Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee

Preface

This book, as its title implies, is an attempt to trace the personality of Andrew Johnson through the years 1862-1865, when the burden of military government and reconstruction in Tennessee rested principally upon his shoulders. With this purpose in mind, I have refrained from going into several tempting by-paths of the subject. The military administration in West Tennessee, for example, for which not Johnson, but the generals of the regular army stationed at Memphis were primarily responsible, has been scarcely touched upon; so, too, the working of the Federal trade regulations in Tennessee, a subject on which a separate monograph might be written. Nor have I carried my account beyond the spring of 1865, when Johnson left Tennessee for Washington. The subsequent details of reconstruction in the state may be found in J. W. Fertig's "The Secession and Reconstruction of Tennessee," which also treats of the period of the war, but which was written before the Johnson papers in the Library of Congress were available for study.

As is apparent from the footnotes, I have based my account largely upon the Johnson papers, the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, and the contemporary newspapers. Of these last, the Nashville Union is a source of the highest importance. It is, of course, polemical and violently partisan, but it contains a surprising amount of detailed news of any local occurrence of interest and notices and discusses all references to Tennessee affairs which it discovers in exchanges ; and its assertions can usually be checked from other sources. I have made little use of Brownlow's Knoxville Whig, a file of which is in the Yale University library, or of "Parson Brownlow's Book," for the obvious reason that, in this period of his career, the choleric parson was consciously blinking facts and coining political capital out of superlatives.

I am conscious of my failure adequately to present the Coniv PREFACE

federate side of many controverted points. There is a most regrettable dearth of material for this purpose, even the anti-administration newspapers of Memphis, such as the Argus and the Avalanche existing, unless I am mistaken, only in files so broken as to be practically of no value to the historian. Fortunately, for an investigation directed to Johnson's own career, this kind of material is not essential.

It is hardly necessary for me to add, in explanation of my method of treating my subject, that I have desired to show how the lessons learned by Johnson in reconstructing his own state constituted a training for the work to which he was so suddenly and unexpectedly called in a national capacity. It will be seen, I think, that his attitude, as president, toward the problems of reconstruction, was, in most respects, a natural consequence of his experience as military governor of Tennessee.

I am happy to express my gratitude to Professor Robert M. McElroy and Professor William Starr Myers of Princeton for their kindly interest and assistance in my work, and to Dr. Gaillard Hunt, of the Library of Congress, for many courtesies shown me.

Clifton R. Hall.

Princton, N. J. 1915-

CHAPTER I Secession

The early mutterings of the secession storm awakened but little response in Tennessee. The state was a stronghold of the conservative Whig party, devoted from its inception to the maintenance of the Union as the summum bonum of the national life, for the preservation of which slavery and every other minor issue must compromise or give way. While the Democrats had carried every gubernatorial election since 1853, they had invariably been compelled to struggle desperately for victory over the Whigs, and this at a time when the power of that party was crumbling to pieces in other parts of the country.^ The border states, with vital interests and intimate associations both North and South, had contributed many redoubtable Whig champions, and the political leader of Tennessee in i860 was the Whig, John Bell, to whom, as the exponent of "the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the laws," his state had given a plurality of 4,565 votes over Breckenridge in the presidential election of that year.^ Allied with the same party were Thomas A. R. Nelson, Horace Maynard, William G. Brownlow, W. B. Campbell and Robert L. Caruthers, whose careers make up so large a part of Tennessee history during the war.

Tennessee's loyalty, however — as circumstances were to prove and as keen observers appreciated even in i860 — was subject to conditions. Socially and economically she was, except in her eastern district, identified with the South. The inhabitants of the slopes of her great middle division and the alluvial plains of the west were largely engaged in growing and shipping cotton. The plantation system and slavery were in full opera-

* Miller's Manual of Tennessee, p. 170.

