[vetvetdoug]

Most historians are unaware of what transpired in West Tennessee toward the end of the Civil War and through reconstruction. During the war Confederate soldiers were tortured and murdered by local Union Cavalry. One could read references to these atrocities in the OR. At Pocahontas, Tn, a captured Confederate soldier was skinned alive and one gutshot at every mile marker from there to Purdy, Tn. After the war's end, Confederate sympathizers and former Confederate soldiers were not protected from Carpetbaggers, scalawags, and criminals by the appointed law enforcement (read Union sympathizers. The Klan was formed to protect the former Confederates against this lawlessness. The first Klan was ordered disbanded when the former Confederates were allowed to vote and hold office, such as sheriff and LE positions.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Most historians are unaware of what transpired in West Tennessee toward the end of the Civil War and through reconstruction. During the war Confederate soldiers were tortured and murdered by local Union Cavalry.

Likewise, historians are largely unaware of what happened in East Tennessee at the hands of the Confederates during the war. There was a similar act of barbarism north of Cleveland, Tennessee where a pack of savage rebs in Wheeler's wake cut the eyeballs out of a living man and then had some deranged sport with him as he was trying to run away blind.

The Confederates politicians forced secession on Tennessee and the war was one long oppression of the East Tennessee Unionist majority until the US Army and the local people drove out the Confederates. After the war, the tables were turned and the loyal East got to run things. The animal brutality on both sides was indefensible, but the suffering started in loyal East Tennessee at the hands of the Confederates. The rebs let the genie of anarchy out of the bottle.