734 NortH Carorina Troops, 1861-’65.

Governor of Tennessee, and after the war was United States
Senator, took bold grounds against the South. His paper
had some circulation in Western North Carolina, and quite
an influence with the old Whig element. Brownlow was a
kind man at heart, to those that did not cross him personally.
If he had been reasoned with instead of’ being bitterly de-
nounced he and numerous. others would have espoused the
Southern cause. But then, as now, party passion often de
thrones reason. Brownlow, with such men as Governor An-
drew Johnson, then United States Senator, and afterwards
President of the United States; Horace Maynard, member of
Congress; Thos. A. R. Nelson, John N etherland, R. R. But-
ler, members of Congress; Rev. N. G. Taylor, also an old Con-
gressman, father of Governor Bob. Taylor, with scores of
smaller, but equally determined men, boldly threw themselves
into the breach, openly defied the South, and in large numbers
daily left Tennessee, crossing the Cumberland mountains and
joined the Federal army in Kentucky and Ohio.

The wisest statesmen of the South were divided as to the
best policy to pursue, but Southern blood was aroused and
Southern men were expected to stand by the South, right or
wrong. There was much homogeneousness between these
mountain people of Tennessee and North Carolina, and there
is an independence of thought, speech and action in the aver-
age mountaineer, not usually found elsewhere, superinduced
perhaps by their grandly beautiful surroundings, combining
as some think, to the development of a high type of physical,
intellectual and spiritual manhood.

A great majority of the people were poor and had no inter-
est in slavery, present or prospective. But most of them had
little mountain homes, and “be it ever so humble, there is no
place like home.” So when husband, father and brother
went into the army the wife, sister and daughter had largely
increased home cares, and often went into the corn field.

No grander type of womanhood is developed anywhere
than in these mountains. Neither the men or women were
cowards, but when the Federal army oceupied East Tennes-
see and threatened North Carolina, the women in their lone-
some homes naturally became restless and timid, made more

Srxty-Ninta REGIMENT. 735

so when spies and forays of the enemy penetrated this coun-
try. Soldiers in the army would have been unnatural pro-
tectors of home, had they not become uneasy also, and oft
times desperate, especially when informed, as hundreds were,
that their homes had been robbed and the country pillaged, as
was the case for two years in all the border counties along the
Tennessee line from Ducktown to Watauga, a distance of near
200 miles. No people were more zealous for the South than
Western Carolinians, after the rejection by the Lincoln re-
gime of the peace overtures made by the border States. East
Tennessee and Western North Carolina had a common herit-
age of ancestral heroes through the Seviers, Tiptons, Averys,
Campbells, Lenoirs, Loves, McDowells, Brittons, and others,
who fought at King’s Mountain, Cowpens and Guilford
Court House; in later years at Lookout, Emuckfau, Horse-
shoe, and New Orleans, and later still in the numerous bat-
tles of Mexico. Such an element may be easily led, but never
forced. In Tennessee this anti-war element was fully
aroused and as soon as conscription was fully determined
upon, Colonel Wm. H. Thomas at once went to Richmond to
get a modification of the law. His efforts were unavailing,
the law must be enforced; it was enforced and 33,000 were
added to the Federals and a few thousand fire-tried veterans
to the Southern army. Colonel Thomas largely recruited his
own command, forming soon afterwards another regiment,
with two companies of Sappers and Miners, and one company
of artillery (Levy’s Battery).

He had some unique ideas concerning these matters, and
while known to be intensely loyal to the South, he had gained
the confidence of this East Tennessee disloyal element and
several thousand at various times had agreed to form compa-
nies for local defense, and for road and bridge building.
Not being allowed to do this, these men went to the Federal
army and ever afterwards were troublesome enemies.

From September, 1862, to June, 1863, there was little to
break the monotony of camp life and provost duty. There
was much of an unpleasant nature to be done by men of simi-
lar characters. Enforcing conscription—disarming the peo-
ple—the impressment of property, forcing magistrates and

a + SAT RR a aS NN: