. A copy of it had just arrived by mail. The reading was followed by enthusiastic and martial oratory that stimulated to greater heat the temper of hearers whom the Proclamation offended. At that moment the New Yorker appeared on the scene and desired to see the document. Having no opportunity, he passed along the street with a friend to a distant point where the postmaster was about to read it from a door-step to another audience, which they joined.

Profound attention was given by all listeners, until the words “loyal citizens” were read, when a strong voice cried out:

“If there is a loyal citizen present, let him now speak!”

No one made reply. The call came from one of a company of young men who were exceedingly zealous, and had it moved the inoffensive Yankee to speak indiscreetly in the surroundings, it may easily be inferred that he would have been handled with severity. When the reading was concluded, he and his friend joined in a subdued laugh over escaped mischief and joyfully departed.[18]

Governor Isham G. Harris, fired with increased zeal by the beginnings of actual hostilities, called an extra session of the Legislature for May, 1861. The certainty of war determined some minds to favor resistance to the Federal Government by force, which had before adhered to the Union without reference to such an ordeal. A conservative regard for institutions derived from the past, had influenced them at first to cherish Union sentiments, but their intimate personal and social relations were more with men who were already enlisted in sympathy with the intended revolution. They had resisted the influence of these associates while the peace was unbroken, yet they had combative temperaments and the President’s Proclamation roused their slumbering pugnacity. Their own passions being loosed from bit and bridle, as they must have a share in the contention, on whose side should it be but on that of nearest kith and kin. The cause they had deemed unrighteous and against which they had argued and voted, became righteous in their eyes, when seen through the red and lurid atmosphere of Mars.

Others there were who had little strength of character, and had been opposed to secession chiefly because it threatened to disturb the even tenor of their lives. The noise of war in the air did not stir their blood or change their minds: but the same easy-going disposition--the same aversion to be disquieted which had made them Unionists at first, led them to fall into the current of popular feeling in their vicinity, which the entrance upon bloody strife made stronger and swifter for secession. Some for the first time, then heartily responded to the pleas they heard for sympathy and co-operation from Tennessee with the Southern States, as more nearly its sisters, and needing its help. Others yielded to those pleas, because they feared the reproach of their communities for want of right affection and just conduct, or worse still, to be called “scalawags” and “Lincolnites.”

The material interests which were affirmed, and by many believed to be at stake in the conflict for “Southern rights,” had their influence to increase the number of secessionists in parts of Tennessee after the appeal to arms. The growth of disunion sentiments, like their germination, depended more or less upon the climate and soil. In West Tennessee, where cotton is the chief product and slaves were very numerous, the friends of the Union eventually, were few and far between. At the city of Memphis, a large cotton port, where a strong Union sentiment existed in the autumn of 1860, the voters against secession four months later, could be counted on the fingers of one hand. In Middle Tennessee the secessionists increased in numbers, less in proportion to population, than in West Tennessee: but in East Tennessee, there was no important change in the relative strength of parties produced by the commencement of hostilities. During April, the political excitement in the chief town of the latter region, rapidly waxed strong as it did elsewhere in the land: but it differed then and afterwards in the bitterness mixed with it growing out of the close and sharp divisions among neighbors. The near prospect of a general civil war increased the disposition of the revolutionary party to vigorous proceedings and added something to its confidence. The friends of the United States were put more on the defensive against the charge of disloyalty to their own section of country, and found it necessary to use discretion as well as firmness. Sometimes the adverse parties came near to collisions on the streets.

Tidings of “the fight at Baltimore” vibrated on men’s nerves like a shock of electricity. It was on Friday, April 19. On Sunday, people went to church with the exciting news yet ringing in their ears. Singularly enough, as a co-incidence, widely observed, and thought by some to be prophetic, the first lesson for the day (third Sunday after Easter) read in the worship of God in many churches of the land, began with the ninth verse of the third chapter of the prophet Joel, in these words:

“Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up; beat your plough-shares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.”

Universally the worshippers were unprepared to hear a portion of God’s Word, long before prescribed, but so well suited to the particular time that it might have been selected that morning, and they were impressed or startled. Another portion of Holy Scripture read on the same occasion by like prescription, and which had special fitness to existing circumstances, breathed no martial strains, and therefore received less attention as a co-incidence. It was in the Epistle for the Sunday, from St. Peter’s first Epistle:

“Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God.”

