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CONFEDERATE MANUFACTURES.-REGIMENT OF SPIES.

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CONFEDERATE S

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astonishing. The blockade becoming more and more stringent every day, they perceived the necessity of relying upon their own ingenuity and industry for the materials of war; and forges, and foundries, and powder manufactories soon appeared in various parts of the Confederacy, while those already established were taxed to their utmost capacity in responding to orders. Of these the great Tredegar Iron Works, at Richmond (see page 36), was the most extensive of its kind within the limits of the Slave-labor States, and some of the most effective heavy ordnance used by the Confederate Army, and projectiles of various kinds, were made there, directly under the eye of the so-called government. The labors of this establishment in the cause of the rebellion made its name and deeds familiar to every American. Jefferson Davis was quick to act upon the authority of the decree of the Confederate "Congress" concerning the banishment of Union men. He issued a proclamation on the 14th of August, in accordance with the intent of that decree; and then commenced those terrible persecutions of loyal inhabitants within the limits of the "Confederate States," under the sanction of law, which made that reign of terror in those regions tenfold more dreadful than before. This, and the Confiscation Act, put the seal of silence upon the lips of nearly all Union men. Few could leave, for obstacles were cast in their way. To remain was to acquiesce in the new order of things, or suffer

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CONFEDERATE "STATE DEPARTMENT SEAL.1

1 This delineation of the seal is from a pass which the "Secretary of State" of the Confederacy issued in the following form:

"To all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting:

"CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.

"I, the undersigned, Secretary of State of the Confederate States of America, hereby request all whom it inay concern, to permit safely and freely to pass, A- B-, a citizen of the Confederate States of America, and in case of need to give him all lawful aid and protection.

[SEAL]

"Given under my hand and the impression of the seal of the Department of State, at the City of
Montgomery, May 20, 1861.
"ROBERT TOOMBS, Secretary of State."

While on a visit to Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in the spring of 1866, the writer met a resident of Wilmington and a native of North Carolina, who had been employed in the secret service of the National Government during a portion of the war, with the commission of colonel, and in command of a regiment of $50 spies, who were scattered over the Confederacy. He also entered the service of the Confederacy as a spy, in order that he might work more efficiently for his Government, and was furnished with a pass like the above, on the margin of which, it should have been mentioned, was an exact description of the person to whom it was given. He desired to furnish each of his spies with such a pass. Through some of them in Richmond, he procured a large number of blank passes. These required the impression of the seal of the "State Department." He went to Richmond, and through spies there, professedly in the service of the Confederates, he was introduced to Judah P. Benjamin, then "Secretary of State," and visited his office daily for about a fortnight, endeavoring to ascertain where the seal of the "Department" was kept. He was finally successful. One day, when no one was in the office but a boy, he sent him on an errand, and then going boldly to the place where the seal was kept, he made an impression of it in wax. He then started with his own pass to "go into the Yankee lines." He hastened to Washington, and thence to New York, where he had a seal ent in steel precisely like the original." With this he stamped the blank passes, which he properly filled up and signed successfully with the forged name of Benjamin. With these he furnished his spies with passes, and they performed essential service by gaining information in the camps and at the Capital, and in communicating with the blockading squadrons. The commander of this regiment of spies was arrested several times on suspicion, but was never implicated by sufficient proof.

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PERSECUTION OF LOYALISTS IN EAST TENNESSEE.

intensely. Then, for the same reason that gave truth to the proclamation of the despot-"Order reigns in Warsaw "-there was a "United South" in

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favor of the conspirators. Under their subordinate officers, civil and military, almost unbounded license was exercised, and no man's life, liberty, and property were secure from violence.

In districts of the Confederacy, such as East Tennessee, where the blight of slavery was but little known, where a greater portion of the inhabitants were loyal to their Government, and where the Confederates held sway, the keenest cruelties were exercised. Those who, in East Tennessee, had voted for the Union at the election of which Governor Harris made fraudulent returns, were continually persecuted. Good and peaceable citizens were taken before magistrates without cause, and imprisoned without mercy. They were arrested by the authority of processes issued by J. Crozier Ramsey, the Confederate district attorney, who was assisted in the work of crushing the Unionists in that region by R. B. Reynolds, a Confederate commissioner, and W. B. Wood, a Methodist clergyman from Alabama, who bore the commission of a Confederate colonel. Under the direction and assistance of these men, loyalists were hunted, arrested, taken to camps and prisons, and insulted and abused by mobs. Confederate cavalry, as well as infantry, scoured the country, offering every indignity to men and women, destroying the crops of the rich and poor alike, turning their horses to feed into fields of growing corn, burning barns and stacks of hay, and plundering the people of provisions. The jails were soon filled with loyalists, and an extensive disarming of the people was accomplished. So thoroughly were they under the control of the Confederates, that in November Colonel Wood was able to write a 1861. to Benjamin, at Richmond, "The rebellion [resistance to Confederate outrages] 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," he continued, "have been broken up, and a large number of them have been made prisoners. It is a mere farce to arrest them and turn them

