A Year in the South (16 page)

The vengeful mood of many east Tennessee unionists was sanctioned—and inflamed—by the state's new governor. William G. Brownlow, the Knoxville newspaper editor and die-hard loyalist who had been imprisoned and exiled by the Confederates, was sworn into office in Nashville in April. Although U.S. troops continued to occupy the state, the new civil government of Tennessee, with Brownlow at its head, was recognized by the federal authorities as the legitimate successor to the military government that had ruled since the Yankees conquered middle and west Tennessee in 1862. None but thoroughgoing unionists had been permitted to vote in the elections of February and March 1865 that created this state government, and thus Brownlow had behind him a solidly unionist legislature and judiciary. He had also at his disposal his newspaper, the
Whig and Rebel Ventilator.
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The death of the Confederacy did nothing to soften Brownlow's feelings toward those who had supported it. From his desk in Nashville and from his editorial office in Knoxville, there now issued a fiery stream of pronouncements intended to let the rebels know that there would be no forgiveness for their sins. Among his first official acts was to put a price on the head of former governor Isham G. Harris, who had led the state out of the Union in 1861 and later served in the Confederate army. Five thousand dollars, proclaimed Brownlow, would be the reward for apprehending “this Arch-traitor.” Brownlow furthermore announced that anyone who had taken a stand with the rebels had “forfeited all rights to citizenship, and to life itself. Every field of carnage, every rebel prison, every Union man's grave unite with a violated law and demand the penalty, and if the courts do not administer it, an outraged people will.”
28

The governor was no doubt pleased by some of the news that reached him from east Tennessee in April and May. Whether impelled by his rhetoric or by their own hunger for revenge, many of the region's unionists were assailing their defeated enemies. Some were doing so through the courts. Hundreds, even thousands, of damage suits were being brought by aggrieved unionists against their former persecutors, especially the rich and prominent and those who had enforced Confederate martial law and conscription. Criminal charges also were being levied, including many for treason. Brownlow, who himself filed suit against the officials who had imprisoned him, enthusiastically endorsed such retribution: “let justice be done. These traitors have had their day; now let us have ours.”
29

Outside the courtrooms, too, there was retribution. Some of the region's churches were taking action against their rebel members. One of these was the Cedar Fork Baptist Church in the village of Philadelphia, a dozen miles from Uncle Allen's farm, whose ruling elders formally declared “a non fellowship against all aiders and abetters of the rebel[l]ion, until satisfaction be made by them to the church in the letter and spirit of the Gosp[e]l.” The secessionists of Cedar Fork and other such congregations were given two choices: humble themselves and publicly repent their sin, or be expelled from the church.
30

Increasingly, there were reports of violence in the region: threats, beatings, even killings. Men who had served in the Confederate ranks were the most frequent targets of such vengeance. In some counties—including Greene, where John Robertson's family still resided—it seemed that hardly a day went by that some rebel was not waylaid by a band of unionists, flogged on his bare back with switches or cowhides, and ordered to leave the area. Not a few were shot from ambush on country roads or in open confrontations on town streets. To the former Confederates, this all seemed an orchestrated campaign—a reign of terror, some called it—designed to drive them from the region. If so, there were signs that it was accomplishing its purpose. Rebel east Tennesseans in considerable numbers were fleeing to more hospitable parts of the South or electing not to return from their places of wartime exile.
31

John Robertson's little corner of the region remained mercifully peaceful through the spring. In the town of Athens, thirteen miles south, former federal soldiers were openly threatening rebels on the streets; and near Loudon, fifteen miles east, a secessionist was killed. But John heard of no trouble any closer to home, except for some rumors of robber gangs in the vicinity. Still, he rarely left the house without his pistol.
32

It was quiet enough in those first weeks after the war's end that the Reverend Payne, with help from John, was able to accomplish one of his longtime goals at Blue Springs Church: establishing a Sunday school. He began by calling a meeting of the congregants, who warmly approved the idea and elected him superintendent of the school. At the same time, they elected John librarian and first teacher of the boys' class, and Tennie first teacher of the girls' class. The school got under way in May and was a great success; together, John and Tennie and the other teachers had nearly a hundred students. During the reverend's frequent absences, John acted as superintendent, which meant opening and closing school each Sunday by leading the students in song and prayer. “I was determined the school should not [falter], by my tardiness,” John wrote, “and was always in my place.”
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After school on Sundays, as he and Tennie walked home together over the ridge between the church and their farms, John would talk of his calling. His progress in that regard was a good deal slower lately, he was sorry to say, for he no longer had the luxury of spending all day studying. Cousin Jacob had had a bad accident in April, when a cart loaded with rails overturned on him, leaving him with a broken thigh that would take a long time to heal. At about the same time, Uncle Allen got sick and since then had been unable to do much work. This double misfortune “throwed the tending of the crop mostly on me,” as John put it.
34

Hoeing and plowing took him away from his books in the last weeks of spring, but not away from Tennie. Uncle Allen complained that he was spending all his time with her, which was untrue, but John could not deny that he was with her a good part of the time. Any other sort of self-indulgence would have burdened him with guilt, but this did not. Tennie seemed more important than anything else right now, at least more important than studying Bible commentaries.
35

Summer was at hand. Spring had come and gone, and John had not confessed his love to Tennie. He promised himself that he would summon the courage to do so in the season ahead. If she answered as he prayed she would, and if the troubles besetting the world outside were kept at bay, it would be a summer of great joy.
36

