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r Chapter 1 The Spoils of War: Chattanooga to 1870 On December 25, 1918, a trio of Chattanooga’s oldest and most respected citizens came together and, for the last time, drank a toast to their collective past. John B. Nicklin, Zeboim C. Patten, and T. H. Payne were all veterans of the Union army, and as they met on that holiday, as they had every Christmas since 1865, they no doubt thought of their fallen comrades. Yet as these men reflected on their lives, they also must have thought of Chattanooga and the city they had helped build. For even though each of these men had served in the northern army, they all played a significant role in the development of this southern city. Nicklin, for example, once served as the town’s mayor; Patten was a leading local industrialist; and Payne founded and operated the city’s oldest house of business. All three men came to the city as conquerors, and yet, as they neared death, each was now considered a revered elder of the community.1 Elsewhere in the South, such prominence might have been unusual for a northerner. In postwar Atlanta, for example, fewer than one-fourth of the city’s business leaders were from the North. In Nashville, northerners comprised only 6 percent of the local elite. In Chattanooga, however, just the opposite was true. Here, northern elites tended to be the rule rather than the exception.2 The explanation for this phenomenon lies in the city’s troubled past. Modern Chattanooga was built, in large part, by Union army veterans and their Yankee peers. In the three decades following the Civil War, northerners dominated the city’s economy and government and helped shape the town’s social, racial, and political institutions. Yet despite the wealth, power, and acceptance northerners found in the community, neither they nor their southern neighbors could ever forget their sectional differences and the bloody conflict that brought the Union army to Tennessee. Chattanooga lies on a bend in the Tennessee River, near a natural opening in the southern Appalachians. Surrounded by mountains and ridges, the river ’s banks formed a secure, temperate, and fertile plain well suited for human habitation. Permanent white settlers came to the site in the early 1830s and 2 The Spoils of War established Ross’s Landing, a trading post on the Tennessee River located near the foot of present-day Broad Street. The community thrived, and in 1839 its occupants incorporated the settlement as the town of Chattanooga. Starting with just fifty-three families, the village quickly grew into a center for river commerce .3 The development of the railroad furthered the town’s progress. The city’s first line, the Western and Atlantic, came to the town in 1850 and brought with it an immediate economic boom. Other lines followed, and by 1860 Chattanooga was a vital link in the region’s rail system.4 Known as the site “where cotton meets corn,” Chattanooga served as the doorway to the Deep South. Whether by river or rail, much of the cargo passing in and out of the region traveled through the city. Warehouses overflowed with goods in transit, and freight sometimes spilled into public streets. Throughout the period, citizens retained strong social and economic ties to the Deep South. Many felt the city shared the “social, moral, religious, political, and commercial peculiarities” of the region. Such feelings became apparent in 1861 during Tennessee ’s secession crisis. Although most of East Tennessee remained loyal to the Union, Chattanoogans voted overwhelmingly to join the Confederacy. “We are in the South,” one resident rejoiced, proclaiming, “Long live the South.”5 Given the city’s strategic importance, Chattanooga immediately became a center of military activity. The first Confederate troops arrived in late 1861 to protect the community from East Tennessee unionists. By 1863 the junction was a critical southern administrative center and supply depot. Soon it was also a target of northern forces. As Union armies moved through Tennessee that year, they increasingly turned their attention toward the city. Even Abraham Lincoln recognized the town’s importance. “If we can hold Chattanooga and East Tennessee,” he wrote, “I think the Rebellion must dwindle and die.”6 In the fall of 1863 Union forces launched a major attack on the city, resulting in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war. Residents, terrified by the conflict and the prospect of Yankee rule, fled the city en masse. Most would...

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