13, The politics of secession in Jackson
Went to town before 12. There was a Union meeting to nominate…delegates to a convention in Nashville….They do not seem to comprehend the fact that the Union is dissolved & States already having seceded, Civil War hovering over us. Even today a telegraph report came that there had been a collision at Ft. Sumpter [sic] between the forces of the Confederate States & Federal troops. The North have by a systematic course of intermedling [sic] and agitation, abuse & slander, driven the South into Revolution. The end we cannot see. We are forced to take sides. Our sympathetic feelings, all rest with our Southern brethren. Their fate is or ought to be ours. Our interests are the same.
Robert H. Cartmell Diary.
13,Colonel Pope's triumphal entry into Shelbyville
Union Feeling in Tennessee.—An officer of Col. Pope's Fifteenth Kentucky Regiment, writing to his brother in this city and describing its entrance into the town of Shelbyville, Bedford county, Tenn., gives the following glowing and cheering account of the loyalty of the inhabitants.—Louisville Journal.
They came out in showers to welcome us, and the ladies waved their handkerchiefs and flags to such a degree that it set us all wild. Such shouts and huzzas you never heard. As we drew near Shelbyville it was raining pitchforks, but that made no difference; some of the ladies came out in the rain, to the fences, and waved their handkerchiefs and cheered us. And the men—you ought to have seen them. The rain was coming down in torrents, and they had kept their hats close down to keep it from running down their necks, but when they saw the flags they had to pull off their hats, rain or no rain, wave them, and yell as loud as possible. Lieut. Col Jouett had his hat off so long and got his head so wet that the hair commenced sprouting on top of it! Then when we got into camp, it seemed as if they could not do enough for us. They sent us all sorts of things."
Nashville Daily Union, April 13, 1862. [1]
13, Skirmish near Chapel Hill
APRIL 13, 1863--Skirmish near Chapel Hill, Tenn.
Report of Brig. Gen. James B. Steedman, U. S. Army.
HDQRS. THIRD DIVISION, FOURTEENTH ARMY CORPS, Triune, Tenn., April 15, 1863.
COL.: The enemy have been remarkably reserved for the past four days. Two companies of my cavalry, under the command of Lieut.-Col. [J. P.] Brownlow, went on the 13th within 2 miles of Chapel Hill, and attacked a forage train of the enemy, killing 1 of the rebels and dispersing the guard; but before they succeeded in destroying the train, the approach of a body of the enemy's cavalry forced them to retire.
The whole force of the enemy at Chapel Hill is one regiment of cavalry ([Josiah] Patterson's). There is a brigade of cavalry at Rover, under the command of Col. [A. A.] Russell.
Van Dorn is quiet at Spring Hill, with his force.
In the destruction of property, under the order of Maj.-Gen. Stanley to his command to burn the houses of all citizens who have sons or near relatives in the Confederate service, a large amount of forage was burned. On one plantation (John E. Tulles'), a large barn, full of hay and oats, sufficient to have loaded 25 wagons, was burned. I sent a train yesterday for the forage, and the officer in charge, Maj. Boynton, Thirty-fifth Ohio Volunteers, reports to me that the barn and contents were destroyed. The major also reports to me that on several other farms the forage had been burned by Gen. Stanley's cavalry. I do not suppose that Gen. Stanley knew anything about the destruction of the forage, or that he would have permitted it had he known that it was being done.
Everything is going on smoothly. My command is in excellent condition and spirits.
Respectfully, your obedient servant,
JAMES B. STEEDMAN, Brig.-Gen., Cmdg. Third Division.
OR, Ser. I, Vol. 23, pt. I, pp. 239-240.
13, J. G. M. Ramsey to President Davis relative to conditions in East Tennessee and sales of Confederate bonds to confederate citizens and soldiers
DEPOSITORY OF CONFEDERATE STATES, Now at Atlanta, Ga., April 13, 1864.
Hon. JEFFERSON DAVIS, President Confederate States of America:
SIR: The importance of the subject of this letter will, I know, lead you to excuse me for bringing it to the attention of the Executive and his Cabinet. I was authorized by the honorable Secretary of the Treasury to repair from this place around to Jonesborough, Bristol, and other adjacent points in East Tennessee and there to give members of the Army and our citizens generally an opportunity to fund their Treasury issues. I executed the mission promptly and with great pleasure. All holders there were loud in expressions of thanks to Mr. Memminger for this act of considerate kindness to them on his part. My presence in East Tennessee gave me a good opportunity of realizing the real condition of things in that ill-fated and unfortunate country. Its evacuation last August by Gen. Buckner was a miserable military blunder, which time cannot soon repair. Its abandonment on a more recent occasion, though perhaps less inexcusable under the circumstances, is accompanied with evils scarcely to be realized or exaggerated. As the army of Longstreet fell back toward Virginia those of our southern citizens who had the means of doing so fell back too, and many of them will be able to find shelter and subsistence elsewhere. But my heart bleeds to have witnessed the condition of the families of our soldiers and our poorer people of true Southern proclivities. What will become of them? They are unprotected and without supplies-a prey to the rapacity, the cruelty, and the revenges of the unrelenting and malicious Union men of that country, to say nothing of the hostilities of the Yankees. A citizen there told me that if it were not for the fish in Chucky River many of them must starve. In its retreat the army swept the country of all its supplies. With the recuperative energy that characterizes that Scotch-Irish population, many of our farmers had endeavored to repair the desolation made before the reoccupancy of the country by Longstreet, were rebuilding their fences, &c., and doing other spring work on their plantations preparatory to planting some corn. Now, since our forces are withdrawn, the horses stolen, their fences burned the second and the third time, and no prospect of further protection from the pillaging enemy, the heart sickens at the contemplation of the spring and summer before them. No Egypt is at hand to which these virtuous, patriotic, and indigent people can repair to procure bread. They must not be left there to suffering and starvation. As the soldiery of Tennessee are standing like a bulwark of defense against the invasion of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, leaving their desolated homes and destitute families to the benignant care of the Government, will you listen to an appeal from one of their countrymen, an exile himself, and houseless and homeless, too, when, he suggests to the Confederate authorities to order at once the purchase or the impressment in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia of a supply of corn, the establishment immediately of a store-house or houses on our lines, and the authorized invitation to loyal destitute families to come there and be fed at least till harvest. "Fas est ab hoste doceri."[2] The execrable enemy are before us in this labor of love and humanity. Maynard has been sent to Memphis, Brownlow to Nashville, Netherland to Louisville, others (Nelson, I believe) to Cincinnati, and Everett to Boston to solicit benefactions for the oppressed Union people of East Tennessee. And can it be possible that even greater efforts than these should not be inaugurated and carried into speedy consummation for such a class of our people as the families of our loyal East Tennessee soldiers and citizens? The President will excuse me for repeating what I have heretofore often said to him, that there is not in this wide Confederacy a single spot where genuine loyalty to your Government, self-sacrifice and self-denial, an elevated patriotism, or a holier chivalry exist to the same extent and to a higher intensity. There is no such people-none truer to their friends, their principles, or our cause. None have suffered more for their devotion to their country, its rights, or its honor. None have such malignant and implacable enemies amongst their own wicked and revengeful neighbors. And the Government, if it cannot give us further protection at home, can at least give bread to the families whose natural protectors and guardians are fighting for the defense of other communities not more patriotic or more worthy of its care. May I suggest that Spring Place, Ga., and Zollicoffer, or Bristol, Tenn., should be points at which these supplies should be deposited? The agent for the procurement and distribution of this corn should be selected with great care and caution. The unhallowed greed of gain has become a passion so general and all-absorbing that some will seek it for the purpose of speculating on the very charities of the Government by placing it in the hands of the unworthy or the disloyal. I cannot at this time suggest the names of the most suitable. Let them be not tinctured with the slightest suspicion of Unionism or the stain of peculation or money-making. I am done. I do not speak in my own name. Were it otherwise proper or necessary every Tennessee refugee in Georgia would sign this. To call a meeting of my co-refugees to memorialize you would be to expose to the enemy the nakedness of the land.
I therefore sign it alone, and am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
J. G. M. RAMSEY.
[First indorsement.]
Respectfully referred by direction of the President to the honorable Secretary of War for perusal, &c.
BURTON N. HARRISON, Private Secretary.
[Second indorsement.]
APRIL 27, 1864.
Whatever sympathy is felt for the evils depicted, the powers of this Department do not enable us to administer relief in the manner suggested.
J. A. S., Secretary.
OR, Ser. I, Vol. 52, pt. II, pp. 655-656.
13, 1865 - Eliza Fain Learns of Lee's Surrender. An Extract from the Diary of Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain
….We finished [washing] about 3 o'clock. After getting through I came to the house and found Lucy…with a Chattanooga paper containing the account of Gen. Lee's surrender with his army. It may be true but I do not believe and even were I to believe this it does not for one moment shake my confidence in my God as to the position which the South shall occupy amongst the nations of earth when this struggle shall cease….
Fain Diary.
James B. Jones, Jr.
Public Historian
Tennessee Historical Commission
2941 Lebanon Road
Nashville, TN 37214
(615)-532-1550 x115
(615)-532-1549 FAX
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