Secession in America and in Tennessee

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...”  (from the preamble to the Declaration of Independence)

Secession is an American tradition.  Not necessarily a legal tradition in most cases, but it is a tradition in America nonetheless.  After all, the United States of America’s “Novus Ordo Seclorum” (“New Order for the Ages”) began with thirteen British colonies seceding from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Tennessee's unofficial but used flag during the War.

Almost everyone is aware that the State of Tennessee seceded from the Union in 1861, but not as many know that the majority of counties in East Tennessee (plus one in Middle Tennessee) almost seceded from the state that year.  Had it happened, that would not have been without precedent in Tennessee’s history, since the state was created by secession, after multiple prior secessions, from the parent state of North Carolina.

In addition to some facts about East Tennessee’s near independence, I’m adding a few facts to put the whole thing into the proper context politically.

Antebellum (pre-Civil War) secession

A large part of the State of Tennessee’s prehistory and history has involved secession.

Watauga Association

Established in 1772 by former Regulators from North Carolina.  These had declared themselves independent of the royal governor and corrupt colonial officials in 1765, inciting the War of Regulation (1765-1771).  After losing that conflict, James Robertson led a party west across the Appalachians, where they organized themselves as an independent government along the Watauga River in Upper East Tennessee.

At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775, the Watauga Association joined with the settlements upon the Nolichucky River as the Washington District of North Carolina.  The other frontier settlements inside the later Tennessee, North-of-Holston and Carter’s Valley, made up Pendelton District of Washington County, Virginia.

American Revolution

What began April 1775 as a rebellion for more autonomy in both the government and the economy became a war for independence when the Continental Congress made such a declaration in July 1776.  At the time, the United Kingdom had not just thirteen but twenty-two colonies in the North American mainland, and it was not thirteen which seceded from the United Kingdom but fourteen.

The seceding colonies were Massachusetts Bay (including Maine), New Hampshire (including Vermont), Connecticut, Rhode Island and Prividence Plantations, New York, Gardiner’s Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Three Lower Counties (Delaware), Maryland, Virginia (including West Virginia), North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

The loyalist colonies were Rupert’s Land, Quebec (formerly Canada and including Quebec, southern Ontario, Labrador, and the Ohio Country), Newfoundland, St. John’s (now Prince Edward) Island, Nova Scotia (including New Brunswick and Cape Breton Island), East Florida, West Florida, and the Indian Reserve (which was actually a protectorate).

Westsylvania

Westsylvania (roughly the current state of West Virginia plus the southwest corner of Pennsylvania) seceded from the states of Virginia and Pennsylvania in 1776 and petitioned to join the new United States. Their appeal was turned down and what is now West Virginia became the District of West Augusta at the end of 1776.  The would-be citizens of Westsylvania in southwest Pennsylvania continued to seek separation until 1782 when the state legislature made any discussion of the region’s independence treason subject to the death penalty.

Washington District

Washington District successfully petitioned to become part of North Carolina in 1777 after failing to be accepted by Virginia as part of that state’s Washington County.  In North Carolina, it became that state’s Washington County, and included what are now the Allegheny, Ashe, and Watauga Counties in North Carolina.

It was partly in response to the creation of Washington County in support of the Revolution that the Cherokee leader Dragging Canoe and his militant followers seceded from the rest of their Nation after the latter made peace that year.  They first relocated to what was long known as the Chickamauga country, after Dragging Canoe’s town on South Chickamauga Creek.  However, they remained Cherokee rather than becoming a separate tribe as some claim.

Republic of Vermont

That same year, 1777, the Republic of Vermont declared its independence from both New Hampshire and New York, first attempting to Quebec as New Connecticut before organizing the independent republic.  This Republic of Vermont was the first government in the New World to outlaw slavery and to allow all adult males to vote.

New Ireland

In July 1779, the British captured part of what is now Maine from the rebellious colony/state of Masschusetts, mostly around Penobscot Bay, and created the colony of New Ireland.  Britain returned the area to Massachusetts in the Treaty of Parish in 1783.

Pendelton District

In 1780, the Pendelton District was added to North Carolina.

Cumberland Compact

Also in 1780, James Robertson, leader of the pioneers on the Watauga River, joined with others in what is now the Nashville area to establish the Cumberland Compact.  The Cumberland District became North Carolina’s Davidson County three years later.

Republic of Franklin

After North Carolina reneged on giving its western territories to the federal government in 1784, the people of those counties, eight in East Tennessee (Sullivan, Spencer, Wayne, Washington, Greene, Caswell, Sevier, and Blount) and three in Middle Tennessee (Davidson, Sumner, and Tennessee) seceded from North Carolina.  When the Continental Congress failed to accept them as the 14th State of Frankland, the future Tennesseans became the Free Republic of Franklin. 

The independent republic’s territory included the modern East Tennessee counties of Sullivan, Hawkins, Johnson, Carter, Unicoi, Washington, Greene, Cocke, Jefferson, Hamblen, Sevier, and Blount; the modern Middle Tennessee counties of Davidson, Sumner, Montgomery, Robertson, and Humphries; and the western North Carolina counties of Allegheny, Ashe, and Watauga, which were then part of Washington County.  Its first capital was Jonesboro, but was later moved to Greeneville.

The Spanish Conspiracy

In 1786, the leaders of the Republic of Franklin, along with the with the governments of the Kentucky District (Fayette, Jefferson, and Lincoln Counties) of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the newly-appointed Superintendent for Southern Indian Affairs, began scheming with Esteban Rodriguez Miro, governor of Spanish Louisiana, to bring their territories into the Spanish Empire.  James Robertson, Daniel Smith, and Anthony Bledsoe from the Cumberland region and Joseph Martin and John Sevier of the eastern counties, along with James Wilkinson, governor of Kentucky, and James White, the Indian superintendent, were the main conspirators. 

I should point out that at this time Spain’s province La Florida claimed all the territory to the Ohio River anyway and had for some time.  In fact, Spain had established short-lived forts inside what are now North Carolina and Tennessee as early as 1567.

The conspirators’ chief vector of communication with Governor Miro was Don Diego de Gardoqui in New Orleans, capital of Louisiana west of the Mississippi, which had been in Spanish hands since the end of the French and Indian War in 1763.  The plans of all the parties involved fell apart due to two main factors: first, the dithering of the Spanish government in Madrid, and, second, a letter from Joseph Martin to Governor Miro which made its way into the hands of the Georgia legislature.

Trans-Oconee Republic

In May 1794, the Georgia Revolutionary hero Elijah Clarke and several hundred followers crossed to the west side of the Oconee River, then the boundary between the State of Georgia and, primarily, the Muscogee.  Dispersing across a wide area covering four modern counties (Greene, Morgan, Putnam, Baldwin), they established the Trans-Oconee Republic.  They built six fortified settlements and blockhouses across the region.  Georgia finally intervened, sending in the militia, but the republic’s citizens offered no resistance.  The effort ended 28 September.

State of Muskogee

Former Loyalist soldier in the Revolution William Augustus Bowles founded the State of Muskogee within the borders of Spanish East Florida in October 1799, with his capital at Miccousukee.  Its population was made up of Seminoles, Black Seminoles, Lower Creeks, pirates, Spanish deserters, and English adventurers.  The pirates staffed Muskogee’s three-ship navy.  When Bowles lost his British backers, the scheme began to unravel, and with Spain and the U.S.A. both gunning for him, his days of freedom were not long.  He was taken prisoner at Tuckabatchee and handed over to the Spanish governor at Pensacola in 1803.

Sabine Free State

The Sabine Free State didn’t have to secede from anyone because it was abandoned by both the United States and the Empire of Spain in 1806 because the two disagreed over the boundary of the Louisiana Territory purchased by the U.S.A. from Napoleonic France in 1803.  The disputed territory lay between the Mississippi River in the east and the Sabine River in the west and was populated mostly by a tri-racial ethnic group called the Redbones, similar to Tennessee’s own Melungeons.  The dispute was resolved in 1821 in favor of the U.S. claims, and the Sabine is the border between the states of Louisiana and Texas.

