_Editor Philadelphia Inquirer:_
SIR—I have two letters of recent date, and from reliable sources,
giving me news from East Tennessee, which I desire to place you in
possession of, and through you the public generally.
The persecutions of the Union men continue, and really increase
in severity, The property of all Union men in the Federal States
and army was being sold at auction, including furniture, stock,
grain, agricultural implements, &c., no attention being paid to the
necessities of their families. The Union citizens and soldiers, who
are in the prisons of Salisbury, Tuscaloosa and Mobile, are dying
rapidly from the effects of tainted meat, rotten food, and starvation.
The Rebel authorities seek to dispose of Union men in this way.
The whole country in East Tennessee is filled with guerrilla bands,
who are committing all sorts of depredations on Union people, and
destroying their property. The Union men in the United States army, at
Cumberland Gap, are breathing threatening and slaughter against the
despoilers of their homes, the consumers of their substance, and the
murderers of their parents and relatives, and nothing but the direct
interference of Providence will prevent them from executing their
threats. No military discipline will be sufficiently strong to prevent
these men from the indiscriminate slaughter of those Secession leaders
and soldiers who have done all this mischief.
One of the letters before me is from a Union officer at Cumberland
Gap, and is dated June 27th. It gives this information: “Duncan McCall
is just over from Knox county, and reports eight thousand Rebel troops
at Knoxville, who were going to Atlanta, Georgia, by way of Maryville,
distant only sixteen miles from Knoxville. The Secesh citizens had
their goods packed up and marked for Atlanta, and were themselves
crossing the river at Knoxville. The Rebels had arrested Montgomery
Thomburg, Lemuel Johnson, Esquire Galbraith, Oliver p. Temple, John
Baxter and others, and sent them to Tuscaloosa. Thomburg and Temple
were dead, and the remains of the former had been brought back. Others
were lying at the point of death.”
Colonel Thomburg was the commonwealth’s attorney, and visited my
bedside the night before I was started out of the bogus Confederacy,
upon a pass granted him by the commanding officer. When he took leave
of me he held me by the hand, and with tears in his eyes, made this
remark: “Brownlow, I am glad you are going out, and I hope you may
arrive safe; but God only knows what will become of those of us who
remain!”
Colonel Temple was a good lawyer, in comfortable circumstances, and as
noble a man as lived in Tennessee. He was a Bell Everett elector for
that district in the late election for President. He leaves a wife and
one child to mourn his loss. He had been my friend through evil and
good report.
Colonel Baxter is a wealthy lawyer, of fine talents, and a citizen of
Knoxville. He has been my friend for years, and I sympathize with his
wife and ten interesting children. Certainly nothing short of an old
fashioned orthodox _hell_ will suit as a place of confinement for the
persecutors of these Union men.
_July 9, 1862._ W. G. BROWNLOW.
_Extracts from Northern papers._