CHAPTER XVIII.

DEPLORABLE CONDITION OF EAST TENNESSEE--WATAUGA SCENERY--LANDON C. HAYNES AT A DINNER PARTY--NATHANIEL G. TAYLOR--HIS WRONGS--HIS FEARS FOR THE PEOPLE--HIS MISSION TO THE NORTH AND WORK AT PHILADELPHIA--EDWARD EVERETT’S SPEECH AT FANEUIL HALL.

“Alas, poor country; Almost afraid to know thyself! It cannot Be call’d our mother, but our grave; where nothing But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile.” MACBETH.

An intelligent observer of the condition of East Tennessee in the spring of 1863, did not need any supernatural gift of prescience to enable him to see that a dangerous scarcity of food would befall its people at no very distant day. This evil especially impended over counties where love for the Union was relatively strongest, and from which means of sustenance for Confederate troops had been more largely drawn. Twelve months had elapsed since Gen. E. Kirby Smith, in chief command at Knoxville, had the sagacity to foresee the ills that threatened the whole region because of the withdrawal of nearly all its able-bodied men from agricultural pursuits, and had thought it advisable to proclaim his promise that he would suspend the operation of the conscript law until men should cultivate their fields another season and raise crops of farm products.

Besides the more than thirty thousand men who were absentees northward--nearly all of whom had enlisted in the Federal army--and the unknown number who had been sent to the Southern prisons, some thousands were in the Confederate army. So that probably more than one-eighth of the entire population were withdrawn from all peaceful labor and chiefly from tilling the soil. As long before as 1861 and ’62, the earth had very scantily yielded its fruits, because little work had been done in cultivating it. Even that little had been performed in the midst of excitements, agitations and disturbances, and was therefore defective in quality. Many Confederate soldiers had been quartered here and there throughout East Tennessee, or were in active movement over it from point to point. They had to be fed, and being imperfectly disciplined, they wasted much even of that they bought of their friends, and still more of that they took from Union people. The provisions and provender they ruthlessly seized, might be transported by them elsewhere or be wantonly destroyed on the spot. In the proclamation by Kirby Smith, April, 1862, was a clause following the invitation to Union refugees, which testifies of his good intentions to correct disorders committed by his own troops. In doing this, it bears witness also to their wrong doings and the need there was of protection from them being assured to all citizens. He said: “The Major General commanding, furthermore declares his determination henceforth to employ all the elements at his disposal for the protection of the lives and property of the citizens of East Tennessee, whether from the incursions of the enemy, or the irregularities of his own troops.”

The depleting causes continued during the year 1863. One who had good opportunity to be informed on the subject says, that in the summer of that year; “East Tennessee was full of parties marching and countermarching, skirmishing and battling, ravaging and devastating the whole country, which was far distant from reliable bases of supply. The young laboring men were in the armies; and what was left of the people’s substance being wasted, the prevailing want pressed upon the brink of starvation and was brought to the homes of thousands who had never known hunger before. The present and prospective victims of the extreme destitution were women and children, old men and invalids.” When autumn came, to be followed by winter, the outlook was ominous and distressing. Was there any way possible of mitigating the growing calamity? If so, how and from whence could help be had?

It will be remembered that the first permanent settlement in East Tennessee was on the banks of the Watauga River near the present Elizabethton; and that there, in 1780, the “Back-water men,” as the British Colonel, Ferguson, called them, gathered under Shelby, Sevier and Campbell for their patriotic military expedition to King’s Mountain. The natural surroundings of the spot are now attractive in summer. From the site of the Old Fort, which was built in early days for defence against the Indians on an elevation 300 yards south of the river, the eye may rest on the blue front of Holston Mountain, seven or eight miles distant. To the east is Lynn Mountain, three miles away; to the south is the blue outline of the Unaka and Roan mountains; in the southwest is the bold and craggy front of the Buffalo Mountain, that may easily be fancied to resemble an ancient castle of massive strength, and standing in solitude, its brow uplifted into the skies, impresses the mind of the spectator with a feeling of awe for its grandeur and majesty. And among all these mountains are pleasant vallies, through which flow the Doe River, Buffalo Creek, the Watauga River, Indian Creek, and twenty miles away, the Nolachucky River. The various features of the landscape combine to form a sublime and beautiful panorama.