Republic of West Florida

The Republic of West Florida seceded from the Empire of Spain in 1810.  Spain had acquired its province of West Florida in the treaty which ended the first American war of secession, our Revolution.  Great Britain had gained La Florida at the end of the French and Indian War in exchange for abandoning claims to France’s Louisiana west of the Mississippi, which became Spanish Louisiana.  The British divided La Florida into East and West, the latter including the southern tips of Alabama and Mississippi and the northern section of the eastern portion of the modern state of Louisiana.  The republic’s independence lasted three months until the U.S. arrived and assumed control.

New Ireland (again)

During the War of 1812, a former extinct colony resurrected.  As part of its war effort, Britain against seized a good part of what is now Maine from Massachusetts in 1814.  This time it lasted just eight months.

Hartford Convention

Beginning in December 1814, Federalists in New England met in the Hartford Convention to discuss their grievances of the War of 1812, the dominance of the (Jeffersonian) Republicans and the so-called “Virginia dynasty”, the Three-fifths Clause (in which slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person for census purposes and therefore representation in Congress), and other issues.  The more militant delegates wanted to secede from the Union and join Canada, but those desires never gained much ground.  In the end, Andrew Jackson’s spectacular victory in the Battle of New Orleans ended those plans and the outcome of the war greatly discredited the Federalists.

State of Maine

The citizens of the northern part of the state of Massachusetts did not like being batted back and forth like a tennis ball.  They therefore seceded from Massachusetts and petitioned Congress to become their own state in 1819.  The petition was approved by Congress in 1820 as part of the Missouri Compromise.

Nullification Crisis

The State of South Carolina first threatened secession over the Tariff of 1928 enacted during the term of John Quincy Adams.  The election of southerner Andrew Jackson of Tennessee as President thwarted that for the meantime, but when he didn’t act on their complaints, the more extreme began to advocate nullification.  Nullification was claimed to be a right states had should the federal government pass a law to which the state objected.

The Tariff Act of 1832 assuaged much of their concerns, and the threat of secession subsided.  However, nullification formed one of the central arguments of Southerners in the Great Secession.

Republic of Texas

The Republic of Texas seceded from United Mexican States in 1836 and won its independence the same year with Sam Houston, former U.S. Representative for Tennessee, former Tennessee Governor, and adopted son of John Jolly, then Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation West, as its first President. 

What is not as well known by much of the American public is that far more of those fighting for independence and supporting it were Spanish-speaking Tejanos rather than English-speaking Texicans from America.  Houston had been adopted by Jolly while living at Cayuga on what used to be known as Jolly’s Island—Hiwassee Island.

Republic of California

Another short-lived republic declared its independence from the United Mexican States during the first year of the U.S.-Mexican War which lasted from 1846 to 1848.  Like its predecessor, the Republic of California lasted just three months before the army arrived and took over.

The Great Secession(s)

Of course, the biggest and most damaging secession in U.S. history occurred in from late 1860 thru the first half of 1861.  Though side issues of high tariffs, usurious loan rates by Northern banks, and growing influence of northern manufacturers often to the detriment of nascent Southern manufacturing, the overwhelmingly dominant issue was slavery and related matters.

Fire Eaters

The most militant pro-slavery advocates called “Fire-Eaters”, representing nine Southern states, held a convention in Nashville, Tennessee, in June 1850 calling for secession of all slave states and a separate union of their own.  The Compromise of 1850 worked out between Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas with the sanction of President Millard Fillmore averted the crisis momentarily.  South Carolina threatened to secede over the admission of California as a free (non-slave) state; the new New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory were allowed to choose.  But a second Fire Eater convention in Nashville in November failed to get support.

The next year legislators in several slave states introduced articles of secession , but Southern Unionists defeated the measures.

The Fire-Eaters came back to the forefront after the Kansas-Nebraska Act, passed in 1854, overturned nearly all provisions of the Compromise of 1850.  The violence of “Bleeding Kansas”, as the Kansas-Missouri border war was called and such incidents as the speech of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner in 1856 strongly attacking slavery.  Senator Sumner was one of the very first Senators from the new Republican Party, founded in 1854.

Two days after Sumner’s speech, in which he had called Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina a “pimp for slavery”, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks, nephew of Senator Butler, attacked him on the floor of the Senate chamber and beat him nearly to death.  It was three years before Sumner was physically rehabilitated enough to return to the Senate.

Secession of the North from the South?

The abolitionists had their own extremists, with William Lloyd Garrison, editor of the anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator, calling for the immediate abolition of slavery and ultimately for the free states to separate themselves from the “Slave Power” of the South. 

John Brown

But the most extreme of abolitionists was John Brown of Kansas, one of the leaders of anti-slave forces in that state’s border war with slave state Missouri, who seized the armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to start a slave rebellion in that state to incite a general slave revolution.  Three years of planning and fund-raising preceded the affair.

Presidential election of 1860

On 6 November 1860, former Congressman Abraham Lincoln of the anti-slavery, pro-abolition Republican Party was elected President of the United States, setting in motion the chain of events which led to the Great Secession and the American Civil War/War Between the States/War of the Rebellion/War of the Secession.

South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama secede

The first entity voting to secede from the Union was the State of South Carolina on 20 December 1860.

On 9 January 1861, the legislature of the State of Mississippi, which ten years before had voted that states did not have the right of secession from the Union, also voted to secede.

The State of Florida followed on the next day, 10 January 1861.

The day after that, 11 January 1861, the State of Alabama approved secession, and this brought about the first major dissension from this course of action.  Unionist sentiment was nearly universal in North Alabama, but it had been outvoted by Lower Alabama, whose delegates got to vote for three-fifths of their slaves to continue to keep them in slavery.

Georgia secedes

Speaking of the State of Georgia, it voted to secede on 19 January 1861.

Some three days later, 22 January 1861, Senator Jefferson Davis in his way home to Mississippi stayed at the Crutchfield House in Chattanooga across James Street (MLK Blvd.) from Union Station. He gave a vehemently pro-secession speech in the main dining room of the hotel and was attacked by William Crutchfield, brother of the owner, trying to do to Davis what Preston Brooks did to Charles Sumner.  Tom Crutchfield, who was pro-secession, broke up the fight and averted the duel that was supposed that place later.

Louisiana secedes

The State of Louisiana voted to secede from the Union on 26 January 1861.

Confederacy forms

On 8 February 1861, the six former U.S. states that had seceded from the Union so far—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana—voted to join together as the Confederate States of America.

Texas secedes

The State of Texas voted to secede from the Union to join the new Confederacy on 23 February 1861.

Free State of Franklin

On 24 February 1861, the very secessionist Franklin County (seat Winchester) at the eastern edge of Middle Tennessee voted to secede from the State of Tennessee and become the pro-secessionist Free State of Franklin, sending its request to Nashville the same day.

New POTUS

Republican from the State of Illinois Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th President of the United States on 4 March 1861, replacing one of my collateral ancestors, James Buchanan.

War of the Rebellion begins

Confederate General G.T. Beauregard, a French Creole from Louisiana, initiated the Battle of Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor on 12 April 1861, and accepted the surrender of its garrison under Union Maj. Robert Anderson two days later.  The Civil War had begun.

Arkansas secedes

On 6 May 1861, the State of Arkansas voted to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy.

The Tennessee General Assembly approved articles of secession on 6 May 1861 and sent them down to voters.  The legislature and Governor Isham Harris, who was very pro-secession, also voted and approved a military league with the Confederacy.

North Carolina and Virginia secede

The State of North Carolina voted to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy on 20 May 1861.

The Commonwealth of Virginia followed suit on 23 May 1861.

Tennessee secedes

Tennessee held its referendum on 8 June 1861, with voters reversing themselves to give Gov. Harris and his fellow secessionists a very clear majority (an earlier vote in February had failed by a large majority).  Six counties in East Tennessee (Sullivan, Monroe, Polk, Meigs, Rhea, and Sequatchie) voted in favor.  Hamilton County and the county seat of Harrison voted against it, while the small town of Chattanooga, a major railroad center and burgeoning manufacturing municipality, voted affirmative.  Franklin County’s appeal to be allowed to secede became a moot point.

