SIR: The rebellion in East Tennessee has been put down in some of the counties, and will be effectually suppressed in less than two weeks in all the counties. Their camps in Sevier and Hamilton Counties have been broken up, and a large number of them made prisoners. Some are confined in jail at this place and others sent to Nashville.
In a former communication I inquired of the Department what I should do with them. It is a mere farce to arrest them and turn them over to the courts. Instead of having the effect to intimidate it really gives encouragement and emboldens them in their traitorous conduct. We have now in custody some of their leaders—Judge Patterson, the son-in law of Andrew Johnson; Colonel Pickens, the senator in the legislature from Sevier and other counties, and several members of the legislature, besides others of influence and some distinction in their counties. These men have encouraged this rebellion, but have so managed as not to be found in arms. Nevertheless, all their actions and words have been unfriendly to the Government of the Confederate States. The influence of their wealth, position, and connections has been exerted in favor of the Lincoln Government, and they are the parties most to blame for the troubles in East Tennessee. They really deserve the gallows, and if consistent with the laws ought speedily to receive their deserts; but there is such a gentle spirit of conciliation in the South, and especially here, that I have no idea that one of them will receive such a sentence at the hands of any jury impaneled to try them.
I have been here at this station for three months, half the time in command of the post, and I have had a good opportunity of learning the feeling pervading this country. It is hostile to the Confederate Government. They will take the oath of allegiance with no intention to observe it. They are the followers and slaves of Johnson and Maynard, and never intend to be otherwise. When arrested they suddenly become very submissive, and declare they are for peace and not supporters of the Lincoln Government, but yet they claim to be Union men. At one time, whilst our forces were at Knoxville, they gave it out that great changes were taking place in East Tennessee, and the people were becoming reconciled and loyal. At the withdrawal of the army from here to the Gap, and the first intimation that the Lincoln army was like to penetrate the State, they were in arms, and scarcely a man, with only a few honorable exceptions, but what was ready to join them and make war upon us.
The prisoners we have tell us that they had every assurance that the army was already in the State, and would join them in a very few days; that the property of Southern men was to be confiscated and divided amongst those who would take up arms for Lincoln.
I have to request, at least, that the prisoners I have taken be held, if not as traitors, as prisoners of war. To release them is ruinous; to convict them before a court at this time next to an impossibility; but if they are kept in prison for six months it will have a good effect. The bridge burners and spies ought to be tried at once, and I respectfully request that instructions be forwarded at as early a day as practicable, as it needs prompt action to dispose of these cases.
Secretary of War.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 4 (Serial No. 4), p. 250-1
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