Monday, June 2, 2014

6.3.14 Tennessee Civil War Notes

        3, "The Masses of the people of Tennessee-Their Love of the old Union-Demagogism-Slaveholders and non-Slave holders;" class- and race-consciousness and pro-secession rhetoric in Clarksdale
The great body of yeomanry and laborers of Tennessee may be poor, but they are brave, honest, patriotic and true-hearted. Some who do not know them, may doubt their patriotism and valor to defend their rights when invaded, but this is a great mistake. They love the old Union of our fathers, and would never consent to dissolve it, so long as the Constitution is not violated, and so long as it protects their rights; but they love liberty and justice more; and they will never consent to submit to abolition rule, and permit the evils to come upon them, which must result from a continuance in the Union when the Government is in the hands of our enemies, who will use all its power for their destruction. When it becomes necessary to defend our rights against the foul power of Black Republican domination, the yeomanry of the mountains and the valleys, of very portion of Tennessee, will swarm around her standard, with a resolution that will strike terror into abolition cohorts of the North. Wealth is timid, and wealthy men may cry for peace, and submit to wrong, for fear they may loose [sic] their money; but the honest laborers of Tennessee can never consent to see slavery abolished, and submit to the taxation, low wages and downright degradation that must follow. They will never consent to be reduced to an equality with the negro [sic], or to take his place: God forbid.
Some contemptible demagogues have attempted to deceive non-slaveholders by appealing to their prejudices, and asking them what interests they have in maintaining the rights of the wealthy slave-holder [sic]. They cannot be deceived in this way. They know that the laws of Tennessee protect their lives, their families, and their property; and that all the property which the wealthy slave-holder may have, can be taxed by the State, if need be, to protect the rights an liberties of all. The rights and interests of the slave-holder [sic] and the non-slave-holder, of the rich and the poor, in the South are reciprocal, homogeneous and identical. One man in a large neighborhood may have a mill. Not one in fifty has a mill. What would be though of the public speaker who would appeal to the fifty, and ask them what interest [sic] they have in defending their neighbor's mill, if an abolition mob were trying to burn it down? Another has a store. None one in fifty has a store. Who would say the fifty should not help the one, if an invader is about to burn his Store [sic]? Another has a Blacksmith shop. Not one in fifty has a Blacksmith Shop. Shall the shop be destroyed by the common enemy, and no one protect the owner because no one near has the same peculiar kind of property? It may be that I have no horse, and you have a horse; or that I have a cow, and you have no cow. In such cases, if our rights of property are assailed by a common enemy, shall we not help each other? Or I have a wife and children, and another has neither wife, children, or house. Will he, therefore, stand by and see my house burned, my wife and children butchered, because he has none? The slave-holder [sic] has honestly invested the money, which it has cost him years of toil to make in slaves, which are guaranteed to him by the laws of the State. The common enemy of the South seeks to take this property from him.-Shall all who do not own slaves stand by and permit this to be done? If so, they have no right to call upon the slave-holder [sic], by taxation or otherwise to help protect they [sic] property or their liberties. Such a doctrine is monstrous; and he would advance it, deserves to be rode [sic] on the sharpest edge of one of Lincoln's rails. The doctrine strikes at the very foundation of society; and if carried out, would destroy all property and all protection to life, liberty and happiness. The present is a critical period with the people or the South. We all poor and rich, have a common interest, and a common destiny. It is no time to be wrangling about old party strifes. Our common enemy, the Black Republican party, is in power, united and triumphant. If we cannot all see alike, let us have charity enough to believe that all are equally patriotic in their efforts to promote the common cause. If we can act unitedly [sic] and harmoniously, we can achieve a glorious and signal victory.
SOUTHERN WATCHMAN
Clarksville Chronicle, May 3, 1861.