Missouri secession

On 31 October 1861, a rump legislature (one without a quorum) of the State of Missouri called by the deposed Gov. Jackson passed articles of secession from the Union.

Kentucky secession

On 20 November 1861, a shadow government in the Commonwealth of Kentucky (styling itself the “Convention of the People of Kentucky”) voted to secede from the Union.

Southern Unionist backlash

Sentiment in the South was anything but overwhelmingly supportive, and early resistance included a number of counter secessions.  Later some of these efforts proved longer lasting and more successful.

Independent State of Dade, the truth

According to a local myth, the Independent State of Dade seceded from Georgia even before the campaign had started, which, believe it or not, did not begin until July of 1860.  The newspaper Atlanta Constitution, then pro-segregationist, reported upon Dade County’s reentry to the State and the Union on 4 July 1945 that Dade was extremely pro-slavery that it had seceded from both bodies it was then reentering in May 1860.

In truth, Dade had long been known even before that as the State of Dade because of its isolation, there being no road giving the county access to its state.  And while Southern states were already discussing secession after the John Brown affair and the propaganda of the Fire-Eaters, if Dade really seceded at that time, it did so to stay in the Union rather than leave it as much of the state wished.  North Georgia, particularly the northwest counties of Dade and Walker, were hotbeds of Unionist sentiment and wartime pro-Union partisan activity.

Tennessee’s first secession vote

On 9 February 1861, a vote about whether to call a convention to decide if Tennessee should secede failed 69 thousand to 58 thousand.  A clear majority of Tennesseans didn’t want to even discuss leaving the Union.  The vote was the most lopsided in East Tennessee, with only two counties, Sullivan and Meigs, having a majority in favor.  With Tennessee still securely in the Union at that time, the plans of North Alabama for the joint State of Nickajack collapsed.

Free State of Van Zandt

Shortly after receiving word of the Texas secession vote on 23 February 1861, some 350 citizens of Van Zandt County, Texas, which was virtually free of slaves, held a convention in Canton, the county seat, and declared themselves to have seceded from the State.

Free State of Nickajack

In April 1861, after the Battle of Fort Sumter, earlier discussions of Unionists in North Alabama uniting with unionists in East Tennessee grew more serious, with some proposing the two regions unite as a new state named Nickajack after the former Cherokee town along with the Unionist counties of Dade and Walker in Northwest Georgia.

First East Tennessee Convention

East Tennessee had long been fertile ground for anti-slavery sentiment, with a sizable majority there favoring emancipation (voluntary manumission of slaves by their owners) rather than the more radical abolition of slavery by force of law.  However, the region did have a sizable and very influential minority favoring the latter. 

On 30 May 1861, twenty-nine counties from East Tennessee (all thirty minus Rhea) plus the Middle Tennessee county of Macon began to hold a convention in Knoxville to discuss counter-measures.  Its second and final day featured then Senator and later President Andrew Johnson, with delegates agreeing to meet again.

Second East Tennessee Convention

The East Tennessee Convention reconvened on 17 June 1861 at Greeneville, former capital of the 18th century secessionist (from North Carolina) Republic of Franklin.  Senator Johnson did not attend due to very credible threats to his life.  Instead, the most radical and vociferous delegate at the meeting was Hamilton County’s own William Clift, who proposed the counties in East Tennessee unilaterally secede from the State of Tennessee, form their own state government, and fight the Confederacy. 

In the end, the delegates of the East Tennessee Convention voted to separate from Tennessee only with the agreement of the state government and sent the request to Nashville on 20 June 1861.  Their request was summarily rebuffed on 29 June.

U.S. State of West Virginia

The would-be state of Westsylvania, minus the portion in southwest Pennsylvania, finally became a reality when the State of West Virginia voted to secede from the Commonwealth of Virginia of the C.S.A and rejoin the Union on 17 June 1861.

Free State of Winston

                           

On 4 July 1861, delegates from the North Alabama counties of Winston, Marion, Franklin, Lawrence, Morgan, Blount, Marshall, Walker, and Fayette met at Looney’s Tavern in Winston County to draw up condemnation of Alabama’s secession from the Union.  At the end of this meeting, the delegates from Winston County, who were the heart of the effort, declared the Free State of Winston, independent of Alabama but neutral in the military conflict between the Union and the Confederacy.

Secessionist state of Tennessee stops secession of East Tennessee

Tennessee’s Gov. Harris ordered Brig. Gen. Felix Zollicoffer and his men into East Tennessee to suppress the growing resistance in the region to Tennessee’s secession from the Union on 26 July 1861.  His mission was to prevent East Tennessee from seceding from the state. 

By then the Provisional Army of Tennessee (which, interestingly, included at least two all Afro-American regiments organized in Memphis) had merged into the Confederate Army (minus the two Afro-American regiments, which were refused).  In addition to this command, Zollicoffer was appointed the first commanding officer of the geographical command in East Tennessee.

Crossroads Treaty

Meanwhile, William Clift had returned to Hamilton County and as commanding officer of the county’s militia mustered the 7th Tennessee Militia into service at a camp on his large farm in Sale Creek.  After nearly three months which involved drilling and training but little else, Col. Clift signed a truce with Col. George Gillespie of the 43rd Tennessee Volunteer Infantry in the Confederate Army on 19 September 1861 at Smith’s Crossroads (now Dayton), Tennessee. 

This Crossroads Treaty was basically a pact of non-aggression between two men who knew each other and travelled in the same social circles.  Col. Clift owned one of the largest farms in the north of the county while Col. Gillespie owned a large plantation south of the Tennessee River west of Chattanooga Creek.  Gillespie’s brother James was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who owned a large farm east of South Chickamauga Creek near Chickamauga Station but few slaves.  Clift’s son Moses was a major in Forrest’s Cavalry Corps who arrested his own father carrying dispatches between the Army of the Cumberland in Chattanooga and the Army of the Ohio in Knoxville in late 1863.

East Tennessee Bridge Burnings

The first action of the war which affected the Chattanooga region occurred on 8 November 1861 when two railroad bridges across the South Chickamauga Creek were burned by Unionist sympathizers.

In late October, Senator Johnson had begged President Lincoln for Union troops to protect the loyal citizens of East Tennessee.  Unionists in East Tennessee directed by William Carter of Knoxville were going to destroy nine major railroad bridges in East Tennessee and one in North Georgia to ease an invasion by troops in the Department of the Cumberland under the command of Brig. Gen. William T. Sherman.  Alfred Cate of Bradley County was in charge of the attacks on the bridges over the Hiwassee River between Charleston and Calhoun, two bridges of the Western & Atlantic Railroad over the Chickamauga River east of Chattanooga, and the long bridge of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad (also used by the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad) at Bridgeport, Alabama.

Unfortunately for the Unionists, Brig. Gen. Sherman got cold feet and called it off 7 November, in spite of his subordinate Brig. Gen. George Thomas throwing a fit demanding the army not renege on its commitment.  The bridges assigned to Cate were except for the one at Bridgeport were successfully destroyed.  Of the rest, only those of the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad over Lick Creek at Carters Depot (Watauga) and over the Holston River at Union Depot (Bluff City) were successfully destroyed.

The destroyed bridges were soon rebuilt.  Brig. Gen. Felix Zollicoffer, commander of the District of East Tennessee under Department No. 2, put the region under martial law to counter the threat of saboteurs and to try the bridge-burners by court martial.  Five of those involved were hung, around 150 imprisoned in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  Those who escaped retribution, including Carter and Cate, fled to Union lines in Kentucky and joined the U.S. Army.

Another local consequence was the disbandment of Col. Clift’s 7th Tennessee Militia on 16 November 1861 in the face of the 6th Alabama Volunteer Infantry, which had been called to end their threat one way or another.  Most of those mustered out went to Kentucky to enlist in the Union Army but Clift and others decided to stay behind in the mountains as jayhawkers.

Shortly after the bridge-burnings, Sherman had a nervous breakdown which caused him to be removed from command.