At a dinner party given at Memphis after the recent war ended, to members of the Mississippi Bar, Gen. N. B. Forest, of Confederate memory, intended, it is said, to administer in pleasantry a sharp stimulus to the rhetorical powers of his friend. Col. Landon C. Haynes, who was present and had the reputation of being one of Tennessee’s most brilliant orators. It was the habit of certain persons in 1861 and for some years afterwards, to speak contemptuously of East Tennessee because of its devotion to the Union. The habit seems not yet to have expired, seeing that not long ago a leading journal at the metropolis of the State could utter the historical solecism that the people of East Tennessee were descendants of men who were friends of Great Britain in the War of the American Revolution! Gen. Forest, merely to incite Col. Haynes to make an eloquent response, adopted a reproachful phrase, current among Secessionists, in giving this toast:

“Col. L. C. Haynes: our honored guest from East Tennessee--that God-forsaken country.”

Col. Haynes was instantly on his feet, and in the spirit that dictated the lines:

“Breathes there a man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!”

spoke in his best style of voice and manner, as follows:

“Sir, I proudly plead guilty to the ‘soft impeachment.’ I was born in East Tennessee--on the banks of the Watauga--which in the Indian vernacular means ‘beautiful river:’ and beautiful river it is. I have stood upon its banks in my childhood, and looking into its glassy waters, beheld there mirrored, a heaven with moon and planets and trembling stars, and looking upward, have beheld the heaven, which the heaven below reflected. Away from its rocky borders, stretches a vast line of cedar, pine and hemlock evergreens, back to the distant mountains--more beautiful than the groves of Switzerland--reposing on a back-ground as perfect in grandeur as the cloud-lands of the Sierra Nevada of the far West.

“There stands the towering Roan, the Black, and the magnificent Smoky mountains, upon whose summits the clouds gather of their own accord, even on the brightest day. There I have seen the great spirit of the storm lie down in his pavilion of clouds and darkness to quiet slumbers. Then I have seen him awake at midnight and come forth like a giant refreshed with repose, arouse the tempest, and let loose the red lightnings that flash for hundreds of miles along the mountain tops swifter than the eagle’s flight in heaven. Then I have seen those lightnings stand and dance like angels of light to the music of Nature’s grand organ, whose keys were touched by the fingers of Jehovah, and responded in notes of thunder resounding through the universe. Then I’ve seen the darkness drift away, and morning get up from her saffron bed, and come forth like a queen robed in her garments of light, and stand tip-toe on the misty mountain heights. And while black night fled away to his bed-chamber at the pole, the glorious sun burst forth upon the vale and river where I was born. O, glorious land of the mountains and sun-painted cliffs! How can I ever forget thee?”

On the same river whose surroundings were thus described, was also born and still dwelt, Nathaniel G. Taylor--a near kinsman of the post-prandial orator. He it was who in debate at Knoxville during the Presidential canvass of 1860, spoke with almost prophetic tongue of the civil war and its train of dreadful ills, which he alleged, the malcontent politicians of a great party were preparing to bring upon the country if Mr. Lincoln were elected. So vivid was the picture which he then drew of those evils, that, as before related, some of his hearers wept. But the tears they shed, compared with the many that fell from the eyes of women and children during the war, were as the few scattering drops that clouds in summer send down to tell of the torrents of rain, with which the land is soon to be drenched. The eloquent speaker on that occasion, had been, in 1863, grieved for more than two years by seeing and hearing of the unjust violences to which the Union people of East Tennessee were subjected. It is impossible now to determine with strict accuracy the details of wrongs they suffered from their enemies. To use his words, those wrongs included:

“The confiscation of property, merciless conscription, arrest, imprisonment, the execution of the death sentence by drum-head court-martial, running the gauntlet of rebel bullets and bayonets for great distances by 30,000 men to reach the United States flag and join its army; the martyrdom of from 2,000 to 3,000 non-combatant, unarmed Union people in thirty-one counties, by shooting, hanging or slaughtering in cold blood;[57] the despoilment of personal property, and consequent upon all these, a widespread destitution of the very necessaries of life.”

