17
Tennessee ; and it is said by those who know, that not less than
five thousand—think of it, fellow-citizens !—not less than five
thousand of the men of East Tennessee, because they were true
to their country, because they loved the flag that emblematized
all that they held dearest on earth, because they would not bow
the knee to Baal, nor receive upon their necks the yoke of the
king of the South, have been snatched from their homes by the
hand of power, and borne away into captivity. The railroad
bridge near my home was burned, and parties charged with
burning it were arrested, tried by a drumhead court-martial,
according to the order of Benjamin, and hung; and I speak but
the truth when I tell you, that at least two of those gentlemen
■—for they were gentlemen, honorable, high-minded, intelligent,
moral, upright citizens of the community in which they lived—
two, at least, I say, of those who were thus ignominiously hung,
and their bodies left dangling in the air, knew not that they
were sentenced until they were brought within sight of the gib¬
bet upon which the}' were to expiate with their lives that offence
which they had committed against the Southern Confederacy,
of being true to their own government!
Thus affairs mqved on, and Terror shook her black banner
over all our country ; and, to make the reign of terror still more
fearful, a legion of tawny Indians, whose forefathers had been
wont, in other times, to tomahawk and scalp the citizens of our
section of the country, were brought from their mountain re¬
gions, with their painted faces, and wild, unearthly whoops, and
put upon the track of our remaining young men. But be it
ever remembered, to their credit, that these poor, half-civilized
Cherokees were less savage on the trail than their pale-faced
companions in arms [applause] ; and the people, after the first
terror had subsided, and they found the kindness of heart that
existed in the bosoms of these Indians, preferred a thousand
Cherokee Indians in their neighborhood to one captain's com¬
pany of rebel soldiers.
Several regiments of citizens had now volunteered, and hun¬
dreds more had been compelled by coercion to enter the rebel
lines, and to serve in the rebel army ; and about this time, Aug.
1863, Jeff. Davis made another call, running up to forty-five
years of age ; and at the same time, Gov. Harris issued an addi-
2
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