On 8 April 1862, President of the C.S.A. Jefferson Davis declared East Tennessee enemy territory and put the region under martial law.

Free and Independent State of Scott

In late 1861, the court of Scott County in East Tennessee on the border with the Commonwealth of Kentucky voted to secede from the state as the Free and Independent State of Scott.

By May 1862, Col. Clift had come down from the mountains and begun reorganizing his militia as the 7th East Tennessee Volunteer Infantry, U.S.A. in Scott, Morgan, and Anderson Counties.  It was specifically authorized as a partisan ranger unit, based in Scott County.  The regiment was broken up in early 1863 and Clift was assigned to the staff of Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside of the Army of the Ohio.  He was later arrested by his own son, Maj. Moses Clift of Forrest’s Cavalry Corps, during the Siege of Chattanooga but later escaped from captivity on the Underground Railroad.

Hurst Nation

As the state considered secession, McNairy County in West Tennessee was sharply divided between its southern half, which strongly favored it, and the northern half, which strongly opposed it.  The dominant landowners in that northern section were the Hursts, and their lead member Fielding Hurst was imprisoned shortly after the East Tennessee Bridge Burnings in November 1861.  Released in February 1862 when the Union captured Nashville, Hurst returned home and in August raised the First West Tennessee Cavalry (USA), which was redesignated Sixth Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry (USA) in July 1863.  With his regiment, Col. Hurst managed to maintain northern McNairy County’s independence for the remainder of the war, resulting in the section’s becoming known as Hurst Nation.

Free State of Jones

The Free State of Jones, formerly Jones County, seceded from the State of Mississippi in February 1864 after the Battle of Meridian (14-20 February), at least according to Maj. Gen. Sherman, who now commanded the Army of the Tennessee.  The Free State of Jones had its own military, the Knight Company, led by Confederate deserter Newton Knight

Readmissions and reentries

The State of Tennessee was readmitted to the Union on 24 July 1866.

The State of Arkansas was readmitted to the Union on 22 June 1868.

The State of Florida was readmitted to the Union on 25 June 1868.

The State of North Carolina was readmitted to the Union on 4 July 1868.

The States of Louisiana and South Carolina were readmitted to the Union on 9 July 1868.

The State of Alabama was readmitted to the Union on 13 July 1868.

The State of Virginia was readmitted to the Union on 26 January 1870.

The State of Mississippi was readmitted to the Union on 23 February 1870.

The State of Texas was readmitted to the Union on 30 March 1870.

The State of Georgia was readmitted to the Union on 15 July 1870.

The Free State of Dade officially reentered the State of Georgia on 4 July 1945.

The Free and Independent State of Scott officially reentered the State of Tennessee in 1986.

A Voice from Gaza

“Apartheid is a crime against humanity.  Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property.  It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality.  It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to international law.  It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.” – Nelson Mandela, former prisoner-of-conscience for 25 years

The most singular physical manifestation of the apartheid which the State of Israel is inflicting on the native population of Palestine is the Apartheid Wall surrounding the West Bank.  It is quite similar to the Berlin Wall destroyed in 1989 and to the so-called “Peace Lines” built in 1969 between Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods in Belfast, Derry, Portadown, and other cities which still exist. 

The Israeli-inflicted apartheid is harshest, however, in the Gaza Strip.  Since 2006, the State of Israel has converted the Gaza Strip into a 141 sq. mi. (365 sq. km) prison comparable to the Warsaw Ghetto.  Don’t get mad at goy me for that comparison; Israeli survivors of the Ghetto and of the Holocaust made that comparison before me.

And for what crime has Israel been inflicting this illegal collective punishment on the people of Gaza?  In 2006, in what international observers judged to be a cleaner election than many in most developed countries, Hamas won a majority of seats in the parliament of Occupied Palestine fairly and squarely.  In local elections, Hamas won a large majority of the offices and council seats in the Gaza Strip, where Fatah won few.  People in the Gaza Strip were sick of neglect by Ramallah and the corruption and complacency of Fatah.

I do not like Hamas, any more than I like any sectarian, theocratic political group regardless of their professed religion, but it was a clean election and they won fairly.  Israel and the U.S.A. hubristically failed in their analysis and did little to support any alternative.  Thus red-faced at being caught with their pants down, the IDF (Israeli Defense Force), the Mossad, and the governments of Ehud Barak and Bibi Netanyahu have taken out their chagrin on the people of Gaza, collective punishment in violation of every tenet of all international law and standards of human rights for exercising their freedom to vote.  Especially after the coup d’etat they attempted through Fatah in 2007 failed so miserably.

In the recent war of Israel upon the Gaza Strip dubbed “Operation Pillar of Defense”, which began with Israel’s assassination of Ahmed Jabari, 162 Palestinians died compared to just 5 Israelis.  Of those Palestinians, at least 30 among the 110 civilian victims were school-age children.  Also among the dead were eleven members from four generations of a single family whose home, according to official IDF sources, had been deliberately targeted. 

In their 2008-2009 invasion of the Gaza Strip dubbed “Operation Cast Lead”, the IDF killed 1400 Palestinians, 353 of whom were children, while suffering only 13 casualties.  Such lop-sided casualty rates remind me of Mark Twain’s story “War Prayer”, his response to a massacre during the Moro War (1902-1913) of 900 civilians (men, women, children) on the Philippine island of Mindanao by American troops who suffered a mere 35 casualties, all by friendly fire.

The following was written by my niece in Gaza City, Hadeel, who is 16 years old, and with her permission I am including it so that readers may know “the rest of the story”, which you may not be getting from CNN, Fox, or MSNBC.

 “Yesterday night, I almost closed my eyes to catch some Z's after a bloody, miserable day, I barely slept, the sound of explosions began approaching, it was everywhere, I was telling myself it's ok, it's just one, don't worry it's almost over, another explosion, I said that is the last one then everything will be over, Booomb! Another one, two and three ... it was too much so that I got up from bed.  With every sound of shaking bombs I was fleeing to my parents' room, daddy took me in his arms, he tried hard to stop my rainy eyes. 

“Lying between my dad's arms, covering my head under the blanket, closing my eyes to this dark world, having nightmares even while I'm not sleeping, that was how I spent this night. Daddy was watching the window and warning me with every rocket-propelled, he was whispering LIGHT!  As a sign to hold my breath and get ready for the next explosion!

“Daddy thought that I was crying because I was afraid of death.  Not really! It was a crying with a different flavor; I was crying because it was the first time to feel that I'm going to lose someone of my family, despite everything was going, I was not afraid of death, it doesn't scare me anymore, even if I knew I would be underground within seconds...but what is scaring me the thought of losing someone I love in these events, I may lose the life of my father, mother, brother, or a friend.  I will be lucky if it is about losing my life only. With every explosion, I could see the death becomes closer to one of them, many thoughts were spoiling in my head, I was extremely weak, it was the first time to feel that weakness, I was someone I've never met before.

“Fire, bombs, explosions, blood and death, it was too much for a girl in my age to endure, to breathe the atmosphere of blood smell is something terrible!  As if you are experiencing death more than once while you are still alive!!

“Then, for a moment, I closed my eyes. There was an instant of extreme cold and total darkness. Suddenly I was in deep, dreamless, sleep.

“I opened my eyes upon my mom, she was raising her hands to the sky and praying to God to keep us safe, this increased my faith, I said to myself: they can never defeat us! I decided to curse my weakness and shackle it with chains; I decided to be stronger, yes stronger!”

– Hadeel M. Abu Oun, 19 November 2012, Gaza City, Palestine

According to Gideon Levy, an Israeli reporter for the newspaper Ha’aretz, since April 2001 a total of 59 Israelis have died in hostilities between them compared to 4,717 Palestinians in both the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

There’s this story about a Palestinian, an American, a French Iranian, and an Israeli meeting on a tour boat on the River Seine through Paris…sounds like the beginning of a joke, right?  Only it really happened; I know because I was one of them.  The picture we had taken of the four of us together has proven to be one of the more popular that I’ve posted to Facebook.  It’s about peace, and the hope for a future in which We the People of the World will finally fulfill President Eisenhower’s prediction that one day we will want peace so much that our governments will have to step aside and let us have it. 

