NEWS AND LITERATURE IN THE CONFEDERACY--A MIXED DINNER PARTY AND
ITS CONVERSATION--CARTER’S RAID AND WHAT BEFELL A RECRUITING
OFFICER--AN UNTERRIFIED YANKEE CITIZEN OF GEORGIA--SANDERS’
RAID--DEATH OF PLEASANT MCCLUNG.
“Young men soon give, and soon forget affronts;
Old age is slow in both.”
ADDISON’S _Cato_.
“A wise man ... examines if those accidents
Which common fame calls injuries, happen to him
Deservedly or no. Come they deservedly?
They are no wrongs then, but punishments:
If undeservedly and he not guilty,
The doer of them first should blush--not he.”
JONSON.
It is not advisable to follow closely the course of events at the
locality during the next winter and spring, for the most of them were
not important or interesting enough to be chronicled. Men and things
settled down into a state of comparative quiescence under the new
Government. While with some there was glad acceptance of the existing
power, others, silently submitting to it, looked out, hopeful of soul
for its overthrow, and secretly listened for news of victories to
the United States armies at a distance. Tidings of all occurrences
beyond the limits of the seceded States were meagre in quantity and
obtained with difficulty, except so far as the few newspapers still
published in the South, gave them. These papers had dwindled away
in size, and of course had little room in their columns for news
from the United States and from foreign lands, after printing matter
of local interest. If any news from outside were published, which
was thought to bear seriously upon the fortunes of the war, its
proportions had to be shorn and its color changed to suit politic
requirements. The _Richmond_ (Va.) _Examiner_ with its very able
editorials by Mr. Daniel, was more in circulation than any other
journal from a distance, and some persons counted themselves happy in
the opportunity to peruse it. There was an independence in its tone
that reminded Union men of former days of the Republic, and its zest
was enhanced to their mental palates by its occasional fault-finding
with those in authority. At length its dimensions were reduced by the
necessities of the times to one-half sheet of very indifferent paper.
If, as was sometimes the case, a few newspapers were smuggled into
the town from the North by the underground railway _via_ Kentucky,
and came into the hands of a Union citizen, they were counted as
worth their weight in gold. He first devoured their contents in
secret, then passed them covertly to a friend, and so they would
continue their rounds among hungry readers. In like manner would be
circulated any important news received by the “grapevine telegraph.”
Such eagerness among Union men for information from without, was no
doubt largely due to their hope of deliverance, but it was partly
owing to their desire to know something of what was going on in the
great world beyond the limits of the Confederacy. They felt like men
in a prison, and to this day many of the current events in that world
for more than two years are blank in the knowledge of persons in the
South, who had been accustomed to keep pace with journalistic columns.
As for current literature and science, periodicals and new books,
they found no access at all to the place from abroad. The only
volumes recently published, copies of which had circulation were,
“A Strange Story,” by Bulwer, and a translation of Victor Hugo’s
“Les Miserables.” These had been re-printed at Richmond, and were
remarkably inferior in their mechanical execution. The paper on
which they were printed and the typography vied in poverty and
unhappiness. The covering was of wall-paper with very large figures,
the mutilation of which, in adapting the binding to its use, added to
the grotesque appearance of the books.
News was still given by authority. The community would be told of a
battle somewhere, in which many “Yankees” were killed, wounded and
taken prisoners, and the Confederate losses were relatively small.
These reported victories, with their great disparities in results,
occasioned, as did the news from Corinth, much open joy on the one
hand and secret incredulity on the other. They who doubted and
still clung to the Union, although reduced in numbers, were not so
crushed in spirit as to sulk, Achilles like, in their tents, but
they sought one another’s company, listened to news from the United
States, brought in by adventurous runners, discussed the situation
and probabilities, and encouraged each other to steadfastness.
Sometimes the national heavens wore to them an intense gloom,
relieved by but few dim rays of hope. But at one time their hope
grew very bright, only to suffer a fatal eclipse. No occurrence of
the war gave the Union people of East Tennessee such disappointment
as the failure of General McClellan’s Peninsular campaign. In their
imaginations, “Little Mack” was the hero of the epoch, the Alexander
who would cut the Gordian knot of the rebellion, the American Cæsar
who would shortly capture the insurgents’ capital and proclaim to the
nation, “_Veni, vidi, vici_.” And when they learned the campaign’s
result, they did so with more grief and discouragement than was felt
elsewhere in the land, because of their isolation from sympathy and
their unfriendly environment.