This view is from the ruins of the Virginia State Arsenal. The works are on the left bank of the James River, nearly opposite Mayo's Island.

2 See pages 358-889, volume I.

LOYALISTS HUNTED, IMPRISONED, AND HANGED.

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over to the courts. They really deserve the gallows, and, if consistent with the laws, ought speedily to receive their deserts." With the spirit of this Alabama clergyman, the Loyalists were everywhere illtreated, and no measures seemed to be considered too cruel to be employed in crushing them.'

Among the most prominent of the East Tennessee Loyalists, who suffered persecution, were Andrew Johnson and Horace Maynard, members of Congress, and Rev. W. G. Brownlow, D. D., a Methodist preacher, and editor of the Knoxville Whig.' Brownlow's fearless spirit, caustic pen, social position, and public relations through the press and the pulpit, made him intensely hated by the conspirators and their friends, and much feared. They thirsted for his life, and finally the false charge was made, that he was accessory to the burning of several railway-bridges in East Tennessee, to cut off communication between that region and Virginia. His life had been daily threatened by Confederate soldiers; and, at the urgent solicitations of his family, he left his home in the autumn, and went into another district of his State. While he was absent, several railway-bridges were burned. Brownlow was accused of being in complicity with their destroyers, and Colonel Wood sent out cavalry in search of him, with instructions, publicly given in the street, at Knoxville, not to take him prisoner, but to shoot him at once.*

Brownlow was informed of his peril, and, with other loyal men, he secreted himself in the Smoky Mountains, on the borders of North Carolina, where they were fed by Loyalists. It was finally resolved by the Confederates to rid themselves of so dangerous an enemy, by giving Brownlow a pass to go into Kentucky, under a military escort. The "Secretary of War" at Richmond (Benjamin) was asked for one. He would not give it himself. He said he greatly preferred seeing Brownlow "on the other side of the lines, as an avowed enemy;" and instructed General Crittenden, then in command at Knoxville, to give him a pass. General Crittenden sent for Brownlow to come to Knoxville to receive it. He did so, and was on the point of departure for the Union lines, when he was arrested for treason, on the authority of a warrant issued by "Commissioner" ," a December 6, Reynolds, on the affidavit of Attorney Ramsey. He was refused

a

1961.

1 Notwithstanding the Loyalists were disarmed, the hatred and cruel passions of the Secessionists were not appeased. Two Confederate officers had the following advertisement printed

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3 So eager were the Confederates to implicate Brownlow in these transactions, that they offered men under sentence of death their lives and liberty, if they would testify to that effect. The latter spurned the bribe, and would not sacrifice truth and honor even for the sake of life.

Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession. By W. G. Brownlow.

& Letter of J. P. Benjamin to Major-General Crittenden, Nov. 20th, 1861.

38 BENJAMIN'S CRUEL ORDER.-MURDERS AT GREENVILLE.

a hearing or bail, but was cast into the county prison at Knoxville, from which appeals to the honor and good faith of Crittenden and his superiors were made in vain. There, in a room so crowded that not all could lie down, and not a chair, bench, stool, table, or other article of furniture, excepting a wooden bucket and tin cup, was to be. seen, he and his associates, some of them among the best men in the land, were kept a long time, subjected to the vile ribaldry of soldiers and guards, and threats of being hung. Nor were these threats idle; for, from time to time, prisoners were taken out and hung-men as innocent of crime as infants. These were citizens, charged

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THE COUNTY JAIL AT KNOXVILLE,1

a Nov. 20, 1861.