And if they fail to do that, we will just step around them.

(NOTE:  This article was originally written as an opinion piece in a local online newspaper, The Chattanoogan.  However, when I sent it, I received this reply from the editor: "chuck not sure want to get into that topic".  He was silencing not just me but my niece and all the other victims in the Gaza Strip.)

America has never been a "Christian Nation"

“Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.” – Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (1791)

Christians are no more persecuted in America than strictly observant Shia Muslims loyal to “the system” are in the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Christians here who complain that they are being persecuted are like the slave owners, and wannabe slave-owners, in the antebellum Old South who constantly complained that their rights were being violated by those who wanted to abolish slavery, or their Jim Crow successors who complained in the mid-20th century that their rights were being violated because they couldn’t discriminate against African-Americans.

The Treaty of Tripoli

Much has been made by both sides of Article 11 in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli between the new United States of America and the Bey of Tripolitania (essentially Libya) that, “The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”  The treaty was negotiated by Consul-General John Barlow with full authority from President Washington, a fact with which then Vice President and later President Adams was completely aware and in full agreement. 

It is irrelevant to the mind of Congress and of the President at the time of its passage that this treaty was later superceded by another and that the English translation of the Arabic original may not have been the best.  The word-for-word accuracy of Consul-General John Barlow’s English translation of the Arabic original he himself had written does not matter.  Whether the Article 11 of his translation exists in that Arabic original is immaterial.  The one thing which does count is that Consul-General Barlow’s translation was the one presented to the Senate, read aloud in chambers to the entire body, approved unanimously, signed into law by Pres. John Adams, and published in every major newspaper in the country to little but yawns in response.

Christian Dominionists and other theocrats doth protest too much.  On the other hand, the opposing position, that the treaty and its Article 11 establish under the law that America was not founded as a “Christian Nation” is equally flawed.  And also unnecessary, since history already does that better than any single piece of legislation could do.

Religion in the English Colonies

The colonization of North America by the kingdom of England rested in the hands of two stock corporations, Plymouth Company (later succeeded by Massachusetts Bay Company) for the northern territories and London Company for the southern territories, both owned by the greater Virginia Company.  Yes, investors bought shares with money which the companies used as capital for the colonization ventures, and for one reason and one only: to make a profit.  Had not the stock companies’ capital existed and had they not expected to make more money than they had invested, none of the colonies would have been established. 

America may have been colonized by both pulpit and profit, but the latter weighed much more in importance.

True, the colony at New Plymouth counted among its founders English Separatists (Calvinists who wanted to separate completely from the Church of England), but the entrepreneurs and soldiers who were mainline Anglicans that came with them, “The Strangers” as they were called by the Separatists, made a 60% majority.  That majority was recruited and paid by the Merchant Adventurers of London.

The earlier colony at Jamestown had a religious component too, but it was mainline Church of England and its entrepreneur element was overwhelmingly dominant. 

The later colony at Massachusetts Bay established a government which restricted its electorate, and most of its profits, to the Puritan sect of the Church of England.  Puritans were Calvinists much like their Separatist cousins but considered themselves Anglicans whose duty it was to purify their church and force everyone else to worship their way.  But even there, and in its spin-offs, the profit motive trumped the desires of the pulpit.

Celebrations, even the observances of, Christmas and Easter were forbidden by law with harsh penalties attached in the colonies of New England, by the way.  The Puritans, both here and on the other side of the Great Pond, launched the original “war on Christmas”.

Besides the 19 unfortunate persons hanged, the one tortured to death because he wouldn’t make a plea, and the 50 who were thrown in prison under such harsh conditions that 5 died during the Salem witch hysteria, Massachusetts Bay Colony also persecuted Christians of other faiths, hanging 4 Quakers and imprisoning countless others.

In Puritan New England, there was no singing of anything but hymns unaccompanied by instruments, no dancing whatsoever, no toys for children and especially not dolls, no education but religious education, nothing but work and church and more work.  They did, however, drink beer and later rum in moderation, carrying over from Europe where no one in their right mind drank water (nearly all sources were polluted).  The overwhelming majority of weddings occurred because of pregnancy, but kissing one’s spouse after six months at sea in public could land a man in the stocks for three hours.

In 1775, all the southern colonies of the kingdom of Great Britain (Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland) had the Church of England as their established church, while in New England were nearly all Congregational (as the Puritans had become), the one exception there being Rhode Island.  The Church of England was also established in New York, but the colony there also had a long-established tradition of tolerance for differing, including non-Christian, creeds.  Pennsylvania and Delaware had no established church; the former never had and the second had none after becoming part of Pennsylvania (it was first New Sweden, and later part of New Netherlands beforehand).

However, the basis upon which English (later British) colonies were founded and governed, including what status religion had within them, has no bearing whatsoever on the foundation of the United States of America as a separate free and independent nation.  As a matter of fact, only 7% of Americans had any church affiliation by the end of the Revolution, largely due to a lack of religious interest, particularly in orthodox denominations.  Many of the “sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-God” Calvinists in the New England states had become Unitarians, Universalists, Transcendentalists, and Spiritualists, for example.

Not one of the first six U.S. Presidents was an orthodox Christian.  George Washington was a practicing Episcopalian but his personal were Deist and Freethinking and fit in with what is called the Broad Church that had existed in the Church of England (and the rest of the Anglican Communion) since the 17th century.  John Adams was a Unitarian who started as an orthodox Congregationalist.  Thomas Jefferson grew up Church of England and was technically an Episcopalian, but his own ideas were Deist and Unitarian.  James Madison and James Monroe were both Deists who attended the Episcopal Church.  John Quincy Adams was, like his father, a Unitarian.  Andrew Jackson didn’t join a church (Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.) until after leaving office.

A New Order for the Ages

What is relevant in that regard is the collection of documents upon which that Nation was founded:  the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Constitution, and the U.S. Bill of Rights.  In not one of those documents is Christianity, or any other religion, mentioned or alluded to.  The sole one of those four in which “God” is mentioned (Declaration of Independence) specifies “Nature’s God”, the Enlightenment concept of God held by deists and other freethinkers rather than by that of any denomination of the religion of Christianity or of any other religion.

In establishing a “New Order for the Ages” (Novus Ordo Seclorum; one of the three mottos on the Great Seal adopted in 1782), the Founding Fathers rejected the hereditary monarchy and both its Lords Spiritual (religious prelates) and Lords Temporal (hereditary nobility).  If they saw themselves as a light shining on a hill, it was as the light of reason in a New Rome.

Indeed, when seeking a location for a national capital, they seized upon the community of Rome, Virginia, with seven hills and a river named Tiber.  The Mall between the Capitol and the White House was consciously built in imitation of the Roman Forum.  In the Capitol itself, an eternal flame burned in the basement could be viewed through a large circular hole with a rail in the ground floor until the mid-19^th century.  The first Congress convened on 25 December 1789, Christmas Day.  Mail ran seven days a week, including Sundays.

The earliest document, the Declaration of Independence of 1776, contains, as stated before, a reference to “Nature’s God”, which is specifically a freethinking deistic concept of God.  There is also a mention of “trusting in Divine Providence”, another deist concept.  But it does need to be highlighted that the Declaration of Independence is not law.

The Articles of Confederation of 1781, which preceded the Constitution, contained nothing about religion at all, being too short. 

It was, however, the Congress of the Confederation which in 1782 adopted the Great Seal of the United States which remains today.  On its obverse (front) side is a bald eagle with an olive branch in its right claw and arrows in its left, with a banner in its beak which reads “E pluribus unum”, or “From many one”.  That was the design and motto proposed.  The originally proposed design for the reverse, the Eye of Providence over a thirteen-level pyramid, was also retained but its mottoes were changed.  “Deo favente” (God favors) became  “Annuit coeptis” (He approves) and “Perennis” (Everlasting) was  discarded in favor of “Novus ordo seclorum” (New order for the ages).  Less religious theism in favor of more Enlightenment.

