Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1897-03-03

| Pai iuy 10 lllaJ ~ Is sectional IN spirit, that
under Republican administration of
the Federal Government no Southern
State has any share in the patronage or
administration thereof, and they point
to the fact that no Republican President
save Lincoln and Grant, has put South
ern man in his Cabinet, with the eXcep-
tlon or Hayes, who appointed seces-
sionist who voted for Tilden as the re-
suit, so they allege, of bargain by
which the Legislature of Louisiana was
disreputed so as to put the Democratic
party in possession of every branch of
the State Government Under Presi-
dents Lincoln and Grant the Southern
| States had an equitable and fair recog-
milton in the government of the country
and it was partly because the opinion
prevailed in the South that William Me-
Kinley, like Lincoln and Grant, was a
national man that he received the enor-
nous vote he did in the border States
and Tennessee. The better class of
Southern Democrats, thousands of them,
voted for our ticket in the November
election, and they prefer seeing their
section receive its share of recognition
even if they do not themselves profit by
| it.
III there is to be favoriteism shown
any section of the country in the loca-
tion of pension agencies, East Tennes-
see, as the center of the mountain region
of the South, is entitled to share in that
favoritesm. This section furnished to
the Union army about $4,000 volunteer
white soldiers, a larger number in pro-
portion to population, than was contri-
buted by any State in the Union. 1t has
not given majority for the Democratic
party since 10 voted for Andrew Jack
son, sixty five years ago.
If there is just ground for the abolish
ment of the Southern agency there is no
reason why all of the agencies should
not be abolished. If, as Mr.. Francis al
leges, $l6l ,407 80 be saved to the Govern
ment by abolishing nine pension agen-
cies, he should, estimating that a like
saving would result from the abolition
of the other nine, have recommended
their total abolition so as to save the
Government $322,Sl5 Ss.
But If, as matter of favoriteism, some
agencies are to be discontinued, re-
spectfully submit that Knoxville is bet
ter entitled to receive favors at the hands
of the Federal Government than Wash
ington or ST. Louis. Both cities were no
toriously disloyal during the war. While
the secessionists of st. Louis were firing
from the housetops, windows and gut
ters upon the brigade of loyal soldiers
quietly marching through their streets,
under the command of the lamented
Gen. Frank Blair, Knoxville and the
mountain region of the South, of which
1t is the center, were contributing more
than 10000 eager volunteers to the Union
army, of whom a larger portion perished
from wounds received in battle and died
in military prisons than in any State in
the Union. The record of this people is
the most glorious chapter in the annals
of American history. Their victory at
Kings Mountain is eulogiZed by Ban
croft as one of the most brilliant and i'm
portant in its results of all the battles of
the Revolutionary war, and is described
by Jefferson as the "joyful seal of Inde-
pendence."
In the war of 1925 the rifemen of
East Tennessee shed imperlshable glory
on American arms, and in the Indian
and Mexican wars East Tennessee main
tanned the reputation for valor and pa
triotism which had earned for Tennes-
see the sobriquet of the "Volunteer
State.n But il was reserved for the war
OF the rebei&on to Illustrate, in its full
measure the depth of the devotion of
East Tennesseans to the preservation of
our Federal Union. When the wild
movement for secession swept over DEM
ocratic free trade Middle and West Ten
nessee and the Cotton States, East Ten
| nessee took its stand for Lincoln and the
Government. Threats could not move its
people, persecution could not break
them, the prison and the gallows had no
| terrors for them. Their devotion to the
national cause did not mean simply the
waving of the flag and the delivery of
| patriotic orations; it meant cold and
| hunger, separation from family and loss
of life. They endured all and faced their
| bloodthirsty enemies with courage SUI
perior to their own.
| About $4,000 white soldiers crowded
into the Union army in those fateful,
disastrous years of 1852, '63 and '64, when
| the draft riots occurred, and the fortunes
of the Union seemed at their lowest.
| The mountain uplift of Tennessee, East
ern Kentucky, Northern Georgia and
| Western North Carolina was barrier
against which the waves of disunion
dashed, only to be shattered. The spirit
of its men, who filed by squads and
singly through the mountains to get
a musket, Federal uniform, and to re-
turn together with the unconquerable
hearts of its magnificent women, was the
real rock of Unionism-the invincible
| force.
upon the events amid which they were
passed, one must be impressed with a
sense of the services rendered to their
country and to posterity by the men
who then and now inhabit that noun
tain section. 1t is hardly possible for
those of the present generation to fully
appreciate the nature and Importance of
those services. How difficult, for in
stance, in these days of railroads from
Kentucky and Ohio, traversing East
Tennessee, to appreciate thoroughly the
All, l., ot,I Il ,N,.,,
| tending the more than $4,000 unarmed
East Tennesseans who journeyed on foot
hundreds of miles, with scant food, that
they might enlist in the Union armies
in Kentucky, with the mountain passes,
all guarded by an armed and vindictive
enemy, from whom, at every mountain
pass, at every hour, day and night, an
attack might be expected.
And if we turned from the physical
trials by which they were beset to the
moral problems that confronted them,
our respect and admiration for them is
only increased. Their persecution by the
local authorities and their constant per-
secution by the military and civil au-
thorities of the Confederate Government,
which exiled them from their homes,
| were all met and overcome by the same
| heroic spirit. 1t is an old story that has
burned on the lips of such eloquent men
as Beecher, Everett, Phillips and Bishop
Simpson, but for the patriot and student
of history, it can never cease to have a
profound interest, for his contemplation
an era full of valuable lessons.
The unflinching devotions of East
Tennesseans to the national cause has
been attested by not only Grant, Sheri-
dan, Thomas, Blair, Howard, and all the
Union officers who were in that section
during the war, but by tour friends the
enemy" In the "Memoirs of jefferson
Davis, by his Wife," the authoress, de-
scribing the return of Mr.. Davis to his
home in Mississippi, on his resignation
from the Senate in 1861, says, "that all
points between Washington and Misss-
sipi. where the railroad train stopped,
Mr.. Davis was enthusiastically applaud
ed by large crowds, except in East Ten
nessee, and here he was insulted."
In these memoirs, reference is made to
| an occurrence at Chattanooga where