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Epilogue: Pride, Politics, and Pensions
- Louisiana State University Press
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1. TICW, 1:318:60; Ellis, Thrilling Adventures, 376–77, 430; Current, Lincoln’s Loyalists, 151. 2. Brownlow to E. M. Stanton, June 19, 1865, William G. Brownlow Governor’s Papers, TSLA. EPILOGUE Pride, Politics, and Pensions T he Union army mustered out all of its Volunteer State cavalry during summer 1865 except for the 12th Tennessee at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas , which did not muster out until in October. For the cavalry, the war wound down rather than abruptly ending. Mopping up rogue enemy forces had to be done, order restored, and guerrillas and outlaws (by now indistinguishable ) pursued. Then records had to be compiled and an accounting made of weapons, equipment, and horses. Even some cavalrymen themselves had to be rounded up before being discharged. Capt. David Ellis of the 13th Tennessee received his last assignment on May 21 from General Gillem. According to orders, he was “to proceed forthwith to the counties of Carter, Johnson, Sullivan , and Washington, to arrest all absentees belonging to [his] command.”1 In June Governor Brownlow recommended to Secretary of War Stanton that the first four cavalry regiments, men mainly from East Tennessee, be discharged individually from the date of enlistment plus three years. Then he wanted the remaining troops with fewer than three years of service transferred to remedy “the distress in East Tennessee.” But Stanton denied this request , and the men were mustered out by regiments in June and early July at Nashville.2 The new state adjutant general, James P. Brownlow, whose father became governor on April 5, 1865, handled much of the final regimental reporting for the state. He had been employed by the adjutant general’s office for some months before fifty-eight members of the state house of representatives petitioned the governor to appoint him to the post. During 1865 and 1866 Brown- 388 Epilogue 3. RAGT, 303; William G. Brownlow to James P. Brownlow, Apr. 17, 1865, in Andrew Johnson Papers, LC; Petition from House of Representatives for the Appointment of Col. Jim Brownlow as Adjt. Gen’l of the State to Governor Brownlow, Brownlow Governor’s Papers, TSLA; 1st Tennessee , CSR. 4. Brownlow to Johnson, Aug. 31, 1865, PAJ, 7:686; Carter, First Regiment, 270; Whitelaw Reid, After the War: A Tour of the Southern States, 1865–1866 (New York, 1866), 352; House, Very Violent Rebel, 183; Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator, Aug. 30, 1865, Feb. 14, 21, 1866. 5. TICW, 1:318–50; TCWVQ, 1:1–156. low completed the Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Tennessee of the Military Forces of the State from 1861 to 1866. In December 1866 he received an appointment as captain in the regular army. But being assigned to California, he requested and received delays on reporting before finally resigning from the army in March 1868. A year later Brownlow became superintendent of the Knoxville & Kentucky Railroad, which eventually would reach from Louisville to Knoxville.3 While awaiting a discharge at Knoxville, men of Miller’s brigade (8th, 9th, and 13th Tennessee) continued to have what Governor Brownlow called “a bad state of feeling between them and the colored troops.” This coincided with northern journalist Whitelaw Reid’s findings in postwar Knoxville: “Every man felt it his duty to help set back the upstart niggers.” Reacting to this, one sable soldier stabbed a trooper of the 9th, while another black guard fatally shot one of the 8th. The latter victim’s comrades in turn swore revenge against other blacks. Isolated racial incidents by cavalrymen spilled over into 1866. On February 13 farmer Calvin Dyer, former 1st Tennessee commander, attended a government surplus sale along with hundreds of others. As he entered a building to claim his purchase, he was fatally shot by a black guard, whose feeble defense was “that a white officer resembling Colonel Dyer . . . had offended him.” Despite attempts to protect him for trial, the assailant was seized by Dyer ’s friends and summarily hanged in front of the Freedmen’s Bureau office.4 Approximately two-thirds of the Tennessee Union cavalry regiments received their final pay and discharges at Nashville, with the others receiving theirs either at Knoxville or Chattanooga. Those whose families resided in the eastern part of the state rode along the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad to the nearest station to their homes and walked the remainder of the way. William W. Lowry, along with his comrades of the 5th Tennessee Mounted Infantry , remembered being “paid off,” receiving “free transportation...