Despite what Christian Dominionists and other theocrats who advocate that America abandon its founding principles in order to erect a so-called “Christian Nation” mirroring the Islamic Republic of Iran in all but name on the ashes of the Constitution claim, nothing in the original Constitution of the United States of America of 1789 mentions religion, except to forbid religious tests for office or public trust.  Those who claim that Article 1 sets a provision for chaplains in one or both houses of Congress have either not read the document or are outright lying.  While some might call the latter a “pious fraud”, it is nevertheless bearing a false witness and therefore not simply lacking in piety but an affront to it.

The Bill of Rights of 1791, in its Article 1 (aka First Amendment or Article 8 of the Constitution), guarantees freedom of religion and forbids the establishment of religion.  Neither of those are provisions which would be welcome to the government of the current Islamic Republic of Iran, though I know that many of its citizens, especially the sincerely religious, devoutly wish to be governed under those standards.

Of course, the Bill of Rights only applies to the government of the United States of America, but the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (aka Article 22) of 1868 guaranteed the rights of citizens of the United States to every citizen of each of its constituent states and territories.  However, Thomas Jefferson oft-debated letter indicates the founders probably intended those rights to extend to citizens of states as well as of the nation.

Wall of Separation

 The phrase “wall of separation between church and state” as it is used in current American legislation and jurisprudence comes directly from the 1802 letter of then President Thomas Jefferson to the head of the Danbury Baptist Association in Virginia.  Unlike many of their modern incarnations, late 18th and early 19th century Baptists were absolutists on church-state separation.  The Danbury group’s fears were that Virginia was about to declare the Protestant Episcopal Church (successor to the Church of England) its established church.

To them, Jefferson replied, “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”

Jefferson borrowed the phrase from America’s first Baptist, Roger Williams, founder of Providence Plantation, the first colony in Rhode Island.  Williams, himself a victim of religious persecution under the Puritan regime in Massachusetts Bay, stated in a 1644 book that there needed to be a “…wall of Separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wilderness of the world.”  In Williams’ colony, not only was tolerance for all religions law, but slavery and other obnoxious practices then current were abolished.

Regardless of where the phrase “separation of church and state” came from, however, that is the law under American jurisprudence, which follows its predecessor English common law.  In the 1947 case of Everson v. Board of Education, Justice Hugo Black writing the majority opinion for the Supreme Court included the following: “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.”

Jesus’ position

I’m going to list these quotes without comment.

“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God the things that are God’s.”

“No one can serve two masters, for either they will love one and hate the other, or they will hold to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon.”

“My kingdom is not of this world.”

“The kingdom of God is inside each of you.”

“When you pray, go into your room, close your door, and pray to your Father in secret.”

Would the man who said these things be in favor of idols to the so-called “Ten Commandments” being placed in courthouses and government squares?  Would the man who said these things want prayer in his name before government meetings or public school sporting events?  Would the man who said these things wish for prayers and/or Bible readings over public school intercoms?  Would the man who said these things like to see the name of his father taken in vain with “In God we trust” emblazoned all over our currency?  Perhaps he would reply that it is emblazoned on the only God that America really trusts.

Confederate surrenders

Contrary to common assumption, the American Civil War (War Between the States, War of the Rebellion, War for Southern Independence, War of Northern/Southern Aggression, War for the Union, or, to most other countries, War of the Secession) did not come to a screeching halt after General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.  The Army and Navy of the Confederate States of America did not surrender all at one time, but rather in a piecemeal fashion over a widely dispersed geographic distribution, including one unit overseas.  Some units, in fact, never surrendered at all. 

The Confederate Navy was composed of ironclads, submarines, gunboats, torpedo boats, various supports ships, and a number of blockade-runners and commissioned privateers.

For most of the war, the Confederate Army was composed of three major field commands (Army of Northern Virginia, Army of Tennessee, and Army of the Trans-Mississippi), with a number of smaller independent field units such as Forrest’s Cavalry Corps (in the latter stages of the war), the Thomas Legion of Cherokee Indians and Highlanders, and Mosby’s Partisan Rangers, and of geographic units (Division, Department, District, in decreasing order of size). 

The three field commands mentioned above were the most enduring, but several other short-lived commands designated as armies were formed at times, particularly early in the war. 

For instance, the earliest field army in the western theater was Gen. Sidney Johnson’s Army of Mississippi, which later combined with the Central Army of Kentucky (originally under Maj. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner) to become the Army of Tennessee.  Two other commands were also named Army of Mississippi, one formed around what had been Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn’s Army of West Tennessee, the other, under Maj. Gen. John C. Pemberton, later merged into the Army of Tennessee, or at least its remnants did so. 

There was also an Army of Middle Tennessee under Maj. Gen. John C. Breckenridge which became a division of Hardee’s Corps in the Army of Tennessee.  The Army of East Tennessee formed under Maj. Gen. Edmund Kirby-Smith became the Army of Kentucky before merging into the Army of Tennessee after Kirby-Smith’s promotion and transfer to head the Army and Department of the Trans-Mississippi.

None of these Confederate armies of Tennessee should be confused with Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee, which was named for the river.

The surrenders of Confederate forces

The first attempt by a large field army or geographic section to try to surrender took place in the southwest.  On 11 March 1865, Brig. Gen. James Slaughter and Col. John Salmon “Rip” Ford met with Union Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace and agreed to terms of surrender for all forces in the District of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona that included an amnesty for former Confederates and the gradual emancipation of slaves.  Slaughter’s and Ford’s superior, Maj. Gen. John G. Walker, temporarily commanding the District in the absence of Maj. Gen. Bankhead Magruder, refused the terms, however.

On 9 April 1865, General-in-chief Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army and Department of Northern Virginia to General-of-the-Army Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia.

On 12 April 1865, Brig. Gen. John Echols disbanded the Department of East Tennessee and Southwestern Virginia at Christiansburg, Virginia, upon learning of Lee’s surrender through a telegram waiting for him when he mustered his forces in Christiansburg.  The command’s sixteen artillery piece carriages were cut apart, the gun barrels were spiked, and the ammunition was destroyed.  All who wished were allowed to return home.

After Echols dissolved the Department, Brig. Gen. George Cosby took his the remainder of his brigade west into Kentucky to surrender to federal authorities.  Echols led the remaining troops of Brig. Gen. Vaughn’s Brigade and Brig. Gen. Basil Duke’s Brigade, toward North Carolina hoping to link up with Gen Joe Johnston and the Army of Tennessee.  The former Department’s District of Western North Carolina remained unaffected and intact.

On 16 April 1865, the remnant force from East Tennessee-Southwest Virginia split, with some few following Brig. Gen. Echols toward the Army of Tennessee and the remaining majority, under the overall command of  Brig. Gen. Vaughn, hoping to meet up with Gen. Joe Wheeler’s cavalry. 

The two brigades under Echols joined the bodyguard of President Jefferson Davis on 19 April 1865, under command of Gen. John C. Breckenridge made up of Brig. Gen. George Dibrell’s Brigade, Brig. Gen. Samuel Ferguson’s Brigade. and Col. William Breckenridge’s Brigade.

On 20 April 1865, Maj. Gen. Howell Cobb surrendered the District of Georgia and Florida to Maj. Gen. Edward Canby at Macon, Georgia.

On 21 April 1865, Col. John S. Mosby disbanded Mosby’s Partisan Rangers, (also known as 43rd Battalion, Virginia Cavalry) at Salem, Virginia.

On 26 April 1865, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the Division of the West under himself, the Army of Tennessee under Lt. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart, the Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia under Gen. Braxton Bragg, the Department of the West under Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, and the Department of Tennessee and Georgia under Lt. Gen. William Hardee to Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina.  Brig. Gen. Echols, formerly of the Department of East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, was by this time with Johnston, having left the column of Vaughn’s and Duke’s brigades on 16 April.

On 27 April 1865, Confederate Secret Service operative Robert Louden used a coal torpedo (a bomb made to look like a lump of coal) to sink the SS Sultana on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee, killing 1600-1800 of its 2400 passengers, most of them former POW’s from the Union Army.  It remains the biggest maritime disaster in U.S. history and arguably the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil prior to 9/11/2001.

