East TN Unionists

[SouthernProud]

Thomas A.R. Nelson in 1850 owned 12 slaves. In 1860 he owned 8.

Andrew Johnson: https://www.nps.gov/anjo/learn/historyculture/slaves.htm

Horace Maynard owned 3 in 1850 4 in 1860

John Netherland owned 10 in 1850. He may have freed them by 1860 but being a Democrat, supported George B. McClellan in 1864.

Colonel Daniel Stover, Union 4th Tennessee Infantry and Andrew Johnson's son-in-law owned one of the rare plantations in East Tennessee and 9 slaves in 1860.

Brigader-General James G. Spears owned a 14-year-old female in 1850. He owned 13 slaves in 1860. He was eventually dismissed from the service in 1864 for his opposition to President Lincoln's Proclamation.

Reluctant Rebs & "Homegrown Yanks": East Tennesseans in the Civil War | Regimental Histories

Good stuff. From the book "Lincolnites and Rebels a Divided Town in the American Civil War" Robert McKenzie Oxford University Press p.229 their is a great deal of detail on how and why Unionist and Confederate animosity died down and in 1890 both Unionist and Confederate veterans organization...

civilwartalk.com

Yup, it's tough to have power in a slave society without being a slave owner. I remember in North Carolina, only 25% of households owned slaves, but 86% of their state legislators did. I don't remember all the county counts, but for state legislators, I think it was under 50% in eastern TN... though would need to go back through some facts to confirm.

I would say across the South that Eastern TN is arguably your biggest stronghold for abolition sentiment. And post-war you also saw that tip there vote opposite of the rest of the South for years when the Southern candidate was running opposed to Reconstruction/civil rights. A lot of those leaders and preachers from East Tennessee would have been run out of the South in other areas.

 

[uaskme]

Here was one of the centers of Abolition in East TN.

Friendsville, Tennessee - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

During Reconstruction Blacks voted Republican with East TN poor whites as a Political Necessity. No proof racial attitudes were much different in ETN.

East TN differed from west and middle TN because they were as a majority poorer. Andrew Johnson had slaves. But he like others didn't want their Tax Dollars spent on things that benefited Aristocratic Slave Owners. Also ETN had water power on its numerous streams. Wanted internal improvements that would support manufacturing etc. Soil types and not as much land to produce crops. There was some but the wealth few got it. However they did benefit from slavery. Sold their excess hogs, turkeys etc to the south.

After Reconstruction ends and the Radicals are thrown out of congress. Johnson returns to the Senate as a Democrat, Brownlow voted Democrat the last time he voted.

You can't read the blips and understand ETN. More complicated than that. As is the War.

 

[USS ALASKA]

Journal Article
The Cause of the Union in East Tennessee
Martha L. Turner
Tennessee Historical Quarterly
Vol. 40, No. 4 (Winter, 1981), pp. 366-380
Tennessee Historical Society

https://www.jstor.org/stable/42626233

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

Cheers,
USS ALASKA