page_title: Sevierville, Tennessee
section_title: The Civil War
hierarchical_section_title: Sevierville, Tennessee / History / The Civil War
caption_attribution_description: English: "Mrs. Casey's Warning to Parson Brownlow" — illustrator Dan Beard's depiction of radical pro-Union newspaper editor William "Parson" Brownlow speaking in Sevierville, Tennessee, USA, on the eve of the Civil War in 1861.
context_page_description: Sevierville is a city in and the county seat of Sevier County, Tennessee, located in Eastern Tennessee. The population was 14,807 at the 2010 United States Census and 17,117 according to the 2019 census estimate.
context_section_description: Slavery was not common in Sevier County, although it did occur, especially at the large plantations along the French Broad River. Even before the American Civil War, Sevierville – a hotbed of abolitionist activity – was home to a relatively large community of free African-Americans. In 1861, only 3.8% of the residents of Sevier County voted in favor of secession from the Union.
  In late 1861, a pro-secession speech delivered by Henry Foote sparked an angry response in Sevierville and was followed by a series of explosive anti-secession speeches. The following year, pro-Union Knoxville newspaper editor Parson Brownlow gave a rousing anti-secession speech in Sevierville en route to a hideout in Wears Valley. Brownlow's audience remained gathered throughout the night after a rumor spread that Confederate forces were approaching. Union supporters in Sevier County were harassed and threatened throughout the war, even after Union forces under Ambrose Burnside occupied Knoxville in September 1863.
  Sevierville, situated at a major crossroads south of Knoxville, suffered consistent harassment, looting, and confiscation of property by both Union and Confederate forces moving through the town in 1863 and 1864. Vance Newman, a Union recruiting officer living in Sevierville at the time, later recalled:
  A guard of rebel soldiers in 1864 threatened to burn my house, and the rebel soldiers so often threatened to take my life that I cannot particularize.  They were always after me because of my Union sentiments.
  After Confederate General James Longstreet failed to retake Knoxville in the Battle of Fort Sanders, Union and Confederate forces quickly initiated a series of maneuvers to gain control of the strategic fords along the French Broad, culminating in an engagement near Hodsden's farm at Fair Garden in January 1864. Although the Union forces were victorious, they were later forced to retreat due to lack of supplies. A state of general anarchy ensued that continued until the end of the war. On October 30, 1864, Sevierville resident Terressa McCown wrote in her diary:
  The robbers have come at last, they robbed my husband of his pocketbook, money and papers and pocket knife.  Times get worse everyday.  We know not what will come next.  I feel this morning like nothing but destruction awaits us.
  At the war's end, most of the county's few remaining Confederate sympathizers, most notably members of the Brabson family, were forced to flee.
caption: William "Parson" Brownlow delivers an anti-secession speech in Sevierville in 1861
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