On 3 May 1865, Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton surrendered Hampton’s Cavalry Command to Col. Willard Warner of the 180th Ohio Volunteers at Charlotte, North Carolina.

On 4 May 1865, Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor surrendered the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana to Maj. Gen. Edward Canby at Citronelle, Alabama.

On 5 May 1865, Maj. Gen. Dabney Maury surrendered the District of the Gulf to Maj. Gen. Edward Canby at Citronelle, Alabama.

Also on 5 May 1865, Pres. Jefferson Davis met with his Cabinet for the last time in Washington, Georgia (Wilkes County), to dissolve the government of the Confederate States of America.  The next day Pres. Davis continued on with a small bodyguard under Capt. Given Campbell.

On 6 May 1865, Brig. Gen. Joseph Lewis surrendered the Kentucky Orphan Brigade along with the remnants of Ferguson’s and Breckinridge’s brigades to Capt. Lot Abraham of the 4th Iowa Cavalry in Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson’s cavalry corps at Washington, Georgia.

On 8 May 1865, Capt. Jesse McNeill surrendered McNeill’s Partisan Rangers to Maj. Gen. (and future U.S. President) Rutherford B. Hayes at Sycamore Dale, West Virginia.

On 9 May 1865, Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest surrendered Forrest’s Cavalry Corps to Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson of the Cavalry Corps of the Military Division of the Mississippi at Gainesville, Alabama.

Also on 9 May 1865, Brig. Gen. James Martin surrendered the District of Western North Carolina and Col. Will Thomas the Thomas Legion of Cherokee Indians and Highlanders to Col. William C. Bartlett at Waynesville, North Carolina, after the Thomas Legion surrounded and captured Bartlett’s entire command the previous day.  The units of the Legion present included the Cherokee Battalion, Love’s Regiment, and Barr’s Battery.

Again on 9 May 1865, Maj. S. G. Spann surrendered his mostly Choctaw Battalion of Independent Scouts at Meridian, Mississippi.

Yet again on 9 May 1865, Brig. Gen. John C. Vaughn surrendered his remnant brigade to Capt. Lot Abraham of the 4^th Iowa Cavalry at Washington, Georgia.

On 10 May 1865, Maj. Gen. Samuel Jones surrendered the Department of South Carolina, Florida, and South Georgia to Brig. Gen. Edward M. McCook at Tallahassee, Florida.

Also on 10 May 1865, COMO Ebenezer Farrand surrendered the CSS Nashville, CSS Baltic, CSS Morgan, and several other vessels, nearly all the remaining warships in the Confederate Navy, to RADM Henry Thatcher at Nanna Hubba, Alabama.

Again on 10 May 1865, Brig. Gen. Basil Duke surrendered his remnant brigade Capt. Lot Abraham of the 4th Iowa Cavalry at Washington, Georgia.

Finally on 10 May 1865, former Pres. Davis and his party were captured in Irwinsville, Georgia, by the troops of Lt. Col. Henry Haruden from Maj. Gen. Wilson’s cavalry corps.

On 11 May 1965, Brig. Gen. George Dibrell surrendered his remnant brigade to Capt. Lot Abraham of the 4th Iowa Cavalry at Washington, Georgia.

On 12 May 1865, Brig. Gen. William T. Wofford surrendered the Department of North Georgia to Brig. Gen. Henry M. Judah at Kingston, Georgia (Bartow County).

Also on 12 May 1865, Capt. Stephen Whitaker surrendered Walker’s Battalion of the former Thomas Legion, detached from the rest of the command, to Col. George W. Kirk at Franklin, North Carolina, upon hearing of the surrenders of Thomas and Martin.  This was the last surrender of Confederate troops east of the Mississippi River.

On 13 May 1865, the last land battle of the war was fought at Palmito Ranch in Texas, near Brownsville, with Confederate forces under Col. Rip Ford (incl. his own 2nd Texas Cavalry) defeating decisively the Union forces under Col. Theodore Barrett.

On 26 May 1865, Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner surrendered the Army of the Trans-Mississippi and the District of Arkansas and West Louisiana to Maj. Gen. Edward Canby at New Orleans, Louisiana.  Buckner was in direct field command of the army at the time it was surrounded by Union forces.

On 30 May 1865, Brig. Gen. Slaughter and Col. Ford disbanded the remaining field forces of the District of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona at Brownsville, Texas.

On 2 June 1865, Gen. Edmund Kirby-Smith surrendered the Department of the Trans-Mississippi to Maj. Gen. Edward Canby at Galveston, Texas.

On 3 June 1865, CAPT Jonathan H. Carter surrendered the CSS Missouri to LCDR William E. Fitzhugh at Alexandria, Louisiana.

On 23 June 1865, Brig. Gen. Stand Watie, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, surrendered the Indian Division of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi (including the First Indian Cavalry Brigade, the Second Indian Cavalry Brigade, and the 7th Mounted Artillery Battalion) to Lt. Col. Asa C. Matthews at Doaksville, Choctaw Nation (Indian Territory).

On 6 November 1865, CMDR James Waddell surrendered the privateer vessel CSS Shenandoah and its crew to CAPT R.N Paynter of the HMS Donegal at Liverpool, England.  It was the only Confederate Navy ship to circumvent the globe.  The crew remained in Europe for several years afterward, for the most part, and eventually returned home.  The Shenandoah was sold to the Sultan of Zanzibar.

On 20 August 1866, President Andrew Johnson declared the War Between the States officially over and peace restored.

Non-surrenderees, exiles, and expatriates

On 4 July 1865, Maj. Gen. Joseph Shelby led his Iron Brigade and other troops in his Missouri Division across the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass, Texas, into Piedas Negras, Empire of Mexico, to avoid surrender. 

Accompanying Shelby’s column were former Confederate governors Pendelton Murrah (Texas), Henry Allen (Louisiana), Thomas Reynolds (Missouri), and Isham Harris (Tennessee), as well as ex-generals Edmund Kirby-Smith, Sterling Price, Bankhead Magruder, Alexander W. Terrell, and other officers of the former Trans-Mississippi Department and their families.

Under the direction of former COMO Matthew Fontaine Maury of the Confederate Navy, the ex-officers and troops who had crossed into the Empire of Mexico established the New Virginia Colony in the state of Veracruz at the invitation of Emperor Maximilian.  Its central city was Carlota, named for Maximilian’s empress.  Slaves were not allowed, slavery still being against Mexican law.  When the republican Juaristas (supporters of Pres. Benito Juarez, whom the French ousted in 1864) overthrew Maximilian’s government in 1867, these former Confederates returned north, many becoming prominent citizens.

Interestingly, in 1851 Maury had once formulated a plan to both eradicate slavery from within the borders of the U.S. and slow or end Brasil’s slave trade with Africa.

Between ten and twenty thousand former Confederates emigrated to the Empire of Brasil at the invitation of Dom Pedro II, who wanted to encourage the growth of cotton.  The now multi-racial Los Confederados are extremely proud of their history and send young people to the American South every year to see the former homeland.  The original settlers included an ancestor of former First Lady Rosalyn Carter.

A large number of Los Confederados stayed in Rio de Janero.  Led by Col. William H. Norris of Alabama, others founded Norris Colony near Santa Barbara (now Americana); Col. Charles Gunter founded Gunter Colony on Lake Jurapaña and Rio Doce; Dr. James McFadden Gaston of South Carolina founded Gaston Colony near Xiririca; the Rev. Ballard S. Dunn founded Lizzieland on the Juquia River; Frank McMullen established New Texas on the Sao Lourenco River; Col. M. S. Swain founded Parangua on the Assunguy River; and Lansford Warren Hastings organized Santarem at the confluence of the Amazon River and Rio Tapaj.

Other former Confederates settled in what was then British Honduras (now Belize), a group of Virginians under the Rev. B. R. Duval establishing New Richmond near San Pedro, the seat of the community, as well as Toledo, Manattee, and eight others on the New River south of Orange Walk Town (most of these being Louisianans) and around the town of Punta Gorda, in addition to the majority of the former Confederate expatriates who remained in Belize City.  Within a few decades, these groups had assimilated and lost their distinctiveness.