In the great majority of instances, friendly social intercourse
between people of hostile opinions had ceased, but there were
exceptions to the rule. Early in May, 1863, a civilian who was firm
in his devotion to the Union, but strong also in his attachment to
personal kinsmen, and equally free in manifesting both, had a number
of invited guests to dine with him one day. News of the death of
Gen. Stonewall Jackson had but just arrived, and the sorrowful
event was a topic of conversation at the table. The hero who had
recently departed, has been since the war ended, an object of
reverent admiration to some people who cared nothing for or detested
secession, as well as to all who sympathized with it. While the
bloody conflict was going on, the godliness which was a strong trait
in his character, seemed to sanctify altogether in the view of some
minds, the cause for which he fought so bravely and skillfully.
They would, no doubt, have stoutly rejected the dogma of works of
supererogation. But the religious merits of General Jackson appeared
to more than counterbalance with them all religious demerits of
others who sought with him to dissolve the Union. In the conversation
just mentioned, pertinent expressions were given of esteem for the
deceased and of regret for his death. After these had been spoken a
young man at the table exclaimed:
“I have no doubt that General Jackson is now commanding a legion of
angels in heaven!”
This sentimental climax to the panegyrics before uttered, somewhat
startled its hearers, and seemed to forbid any remark that might
even imply dissent. The prevailing silence was broken by one of the
company relating an anecdote of the Rev. David Nelson, who had been
for years a doctor of medicine. From being a downright religious
sceptic, he had been converted to the Christian faith, had become a
prominent Presbyterian minister in East Tennessee, and was the author
of a book entitled, “The Cause and Cure of Infidelity,” which once
had a very extensive circulation. He was in Washington City during
the presidency of Andrew Jackson, who, hearing of his presence in the
city, sent him an oral invitation to visit him at the White House.
The two had been well known to each other in former years and were
personal friends, but Dr. Nelson said, in narrating the incident,
he had found after becoming a Christian minister, little or no
benefit to result from his social visits to men in high places of
the State or Nation. He therefore did not make the proposed visit.
The President then sent him a written request to go and see him, and
Dr. Nelson went. General Jackson had lost his wife by death, and the
affliction had been the means of leading him to serious reflection
and to faith in Christ--to baptism and membership in the Presbyterian
Church. As a consequence, the conversation that ensued between him
and his reverend visitor, was of a religious nature. Dr. Nelson, in
speaking afterwards of the interview, said:
“I talked with General Jackson. I think he is a true Christian.
Yes, I think when he dies he will go to heaven. But he will be no
bigger than a rat! There’s my old colored man--a preacher. He will
be soaring away up in heaven, while General Jackson will be crawling
along on the floor like a rat.”
This recital was followed at the table by a silence as deep and
universal as that which went before it. Whether the guests highly
valued Dr. Nelson’s opinions that degrees of blessedness obtain in
heaven and that high and low positions will in some instances be
reversed up there, is by no means certain. But they appeared to think
that the story entailed a moral which lay in its application, that
the subject was exhausted and the conversation might be discreetly
diverted to another topic.
In December, 1862, Gen. Samuel P. Carter made a military raid into
that portion of East Tennessee lying nearest Virginia. He was a
native of one of the most eastern counties of Tennessee, which bears
his surname, and he belonged to a prominent and influential family.
