Fund for Relief of East Tennessee at Boston, Portland and New York—Mr. Taylor and Family in Great Trouble—Their Timely Relief—Knoxville East Tennessee Relief Society—Pennsylvania Committee—Effective Work in Relieving Destitution—Summary of Results.
The only measure of relief for East Tennessee contemplated by the resolutions adopted at Faneuil Hall, was an appropriation by the State Legislature, and no arrangement was made for obtaining individual subscriptions. Col. Taylor had, however, touched a chord which drew a sympathetic response from the community. On the day after the public meeting, a contribution of three dollars was received by the President of the Association from a “Teacher in a Public School,” which within a week was followed by other gifts amounting to more than a thousand dollars. Means were then organized to receive and announce donations. Legislative aid was prevented by constitutional difficulties, and the executive committee of the relief society published an address to the people of Massachusetts, in order to enlarge the field of contributions. From that time the fund increased with remarkable rapidity. Soon it amounted to more than $90,000. Public opinion had assigned $100,000 as the sum to be raised by private subscription, and it was completed June, 4 by a gift of $1,000 from a children’s fair.
Boston and its suburbs were chief sources of these donations, but many of them were made from other places and States. The enthusiasm to help in the work was ardent and prevailed among all the people. Mr. Everett kept the public constantly informed of the contributions as they were received and his patriotic presence inspired others to assist.[58]
In the spring Mr. Taylor visited Maine, and eleven thousand dollars were given through Gov. Cony, and a relief association organized at Portland. He also visited New York city upon invitation, but the holding of a metropolitan fair at the place and time, prevented any important results from his labors. His address there was well received and a society formed which adopted means to promote the object of his mission. A letter from Gen. S. P. Carter was read on the occasion, dated at Knoxville a few weeks previous, in which he said: “From 40,000 to 50,000 troops have been in East Tennessee for more than four months; of that number, 10,000 to 15,000 were cavalry. In a great measure both armies lived off the country. The rebels drew all their supplies from it. Of course nearly the whole of the forage subsistence of East Tennessee has been consumed. Many families have been left without a bushel of corn or a pound of meat. And it is certainly to the credit of the people, that although they have been stripped of their substance by their own friends—by our troops—there is no abatement of their love for the old Government. Many rations have been issued daily from the Government stores; but for this, more than a few would be without bread. Even those who have supplies have only enough to last for a short time, and then, unless assistance comes from abroad, many, I fear, will suffer terribly for bread.” ... “From the destruction of fences, impressment of horses, and absence of forage as well as laborers, I fear that only a small part of our farms will be cultivated during the present year. Numbers of the people are driven to seek homes north of the Ohio; many others must follow, not willingly, but because there is no help for it.”
An address to the people of the State of New York, drafted by William Cullen Bryant, Esq., was published by a large and influential committee; but the aggregate of contributions to the New York city relief fund was less than $20,000, of which one-fourth was from Buffalo.
Mr. Taylor’s wife and children had of necessity left home, and with them he dwelt at Haddonfield, N. J. As strangers, with narrow means of support, their faith and patience were tried, and at one time severely. They were delivered when in great need, by an interposition that appeared to come from a Divine Providence.
The family of exiles, numbering thirteen, although not free from painful recollections of recent life in Tennessee, were no longer disturbed by alarms of war or shocked by atrocities of a hostile soldiery, and were contented and happy in their new home. In the afternoon of the day when Mr. Taylor returned from an absence of six weeks in New England, his wife said to him:
“We are nearly out of provisions. You must go to market in the morning. Besides, the rent is due next Monday and it must be met promptly.”
“Well, of course I’ll go to market, and I’ll settle the house-rent; but I suppose (drawing an almost empty purse from his pocket) you will furnish the money, as I believe I am about broke.”
“Why, dear me,” she exclaimed, with lengthened face and fading color, “is it possible you have come back home without money? You are surely jesting.”
“Indeed, my dear wife, I am in dead earnest. All I have in the world is this five dollar bill,”
For the first time in all their troubles, she lost faith and hope, and was helpless. Overcome by emotion and unable to speak, she dropped into a chair, sobbing. When the power of speech returned, she bewailed their condition:
“Oh! oh! just think to what we have come. Here we are a thousand miles from home. If we were there, enemies are ready to kill us. Here we are among strangers, in a rented house—rent due—provisions all gone—thirteen in family—and only that five dollar bill between us and starvation.”
Confessedly, the case had a dark outlook, and to any person of desponding mind it would appear desperate. Her paroxysms of grief brought all the household together; they stood around in deep, silent sympathy; but the head of the family soon rallied courage to speak in a tone of cheerfulness, not very well sustained:
“My dear wife, I am astonished at your want of faith and extravagant apprehensions. We are indeed among strangers, but they are our friends. Would the Lord lead us through all the dangers we have survived, only to let us starve here in a peaceful, prosperous land? And that, when we are in His service—working for the poor and destitute in unhappy East Tennessee? Away with your fears, and be assured that the same God who has led us safely so far, will lead us safely to the end.”