'Annual Cyclopedia, 1861, p. 676. "The full Whig strength went to Bell and Everett, and the majority of the democratic votes to Breckenridge, while Douglas was supported by about 10,000 conservative Democrats." — iCaldwell, Studies in the Constitutional History of Tennessee, p. 266. There was no Lincoln ticket in the state.

tion. These were her most precious interests. As a border state, situated between North and South and deriving profit and advantage from both, she perceived in the Union her best prospects for prosperity ; and had the Union been peaceably dissolved in such a way as not to interfere with her "peculiar institutions" and her channels of communication with the slave states, it is possible — though, indeed, not probable — that her conservative antecedents might have combined with considerations of her own advantage to hold her true to her old allegiance. The attitude of acquiescence by most of her leaders, her newspapers and the great majority of her citizens in the election of Lincoln showed at least that they had no sympathy with any project to disrupt the Union before the infringement of Southern rights by overt acts of the Federal government^

The belligerent pro-slavery minority, however, were for immediate action, and the initiation of secession by the legislatures of South Carolina and Georgia aroused popular excitement and encouraged them in this course. Their guiding spirit was the governor, Isham G. Harris, who, in constant communication with the secession leaders in the other states and alert for the auspicious moment to perfect his designs, waited only for assurance of decisive action by his neighbors to convene the legislature in secret session on the 7th of January, 1861 "to consider the present condition of the country." In his message, he advised that the question of calling a convention be submitted forthwith to the people; but suggested, as the safest and wisest procedure, that amendments to the Federal Constitution, designed permanently to tie the hands of the Northern majority — such as the restoration of a compromise line and its extension to the Pacific, modifications of the fugitive-slave law as concessions to Northern sentiment, and a provision against the repeal of these measures except by the unanimous consent of the slave-holding states — be insisted on. Harris' opinion of the actual worth of his own pacific proposals was shown in the observation: "Before your adjournment, in all human probability, the only practical question for the state to determine

'Memphis Bulletin, Nov. 12, i860; Nashville Banner, Nov. 13, i860, etc.

will be whether or not she will unite her fortunes with a Northern or Southern Confederacy; upon which question, when presented, I am certain there can be little or no division in sentiment, identified as we are in every respect with the South."*

Immediately upon this message, as if part of a prearranged plan, followed the news of the secession of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama and Georgia and the repulse of the Star of the West in Charleston harbor. The state seethed with excitement. Secession meetings were held everywhere and the legislature, strongly pro-Southern in sympathy from the beginning, hastened to provide (January 19) for a popular vote on the question of assembling a convention "to adopt such measures for vindicating the sovereignty of the state and the protection of its institutions as shall appear to them to be demanded," with high hopes of stampeding Tennessee for their views. With the wise intent of avoiding the appearance of precipitation or illegality, it was declared that no action of the convention favoring secession should be valid until submitted to the people and carried by a vote equal to the majority vote in the gubernatorial election of 1859. ^t the same time, the people were to choose delegates to attend the convention, in case one should be held.^

The legislature then proceeded to adopt significant resolutions — asking the president of the United States and the authorities of the Southern states to "reciprocally communicate assurances" of their peaceable designs, regretting the action of the New York legislature in tendering men and money for the coercion of sovereign states, and directing the governors to inform the executive of New York "that it is the opinion of this General Assembly that whenever the authorities of that state shall send armed forces to the South for the purpose indicated . . . the people of Tennessee, uniting with their brethren of the South, will, as one man, resist such invasion of the soil of

* Senate Journal s^d Tenn. General Assembly, ist ext\ra session, 1861, pp. 6 seq. ; Caldwell, "Studies in the Constitutional History of Tennessee," pp. 268 seq.

"^ Acts, 33d Tenn. General Assembly, ist extra session, 1861, p. 15.

the South at any hazard and to the last extremity."" That in these resolutions the legislators exactly expressed the sentiments of the vast majority of their constituents there is no reason to doubt. Like Virginia and North Carolina, though more ardently, they clung to the old Union with which their affections and interests were so closely identified ; but they believed firmly in state sovereignty and the constitutional exemption of their "rights" from invasion by the Federal government, and, perceiving that their institutions and those of the Southern states were the same, they looked upon any forcible assault upon "Southern liberties" as directed also against their own. An appeal to arms would undermine the neutral ground on which they hoped to stand and, forced to take sides, they could not hesitate. The prayers of all Union-lovers were for the success of the peace convention about to meet in Washington.