He had been for years an esteemed officer of the United States Navy,
but in 1862, was detached from it and assigned to duty with the land
forces in Kentucky which might operate in East Tennessee. There, it
was probably thought, his nativity and name would prove collateral
aids to his services. This particular enterprise was brilliantly
executed, but he was compelled by the gathering of superior hostile
forces to withdraw from it speedily. A compend of his report of the
expedition is appended.[29]
A very young man, son of Wm. Harris, a worthy merchant of Dandridge,
Jefferson County, fled to Kentucky in the summer of 1862, from the
conscription. He became a volunteer in the United States Army and was
made captain in the East Tennessee troops, was sent by the Colonel
of his regiment to obtain recruits in Sevier County, East Tennessee,
crossed the mountains for that purpose with General Carter’s command
on its raid, left it at Union Railroad depot, and was betrayed and
captured in Washington County. From there he was brought to Knoxville
and tried by court martial as a deserter from the Confederate army,
was found guilty and sentenced to death. Gen. Burnside communicated
from Kentucky to the Confederate Government that Captain Shade T.
Harris was an officer of his army, for whom he held Captain Battle,
of the Confederate States Army, as hostage, but no exchange of
the men was effected. Subsequently Captain Battle was released at
Nashville through some misunderstanding or mal-administration, Harris
being still detained. His friends claimed that he was a United States
soldier. Perhaps prompted by the feeling that a Christian minister
who was a Union man would more heartily advise with and prepare him
for approaching death, his father requested a minister who bore that
reputation to visit the prisoner. Authority to do so was promptly
granted upon application, but the reverend man was rather surprised
to be attended on his errand by two soldiers “armed to the teeth,”
as though he had not only dangerous propensities but Sampsonian
strength. This formidable guard, with its superfluous watchfulness,
kept close to the minister’s person while he read the Word of God to
the prisoner, prayed with and counselled him. The jail was crowded
with inmates and the miserable food that waited to be scantily
dished out to them lay thrown together in a box on the way from the
main door. One result of the visit was, that with consent of the
authorities, a quantity of good, wholesome bread from the baker’s
went that day to regale the prisoners. The ministerial visit, with a
reduced military escort, was now and then repeated, and the condemned
youth was exhorted to cherish a spirit of forgiveness to his enemies,
as a duty because of God’s forgiveness through Christ. He professed
to do this. The fatal day drew near. A coffin was prepared for the
body of the alleged culprit. His father learned from Richmond that
a reprieve had been granted, and visited the recently appointed
Commandant of the Post at Knoxville, who in reply to an inquiry
concerning the respite from President Davis, said he did not know,
and told an Aid to look and see. Several pigeon holes were examined,
and the official document was at length found! No doubt King David
was right when he said to the prophet Gad, “I am in a great strait:
let us fall now into the hand of the Lord: for his mercies are great:
and let us not fall into the hand of man.”[30]
Throughout the winter of 1862-3, and the next spring, the current
of life in the community, with its mingled civil and military
elements, flowed on in wonted channels. The occupancy of the town by
Confederate troops and the conduct of their affairs made the most
prominent and engrossing feature on the face of things. There were
soldiers on the streets, and sick or dying soldiers in the hospitals.
Courts martial were held, and stories, true or false, of military
movements and skirmishes, of battles, victories and defeats, were
frequent topics of conversation. Men bought and sold, Confederate
notes and bonds went down in value, and gold went up. Purchases of
different commodities in trade and of real estate, were made in
sums of money, nominally large and really small. Some men seemed
to prosper in their financial operations, in like manner with the
speculator, of whom an admiring friend said, “He is rich--that is to
say, he is not rich, but he has all the sensations.” But there was no
firm foundation in pecuniary affairs and many of the superstructures
were chaffy.
In general, things appeared to be permanently settled. There was
so much of ordinary routine in their daily movement, so little
of jarring or eruption about it, that men, if disposed, might
easily think that the Government under which they lived had a
long, indefinite future before it. To some observers, however, the
uniformity in the movement, like that in the soldiers’ dress and
march, had too much the look of being imposed by mere power and of
wanting in healthy freedom. After all that might be said favorably
of the social condition, one had to admit that it was too dull
and monotonous to suit rational beings, and needed an infusion of
vitality from some source or other. To observers whose spirits
revolted against their surroundings, and were fed with the hope that
“Springs eternal in the human breast,”
the state of society suggested its comparison to that of the
inhabitants of a remote locality in a great empire, where
insurrectionists temporarily held power and things went on among the
people under a prevailing sense of suppression. They were compelled
to silence but were still resistful of mind to the power that held
them down. They had faith that the surrounding night would sooner or
later disappear before the light of day, bringing
“Stern and imperious Nemesis,
Daughter of Justice, most severe;
* * * * *
Whose swift, sure hand is ever near.”
