The Life and Wars of Gideon J. Pillow

9. The Provisional Army of Tennessee

9 of Tennessee Pillow's plan for a "General Convention of the Slave States" was doomed, however. The mood of the South was to secede first, then talk. But Tennessee was different; she stood by as southern states withdrew one by one. Unionist sentiment was too strong in all three grand divisions of the state. A special referendum held on February 9, 1861, resulted in a massive turnout of bewildered, emotional voters who convincingly defeated the secessionists.l Gideon Pillow had cast his lot with Governor Harris and the southern Confederacy following the 1860 election. Reflecting the senti9 The Provisional Army of Tennessee Pillow's plan for a "General Convention of the Slave States" was doomed, however. The mood of the South was to secede first, then talk. But Tennessee was different; she stood by as southern states withdrew one by one. Unionist sentiment was too strong in all three grand divisions of the state. A special referendum held on February 9, 1861, resulted in a massive turnout of bewildered, emotional voters who convincingly defeated the secessionists.1 Gideon Pillow had cast his lot with Governor Harris and the southern Confederacy following the 1860 election. Reflecting the senti- ments ofmany Tennesseans, Pillow was truly alarmed and threatened by the election of Lincoln; as a man of action, the thought of delay or awaiting further developments repelled him. By mid-January 1861, certainly, he had become a Harris lieutenant, a passionate secessionist , a self-styled revolutionary, believing that Tennessee's future lay outside the Union.2 The spring of 1861 seemed like an extension of the violent political campaign of 1860, except now more and more people openly talked of war. Tennessee wavered, uncertain. Its direction would be determined by the most energetic, Pillow believed. So in February and March of 1861, he worked hard to unify public opinion behind Isham G. Harris and the idea of secession. He also seems to have been busy, quite unofficially, organizing a military force within the state. Harris stationed Pillow in Memphis in March, and from there Pillow activated a company of West Tennessee militia at Grand Junction, Tennessee, on the fifteenth.!! Later in March, John L. T. Sneed, a Mexican War comrade and state attorney general, assembled another force at Randolph, about sixty miles above Memphis, a point where the Mississippi River might be interdicted easily. Sneed and the troops in Grand Junction awaited Pillow's orders.4 Pillow's political enemies in West Tennessee, however, and there were more than a few, wasted little time in voicing their complaints. William S. Walker wroteJefferson Davis on March 17 that Pillow's active role had caused "wide spread and decided dissatisfaction." This lament would continue through the spring and into the middle of summer.5 In early April 1861, Pillow went to Montgomery to tender his services to Jefferson Davis. He offered Davis a regiment of Tennessee volunteers, presumably including the troops assembling at Grand Junction and Randolph.6 Nothing came of his trip, except, perhaps, alienating or at least distancing himselffrom Davis and Davis's powerful "closet" general, Samuel Cooper. About the same time, back in Tennessee, some wag taunted Parson William Brownlow about this regiment of Pillow's (it was rumored Pillow intended to recruit him as chaplain). Brownlow predictably stormed, "When I shall have made up my mind to go to hell, I will cut my throat, and go direct, and not travel round by way of the Southern Confederacy."7 To Brownlow and other East Tennesseans, Pillow represented the haughty, corrupt, and controlling element of the Democracy in Middle Tennessee. They felt that Pillow, Samuel R. Anderson, and William McNish, the "Post Office clique" in Nashville, had conspired with Governor Harris to accomplish his goal of splitting Tennessee Provisional Army of Tennessee : 157 ments of many Tennesseans, Pillow was truly alarmed and threatened by the election of Lincoln; as a man of action, the thought of delay or awaiting further developments repelled him. By mid-January 1861, certainly, he had become a Harris lieutenant, a passionate secessionist , a self-styled revolutionary, believing that Tennessee's future lay outside the Union.2 The spring of 1861 seemed like an extension of the violent political campaign of 1860, except now more and more people openly talked of war. Tennessee wavered, uncertain. Its direction would be determined by the most energetic, Pillow believed. So in February and March of 1861, he worked hard to unify public opinion behind Isham G. Harris and the...