CORNELIA MCDONALD

As soon as the weather was warm enough and the soil good and dry, Cornelia McDonald put some of her boys to work in the garden that she had staked out the year before in the yard beside the house. Kenneth, who was twelve, was the principal gardener. He did not mind this duty, except for having to cut beanpoles and pea sticks from the nearby cedar thicket. He tried to convince his mother that the task was impossibly difficult, but she was adamant. His younger brother Roy also went to work in the garden, assisted sometimes by little Donald. Now and then Donald would doze off while standing up, leaning on his hoe, whereupon Roy—who was never lacking in energy—would wake him up by throwing dirt clods at him.
1

The garden would be more important than ever this year, for the family was desperately short of food. By March, they were down to two meals a day. Breakfast was usually just bread and milk, along with some eggs if the hens were cooperating. Dinner was generally bread, sorghum, and beans or potatoes. Supper they skipped, and went to bed hungry. Sometimes when Cornelia was out in the evening and glanced through the windows of other houses where the tables were being set for supper, she felt almost resentful.
2

She worried incessantly about food and money. What she earned from giving drawing and French lessons was barely enough to buy flour and beans and pay the cook. She was still waiting for the $427 due her from the Confederate government on her deceased husband's account. The longer she waited, the less it would buy, for prices were still spiraling upward.
3

One day in March she received a note from her stepson Edward, a cavalry officer in Lee's army, telling her that his outfit had captured some beef cattle from the Yankees and that he was allowed to keep one. He was going to try to send it to her, he said. Sometime later she got word that the animal was in Staunton, thirty-five miles down the valley. Immediately she dispatched Harry, her eldest, to retrieve it.
4

For three days she waited, anxious and excited. She knew exactly what she would do when the beef arrived. She would take it to the tannery down the street, where, in exchange for the hide and a bit of the meat, she could get it slaughtered and butchered. One roast she would give to Mrs. Powell, who had generously shared her own food with the McDonalds, and another she would give to some other friends. Then, after procuring salt, she would preserve the remainder. This would keep the family supplied with meat for a good while.
5

That was not all she anticipated. The animal would also provide tallow. “[O]h what a treasure the tallow would be,” she thought. “If there were even six pounds, that would make thirty-six candles, and that would give us light for seventy-two nights.” Good candles were now so expensive—six dollars apiece—that she, like most other people, had to rely on “Confederate candles,” crude beeswax contrivances that burned fast and required constant attention. With the tallow she could make some real candles. She had an old set of candle molds, left behind by one of the previous occupants of the house. While waiting for Harry to return, she cleaned up the molds and prepared wicks as she had seen the family servants do when she was a girl.
6

At last Harry arrived. But, as Cornelia recalled, when she saw him approaching with the beef in tow she “did not know whether to laugh or cry.” The poor animal had fared badly on its long journey from the Yankee army to Lexington: “It was so thin that the sides were transparent between the ribs, not a particle of fat on any part of it, and a teaspoon would have held all the tallow.” In the end, it yielded some lean meat, but not a single candle.
7

There were many families in and around Lexington whose plight was as desperate as the McDonalds', and a great number worse off. Even those who were doing better could hardly have been said to be living in comfort, at least not many of them. Shortages and inflation touched everyone, and the government had siphoned off much of the community's wealth through taxes and impressment. Few citizens had any surplus of provisions or money. And yet they were constantly being called on to give up more for the Confederate cause. Because the government had taken everything it could under the law, it now issued a plea for voluntary contributions of food and clothing for Lee's army. A committee was formed in Lexington in March to collect whatever the people of Rockbridge County offered and to send it to the front. Blankets, shoes, meat, meal, and anything else the citizens could spare would be gladly accepted. If they were unwilling to donate these items, the government was willing to accept them as a loan, with a promise to repay.
8

An assortment of supplies trickled in to the committee in response to this pathetic appeal. Cornelia's neighbor Mr. Deaver, the shoemaker, hard-pressed though he was, contributed a barrel of flour and some bacon. Others did likewise, or sacrificed a precious bushel of beans, a pair of socks, or an overcoat. Cornelia herself could give nothing.
9

She would have done so if she could. She knew that Lee's soldiers—the last hope of the Confederacy—were suffering terribly in the trenches around Richmond and Petersburg. Her friend Ann Pendleton had recently returned to Lexington from an extended visit with her husband, General William Pendleton, who was at Petersburg. What she saw and heard there was enough to depress even the most optimistic Confederate patriot. The once-mighty Army of Northern Virginia was barely clinging to life. So thin was it stretched to cover the miles and miles of defensive works that one big push by Grant's enormous army might well crush it. The troops were all underfed and most were ill clad: an army of raggedy scarecrows was what it seemed like to many who saw it. Worse yet, morale was crumbling. In the most recent engagements with the enemy it had been obvious that the fighting spirit of the men was dwindling, for they did not attack or defend with anything like their old élan. Many were now giving up altogether, crawling out of their trenches and across no-man's-land in the dead of night to surrender to the Yankees, or sneaking away in the opposite direction in the hope of getting home—sometimes in groups of ten, twenty, or more. At least 3,000 men deserted between mid-February and mid-March, of the fewer than 50,000 present for duty. The army was melting away and neither General Lee nor anybody else could stop it.
10

Still, there were a good number of soldiers who were determined to stay at their posts to the end. How many civilians would remain steadfast was another question. Morale was collapsing on the home front as inexorably as in the army. More and more citizens were concluding that the war was lost and further sacrifice senseless. Many were conveying these sentiments in letters to their husbands and fathers and brothers in the army and pleading with them to come home. To Cornelia these first weeks of spring seemed a “gloomy and melancholy” time, for it was hardly possible now to deny the “dreadful certainty of disaster and defeat.”
11

Even so, she made no protest when Harry announced near the end of March that he was leaving to join the army. He intended to go to Petersburg and find his stepbrother Edward, who had told him he could enlist in his unit, the 11th Virginia Cavalry. If he stayed at home the conscription agents would take him in April, when he turned seventeen, and then he might be sent anywhere.
12