Mr. Taylor was known to be a Union man, and therefore could not be permitted to dwell peacefully at home with his wife and children. He was arrested and tried by a drum-head court-martial as an accomplice in the bridge-burnings of 1862, but was acquitted. Afterwards, being threatened with arrest and imprisonment upon the charge of High Treason against the Confederacy--to end, perhaps, in his death--he sought refuge in secluded and very inaccessible gorges of the mountains. His concealment there was attended with privations, but it disconcerted enemies in their pursuit. Upon learning of Burnside’s advent into East Tennessee, he became perplexed in mind as to his personal duty. He could not remain in his hiding place without danger of being discovered and hunted from it, if not seized. The Confederate troops were between him and Burnside at Knoxville, and he could reach there only with difficulty and risk. If he attempted to do so and succeeded, in what way under the protection of friendly power, could he best serve his country? He almost determined to seek for a suitable position in the United States army, but postponing a conclusion, he submitted the subject to God in prayer. Upon doing this, he was persuaded that his petition for guidance and direction was answered by the strong impression of a new idea upon his mind.

For some time he had been deeply moved at heart, in his daily and nightly reflections, by a vision which the unhappy condition of East Tennessee suggested; a vision of famine and death swiftly coming upon its people. Prayer in faith had been the means of opening his eyes as to what he should do in relation to those impending evils. He thought that the Spirit of the Lord spoke to his own spirit: “Your duty is to go and tell the people of the North, of this great, threatening destitution, that they may interpose with their beneficence between it and the suffering people of East Tennessee.” He accepted the conclusion as from Him who inspires those who trust in Him to all good and praiseworthy undertakings. Escaping at once through the Confederate lines to Knoxville, he proceeded from thence to Cincinnati upon his humane and patriotic mission. There he met with sympathizing friends of his enterprise, to promote which several hundred dollars were contributed by citizens, after a public meeting had been held and an address heard from him. The amount would have been larger, had there not been already a stream of needy refugees from the seceded States to Cincinnati and other points on the Ohio River, which two months later grew into “great numbers.” To provide for that out-flow of “thousands of women, children and aged men--all meanly clad, well-nigh starved, and many well-nigh heart-broken,” the Refugee Relief Commission was established at Cincinnati.

Andrew Johnson, then Military Governor of Tennessee, gave Mr. Taylor a letter of endorsement and commendation, to which President Lincoln added a similar one, and on arriving at Philadelphia he was received most kindly. Nearly two months before, the extreme necessity which induced his visit, had been brought incidentally to the attention of a few patriotic and benevolent ladies of that city. Mrs. Joseph Canby and Mrs. Caleb W. Hallowell heard some soldiers of Kearney’s regiment, early in December, 1863, speak of the famine in East Tennessee, and of how they themselves had sometimes lived on a cracker a day in order to give to the children who flocked to the camp, begging for the remnants of their rations. Touched with compassion, the two ladies quietly proceeded to sew and collect articles, and being joined by friends and neighbors, including some from Norristown and Lancaster County, a fair was held. Its cash proceeds and several boxes of clothing were forwarded to Knoxville and distributed to the needy.

In January, 1864, the Governor of Pennsylvania recommended to the State Legislature the subject of Mr. Taylor’s mission, and the latter delivered an address in the Philadelphia Academy of Music. A Relief Association for East Tennessee was at once organized with Ex-Gov. Jas. Pollock, President, Joseph T. Thomas, Secretary, Caleb Cope, Treasurer, J. B. Lippincott, Chairman Committee on Collections, and Lloyd P. Smith, Chairman Executive Committee. The people of the city cheerfully responded to the call upon them for material aid and contributed over twenty-six thousand dollars. From that date, the Pennsylvania Association was of great benefit to the whole undertaking, (especially through the Chairman of its Executive Committee) in various ways--by wise counsels and active co-operation, as well as by warm sympathy, encouragement and gifts.

From Philadelphia, Mr. Taylor upon advice went to Boston. On the 10th of February, a crowded assembly in Faneuil Hall, including many ladles, gave him an enthusiastic greeting. Upon nomination by Hon. J. Wiley Edmunds, Officers of the meeting were elected: Hon. Edward Everett, President; Gov. Andrew, Mayor Lincoln, Hons. J. E. Field, A. H. Bullock (Speaker), Robert C. Winthrop and Chas. B. Loring; also Wm. Clafflin, Patrick Donahoe, Wm. B. Rogers, Chas. B. Goodrich, Jas. Lawrence, Rich’d Frothingham, Julius Rockwell, Chas. L. Woodbury and John M. Forbes, Esqs., Vice Presidents; and Col. F. L. Lee and Sam’l Frothingham, Jr., Secretaries.