Her mind was calmed by these words, but they failed to remove all its doubts and forebodings. Next morning, the husband went to Philadelphia, armed with a bushel market basket, and after payment for a round ticket by railroad, with his five dollar bill distressingly reduced in size. Prices of provisions were high. He had to buy inferior qualities to supply the needful quantity, and to use thought and skill lest his little means prove unequal to the occasion. At length he started homeward, with the basket cheaply but plentifully filled, and in passing through Haddonfield was hailed by the postmaster and given a letter for his wife. It was postmarked at Boston. Who could have sent it? “Perhaps some of our rebel kin,” he thought, “have been captured and taken to that city, and have written to her.”
All day he had been praying inaudibly to the Lord for help, and he believed it would come, but all his forecastings as to the whence, how and when of its coming, had only been perplexing. He did not dream it would be from strangers and a distance; yet his curiosity was so keen to know who had written the letter that, contrary to his habit, he broke the seal and read.
It informed Mrs. Taylor that its writers highly valued the important services her husband was rendering to the cause of humanity and of our country; that they were aware of his inability, because cut off from all home resources, to maintain his family while he successfully prosecuted his good work; and therefore they begged her to accept the within check as a testimonial of their appreciation of his labors and their kindly regard for his wife and children. The names of six persons were subscribed to the letter, and it enclosed a check on Philadelphia for one thousand dollars. A mountainous weight rolled from the heart of its surprised reader. Midnight had changed to day. His whole soul bowed itself in thankfulness to the God of Elijah, for he looked on the thousand dollars as sent directly from the Lord. Quickening his steps, home was soon reached. At its entrance stood the tearful wife, as he drew near whistling a joyful hymn-tune. Alarmed at his lightness of spirits, she cried out:
“What in the world is the matter, Mr. Taylor? You are surely deranged. How else could you come home whistling, with only the contents of that basket between your poor family and starvation? I know you must be crazy!”
“Never was of sounder mind in all my life. It is you that are deranged, my dear! Did not I tell you, ‘The Lord will provide?’ There, read that (handing her the letter). See how thankless it is to doubt His promises; and learn to trust the Lord.”
She wiped away her tears and began to read. Gradually the signs of distress and depression disappeared from her face and it beamed with hope, gratitude and joy. Meanwhile his thoughts were busy concerning the Hebrew prophet and God’s commissary-ravens—the replenished oil-cruse and meal-tub—the weary disciples tugging at the net, over-full of fish—and concerning Him who still and ever reiterates in men’s dull ears, “Ask and ye shall receive.” When she had finished reading, she wept tears of joy, and with uplifted hands exclaimed, “Never again will I distrust my Lord as long as I live.”
In July, ’64, Mr. Taylor, by request, undertook a tour through the State of New York, accompanied as he had been before to New England, by J. E. Peyton. The heat of August and the political excitement in the canvass for the Presidency soon brought these labors to an end.
Because of the scarcity of food in East Tennessee, the Sanitary Commission sent some supplies from Cincinnati to relieve it, but the evil was too great to be overcome without extraordinary means. Not long after Mr. Taylor’s visit to Philadelphia, it was advised by his Eastern friends that an association should be organized in the destitute region, to receive gifts and administer help to the needy; and also that a competent committee, representing the distant contributors should visit the afflicted people, to observe their condition, confer with the society located among them and to report. Accordingly on February 8, 1864, at a public meeting in Knoxville, a relief association was formed and officers elected: Rev, Thomas W. Humes, President; Executive Committee, William Heiskell, Samuel R. Rodgers, John Baxter, O. P. Temple, William G. Brownlow, R. D. Jourolmon, George M. White and David Richardson; John M. Fleming, Secretary; M. M. Miller, Treasurer. Mr. Fleming was soon succeeded by George M. White as Secretary; and after one year David A. Deaderick became Treasurer of the Society. Needful agents were appointed for purchase and transportation of supplies.
About the same time, two Commissioners of the Pennsylvania Relief Society, Lloyd P. Smith and Frederick Collins, expended at Cincinnati, on their way to East Tennessee, over $8,000, in buying and shipping to that region, articles of food, chiefly flour, bacon, salt, sugar and coffee. These were transported to Nashville, free of charge, by means of a credential letter from Chas. H. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, to Gen. Grant. Soon afterwards, $28,000 were used for like purchases at the former city by Mr. Hazen, agent of the Knoxville Society, which were forwarded by means of $2,000, kindly loaned by Hon. Joseph E. Fowler, of Nashville.