In these sentiments the people of East Tennessee had no share. This region had been settled largely by Scotch-Irish from Virginia and North Carolina. Geographically it consists of mountains and narrow valleys, affording, for the most part, profitable returns in grain and live stock to industrious, provident white inhabitants, but utterly unsuited to a system of slave labor.'' The farms were small and the man of wealth was the distinct exception — conditions contributing to the development of a rough, vigorous and aggressive democracy, of which Andrew Johnson, the tailor-politican was the type and leader. In the cities, notably Knoxville, was a small, but powerful coterie of conservative professional men, Whigs, like T. A. R. Nelson and Maynard. To such men the perpetuation of slavery was of Httle moment, and the extension of it of no moment at all. Their Union predilections encountered no contrary impulse. To the argument that the freeing of the slaves would humiliate the white laborer and bring him into competition with the black, they replied that it would also destroy the unjust ascendency of the rich aristocratic proprietor, created by the slave system,

'House Jo,urnaI, 33d Tetin. General Assembly, ist extra session, 1861, pp. 66, 76, et passim.

'The ratio of slaves to whites was about one to twelve. Census of i860, quoted by Fertig, The Secession and Reconstruction of Tennessee, p. 28.

which cheapened the value of labor and closed the avenues of industry, and would throw all men, white and black, into a fair competition, in which the ambitious Scotchman, born and bred to intelligent self-dependence, had no reason to fear the result.

Thus, with a powerful leaven of loyalty to the Union — unconditional on the part of the East Tennesseeans ; sustained, in the case of the Whigs of Middle and West Tennessee, by the hope that the use of force might be averted and Tennessee become the mediator to reconcile the contending sections and save the Union — the people voted, on the 9th of February, on the proposition submitted to them by the legislature. The peace conference was still in session. The result was 57,798 in favor of a convention ; 69,675 against it. East Tennessee voted five to one in the negative; Middle Tennessee followed suit by a majority of 1,382; West Tennessee gave a 15,118 majority for the affirmative. The vote for Union delegates to the convention was 88,803 '■> ^<3r disunion delegates, 24,749-^ Thus the people declared that they did not wish even to discuss the question of secession. Tennessee was still emphatically loyal and the Southern cause had sustained a severe reverse.

"The election of February was a division along party lines. Its result was simply an indication that the Whig party of Tennessee was still opposed to the doctrine of secession."^ All this was changed by the outbreak of actual hostilities in April. Enough has been said to indicate that coercion was the rock on which the Union party in Tennessee would split. Secession at once became popular and irrisistible. To President Lincoln's call for troops, Governor Harris replied (April 18) : "Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty thousand, if necessary, for the defence of our rights and those of our Southern brothers. "^^^

Still the Whig leaders, whose political religion was love and service of the Union, could not bring themselves to believe that the noble structure for which Clay and Webster had labored so

* Annual Cyclopedia, 1S61, p. 677.

* Neal, Disunion and Restoration in Tennessee, p. 14. ^*Goodspeed, History of Tennessee, pp. 513-519.