        3, A session of the Nashville Police Court; "she was a raarin an' pitchin' and cavortin' around about."
Police Court.
Saturday, May 3.—A large number of cases were brought before Recorder Shane yesterday morning, which were disposed of after careful scrutiny and some difficulty….
Mehila Guy and Miss Sullivan were arraigned for disorderly conduct, and each fined $3 and costs.
Ellen Angler was fined $5 and costs for abusing and striking an old man called "Doctor" Moore….
Mary Callahan was accused of being disorderly, her accuser being the persons who procured the liquor at her expense. She was found guilty and fined. Fowler was reprimanded, and placed in charge of an officer to ascertain where the whisky was obtained.
Mrs. Nancy Ross was arraigned for being disorderly and for selling liquor, but was discharged on both charges….
Widow Sullivan was fined $5 and costs for selling liquor.
Mary Brown was accused of disorderly conduct. Mr. George German swore that she cursed steadily, without any hold up, for three or four hours, and that, among other things, she said "she wouldn't give a d__n for any one who would not hooray for Jeff. Davis."  One of the Federal soldiers said "she was a raarin an' pitchin' and cavortin' around about."  Miss Alice Write said German was as bad as Mary, and Mrs. Wright corroborated her statement, naming to the Court some of the language used by German, which Miss Alice could not be prevailed upon to repeat, and which we cannot soil our pen to record. The defendant stated that the soldiers frequently tantalized and mocked her, and that a German encouraged them in so doing, causing her to lose her temper, and to use language which she knew was improper. The Recorder took a very sensible view of the matter, and imposed a fine upon both, adding $30 to the city finances.
Nashville Dispatch, May 6, 1862.


3, Special Orders, No. 103, orders to arrest various persons for treason
Headquarters, United States Forces
Nashville, Tenn. May 3d, 1863
Special Orders, No. 103
"Extract" [sic]
The following named persons having been guilty of acts and words against the government of the United States, while residing within the lines of the army thereof at this Post, will by the direction of Major General Rosecrans Commanding the Department of the Cumberland be sent out Tuesday the 5th instant to Louisville en route to points north of the Ohio River not to return to any point South there of unless permitted or ordered by competent authority during the War under penalty of arrest and trial as spies.
[14 names appear]
Simon Perkins, Jr., Papers


        3, Life in the Tullahoma Environs
Tullahoma, Tenn., May 3, 1863.
Since my last letter, I have had opportunities to explore and understand the topography and history of this point, and the country around it. Tullahoma is about the line of Coffee and Franklin counties. It is a wretchedly poor and "God forsaken" region, and is called "the barrens" of Middle Tennessee. Poor and sterile area in the balmy days of peace, the desolations of alternate armies that have swept over it have left it a desert. The Yankees swept off all the male and nearly all the female slave populations. The men have enlisted in the Yankee or Confederate Army, according to their preference, or been caught by the conscript-man, or run into the mountains for refuge; and there is nobody left but women, children, old men, and a few plough-boys. There is nobody else left to cultivate a crop, and almost nothing in the way of a crop, is being made. Horses and mules have been swept off, cattle killed, and the only thing between these poor people and starvation is the product of a few cows. They sell, or barter off, milk and butter to the army, at enormous prices.
And they are such poor creatures, and their condition is so appealing, that a generous heart cannot feel like jawing [sic] them in their prices. Money is almost useless here; it will buy almost nothing at all.
The country women come in with butter and eggs, but generally they will not sell them for money.
They want to barter them off for salt, rice, or molasses. I encountered an old woman, the other day, who had several dozen eggs. I tried to buy them, but it was no go. I offered a high price, but she replied that she did not want money; she could not eat money, nor buy anything to eat with money.
She wanted rice, and would barter the eggs for the rice—one dozen eggs for three pounds of rice.
As nothing else would do, I made the swap, and she went on her way rejoicing. I tried another woman, for butter, but she would not snap her finger for money. But she was "honing" for molasses, and would barter butter for molasses. We traded, and as the molasses was being measured, her delighted urchins gathered round and stuck their fingers in the molasses for a taste. Such are pictures of the life around us.
But such is the desolation wherever vast armies have quarters, and especially upon the disputed territory which is alternately occupied by both armies.
I am sorry to say that Lincolnite traitors abound in this region. Numbers of them are now in the Yankee army. I can detect them by their sneaking look, and by the "cold shoulder" which they poke at a Confederate soldier.
Let me tell you of a Tennessee hag—a Lincoln she-devil, whom I encountered a few days ago. Her house being convenient, I went in, with a few others, and took a drink of water. The hag came out, looking furious, and TOTED [sic] off the water. I had hitched my horse in the yard—a very common yard—and she rudely ordered me to take my horse out of her yard. While I went to obey her behest, she whisked by and TOTED off the chair I had been sitting in, and slammed the door as she closed herself in her house. Not a word was said in reply by the polite and forbearing gentlemen in "stars and bars," who were sitting in the piazza. This is a specimen of the hospitality we get from the Lincoln hags.—The 'secesh' women are much more polite….
Bayonet.
Mobile Register and Advertiser, May 10, 1863.[1]