The Pennsylvania Commissioners were well qualified for the duties assigned to them, and which required they should make a tedious and uncomfortable journey of 2,500 miles and of nearly three weeks’ time. They were heartily welcomed at Knoxville, and gave to its Association a memorandum of their own Society’s judgment concerning the distribution of supplies. They advised first, that the provisions should be given away to those who were unable to buy, and secondly, that to all other applicants they should be sold; the preference to be given, among both classes, first to Union families who had suffered on account of their loyalty; second, to families, who, without having specially suffered, had adhered throughout to the Federal Government; thirdly, to people who, whatever their past conduct, had given their adhesion to the United States. Lastly, they recommended that the old men, women and children of families which then had representatives in the Confederate army should be permitted to share in the bounty, no part of which, they thought, was intended for secessionists of the fighting age. The plan thus proposed was adopted by the Knoxville Association, and practically observed.
The Pennsylvania Commissioners informed themselves as far as possible concerning the destitution said to prevail throughout the region. Before they reached Knoxville, refugees had been arriving there daily in growing numbers and some of them slept of necessity in the open air. Gen. Carter, U. S. Provost Marshal, and Wm. G. Brownlow, U. S. Treasury Agent, provided shelter for the needy. Rations were also issued to them for a time and until the necessities of the army prevented.[59] The destitution was found to be all that it had been represented to persons at a distance.
Thrifty and well-to-do people were not exempt from it. One instance came directly to the knowledge of the Commissioners. A member of the Society of Friends from Blount County, sought for help from the U. S. Quartermaster at Knoxville, saying that he and all his people had nothing to eat. Before the peace of the country had been broken, they lived in plenty. At various places the visitors met with refugees on their way to the North in search of bread, not only from East Tennessee, but from Western North Carolina, Northern Georgia and Northern Alabama. Their losses had been entire, and having no means to buy food and shelter by the way, they kept on fleeing, for behind was threatening starvation. In their poorly clad and dispirited condition, sickness among them, especially of women and children, was inevitable. Pitiful cases of afflicted families came to the knowledge of the Commissioners, such as that of a mother and four children, all prostrated at the same time by disease. These unhappy emigrants were to be counted by thousands, not always impelled only by hunger and losses of property. Fear of being coerced to do military service for the Confederacy was in some instances an additional motive. At one town, a Western North Carolinian, nearly three-score years old, lay dangerously ill. His distressed wife, standing at his bed-side, said: “We came away because the ‘Rebs’ took away every thing from us and were about to force my husband and my son, 17 years old, into their army.”
At a point between Bridgeport and Chattanooga, the Commissioners, detained by a railroad accident, approached a group of passengers, decently but poorly dressed, huddling around a fire. They were three families, thirteen persons in all, on their way to Vincennes, Indiana, where they had friends. One old man, dressed in home-spun and wearing a straw hat, said simply, “All gone!”.[60] He lived eleven miles east of Knoxville, and when Burnside arrived, he volunteered and was in camp five weeks, but he was then refused on account of his age—being over sixty-six years old.
The evidences of a superior loyalty to the United States among East Tennesseeans (and Western North Carolinians) were as conclusive to the visitors from Philadelphia, as were those of great destitution. A farmer who had emigrated and was returning home, told them that if secession had succeeded, he would have left all and remained at the North. He said, “I would rather protect the Government than protect my property. If I had one bushel of corn, I would be glad to give one-half of it to the Union men. We could do a heap of good, if we could only stay there and raise truck for the army.” The mind he expressed was that of the people generally, and justified the opinion that “with the men of East Tennessee, devotion to the Union was not a mere sentiment, but a passion.”
In March, 1864, Mr. Thomas G. Odiorne of Cincinnati, was appointed purchasing and forwarding agent of the Society. He consented to serve, reluctantly and only upon condition that no remuneration be paid him. Too much can scarcely be said of the wisdom and fidelity with which he fulfilled his office.
As the summer advanced the beneficence administered by the Society told perceptibly upon the destitution. Clothing as well as food was distributed. Two thousand dollars were invested in goods which were made into garments by the Ladies’ Sewing Circle of Boston, and numerous boxes of clothing were contributed from various sources, all of which—timely and useful—were issued with discretion to the needy by Mrs. Maynard and Mrs. Humes at Knoxville, and by chosen agents at other places. Shoes amounting in value to $7,000 were bought by Mr. Everett at Boston, and $4,000 worth of woolen goods by Mr. Lloyd P. Smith at Philadelphia, and shipped on a U. S. Government steamer; but they were burned at Johnsonville, on the Tennessee River, by order of the Commandant of the Post, along with a quantity of Government stores on board, to prevent their capture by the army of Gen. Hood. No compensation was made.
The friends of the work of relief were not unmindful of the needs of refugees at Nashville, through which city more than 9,000 of them passed in the first two months of 1864, from different parts of the South, being chiefly old men, women and children. The Pennsylvania Association, by its Commissioners contributed $1,500 of its funds to the Nashville Aid Refugee Society, in March, to which the Knoxville Association added a donation of $1,000 the following October.