passionately was tumbling to pieces before their eyes, while they stood powerless to prevent the ruin. On the very day when Governor Harris sent his defiant reply to the president, Neil S. Brown, Russell Houston, E. H. Ewing, John Bell, R. J. Meigs and other prominent Whigs appealed to the Tennesseeans in an impassioned address. "The agitation of the slavery question, combined with party spirit and sectional animosity," they said, "has at length produced the legitimate fruit." They denounced and deplored the coercive policy of the president "as calculated to dissolve the Union forever and to dissolve it in the blood of our fellow-citizens," and approved the governor's refusal to contribute to that end, but, they continued, they did not think it Tennessee's duty, "considering her position in the Union, and in view of the great question of the peace of our distracted country, to take sides against the government." To do so would be to "terminate her grand mission of peace-maker between the states of the South and the general government. Nay, more ; the almost inevitable result would be the transfer of the war within her own borders — the defeat of all hopes of reconciliation, and the deluging of the state with the blood oi her own people." (This was to speak with the oracular tongue of fate.) "The present duty of Tennessee is to maintain a position of independence — taking sides with the Union and the peace of the country against all assailants, whether from the North or South. Her position should be to maintain the sanctity of her soil from the hostile tread of any party. . . . But should a purpose be developed by the government of overrunning and subjugating our brethren of the seceded states, we say unequivocally, that it will be the duty of the state to resist at all hazards, at any cost, and by arms, any such purpose or attempt." Therefore let the authorities of the state proceed at once to arm her for all emergencies, but "in the meantime let her, as speedily as she can, hold a conference with her sister slave-holding states yet in the Union, for the purpose of devising plans for the preservation of the peace of the land. . . . The border slave states may prevent this civil war; and why shall they not do it?""

" Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. i, p. 71 ; Greeley, American Conflict, vol. i, p. 481.

In all this there is nothing new. It is the last despairing, hopeless struggle of the Whigs to maintain their old position of peace, compromise and Union. Hardly had they spoken when the tide of secession swept them irresistibly with it into the disaster they so clearly foresaw. Four days later, Bell declared for the South, and most of his friends followed his lead. Except in East Tennessee, the Union sympathizers were frightened into silence. By the 24th of April, Gideon J. Pillow could write from Nashville to L. P. Walker, the Confederate secretary of war : "We are now united in Middle and West Tennessee, and we think East Tennessee will soon be so, or nearly so. Etheridge attempted to make a speech at Paris yesterday, but was prevented by the people after a short conflict with pistols, in which four were wounded and one killed. Johnson has at last returned to East Tennessee, and had his nose pulled on the way; was hissed and hooted at all along on his route. . . . His power is gone, and henceforth there will be nothing left but the stench of the traitor. "^-

Fort Sumter and President Lincoln had restored the prestige of Governor Harris, and he hastened to utilize it. The legislature, in full sympathy with him, reassembled at his call on the 25th of April and went into secret session, the members being pledged to reveal nothing that transpired during their deliberations. Harris' message asserted that the president had "wantonly inaugurated an internecine war between the people of the slave and non-slave-holding states," urged the passage of ordinances of secession and union with the Confederacy "in such manner as shall involve the highest exercise of sovereign authority by the people of the state," and, to that end, asked that opportunity be given for "a fair and full expression of the popular will on each of these propositions separately."^^ His motives in thus

"Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, series i, vol. Hi, part ii, p. 69. (This publication will hereafter be referred to as "O. R.").

^ Acts, 33d Tenn. General Assembly, 2d extra session, 1861, p. i. "Under existing circumstances I can see no propriety in encumbering the people of the state with the election of delegates, to do that which is in our power to enable them to do directly for themselves. The most direct as well as the highest act of sovereignty, according to our theory, is apparently clogging the wheels of the secession chariot for the sake of popular sovereignty and strict legality were, however, perhaps not as disinterested as they appeared on their face. "The object of the governor in recommending separate ordinances," wrote Henry W. Hilliard, the Confederate agent on the ground, to Secretary Toombs, "is to secure beyond all possibility of doubt the speedy secession of Tennessee from the government of the United States. . . . The first proposition will be ratified by an overwhelming popular vote. As to the second, which provides for the admission of Tennessee as a member of the Confederate States, there will be decided opposition, for many desire to establish a middle confederacy, formed of the border states, as they are termed. You will readily comprehend that personal considerations influence opinion to some extent in regard to this measure. ... A great change has taken place in public sentiment here within a few days, and the feeling in favor of our government rises into enthusiasm. . . . By existing laws the governor has no authority to send troops beyond the limits of the state, but the legislature will authorize him to order them to any point, and in anticipation of this, or under the pressure of afifairs, Governor Harris is now sending troops into Virginia. . . . Our Constitution is highly approved, and the conduct of our government inspires respect and admiration."^-* Governor Harris had further recommended that the state be placed at once upon a war footing.^^ In response, the assembly authorized him (April 26) to order the immediate organization of all the regiments and companies tendered to him.^** On the 6th of May, it placed in his hands the raising, organization, and equipment of 55,000 volunteers, the charge of the troops and the direction of the defence of the state, and gave him, with the