During this period of a more quiet Confederate rule over the
region, there was an occasional escapade of persons from the Gulf
States through East Tennessee to the North. Secretly a system had
been perfected by which they and other refugees were directed from
point to point and supplied with means of conveyance by resident
citizens--well known to each other and their special friends--whose
names were never exposed as helpers in such a work. One of this class
of travellers was Mr. B., a native of Connecticut, but for many
recent years a respectable, peaceable citizen of a State south of
Tennessee.
At the advent of the war, knowing that he had the esteem generally
of his neighbors, he did not think of being disturbed during its
progress, in the quiet pursuit of his lawful business. After the
conflict had fairly begun, the passions of men made them sharply
sensitive to the presence of one, whose antecedents formed a ground
of suspicion that he was not “loyal to the South.” He belonged by
birth to the hated race of “Yankees,” and although he was discreet
of speech and well behaved, it was supposed that he could not well
enough love the production of cotton by slave labor, to be allowed in
the town at such a critical time. Therefore he received in writing an
anonymous warning to leave the country, but he refused to heed it.
Another was sent to him with the same result, and yet another. At
length he was threatened in an open and positive way, that forced him
to answer with emphasis, “They told me,” said Mr. B., speaking with a
decided nasal twang, “they told me I must leave or forfeit my life,
and I told them _I would forfeit my life!_”
He was evidently such a man as Hosea Biglow would admire. George
Borrow says, “When threatened by danger, the best policy is to fix
your eye steadily upon it and it will in general vanish like the
morning mist before the rising sun; whereas, if you quail before it,
it is sure to become more imminent.”
The result of that policy by Mr. B., was that without further
molestation, he was permitted to continue his residence in the town.
Long afterwards, he chose to depart with a young man as companion,
and passed through Knoxville to Morristown, where Mr. N. would
provide them conveyance over the mountains into Kentucky.
One afternoon in June, 1863, agitating news spread from the military
to the people. Col. Wm. P. Sanders, of the United States Army, was
said to be marching upon the town with a formidable force, to be
already not far away from it, and would arrive on the morrow. The
cry, “To arms!” went everywhere. Messengers upon the streets summoned
citizens to shoulder their guns and aid the military in resisting
the invader. “To the front! to the front!” And away men sped under
a strong sense of duty. The tradesman left his store, the laborer
his toil, the mechanic his shop, the lawyer his office and even the
clergyman his study. Young and more mature men, and boys, obeyed the
call, in some instances as if eager for the fray.
A noble spirit is that of patriotism. Who is there of such base
metal, as not to be prompt in defending his home, his city, his
native or adopted land? That arrant coward, John Falstaff, thrice
pronounced “a plague upon all cowards!” And the sentiment, put into
rude or elegant phrase, has the common consent of mankind. There is
“a common and indeterminate courage,” which Edmondo De Amicis says
“in Europe is considered with chivalric reciprocity, the property of
all armies.” Bishop Stephen H. Elliot (eminent scholar and gentleman)
said that the late civil war proved one thing--that there are few men
not brave enough to fight. Much rarer is _moral_ courage, as it is
immeasurably superior in kind. Physical courage has more of its roots
in the animal nature and is liable to great heats and fury. Moral
courage, having its roots in the conscience and being trained by the
reason, has firmness and composure. Nor is all patriotism alike.
It differs in scope and expression. That which is narrow and tied
down to a section is apt to have a concentration of energy, which
gives a certain fire and dash to its courage. The patriotism that
includes the whole country in its arms, may because of breadth, have
less flaming intensity, but has more substantial capacity for calm
endurance in heroic action.
On June 14th, 1863, by order of Maj. General Burnside, then
commanding the Department of the Ohio, Col. Sanders (Fifth Kentucky
Cavalry), started from Mount Vernon, Kentucky, for East Tennessee,
with a party of fifteen hundred men, which included the First
East Tennessee Regiment under Col. R. K. Byrd. He passed _via_
the neighborhood of Huntsville, Scott County, East Tennessee, and
Montgomery, Morgan County, and leaving Kingston and Loudon in
succession to his right, made some captures at Lenoir’s, and moved
up to Knoxville at daylight on the 20th. General Buckner was in
command of the Confederate Army in East Tennessee. He was absent
that day, having gone the previous morning to concentrate his forces
at Clinton, but all possible preparations were made to repel Col.
Sanders. Afterwards it was stated that he had no intention to assault
the town, which if he had taken he could not have held. He himself
officially reported that he “made demonstrations against Knoxville
so as to have their (Confederate) troops brought from above.” An
engagement followed upon his appearance before the town between the
two hostile parties, chiefly with a Confederate battery planted on
Summit Hill, southwest of and overlooking the railroad depot, and a
United States battery on elevated ground opposite, near the junction
of Fifth Avenue and Crozier streets, North Knoxville. Few injuries
resulted to either side. Most of the shells thrown by Col. Sanders’
guns, missing their mark, flew over the town harmlessly enough,
except in frightening the women and children with their whizzing
through the air. But the casualties from one of the shrieking
missiles were serious to the Confederates. It first mortally wounded
the captain of a company of citizen volunteers, then struck and
killed a sergeant who on higher ground was nearly prone with the
earth to avoid harm, and finally exploded, killing a Lieutenant from
Florida, who with other convalescents from the army hospital in the
Deaf Mute Asylum close by, sat on a fence to see the fight.
The Captain of Volunteers was a young man of specially amiable and
genial qualities. His bravery and vivacity of spirits led him into
heedlessness of danger. As he stood upon the hill-top that morning,
nigh to the Confederate earthworks and artillery, and saw his
fellow-soldiers drop for safety into the ditch at the same moment
with the flash of Sanders’ guns, he exclaimed, standing upright:
“Don’t be afraid; there’s no danger!” Instantly a shell hit him, and
his mutilated body was tenderly borne to a kinsman’s house in town.
Surgical aid was summoned and could mitigate his sufferings, but not
save his life.
A non-combatant minister of the gospel, having removed his invalid
wife to a friend’s house less exposed to the flying shells, was
seeking the same refuge for his infant child. As he walked, he met a
brother minister, who had just taken part in the fight. The contrast,
one bearing in his arms a musket and the other a child, was almost
comical, and provoked a smile from the Quaker-like professional. He
repressed it in presence of the grief he quickly encountered, as he
met the wounded Captain’s wife and children.
“O, Mr. ----,” she cried aloud, throwing her arms aloft into the
unsympathizing air, “they have killed my husband! Come and see him!”
This he did, and administered such consolation as our holy religion
affords for sufferers. The dying young man was a sincere Christian
believer. It was noted that only the Sunday evening before, with
his family around him at home in the country, he had sung, with a
heavenward aspiration of spirit, the grand old hymn, on whose winged
words of divine promise and human faith many a devout heart has often
risen into the Christian empyrean:
“How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord.”
As his life ebbed fast away, his right hand now and then pressed that
of the kneeling minister, in sympathy with the supplications offered
to God. Soon the end came, and his dying breath went forth in prayer.
Among his petitions to the King invisible, was one of “forgiveness to
those who killed him.”
No doubt he meant the enemies with whom he did battle that morning;
but were there not others, positively, although remotely in time,
accountable for his death? Who inaugurated that bloody war--whether
it were rightly named civil or infernal? Did it come down from the
sky above or leap up from the deep beneath, fully matured, as Minerva
sprung forth from the head of Jupiter, in complete armor, with lifted
spear and clashing weapons? Or was there some gigantic national wrong
against humanity, that clamored for righteous adjustment, and would
not sleep until it found redress? Was it begotten of enthusiastic
philanthropy? Or of an unholy love of lordship? Of zeal for freedom
and hate of oppression? Or of ambition to cut the Nation in two and
create one with slavery for its corner-stone? Was it evolved from the
heart and brain of William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips? Or
from those of Jefferson Davis and Robert Toombs? Did the first gun
fired on Fort Sumter, whose echoes went sounding through the land and
sent the patriotic pulses of the people bounding to the quickstep of
marching battalions, begin the biggest strife the world has known? Or
were its seeds sown in earlier decades, when men, women and children
of barbaric Africa, cruelly crowded in slave-ships, were freely
imported to American Colonies and States, to be forever an inherited
“bone of contention?”
