Another View of Reconstruction in East Tennessee

Joined
Dec 31, 2010
Location
Kingsport, Tennessee
The following is a article taken from " The Union Flag " a post Civil War newspaper published in east Tennessee after the war. The first group of men, because of their former allegiance to the Confederacy, are basically warned to leave the area or suffer the consequences. Three of the men were 50-60 years of age. One had a son that died while in the Rebel army. Another had a son that was discharged for disability early in the war. One of the men was paroled at Vicksburg and never went back to the army. All former soldiers had taken Oath of Allegiance as required.

The Union men making the demands were all veterans of Company I 8th Tennessee Cavalry. The James Ratliff listed was their 2nd Lieutenant. James must have mellowed extremely over the years. He later became a Presbyterian minister. Some of the Men in both lists are somewhere in my family tree.

Elisha Smith, Elihu Keebler, Thomas Dolleson, Nathan Baines, Samuel Baines, Sr., Samuel Baines, Jr., George Gray, Pete Cornell, and the Copases:-
Sirs—We, the undersigned, take this method of notifying you to remove at once from your present abodes, as your confederacy is not nor cannot be established there, and as you are aliens to the United States, and enemies to the country that gave you birth, and persecutors of your former contemporaries, you cannot be allowed to stay among them. No! you cannot nor you shall not stay! Take warning from the remedy already resorted to in the case of others, and remove at once. Do not force us to use the painful necessity of resorting to extreme measures, as we have vowed to do on sight, and pledged our mutual support to one another in the fulfillment of this notice.
[Signed,]
James M. Martin Michael H. Martin Jas. S. Hale
Charles Cox Wm. R. Settles Jesse Hunt
John W. Leab Landon C. Chase James Ford
John A. Ford A. J. Campbell A. J. Shupe
Geo. W. Brooks Theodore Bowman M. K. Bacon
Roland Jenkins James Ratliff D. G. W. Barnes, Sr.
James M. Grisham James Galloway Adam Bacon
Thomas J. Clark
SWEETWATER, TENN, Aug. 12, 1865.
“NOTICE”
GEO. E. GRISHAM, Editor Union Flag :--If you will insert the above notice in your “Union Flag,” you will greatly oblige the signers. We being responsible for any and everything that may accrue from it. Each man has written his own name to the original, and will forward to the neighborhood in which the offenders reside.
 
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