that by which the people vote, not merely for men, but for measures submitted for their approval or rejection. Since it is only the voice of the people that is to be heard, there is no reason why they may not be readily and effectively express themselves upon an ordinance framed and submitted to them by the legislature as if submitted by a convention."

" O. R., series i, vol. Hi, part ii, p. 76.

^'^ Senate Journal, 33d Tcnn. General Assembly, 2d extra session, 1861, p. II.

concurrence of the military and financial board, the control of the military fund and the authority to make contracts for military purposes/^

Meanwhile, the Confederate commissioner, Hilliard, had been in conference with Harris and was introduced by him to the legislature, which he addressed, by invitation, on the 30th of April, urging the prompt union of Tennessee with the Southern republic/^ A joint resolution of the ist of May authorized the governor to appoint three commissioners to enter into a military league with the Montgomery government. This league, consummated on the 7th, looked to "a speedy admission into the Confederacy" and placed the military force of the state under the conltrol and direction of President Davis.^^ The legislature ratified it the same day and invited the Confederacy to make Nashville its capital.^"

Not until, by these remarkable proceedings, the Southern sympathizers had delivered the state bound into the hands of the Confederacy and destroyed all possibility of a free expression of the popular will, did they seek to throw the cloak of legality over their acts by introducing the fiat of the "ultimate sovereign.'' By an act passed on the 6th of May, embodying the recommendations of Harris' message, the people were called to vote, on the 8th of June, on two distinct ordinances: (i) a declaration of independence and separation from the Federal Union; (2) the adoption of the constitution of the provisional government of the Confederacy.-^

"The spirit of secession appears to have reached its culminating point in Tennessee," said the Louisville Journal of May 13. "Certainly the fell spirit has, as yet, reached no higher point of outrageous tyranny. The whole of the late proceedings in Tennessee has been as gross an outrage as ever was perpetrated by the worst tyrant of all the earth. The whole secession movement, on the part of the legislature of that

"Acts, 33d Tenn. General Assembly, 2d extra session, 1861, p. 21. ^Senate Journal, 33d Tenn. General Assembly, 2d extra session, 1861, p. 30.

"^^ Acts, 33d Tenn. General Assembly, 2d extra session, 1861 p. 19.

"Ibid.

state, has been lawless, violent and tumultuous. The pretense of submitting the ordinance of secession to the vote of the people of the state, after placing her military power and resources at the disposal and under the command of the Confederate States without any authority from the people, is as bitter and insolent a mockery of popular rights as the human mind could invent."

Allowing for undue violence of language, this is a statement of fact. Under the circumstances, the election was bound to be a farce. Before the 8th of June, Governor Harris had raised most of the troops authorized by the legislature and the state was full of soldiers. The sentiment of the people was now overwhelmingly for the Confederacy and, between soldiers and sentiment, he was a brave Union man who ventured to speak his mind at the polls. That the state would have gone heavily for the South under the fairest possible system of election is certain ; that a fair election would have increased the Union vote seems equally so. But a mere victory would not content the secessionists ; for moral effect, they required the nearest possible approach to unanimity.