In August, 1864, Mr. A. G. Jackson resigned the office of resident General Agent, and was succeeded by Rev. E. E. Gillenwaters, who continued to serve to the end of the work. Both were competent and faithful in the conduct of affairs.
The Hon. Edward Everett, to whom the people of East Tennessee are so largely indebted for the means of deliverance in their time of trouble, departed this life, January 15, 1865, and a meeting of the citizens of Knoxville—Hon. Seth J. W. Lucky, President and D. A. Deaderick, Secretary—was soon after convened to honor his memory. Sincere sorrow for his death and strong esteem for his character and life were expressed in resolutions by the assembly and appropriate addresses were made. The speakers’ hearts were in profound sympathy with their subject and their minds found ready utterance in apt and glowing words. Gratitude to the deceased statesman and patriot, was conspicuous in all that was said. The common sentiment was well expressed by one of those who spoke:
“It is not saying too much to affirm that the history of our people during the last four years, is one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of the race. Enough is already known of it to excite the admiration of all friends of the country. In Mr. Everett’s case, it took a practical form—resulting in a fund of upwards of one hundred thousand dollars in cash, expended with a sagacity and fidelity that, aided by the benevolent of both sexes among our own citizens, will make thousands of humble sufferers bless the memory of their distant and unknown friend.”
The orator concluded with the words:
“As we follow his retreating form and begin to take the account of our loss, I cannot help feeling that from the aggregate of learning, the sum total of human knowledge, all that makes up the complex idea of civilization and lends grace to the affairs of men, he, in departing, has taken away a larger measure, than will in like manner be withdrawn by any one he has left behind.”[61]
Twelve months after the work of relief began, the destitution was largely diminished but still serious, especially in the most eastern counties of the State, which military conditions had prevented from being reached with supplies. When hostilities ceased, the people of those counties being the most needy, received chief attention and help from the Association, which distributed among them in 1865, fifty thousand dollars in goods and provisions. Its ability to do this, and at the same time assist the needy in other counties was due to the faithful observance of the plan recommended by the Pennsylvania Commissioners—by which, the supplies, excepting issues without charge to the penniless, and sales at cost to soldiers’ wives and widows who had means, were sold to citizens, able to pay, at an advance. The results obtained, were as follows:
First, the aggregate receipts of the Association by gifts from a distance, of one hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars, were increased to two hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars.
Second, the amount of cash paid for food and clothing, alone, was more than that originally contributed. From the proceeds of sales were also paid the cost of freight and insurance, the salaries, wages and expenses of all officers, agents and employes; all other necessary expenses; twelve thousand dollars for shoes and woolen goods destroyed at Johnsonville; three thousand dollars for aid to refugees at Nashville, and five hundred dollars sent to Portland, Maine, which had given thousands to East Tennessee, and later had suffered by a great fire.
Third, as the benefit of the poor and needy was the controlling purpose of the Association in all its deliberations and transactions, that supreme end was practically reached in the use of the fund originally contributed. The articles of food purchased and distributed were judiciously chosen, and the wearing apparel, in buying which fifty thousand dollars were expended, was suited to the wants of the people.[62]
Altogether, there was much cause for congratulation among the friends of the undertaking both at home and abroad, that at a period of time when because of civil war, vast sums of money were lavishly expended and temptations to mis-use of them were strong, more than one hundred and sixty thousand dollars should have been managed with such prudence and efficiency and with such strict integrity, for the relief of the suffering people of East Tennessee. The generous givers and the thankful beneficiaries were far away from each other in space. A deep gulf of deadly strife intervened between them; but across that gulf, their hearts went forth and were clasped together—the prosperous and the comfortless,—in love for the American Union, and in brotherly love as fellow-countrymen.
Sincere human friendships by no means perish with the loss of their mortal surroundings. To a pure mind, inspired by the truth, they are spiritually related to the invisible and permanent. Else, hopelessly we should often have to cry—
Just so with human citizenship, wisely conceived and cherished. It is more than a mere symbol of one higher and nobler. As one has well said:
“There is a mystery in all affections which rises above vulgar instincts; it is thus with the love of country. The patriot sees in her more than can be seen by those who are without; and yet he remembers that there remains in her much that cannot meet his eye; for it is part of the greatness of a nation, that though her fields and cities are visible things, her highest greatness and most sacred claims belong in part, like whatever includes a spiritual element, to the sphere of ‘things unseen.’”[63]
The archetype of our country is the “better country, that is, an heavenly,” for which prophetic souls—children of faith and promise—have yearned throughout all the centuries. A man dwelling here, may have there his citizenship, and in its fulfillment is required and insured the performance of all other civic duty.