Homegrown Yankees: Tennessee's Union Cavalry in the Civil War

1. The First Year

1. Cooling, Fort Donelson’s Legacy, 64–108; Cooling, “People’s War,” in Sutherland, Guerrillas, Unionists, and Violence, 115–23. CHAPTER 1 The First Year O nly a few companies of Tennessee Union cavalry organized during the first year after the state seceded. Federal forces did not occupy parts of Middle and West Tennessee until winter 1862, and loyal companies did not form in those sections until that summer. East Tennessee remained in Confederate hands until the second half of 1863, and refugee-recruits joining the Union army in Kentucky as cavalrymen remained without mounts until fall 1862. Several prerequisites occurred before Tory cavalry units would be formed: Yankee occupation of some unionist-leaning areas of the state, an increase in the number of would-be horsemen refugees to Kentucky, and circumstances that clearly demanded the outfitting of expensive cavalry. Those conditions appeared during 1862 when Confederate conscription caused many more men to flee the state, the Federals occupied parts of Middle and West Tennessee, cavalry raids disrupted Union lines of communication in Middle Tennessee, and mounted guerrilla bands arose after heavy Rebel losses at Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and Shiloh.1 Of the state’s three grand divisions, East, Middle, and West—represented by the three stars in the state flag—only East Tennessee rejected secession on June 8, 1861. With slaves representing only 8 percent of its population and with it being isolated by “geography” and “identity” from the remainder of the state, that section opposed disunion by a vote of more than two to one: 32,923 to 14,780. The significance of East Tennessee’s continued opposition to the Confederacy is difficult to exaggerate. Its 380,292 whites outnumbered the 22 Beginnings 2. Corlew, Tennessee, 294–98; Fisher, “Definitions of Victory,” 89; Peter Wallenstein, “‘Helping to Save the Union’: The Social Origins, Wartime Experiences, and Military Impact of White Union Troops from East Tennessee,” in Noe and Wilson, Civil War in Appalachia, 4; Robert Tracy McKenzie , One South or Many? Plantation Belt and Upcountry in Civil War–Era Tennessee (New York, 1994), 2–4; Fisher, War at Every Door, 182–83. 3. Charles F. Bryan, “A Gathering of Tories: The East Tennessee Convention of 1861,” THQ 39 (spring 1980): 27–48; Oliver P. Temple, East Tennessee and the Civil War (Cincinnati, 1899), 368–70; Thomas W. Humes, The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee (Knoxville, 1888), 347–55. combined white population of Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. The Confederacy faced the possibility that this “Switzerland of America” would resist its authority and supply thousands of Union army volunteers , along with its rich grain production.2 An areawide convention of 462 delegates, mostly fairly prosperous, older Whig farmers, met at Knoxville on May 30–31. They condemned recent proConfederate legislation passed by the general assembly and agreed to meet again if needed. They reconvened at Greeneville from June 17 to 20. That meeting’s minority felt that the convention’s resolutions—seeking legislative approval to form its own state within the “Old Union”—did not meet the demands of the time. They caucused secretly, as one of them wrote, and “formed a league, military in its character, the object of which was to resist the enemies of the United States Government,” including the clandestine recruiting and drilling of soldiers. The convention’s majority advised against a revolution in East Tennessee, preferring instead that those desiring to join Union forces flee to camps being established in Kentucky. But the more radical minority soon formed at least fifteen companies and drilled at secluded places on weekends in summer 1861. Many convention attendees and their sons, especially those involved in armed resistance, later served in the Union army.3 Following the legislature’s slightly conciliatory rejection of their appeal, secessionist governor Isham Harris easily defeated William H. Polk, brother of a former U.S. president, in the August general election. Harris encountered overwhelming opposition in East Tennessee, where the people voted for Polk as the lesser of two evils and elected four U.S. congressmen. Sen. Andrew Johnson of Greenville also remained at his seat in Washington, to which he had been elected in 1857. After the August election hundreds of unionists left for Kentucky to form regiments. Some with romanticized views of cavalry from literature—such as those portrayed by Sir Walter Scott’s knights in Ivanhoe—formed mounted companies. Others joining infantry regiments later [3.149.251.155] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 06:07...