Tennessee declared its independence by a majority of over 61,000 in a total vote of nearly 156,000, and its desire to join the Confederacy by a majority of 60,000. Middle Tennesseewas for the South, 58,000 to 8,000 ; West Tennessee, 29,000 to 6,000. East Tennessee clung defiantly to its loyalty, 33,000 to 14,500. The military camps, comprising over 6,000 soldiers, went unanimously for separation and the Confederacy. Nearly 20,000 more votes were cast than at previous elections, which gave some color to charges of corruption and illegal voting by Confederate soldiers from other states. Governor Harris thereupon (June 24) proclaimed the state out of the Union and a part of the Confederacy.-^

These proceedings, from first to last, were palpably irregular, and, by any construction, all except the secession by vote of the people were unconstitutional. It was sought to justify

^ Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. ii, doc. 37. McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, p. 5. For the vote, see Nashville Dispatch, Jan. 11, 1865.

MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE ii

this final act under the pronouncement in the preamble of the state constitution "that all power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their peace, safety, and happiness," that "for the advancement of those ends they have at all times, an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish the government in such manner as they may think proper," and "that government being instituted for the common benefit, the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind."-^ That is, the action of the people must be validated, if at all, by an appeal to the reserved, extra-constitutional rights inhering in sovereignty. The constitution provided for its amendment by a slow process requiring at least two years, which, granting the existence of "arbitrary power and oppression," might imperil the ''peace, safety and happiness" of the people, for the advancement of which the government could at any time be altered or abolished ; if so, irregular measures were defensible. These reflections will be of value when we come to consider the reconstruction of 1865.

But, although it be conceded that the "sovereign people" had the right to decide their destiny by any means they chose to adopt, the military ordinance and the league with the Confederacy, put through before the sovereign had spoken, are indefensible from any legal standpoint, and throw suspicion upon the final vote itself. The governor and legislature, holding office under the state constitution of 1834, had taken oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and were obliged to do so until their state constitution was altered.-* If the people, by the exercise of the "reserve" of sovereignty, could release them, they were bound at least until some sovereign act transpired. The practical effect of their proceedings was to precipitate revolution. The terms temporary league and loan of military forces to the Confederacy were but blinds behind which they deliberately violated strict moral and constitutional obligations.

^Tennessee State Constitution of 1834. Art, i, sec. i-ii. Miller's Manual of Tennessee, p. 81. ^ Ibid., art x. sec. i.

From the beginning, the loyal people of East Tennessee fully comprehended the significance of the transactions at the capital, and viewed the course of events with apprehension and dismay. The illegal ordinances of early May confirmed their worst fears, and their leaders. Whig and Democrat, united in a call to a convention at Knoxville on the 30th of that month.^^ This assembly, designated by the Memphis Appeal as "the little batch of disaffected traitors who hover around the noxious atmosphere of Andrew Johnson's home," adopted resolutions condemning the doctrine of secession, declaring the ordinances of the legislature to be acts of usurpation, urging the policy of Kentucky as the true policy for Tennessee and all the border states, and appealing to the people, "while it is yet in their power, to come up in the majesty of their strength and restore Tennessee to her true position."^^ Fbllowing the election of June 8, in which East Tennessee stood staunchly by the Union, the convention reassembled at Greenville (June 17-20) at the call of its president and promulgated the following striking declaration:

"So far as we can learn, the election held in this state on the eighth day of the present month was free, with few exceptions, in no part of the state other than East Tennessee. In the large parts of Middle and West Tennessee no speeches or discussions in favor. of the Union were permitted. Union papers were not allowed to circulate. Measures were taken in some parts of West Tennessee, in defiance of the Constitution and laws, which allow folded tickets to have the ballot numbered in such manner as to mark and expose the Union votes. . . . Disunionists in many places had charge of the polls, and Union men, when voting, were denounced as Lincolnites and abolitionists. The unanimity of the votes in many large counties where but a few weeks ago the Union sentiment was so strong proves beyond doubt that Union men were overawed by the tyranny of the military power, and the still greater tyranny of a corrupt and subsidized press. . . . For these and other causes we do not regard the result of the election as