[rustbucket]

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.

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.

[cva66snipe]

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]:

That book is how I learned about the term. I was doing some genealogy look ups for my wife. One of her uncles four or five generations back was one of them. Likely one of the more controversial ones too LOL. My family was from the other side of the valley toward the Clinch and Powell rivers. They were Union.

[4CJ]

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.

Bwahahahahahahaha - Tennessee Unionists were not the saints that some portray them to be. Sounds like they were members of a klan.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

There were bad characters on both sides, but I have to take up for the general character of E. Tenn Unionists behavior in racial matters after the war. The records of Blount County Union league show a recial sophestication not seen in the resy of the South (or even most of the country) for many years. Brownlow and Eadt tennessee Union militias were the earliest enemies of the KKK in the western 2/3s of the state and many East Tennessee counties showed an increase in black population as the freed slaves from other parts of the South voted with their feet as to what they considered a better place to live.

There were pro-reb pockets to the south of Knoxville like Monroe County. (Polk voted for secession also, but there's a strong opinion that the vote in Polk was rigged) But you also had counties like Bradley which were generally relative hotbeds for Unionism and violence between the two sides.

I noticed a mention of Sevier County. Sevier was as Unionist of an area as any. The vote against secession in the second election was 1528 to 60.

I appreciate the mention of the books. If y'all are interested in a view from the other side, I recommend Hurlburt's 1866 history of the Civil War in Bradley County. The author was an Indiana man who was located in Bradley in the last months of the war. The guy was obviously a Radical Republican by the way he praises the policies of people like Fremont. His view from the other side as to the legitimacy of the Tennessee secession process is also interesting. And if you had relatives in Bradley back then, he has an extensive division of the sheep and goats, a listing of the Union and Confederate citizens of Bradley County.