Former Confederate cavalry Major Abednago Greenberry Malcolm led another group of mostly Kentuckians to establish a colony they called Medina in Spanish Honduras.

Ex-RADM John Tucker led a group of former Confederate expatriates into Peru to establish New Manasses and wound up being assigned to chart the Amazon River. 

Dr. Henry Price, former major in the Confederate medical corps, took another group into Venezuela to occupy large areas of the state of Guyana called the Price Grant, where they set up the short-lived settlements of Orinoco City, Las Tablas, Santa Cruz, Caroni, Paragua, Carratel, and Pattisonville.

Other smaller groups of Confederate became expatriates in Costa Rica, Cuba, and Ontario, the latter community including former Secretary of War John C. Breckenridge and several former Confederate generals.

Of all these, Los Confederados de Brasil is the only former community whose descendants still survive as a distinctive ethnic group.  The best account I have seen of these expatriate groups is the 2007 master’s thesis of Justin Horton at the East Tennessee State University: “The Second Lost Cause: Post-National Confederate Imperialism in the Americas”; it is online.

Brasil abolished slavery in 1888.  Former slave owners, backed by the military, overthrew the imperial government in 1889.  A military dictatorship ruled the country till civilian republicans came to power in 1894.

The Reconstruction of the former Confederate states lasted from the end of the war until the Great Compromise of 1877, which is also called the Corrupt Bargain.  The so-called Redemption Era of the South (which brought us Jim Crow, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and drastic historical revisionism) lasted from that time until the civil rights legislation of the mid-1960s.

Lost in Translation: Church and State

Many Christians prefer the King James Version of the Bible to any other because it is the “Authorized Version”, though authorized not by any body or official from the Church of England but by the king, who was then James I of England. 

One wonders why these same people do not likewise use the Book of Common Prayer which the good King James also “authorized” in 1604 (really just a slight revision of the 1559 BCP).  As well as why none of their Bibles contain the complete and unabridged Authorized Version, since they lack the books of the Apocrypha which were indeed a part of the full Authorized Version of the good King James.  Come to think of it, why, in the United States of America, is it important that King James “authorized” it?  Didn’t we fight an eight-year revolution to break away from the rule of the king of England and establish an elected republic?

True, in some passages, such as the Psalm 23, the poetry is unmatched in any subsequent translations.  I myself much prefer the KJV translation of Ecclesiastes 12 to that of any later version, for example.  But some of the wording throughout the KJV Bible, even many of the words themselves, is archaic or even obsolete, and carries an entirely different meaning than what it did in 1611.  Take, for instance, the word “comprehended” in the first chapter of the Gospel of John.  Here, in King James time, “to comprehend” did not mean “to understand” but “to overcome” or “to conquer”.

Since we’re at that chapter, let’s look at how it opens:  “In the beginning was the Word…”  The English word “Word” here is translated from the Greek word “Logos”.  The word Logos can be translated as “speech”, “reason”, “study”, “statement”, or “wisdom”.  For example, in Decalogue, the Greek term for what may call the “Ten Commandments”, the –logue is derived from logos meaning “saying”.  The word logic is likewise derived from logos.

As used in the first chapter of John, Logos referred more to a concept than a dictionary meaning and isn’t readily translatable.  In Hellenistic philosophy, Logos was the principle governing the cosmos, the universe, especially among the Stoics.  To Neoplatonists, Logos was the mediator between Soul, Spirit, and the One.  To Jews, the Word of God (God’s actual words or voice, rather than the Tanakh) had always had special power, and among the Hellenistic Jewish mystics based in Alexandria (Philo in particular), Logos became God’s instrument in the creation of the universe and intermediary between creation and Creator.  All this led to the writer of the Gospel of John identifying Logos with Jesus of Nazareth.  Later Christian writers such as Justin Martyr and Augustine of Hippo expanded on John’s use.  The concept even crossed over to Islam through its Sufi mystics, especially the late 12^th/early 13^th century philosopher Ibn Arabi of Murcia in Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia).

When the king of England’s translators sat down to begin work on that gospel, they had several options to choose for the meaning of Logos.  Perhaps since Logos stood for a concept rather than a word with a definite meaning they should have just left it as Logos.  But they chose to use “Word” instead, a mistaken if convenient translation (in 1^st century Greek, the actual word for “word” was “lexis”).  They could just have easily, and if they had been working a century later may have, translated Logos as “Reason”, a much more correct translation, linguistics-wise anyway, than “Word”. 

Here’s how that might have looked:  “In the beginning was Reason, and Reason was with God, and Reason was God.  Reason was in the beginning with God.  All things were made with Reason; and without Reason was not anything made that was made.  In Reason was life; and that life was the light of men.  And the light of Reason shines in the darkness, but the darkness conquered it not.”

Note the KJV style; it’s the only translation not under copyright.

Greek is kind of a funny language, at least from the point of view of a native speaker of American English; I’m sure native speakers of Greek find English really weird.  In some cases where in English we might express several similar ideas with a single word, Greek uses different words for each.  For example, love.  In Greek, there is “eros”, for romantic or sexual love; “phileos”, for brotherly or platonic love; and “agape”, for unconditional love as for immediate family.  For all those varieties, in English we simply use the word “love”.

Some words in Greek have flexible meaning, like “logos”, while others have more specific meaning.  The Greek word “esothen” falls into the first category while the word “entos” falls into the second; both words, however, are translated in the KJV as “within”.

I mention entos because it figures in one of my favorite passages from the New Testament, one from the 17^th chapter of the Gospel of Luke in which a group of Pharisees as Jesus about when the kingdom of God was coming.  He replied, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.  Neither shall they say, Lo here! Or, lo, there!  For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”  (Luke 17:20-21)  That passage was the first that made me interested in the lexicology of Greek words in the New Testament.

The Greek word translated by the scribes “authorized” by King James as “within” in this passage is “entos”.  The word “entos” is used only one other time in the whole New Testament, in Matt. 23:26 – “Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.” 

In other translations, “entos” is translated variously as “within” you, “in” your “midst”, “among” you, “already among” you, or “in the midst of” you, all of which are incorrect, or at the very best, inexact.  Given that the only other place in the entire New Testament in which the word “entos” is used in the original Greek talks about the inside of a cup or platter, the best and most obvious translation for the word “entos” would be “inside of”.  This would render the passage (in modern English):  “The coming of the kingdom of God can’t be seen.  No one will say, “Look here!” or Look there!”, because the kingdom of God is inside each one of you.”

I think what might be tripping up the translators is that Jesus was talking to the Pharisees and it’s clear from many other passages in the gospels that he didn’t think very much of them.  Often, the word Pharisees is paired with the words hypocrites.  The antipathy seems to have been two ways, as well.  So, it’s not unreasonable to see that a translator might find it hard to believe that Jesus would tell men who didn’t like him and whom he himself frequently called “hypocrites” that the kingdom of God is inside each of them.  Thus do we get the abundance of theologically-inspired mistranslations of this passage.

And since we’re on the subject of the kingdom of God, I have question…

-for all those who either believe America was founded as a Christian Nation or who want to make it one;

-for those who see in the the modern temporal state of Israel the ancient Israel of the Bible;

-for those who want to erect idols of the “Ten Commandments” in courthouses and town squares;

-for those who want to have prayer before local government meetings and public school sports events;

-for those who want to hold prayer meetings, have Bible readings over the intercom, or allow religious recruiting in public schools;

-and for those who want to retain the phrase “In God we trust” as our official national motto rather than the more historic and less sectarian “E pluribus unum” which had stood since the foundation of our Republic: 

What part of “My kingdom is not of this world” do you not understand?

ADDENDUM:  I was telling an atheist friend about the part of this essay dealing with the meaning of the Greek word “entos” and how the true translation of Luke 17:21 is “The kingdom of God is inside of each of you”, and he responded, “Yea!  It’s all in your heads!”.  Maybe that’s exactly what the man Jesus of Nazareth was trying to say.