“_Forgiveness to those who killed him?_” Let the question in all its
bearings of responsibility for his death, be referred for answer to
the Son of Man, whom God has appointed to judge the quick and dead!
Meanwhile, let thy dismembered body, O, Pleasant Miller McClung,
sleep on in the quiet grave of thy early manhood, until the morning
of the resurrection of the dead! Then shalt thou meet those for whom
thou didst pray forgiveness. And surely, thy unstudied petition was
so like one that passed from the pale lips of the Man of Sorrows
when expiring on the cross, that it must have gone up through Him
to the throne of eternal grace. Sleep on, then, until that coming
day! Multitudes, equally brave--wearing the blue or the gray--fell
on sleep in the same mighty conflict. In many and crowded cemeteries
the grass grows on lowly mounds over them, the white and pulseless
marble glints in the shine of the sun as it rises and sets, and the
birds sing their peaceful requiem in the air. And shall they not--a
grand army, hundreds of thousands strong--come again to life? What if
some are in unmarked graves? What if some graves have headstones that
bear the sorrowful word, “Unknown?” _God knoweth!_ And they shall
rise again, for He has said it. But if, in the generations hereafter,
“Columbia” is indeed “to glory arise,” O ye, her sons, heed well
the lesson taught by the war between her children in ’61-65. “The
beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water, therefore leave
off contention, before there be quarreling.”
In this Republic the avenues to employment are so many and wide
open, that some measure of success awaits all who have capacity and
diligence. Justly enough, a poor and obscure lineage does not prevent
the rise to eminence or wealth of him who is worthy, nor are they to
be attained by the son of rich or notable parents, who has no merit
of his own. “Parson Brownlow,” in writing once for the public about
some of his enemies to whom he attributed aristocratic pretensions,
compared them to “turnips, the better part of which is under
ground.” Still, wisely enough, men generally even under Democratic
institutions, count an honest and industrious ancestry of some worth.
By common consent, sons are to be commended who copy the virtues and
good conduct of their fathers. One of the guests at a dinner party
in Knoxville given to Gen. Burnside, said to him: “Andrew Johnson
deserves great credit for having risen from poverty and obscurity to
honorable distinction in the country.” The General was expected to
reply in just the same strain of sentiment. His answer was: “Yes!
but so does every man who inherits superior advantages and uses them
wisely and faithfully.” And there are strong temptations to idleness
and improvidence besetting the young man who is born to affluence and
favorable opportunities, which it is meritorious in him to overcome,
and with which the poor boy has never to struggle.
The genealogical facts concerning the young Captain who met his
death on Summit Hill during the “Sanders raid” are interesting,
for he was the only living man in whom met lines of descent from
two persons distinguished in the earliest history of Tennessee and
Knoxville. He was the great grandson of William Blount, Governor
of the Territory south of the Ohio, from 1792 to 1796, and also of
James White, founder of Knoxville, (the capital of the Territory) and
fellow-worker of Blount in the organization of Tennessee.
Col. Sanders, after one hour’s passage at arms with the Confederates
under the command _pro tem._ of Col. R. C. Trigg, took up his line
of march eastward and burned the bridges at Strawberry Plains and
Mossy Creek. He captured stores and prisoners at several places, and
was finally compelled to withdraw hastily to Kentucky. His enemy
pressed him closely on all sides, and to avoid capture, he had to
pass the mountain by an unfrequented gap, (Smith’s) through which
there was no road, but only a bridle path, to follow. Reports made by
the respective parties in the conflict, are appended in a condensed
form.[31]
When the excitement occasioned by Sanders’s visit had passed away,
Knoxville returned to its former quiet condition and remained so for
two months.
Meanwhile, the United States forces which held Cumberland Gap were
in turn compelled by their adversaries to evacuate it, because of
insufficient supplies.