The man mentioned in that article I linked Col Thomas? I haven't been able to pin it all down as far as genealogy goes but I'm pretty well sure his earlier uncles and cousins helped first establish Sevier county in the 1700's.
There were pockets of secessionist sentiment like Sullivan County, but even in the second rubber stamp election, the margin was 69-31 against secession. After years of Confederate misrule I suspect the pro-Unionist margin was even larger by the time the liberators in blue evicted reb rule.
That whole Tennessee secession site you linked is slanted to only the reb point of view and ignores the legitimate complaints that a significant segment of the whole state had against rebel practices of the time. It is as if the reb manipulator Isham Harris himself, the subverter of the expressed will of the people, was in charge of the site.
The Union stronghold of the state was mainly East Tennessee. But I know beyond any doubt quite a few Confederate fighters including a Sevier County General came out of Sevier County. The people who settled the area Will Thomas was operating in had a significant amount of Confederate support. Some were likely his family lineage. I know it because I know the genealogy of one of the first families in that area. There were stronger sympathies to the north on the other side of the valley toward the Cumberland's but pockets of support that varied county to county in East Tennessee.
But as for the web site? It only makes sense it would have Confederate history as Tennessee was CSA. There were Tennessee hero's on both sides however some can not stand for Confederate ones to be looked upon in a positive light no matter how brilliant their actions were.
The main Union strong hold that was in East Tennessee was primarily Knoxville and north. The areas in East Tennessee south of Knoxville including Sevier County had plantations and others near the mountains. Out of those mountains came the Mountain Rebels. Some were from among the oldest families to settle in east Tennessee.
If I go to a web site on say Illinois history I would expect to read in it's history how heroic the Union Armies were. I would expect no less going to a website on a southern former CSA state to see the heroics of the armies of the CSA. BTW The article I linked in question was the only Confederate unit to negotiate their surrender at the end of the war that got to keep their weapons and go home with them in hand. That speaks volumes for their abilities as fighters. One Confederate General as well from middle Tennessee was so brilliant his skills on the Battlefield are still studied.
I didn't appreciate the skills until I began reading about such units. They earned the respect of both their own CSA commanders and fear and respect of the northern armies.
East Tennessee Confederates oppressed Unionist sympathizers, and East Tennessee Unionists, in turn, oppressed Confederates when they were in power. Oppression was not quite so one-sided as your posts might suggest.
Bad Unionist behavior against former East Tennessee Confederates continued after the war was over when peace should have reigned. For example, [Source: Richmond (Va) Dispatch, December 9, 1865]:
Returned Confederates and negroes Butchered.
Philadelphia, December 8.
--The New York Tribune this morning says that East Tennessee Unionists have been permitted by a weak and worthless Union General Commanding, and a reverend blackguard styled Governor, to butcher not less than one hundred rebels and negroes in and around Knoxville since June last. Greeley says Tennessee has many staunch Unionists, but, nevertheless, is a pandemonium of passion and crime, and no more fit to self-government than Dahomey.
The December 11 issue of the Dispatch gave more details of the Tribune article:
Tennessee Loyalty.--The telegraph has informed us that the bill allowing blacks to testify in the courts of Tennessee, which passed the Senate by ten to nine, has been defeated in the House by thirty to twenty-seven--the East Tennessee Unionists generally opposing, while many of the ex-rebels supported it. This is what we had been led to expect. Those East Tennessee Unionists have been permitted, by a weak and worthless Union general commanding, and a reverend blackguard, who is styled Governor, to murder two or three negroes to balance each of the paroled and returned rebel soldiers whom they have seen fit likewise to dispatch, until they have good reason to deprecate the admission of negro testimony; for it would hang hundreds of them if there was any semblance of law or justice in that region. According to our information, not less than a hundred rebels and negroes have thus been butchered since June last in and around Knoxville alone; and there will, of course, be more if the strong hand of authority be not stretched over them.
cva66snipe mentioned the term, Mountain Rebels. There is an excellent book of that title, Mountain Rebels, East Tennessee Confederates and the Civil War, 1860-1870. This book says [pages 145-147, paperback version]:
Now that they had the upper hand, the Radical-Unionist-Whigs were just as determined to solidify their political domination of the region by completely suppressing their old political opponents as had been the Confederate-Secessionist-Democrats when they were in control.