3, Scout[2] from Triune to Eagleville
MAY 3, 1863.- Scout from Triune to Eagleville, Tenn.
Report of Brig. Gen. John M. Schofield, U. S. Army.
HDQRS. THIRD DIVISION, FOURTEENTH ARMY CORPS, Triune, May 3--9.30 a. m.
COL.: My scouts have just returned from Eagleville and near Versailles. Saw only about 60 rebel cavalry; killed 1 and captured 6, with arms and horses. McCann was near Versailles night before last, having been in that vicinity recently.
Respectfully,
J. M. SCHOFIELD, Brig.-Gen., Cmdg.
OR, Ser. I, Vol. 23, pt. I, p. 328.


        3, "Lewd Pictures." Pornography in Memphis
The display of highly colored daubs and photographs of naked women, obscene groups, etc., in the windows and upon the stands of our stationers, booksellers, and news dealers has become most noticeably common and deserving of public attention and censure. We have long been accustomed to see such, upon a larger plan, hung about the walls of grogshops, club rooms, and places visited only by the male sex, but when they are to be introduced into the street windows and compiled into albums, it is certainly carrying the thing a bit too far-altogether too far. Such pandering to vitiated taste is at least unbecoming many of those who have been guilty of the practice, and in our opinion the city ordinance, prohibiting the publication or sale of obscene books, would apply as well to the sell of obscene pictures.
Memphis Bulletin, June 3, 1864.


        3, Poem, "Lookout Mountain," by Alon. D. Austin
Where Lookout's summit proudly rise
Bathed in the blue atherial [sic] skies,
And glorious immortality
O'er space illimited [sic] by gaze
To yearn for woodland's misty haze
And dream of sad reality

Again I see the bayonet's gleam
On Chickamauga's deadly stream.
The flashing red artillery
The dread battle's sulphur's glare,
The charging shout of loud despair,
Midst the death shots rattling fearfully

How Mission Ridge and Lookout glow,
With camp-fires of the haughty foe;
And rebel flags fly tauntingly
But Grant is marshaling his host
To drive the traitor from his post
He swore to hold, so vauntingly.

Hark, 'tis the bugler's sound I hear!
Ring through the valley shrill and clear,
In wild free notes of harmony.
And now the rattling drum and fife,
It is the signal for the strife,
The strife which leads to victory.

Up o'er yon craggy rock, steep,
The dreadful crash of battle sweep,
And surges on remorselessly,
And now the rebel legions flee,
Before the banners of the free.

Borne by the brave resistlessly,
Bright beams the sun o'er Lookout's brow,
Its rock-ribbed caverns silent now;
And water falls dash musically.
No more the bugles sound will wake
The echoes o'er sweet Luvih lakes [?]
Reposing ever peacefully

Far, far below the shinning plain
Now blooming into life again
Beside the noble Tennessee.
And gallant sons and daughters fair,
Will bless their freedom over thee,
The land of liberty.
Chattanooga Daily Gazette, June 3, 1865



[1] As cited in: http://www.uttyl.edu/vbetts.
[2] Dyer's Battle Index for Tennessee calls this "Scout to Eagleville."

James B. Jones, Jr.
Public Historian
Tennessee Historical Commission
2941 Lebanon Road
Nashville, TN  37214
(615)-770-1090 ext. 123456
(615)-532-1549  FAX

No comments: