came down from Morristown to his house, and dismounting, called him out of his house, and asked him several questions about the way our army had retreated; the number of men in our command; and if we had any artillery, &c. The old man endeavored to evade the questions. The officer seeing this, became excited, and insisted upon an answer. The old man becoming irritated, plainly told them that he would not give them any information. Hearing this, the officer drew his revolver and deliberately shot him in the mouth, evidently with the intention to kill him. The old man stated that for some days he was not expected to live. I have heard of a great many cases of rebel cruelties from my regimental commanders, but not having been able, through sickness, to join my regiment until the latter part of December, 1863, and not seeing them myself, I will not mention them. Your friend, &c.

ALFRED O. BROOKS,

Late Captain Twenty-ninth Massachusetts Volunteers, Ninth Army Corps, U. S. A.

ASSAULT UPON MR. JOHNSON, OF CLINTON
COUNTY, TENNESSEE.

MR. JOHNSON, living in Clinton county, Tennessee, was brutally assailed by that blood-hound, Champ Furguson, on the day of the murder of Mr. Lewis Pierce. After Pierce had been killed, Champ and gang entered Mr. Johnson's house, cursing and yelling. Surrounding Mr. Johnson, they drew their pistols and knives to kill him, but his wife and daughter clung around him and pushed the villains off: when they made an attempt to

kill him, they kept them off until one of the gang, or some friend of Mr. Johnson, cried out that Captain Beckett's forces (United States) were coming. The cowardly miscreants hearing this, ran to their horses, and mounting them, galloped away as fast as their horses could carry them. The life of Mr. Johnson was saved. In a short time, however, the cowards sent word to Mr. Johnson, that they intended to visit him again, and kill him and his family, for no dd Yankee should live in the country. The cause of the would-be murder was, that Mr. Johnson was born in Connecticut. He was a quiet and good man, and was respected as such by all who knew him. He had lived in Clinton county many years. We mention this case, because it is the only one in the long catalogue that has escaped speedy death, when once caught by Furguson. We believe Mr. Johnson has since moved his family North, and thus saved his life.*

MURDER OF JESSE BRIGHT AND OTHERS.

IN the month of April, 1862, an old man named Jesse Bright, aged sixty years, with two sons and two nephews, living in Johnson county, Tennessee, were arrested by a company of Colonel Foulke's Cavalry, composed of Tennesseeans and North Carolinians, and carried off to be tried for disloyalty to the Confederacy. The old man had been arrested once before, taken to Knoxville, Tennessee, and tried, but no evidence being produced against him, they were compelled to release him. When the

* Dr. J. D. Hall, of Tennessee.

cavalry men arrived in Ash county with their prisoners, a groggery-keeper, no doubt a brother murderer, proposed to treat them to eight gallons of brandy if they would hang the old man, his sons and nephews, without a chance of a trial. They eagerly accepted the offer, and the five unfortunate men were hung to the first tree without further ceremony.*

SUFFERINGS OF UNION MEN IN EAST
TENNESSEE.

DURING the early part of the year 1862, the rebel authorities of Knoxville, Tennessee, issued an order prohibiting all the Unionists from leaving that section of the State under penalty of death, shooting, bayoneting, and sabring all those who attempted to do so; but promised a pardon to all those who had escaped, if they would

return.

Yet they sent to Mrs. Maynard, wife of the Hon. Horace Maynard, ex-member of Congress, a notice to leave her property and home in Knoxville within thirtysix hours, and not to return under severe penalty. The wife of the Hon. Andrew Johnson, then Military Governor of that State, very ill with consumption, received a similar notice. Mrs. Johnson had not seen her husband for nearly two years, and it was thought that she could not survive the execution of the order.

*Colonel R. T. Crawford.

MURDER OF DR. RICE AND OTHERS.

ON the night of July 15th, 1862, Dr. Rice, Benjamin Daniels, and John Barnes, Union men, were brutally hung by a gang of guerrillas near Tennessee Ridge twenty-five miles from Nashville, for no other cause than that they had, a day or two before, allowed the men employed in erecting a telegraph line for the use of the United States army, to stay at their houses.

HANGING OF MR. STEWART.

THE father of a family, named Stewart, residing near Robinson's Springs, Tennessee, among the Cumberland Mountains, was brutally murdered by a party of Confederate soldiers. He had served in the army of the United States under General Jackson, at New Orleans, in 1814-15.

On all occasions he was true to the Union-and to secession decidedly opposed.

At the breaking out of the rebellion, he became a conspicuous object for the vengeance of the rebel leaders, although seventy-five years of age. He was soon waited upon by a deputation of these miscreants, and informed, that he must aid the rebellion. He frankly declared his unwillingness to break up a government under which he had so long and so happily lived; but he would remain at home and not molest any one in the enjoyment of his opinions.

This declaration would not satisfy them, yet he was allowed to remain in quietness for a few days. One day,

however, as he was tottering through his yard, a squad of Confederate soldiers rode up, and one of them, Lawson Hill, told him "That he was a dangerous man, and had harbored Union men."

He declared that no one had been about his house for months, but his own family and their connections; they maintained that they knew better, and required him to go some twenty miles to a place for trial. The old man told them, he was not able to do it, if it were to save his life. "Well," said one of them, Lawson Hill, "if you will not go to trial, we must try you ourselves, and, be sure, hang you, guilty or not guilty." After some further discussions, they told him "that it was the policy of the Confederates, to destroy the last Union man in the country." They then took this poor old man to an apple tree in his own yard, and hung him till he was dead, in the presence of his horror-stricken family. This man Hill was formerly a member of Congress from Tennessee, and glorified in the murder of a man of seventy-five years of age simply because he was a Union

MURDER OF A DERANGED WOMAN.

IN April, 1862, two rebel murderers in the garb of soldiers, named Wood and Ingersoll, went to the house of Mrs. Ruth A. Rhea, on Lick Creek, in Greene county, Tennessee, with the determination to conscript her son, her only support, she being partly deranged. As she saw them approaching the house, she seized a stick, and commanded them to leave the premises, and raised her stick to strike. One of them, well aware that she was

*General J. B. Rodgers.