The attitude which a large majority of the people of East Tennessee deliberately assumed and persistently maintained in the Civil War of 1861-’65, was remarkable. It had no precise parallel within the limits of the ten seceded States, and there was no distinctive and numerous population in any one of the loyal States whose surroundings were so greatly unfavorable to a like attitude of devotion to the Union.
The majority of citizens in each of the border slave States of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri adhered to the United States, and their respective governments were administered accordingly. But their territorial and other important relations were altogether different from those of East Tennessee. Maryland lay contiguous to the district and capital, where the Federal Government must and did especially defend itself. It is separated from Virginia not only by the District of Columbia but by the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, and it had no nearness to any other seceded State; while Pennsylvania stretched all along its northern border, and the other loyal States of New Jersey, New York and Ohio were not far distant. Kentucky was bordered by the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. And Missouri was almost surrounded by Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. A majority of the people of West Virginia were steadfast in their friendship for the Union, notwithstanding the State, of which they were citizens, seceded. But West Virginia bordered chiefly upon Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky. It was easy of access to influences favorable to the Union. At the same time the armies of the United States could without great difficulties enter and occupy its territory, and this fact helped to confirm the loyalty of its people.
East Tennessee was entirely removed from thoroughly loyal States. The only contiguous one that did not join in the work of secession was Kentucky, which was held to its place in the Union against the will of a considerable minority of its citizens. Otherwise, East Tennessee was bounded on the north and east by Virginia, on the east by North Carolina (lying between Virginia and South Carolina), and on the south by North Carolina and Georgia. High mountains surrounded it on every side, and on the west separated it from the other grand divisions of Tennessee, where prevailed a spirit of disunion that found sympathy and support in the adjoining Gulf States of Alabama and Mississippi.
The wonder is that the people of East Tennessee, situated as they were—far removed from States and populations where slavery did not exist; having railway connections and water communications only with those States that were hostile to the United States—should yet have set their faces as a flint against secession. The wonder is, not only that they sprung quickly with uplifted hands to the defence of the Union at the very beginning of the assaults upon its life, but were also its active or suffering friends to the close of the strife. Difficulties and dangers on that behalf, they encountered without flinching. Reproaches, and severities that in some instances were cruel persecutions, they endured with fortitude. Under the influence of an ardent patriotism, most of their able-bodied men, in order to save their personal liberty or life, or to escape being forced to fight against the Nation, left home and family and fled, as they then called it, to “God’s Country”; crossing difficult rivers and mountains by day, and snatching at night short sleep in the dark forests through which they passed; suffering from hunger and fatigue, from drenching rains and alarms from foes, until at length, where the star-spangled banner was floating securely in the air, they enlisted by tens of thousands, to help with arms in saving the Nation’s life.
During the War period, in more than two years of which the Southern Confederacy ruled over East Tennessee, the property of these refugees and that of Union people who remained at home, was seized and used or destroyed, until impoverishment and want prevailed to an alarming extent. In numerous instances, starvation, like a gaunt wolf, threatened the door, and the hearts of many were sickened by hope of succor long deferred; but the fire of devotion to the Union still lived and glowed within them strong and bright until the end came.
The scene in a momentous tragedy, thus presented in a region of country so isolated from the great world that its actors could have no stimulus to their constancy in the heard applause of admiring spectators, was phenomenal, even in that time of heroic deeds. It was the reproduction, upon the same stage, after nearly a vanished century, of the same broad patriotism—to some extent inherited—which sent a thousand riflemen from Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga River, to win for the American colonies a victory at King’s Mountain; and which afterwards triumphed over a spirit of revolutionary separation, in retaining the allegiance of the people of Frankland to the mother State of North Carolina. Without doubt, the chief sentiment that animated the hearts of loyal East Tennesseeans in 1861-’65 was one of duty. “The duty of preserving the liberty which their ancestors, through God’s blessing, won, established and handed down” to them—a duty which has been said to be “no less imperative than any commandment in the second table; if it be not the concentration of the whole.”[1] To whatever causes their conduct may be attributed, it at least conveys the impression of their strong individuality as a people and invites the closer observation and study of the political philosopher.
It is certain, also, that the steadfast attachment of East Tennessee to the Union and the efficient aid it gave to its preservation, formed an important factor in the war and contributed in no small degree to its final result. Had its territory been friendly ground for the encampment, sustenance and transit of Southern armies, and had the ranks of those armies been recruited with the thirty thousand East Tennesseeans who volunteered in the service of the United States, the course of events might have been seriously deflected and the war been prolonged, to the hurt of the whole country.
It is of occurrences during the conflict in that territory, shut in by rock-ribbed mountains, and chiefly in its central town, that these pages will tell. The purpose of the narrative is to instruct as well as to interest the general reader, and it may afford a help, however slight, to some gifted mind that shall in the future attempt the history of the War of 1861-’65 in the spirit of a sound Christian philosophy.
It is also the hope of the author that this volume will serve to confirm the reader’s patriotism, or to quicken the sentiment into life, if it only slumber within him. The love of country has justly been extolled by the tongue of the eloquent orator and the pen of the gifted poet. Both the philosopher and the religious teacher commend it, and it is profoundly interesting to know that the Author of Christianity cherished that sentiment in its purity, and in full harmony with his wide-reaching love for other nations than His own of Israel. Some of His countrymen once interceded for His favor in behalf of a Roman centurion, with the reason, “he loveth our nation.” The plea was not rebuked by Him, and as the petition which it aimed to strengthen was quickly granted, we may infer that it influenced Him.
Every one will probably admit that the spirit of patriotism is praiseworthy, but it is well to consider that it is sometimes liable to slip from the guidance of wisdom and to be narrowed down in its range of working to a section or a party. On the contrary, it should be as broad as it is ardent; its boundaries those of the Nation; and while it rises immeasurably above the base greed for office, it should equally rise above the bitterness and contentions of partisan zeal into the pure and serene atmosphere of fellow-citizenship. It may be blindly perverted, but a true love of country can never be intelligently applied to the uses of an inordinate ambition, or to supply the necessities of a huge wrong. “History,” it is often repeated, “is Philosophy teaching by example.” If so, then it would be wrong to let the splendid example of unadulterated patriotism given by the Union people of East Tennessee in the War of 1861-’65, go unchronicled. No popular leaders induced it. The courage and fortitude it presents sprang from deep and strong love for the Union of the States in one Nation—deep and strong love for their whole country.
Impressive also are the lessons of true and far-reaching patriotism given by the heroic Rhode Islander and his fellow-soldiers, in rescuing East Tennessee, at great pains, danger and loss, from a usurped power; and by the generous people of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, Maine and other States, in relieving it from impending famine. These interpositions, not to destroy, but to save its people, should teach Americans, as long as the Republic lasts, that, in the words of Mr. Edward Everett: “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.”