I have given so much of this conversation to illustrate the views entertained by the average, moderate, common-sense Union men of Tennessee. Far behind them, on the question of human rights, were some of the negro-haters and Rebel-persecutors of East Tennessee; while there was a handful of leading men as far in advance of them. A good sample of these was the honorable John Trimble, of Nashville, also a member of the legislature, whom I had the satisfaction of meeting on two or three occasions: a man of liberal and cultivated mind, singularly emancipated from cant and prejudice. He had just introduced into the General Assembly a bill extending the elective franchise to the freedmen, with certain restrictions; for the passage of which there was of course little chance.
I was just in time to catch Governor Brownlow as he was about going home for the holidays. I should have been sorry to miss seeing this remarkable type of native Southern-Western wit. As an outspoken convert from the pro-slavery doctrines he used to advocate, to the radical ideas which the agitations of the times had shaken to the surface of society, he was also interesting to me. I found him a tall, quiet individual, of a nervous temperament, intellectual forehead, and a gift of language,—with nothing of the blackguard in his manners, as readers of his writings might sometimes be led to expect. His conversation was characteristic. He believed a Rebel had no rights except to be hung in this world, and damned after death. But this and other similar expressions did not proceed so much from a vindictive nature, as from that tendency to a strong, extravagant style of statement, for which Western and Southern people, and especially the people of Tennessee, are noted.
Of his compatriots, the Union-loving East Tennesseeans, he said, “It is hard to tell which they hate most, the Rebels, or the negroes.” He did not sympathize with them in the ill-feeling they bestowed upon the latter. He was in favor of the Negro Testimony Bill, which had just been defeated in the legislature by East Tennessee members; and as for negro suffrage, he thought it was sure to come in a few years.
“The Rebels,” said he, “are as rebellious now as ever. If Thomas and his bayonets were withdrawn, in ten days a Rebel mob would drive this legislature out. Congress,” he added, “will have to legislate for all the Rebel States, Tennessee with the rest.”
From the Governor’s I went over to the division head-quarters to call on Major-General Thomas,—a very different type of native Southern men. Born and bred a Virginian, his patriotism was national, knowing no State boundaries. In appearance, he is the most lion-like of all the Union generals I have seen. An imperturbable, strong soul, never betrayed into weakness or excess by any excitement, his opinions possessed for me great value.
We spoke of the national soldiers’ cemeteries in his division; and he informed me that besides those I had visited at Chattanooga and Murfreesboro’, others proposed by him had been sanctioned by the War Department. “We shall have one here at Nashville; and I have already selected the site for it,”—a fortified hill in the suburbs. “There will be one at Franklin; also one at Memphis; another at Shiloh; and another large one at Atlanta;” for he did not favor the plan of burying the dead of the Atlanta campaign at Chattanooga.
The military division, called the “Division of the Tennessee,” which General Thomas commands, comprises the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
He did not think that in either of those States there was any love for the Union, except in the hearts of a small minority. Tennessee was perhaps an exception. It was the only one of the Southern States that had reorganized on a strictly Union basis. It had disfranchised the Rebels. The governor, the legislature, and the recently elected members of Congress, were unquestionably loyal men. The Rebel State debt had been repudiated, and the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery adopted. East Tennessee could take care of itself; but in Middle and West Tennessee, where the Rebel sentiment predominated, personal and partisan animosities were so strong that Union men must for some time to come have the protection of the government. There were then in Tennessee about six thousand troops, stationed chiefly at Chattanooga, Memphis, and Nashville, with smaller garrisons scattered throughout the State, sufficient to remind the people that the government still lived.
As for the freedman, General Thomas thought the respectable classes, and especially the intelligent large planters, were inclined to treat him with justice; but habit and prejudice were so strong even with them, that the kind of justice he might expect would be largely mixed with wrong and outrage, if the Bureau was withdrawn.
The General was in the receipt of information, from entirely distinct and reliable sources, concerning secret organizations in the Southern States, the design of which was to embarrass the Federal Government and destroy its credit, to keep alive the fires of Rebel animosity, and to revive the cause of the Confederacy whenever there should occur a favorable opportunity, such as a political division of the North, or a war with some foreign power. As his testimony on this subject has been made public, I shall say nothing further of it here, except to express my sense of the weight to be attached to the conclusions of so calm and unprejudiced a man.