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to the treatment of Union men.

Self-styled vigilance committees are prowling over the country like wolves, arresting men upon suspicion of hostility to their new government, and shooting others. They speak of the case of poor Pearce, a quiet man, a Methodist class-leader, shot down in the field, not for any offence, but simply for being a Union man. "Monday, Dec. 9th.-More prisoners in this evening. Twenty-eight are in from Jefferson County. Some of the prisoners have given the particulars of the hanging of Hensie and Fry upon the same limb of a tree close to the railroad track.

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"Dec. 11th.-C. A. Hann was taken out to-day and hung on charge of bridgeburning. He had but short notice of his sentence, having been condemned without any defence allowed him by a drum-head and whiskey - drinking martial. I think that he was notified of his coming death about one hour in advance. He desired a Methodist preacher to pray

court

with him, and this was re

HANGING UNION MEN IN TENNESSEE.

fused. . . . Fifteen more prisoners came to-day from Greene and Hancock counties, charged with having been armed as Union men and accustomed to drill, which I have no doubt is true.

"Dec. 15th.-Started thirty-five of our lot to Tuscaloosa, to be held during the war. Levi Teewhitt, an able lawyer, but an old man, will never get back. His sons came to see him, but were refused the privilege. Dr. Hunt, from the same county of Bradley, has also gone. His wife came sixty miles to see him, to the jail door, but was refused admittance.

"Dec. 17th.-Brought in a Union man from Campbell County to-day, leaving behind six small children, and their mother dead. The man's offence is holding out for the Union. Two more carts draw up with coffins in them and a military guard. They marched out Jacob Harmon and his son Henry, and hung them upon the same gallows. The old man was a man of property, quite old and infirm, and they compelled him to sit on

the scaffold and see his son hang first; then he was ordered up and hung by his side. They were charged with bridge-burning, but protested to the last that they were not guilty.

"Dec. 18th.-Discharged sixty prisoners to-day, who had been in prison from three to five weeks-taken through mistake, as was said, there being nothing against them.

"Dec. 20th.-This is a terrible night! The sentinels are all drunk, howling like wolves, rushing to our windows, daring prisoners to show their heads, firing off their guns into the jail, and pretending it was accidental.

"Dec. 21st.-Took out five of the prisoners, upon their agreeing to go into the rebel army. Their dread of Tuscaloosa induced them to go into the service. They have offered this choice to all, and only sent off those who stubbornly refused.

"Dec. 25th.-The Union ladies in and around Knoxville applied to General Carroll for leave to send in a Christmas dinner. He granted leave. It affords me pleasure to know that I have been able, out of my basket of provisions and coffee-pot, to furnish several old men and very sick, who could not eat what comes from the greasy inn. Two of them are Baptist ministers-Pope and Colt-each more than seventy years of age. The first named was sent here for praying in his pulpit for the President of the United States. The latter is here for cheering the Stars and Stripes.

"Dec. 27th.-Harrison Self, an honest, industrious, and peaceable man, citizen of Greene County, was notified this morning that he was to be hanged at four o'clock, P.M. His daughter, a noble girl, modest, and neatly attired, came this morning to see him. Heart-broken and bowed under a fearful weight of sorrow, she entered his iron cage, and they embraced each other most affectionately. My God, what a sight!-what an affecting scene! May these eyes of mine, bathed in tears, never look upon the like again! She came out weeping bitterly and shedding burning tears. Requesting me to write a despatch for her and sign her name to it, I took out my pencil and slip of paper and wrote the following:

"Hon. Jefferson Davis:

666

"KNOXVILLE, December 27, 1861.

"My father, Harrison Self, is sentenced to hang at four o'clock this evening, on a charge of bridge-burning. As he remains my earthly all, and all my hopes of happiness centre in him, I implore you to pardon him. ELIZABETH SELF.'

"With this despatch the poor girl hurried off to the office, and about

two o'clock the answer came to General Carroll, telling him not to allow Self to be hung.

...

"Upon the jail floor, in one corner, lies Madison Cote, low with fever, and upon a bit of old carpeting. I feel confident that he will die. He has a little farm in Sevier County, a wife, and six small children, and is here for being a Union man and mustering a company of Union Guards. . . . The wife of poor Cote came and presented herself in front of the jail with an infant at her breast five or six weeks old-born, I think, since her husband was put in jail. She asked leave to see her dying husband, but was refused at the door. I put my head out of the window, telling them that it was a sin and a shame to refuse this poor woman, after coming so far, the liberty of seeing her husband for the last time. They allowed her to enter, but limited her stay to twenty minutes. Oh, my soul, what a scene! Seeing the form of her husband on the floor, she sank upon his breast. In that condition, without a word, they remained until her twenty minutes expired, of which being notified she retired. Oh, what oppression! This is the spirit of secession."

The men who were accused of burning the bridges were hung in accordance with the following order of Mr. Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of War:

"All such as can be identified as having been engaged in bridge-burning are to be tried summarily by drum-head court-martial, and, if found guilty, executed on the spot by hanging. It would be well to leave their bodies hanging in the vicinity of the burned bridges."(")

In regard to the Union men in general, Mr. Benjamin issued this order: "All such as have not been so engaged are to be treated as prisoners of war, and sent with an armed guard to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. . . . They are all to be held as prisoners of war, and held in jail till the end of the Such as come in voluntarily and take the oath of allegiance and surrender their arms, are alone to be treated with leniency."

war.

A Confederate officer has thus pictured the course pursued by the Confederate Government in crushing out the Union men, and the results of their actions: "Scouting parties were sent in every direction, who arrested hundreds suspected of disloyalty, and incarcerated them in prison, until almost every jail in the eastern end of the State was filled with poor, ignorant, and, for the most part, harmless men, who had been guilty of no crime. . . . The rigorous measures adopted by the military commander struck still greater terror into those who had before been Union men, and, to avoid arrest and, as they thought, subsequent punishment, concealed themselves, thus giving a semblance of guilt to action innocent in fact and

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