Hon. Edward Everett stepped forward upon the platform and spoke. He requested the respectful attention of the assembly to Mr. Taylor on his own account, and also that they should “hear him for his cause”--the cause, not simply of the Union, but of faithful Union men who from the beginning of hostilities “had stood at the post of danger; on whom the storm of war first broke, and on whom from that day to this, it has beat with its wildest fury.” “At this distance from the scene of war,” he said, “we hear only the far-off roar of the tempest; but all its waves and billows have gone over the devoted region for which our honored guest comes to plead.”

Mr. Everett then gave the true and beautiful description of East Tennessee, which has been repeated in the Introduction to these chapters. He said of that region:

“Overrun it may be by the armed forces of the rebellion, but all its sympathies and attachments are with the loyal States. While the aristocracy of the southeastern counties of Maryland, were shouting ‘My Maryland,’ the farmers in the western counties in Cumberland Valley shouted back, ‘No, it’s our Maryland.’ Western Virginia, a portion of the same grand chain of mountain and valley, is as loyal as Massachusetts. Then comes Western North Carolina, and still more, Eastern Tennessee, the home of our honored guest, and of as true-hearted, loyal, Union-loving a population as there is on the continent. As far down as Northern Alabama, the mountain district is filled with Union sentiment. It was with the greatest difficulty it was engineered into secession.”

In continuation the eloquent orator spoke of the large majority at the polls in East Tennessee, February, 1861, against a convention for the purpose of seceding and of the subsequent “outrages and cruelties, of which the Union-loving inhabitants were made the victims.” He told how, that “thrown upon their own resources, they naturally sought to save themselves from being overrun by destroying the bridges on the chief lines of communication,” and that in consequence, the great majority of the people of the region were subjected by the Richmond Government to great severities. In that connection he read and sharply censured the letter of Mr. Benjamin, Secretary (C. S.) of War, heretofore repeated.

In concluding, he said to his fellow-citizens that their brethren of East Tennessee, fighting battles and suffering persecution, represented a common cause, and he feared the promptest relief extended would be too late to save some from starvation. “This,” he added, “must not be. If the Union means anything, it means not merely political connection and commercial intercourse, but to bear each other’s burdens and to share each other’s sacrifices; it means active sympathy and efficient aid.”

[Illustration: REV. N. G. TAYLOR.]

Mr. Taylor followed with a fervent and impressive address, in which he briefly related the historical events in East Tennessee from the beginning of 1861, told of the wrongs inflicted upon its people, of the voluntary exile of its men and their enlistment in the United States army, of the desolation their homes and fields had suffered from the war, of the deep, wide and threatening destitution existing among them, and he appealed on their behalf to the prosperous people among whom he stood, to send them help. He spoke plainly, with strong and earnest convictions of the truth, and with the burning passion which a sense of the injustices he narrated had enkindled in his soul. Inspired with a profound and lofty patriotism, by the presence of distinguished persons and a thronged audience on a spot of lively associations with liberty and the Republic, and by the importance of his theme, his speech was with unwonted power. His hearers were carried away by his eloquence as on a mighty wave of enthusiasm, and all criticism of his style, wherein it was not in harmony with the demands of a higher culture, was forgotten in their glowing sympathy with his subject and the ardent love of country to which his words quickened them.

When he had finished, resolutions expressive of hearty fellowship with the Unionists of East Tennessee in their fidelity and sufferings, and of a ready mind to minister to their needs, were presented by Geo. B. Upton and unanimously adopted. Hon. Rob’t C. Winthrop said a few words, and Judge Thomas Russell spoke ardently, more at length. He referred to the statements of Mr. Taylor concerning destitution among the people whose cause he pleaded, and said:

“Let me add that this testimony is confirmed by one of the Generals who marched to relieve Burnside. General Blair has just told me a touching story of the devotion of the women who crowded to the line of his forced march, to welcome the sight of our armies; to wave the flags which in evil days they had hidden in the secret recesses of their homes, even as they kept the love of the Union in their hearts; to bring the last piece of bacon, the last handful of meal, to feed the advancing soldiers of the Union cause. Often he forbade his men to take the scanty gifts of the poor. As often, he heard the reply, ‘Take it; I have a husband, a son, at Knoxville; take it all for the Union.’ These are the people for whom our aid is sought.”

A letter was also read from Gen. Frank Blair, reciting the same facts, and expressing his hope that liberality would “be stimulated by remembrance of the kindness and devotion of the loyal women of Tennessee who succored our toil-worn soldiers on their march to the relief of their beleaguered brothers, many of whom were sons of Massachusetts.”