Aiming to promote a spirit of order and peace, the minister who conducted these religious services at Knoxville preached that morning upon the importance of right government and obedience to it--of using freedom, not in the service of evil passions, but of neighborly, kind affections, from the apposite words:

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.”

As if, however, the hour for discord had come, and its footsteps would not tarry, the result of the day was the loss to the church of several leading families whose sympathies were strongly with “the South,” including that of a church warden. He was a worthy citizen and sincere christian, but he “could no longer attend as a worshipper and listen to the ‘prayer for the President of the United States and all in authority,’” as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer. The prayer dates back to the year 1789.

The agitations and mutual wrath of parties at the locality, each of them being strong, were sensibly increased by the secession of Virginia and the forcible seizures of Harper’s Ferry and the Portsmouth Navy Yard, which followed not long after the Baltimore fight. Notwithstanding the people of Tennessee had voted against secession in February, 1861, by a majority of 60,000, now, in the absence of any later expression of their will on the subject through an authorized channel, the State Government entered into a military league with the Southern Confederacy and passed an ordinance of secession subject to the ratification of the people at the polls on the eighth of June. Under that league troops were enlisted throughout the State, and so without having seceded or become a member of the Confederacy, Tennessee was placed independently in actual rebellion against the United States. Some eight hundred of these soldiers were stationed in camp near Knoxville. One day Andrew Johnson and Thomas A. R. Nelson addressed the people on the principal business street of the town, the court-room being too small to receive them. The meeting was disturbed by the loud music of a Confederate band from a neighboring hotel, and by the threatening demeanor of armed men who had just been addressed by secession orators and were parading the streets. A bloody collision was only prevented by the friendly interposition of peaceably disposed men from both parties. The same two Union leaders were soon afterwards stopped in addressing the people at Blountville in the strong Democratic county of Sullivan, and compelled to desist.

On the twelfth of May the United States flag was raised by some Unionists to the top of a liberty pole fixed near a spot of public resort in the town, and a stirring speech in keeping with the occasion was made by Connelly F. Trigg, Esq. Among his sympathizing hearers was Charles Douglass, a citizen of violent disposition and addicted to the use of strong drink, which without detaining him at home, tended to increase his contentiousness. Being a democrat and an ardent admirer of Andrew Johnson, he followed that distinguished politician into the Union party. Between him and a Major of the Military League State troops--Wash. Morgan--a few angry words were spoken after the flag raising, and Douglass was subsequently fired upon by his adversary and a military companion, when not expecting an assault.

He escaped with slight hurt, but the shots aimed at him mortally wounded a harmless countryman entering a store door. The soldiers in camp were excited upon being informed at once of the affair by Major Morgan, and some hundreds of them under his leading, intent upon Douglass’s death were intercepted on their way to town by a discreet Colonel of their army--with help from influential citizens, and persuaded to return to their tents.[19]

The offending Unionist was not however to escape from his enemies. While seated before a front window of the second story of his house he was shot from a hotel upper window, a hundred yards distant. After a few days of suffering he expired. His murderer was unknown, but was thought to be either the Major or some one of that antagonist’s fellow-soldiers procured for the purpose. The circumstances of his death excited wide regret in the community, except among a few extremists whose over-heated passions had so beclouded their moral sense, that they could hear of the assassination with the same indifference they would hear of a man being slain in battle. By many of the Union men he was looked upon as a martyr in their cause.

The eighth of June, on which day the people were to vote upon the ordinance of secession adopted by the General Assembly, was drawing nigh, and as East Tennesseeans in a majority of cases were averse to it, special efforts seemed advisable at Nashville to influence them in its favor. Certain persons therefore, Hon. John Bell among them, visited Knoxville and other places in the eastern division of the State, but their addresses and labors were of little or no avail. Mr. Bell would not advocate secession, being still hostile to it as a political doctrine, but he was understood to declare himself “a rebel.” Other visitors from Middle and West Tennessee were less reserved in advocating the doctrine, and in commending the ordinance to the people for their suffrages. Meanwhile Andrew Johnson, Horace Maynard and Thomas A. R. Nelson were active in making public speeches for the Union. This they did at imminent risk of injury or death from soldiers of the Confederacy (who were transported at that time from the Southwest through East Tennessee to the defence of Virginia), or from the State allied troops