b

with burning the railway-bridges. The alleged crimes of these men and other Loyalists were set forth by Colonel Wood in a letter to Benjamin," in which he declared that the sentiment of the inhabitants in East Tennessee was "hostile to the Confederate government," and that the people were slaves to Andrew Johnson and Horace Maynard. "To release the prisoners," he said, "is ruinous. To convict them before a court is next to an impossibility. The bridge-burners and spies ought to be tried at once." This letter excited the brutal instincts of Benjamin, and he wrote back instantly from Richmond, saying, "All such as can be identified 6 Nov. 25. in having been engaged in bridge-burning, are to be tried summarily by drum-head court-martial, and, if found guilty, executed on the spot by hanging. It would be well to leave their bodies hanging in the vicinity of the burned bridges." He ordered the seizure of all arms that were "concentrated by these traitors," and said, "In no case is one of the men, known to have been up in arms against the government, to be released on any pledge or oath of allegiance. The time for such measures is past. They are all to be held as prisoners of war, and held in jail to the end of the war." Acting upon these suggestions, some of those who were charged with bridge-burning, but not found guilty, were hung under circumstances of great cruelty. In compliance with Benjamin's savage instructions, they were left hanging in public places, to receive the indignities of a brutal mob. Such was the case with the bodies of two victims (Hensie and Fry), who were hanged together upon the limb of an oak tree, near the railway-station, at Greenville, Tennessee, by the hands of Colonel Leadbetter, already mentioned. He ordered their bodies to hang there four days and nights; and when the trains upon the road passed by, they were detained long enough to allow the passengers to go up and offer insults to the lifeless remains.

1 This picture is from a sketch made by the author in May, 1866, and shows the front of the prison. The window that lighted the room on the lower floor, in which Brownlow was confined, is seen on the right of the door. In the upper story are two immense iron cages, into which the worst criminals are put, and in these some of the most obnoxious Loyalists were confined. Out of this loathsome place several were taken to the gallows.

2 See page 174, volume I. This man, who was guilty of enormous crimes, it is said, during the war, and fled to Upper Canada at its close, died at Clifton, in that province, of apoplexy, on the 25th of September, 1866.

BOLDNESS OF BROWNLOW.-WRITS OF GARNISHMENT.

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This was done, especially by Confederate soldiers on their way to Virginia, in view of many of the loyal inhabitants of Greenville.

In the midst of these fiery trials, the intrepid Brownlow remained firm, and exercised the greatest boldness of speech. They dared not hang him without legal conviction, and they well knew that he had done nothing worthy of death. He was not only bold, but defiant. They offered him life and liberty if he would take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. He scorned the proposition, saying: "Rather than stultify myself, and disgrace my family by such an oath, I agree to die. I never could sanction this government, and I trust no child of mine will ever do it." Whilst suffering in the Knoxville jail, and almost daily menaced with death, he wrote to Benjamin a characteristic letter," in which he said, "You are reported to have said to a gentleman in Richmond, that I am a bad man, and dangerous to the Confederacy, and that you desire me out of it. Just give me my passports, and I will do for your Confederacy more than the devil has ever done-I will quit the country!"

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a December 16,

1861.

THE GALLOWS TREE,1

December 22.

This letter, and a visit from General Crittenden (who felt sensitive on this point), brought one from Benjamin' to the authorities at Knoxville, indicating his wish that Brownlow should be sent out of the Confederacy, and regretting the circumstances of his arrest and imprisonment; "only," as he said, because "color is given to the suspicion that he has been entrapped." He was finally released and sent to Nashville (then in possession of National troops) early in March. Dr. Brownlow was a type of the Loyalists of the mountain regions of that State, who suffered terribly during a great portion of the war. A minute record of the faithful and fearless patriotism of the people of East Tennessee during the struggle, and the cruel wrongs and sufferings which they endured a greater portion of that time, would make one of the most glorious and yet revolting chapters in the history of the late fierce conflict. Incidents of that patriotism and suffering will be observed, as we proceed in our narrative.

Let us return a moment to the consideration of the other measure of the Confederate Congress, designed to force loyal men into a support of the rebellion, namely, the Confiscation Act. From the "Department of Justice," at the head of which was Judah P. Benjamin, went out instructions that all

This is from a sketch made by the author, in May, 1866. The tree was a vigorous red oak, standing on a slope overlooking the town, a few rods northeastward of the Greenville Station. Some person commenced cutting it down a while after the execution, but was restrained by the consideration offered, that it might serve the purpose of a gallows for the punishment of some of those who were engaged in the murder of the men who were hanged there. Near the root of the gallows limb (from which a rope is seen suspended) we observed a scar made by the passage of a Confederate cannon-ball through the tree. Its place is marked by a black spot, in the picture. 2 See page 545, volume I., and page 33, volume II.

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