Portrait and Biography of Parson Brownlow, The Tennessee Patriot

And utter the welcome with the tongue's feeble stammering,
The welcome, the warm welcome, our hearts to him bring!
Safe! safe in our midst, we shall hear the man's voice,
That had cowed all his foes, and made us rejoice;
Then hail him again, and forever and aye!
His country he loves, and for it he would die!

Rejoice! rejoice! for freedom is marching
With her power resistless, to punish and crush;
And the Iris of Union will soon be o'erarching
Again our loved country, when its brave children rush
To rescue its life from the demons now seeking
To blot out its name from the nations of earth.
But rather than this, let their black blood be reeking,
Unpitied by earth, so disgraced by their birth.
Thus speaks he, the hero! Then sing with one voice:
We love and revere him, in his presence rejoice!
Then hail him again, and forever and aye!
His country he loves, and for it he would die!

Shortly after eight o'clock Parson Brownlow came upon the stage, leaning upon the arm of Joseph C. Butler, Esq., the President of the Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Butler, in introducing Mr. Brownlow, said:

Ladies and Gentlemen: – I have been honored with the pleasing duty of inaugurating the ceremonies of this occasion, in introducing a renowned and loyal citizen of our sister State of Tennessee. A State forced by usurpation, fraud and violence into rebellion against a Government that her sons in bygone times have done so much to maintain and establish, and now suffers in being the field of conflict in a desolating civil war. A State recently baptized again into the fold of the Union by the martyr patriots' blood shed upon her soil, and will be confirmed in that fold by continued deeds of heroic daring; within whose limits has been exhibited by her loyal sons as unfaltering devotion and love of country as has ever been displayed in the history of any people. Surrounded by the armed band of desperate and cruel military despots, given up to the mercy of ignorant and vicious mobs, cut off from all communication with and support from a Government they were sacrificing themselves to maintain, these patriots of Tennessee were driven from their homes, suffered in jails, and sealed, when called on, with their lives on the scaffold their devotion to the Union and Constitution established by their fathers. Through a long and weary summer, through the dreary fall and winter, with hearts sickened by many disappointed hopes, they suffered and faithfully endured. And now that the armies of the Union have entered their State, and the flag of freedom once more floats over its capital, may we not hope that the hour of their deliverance is at hand. God grant it may be speedy.

One of this noble band of patriots is with us to-night. He will recount to you some of the scenes he has witnessed, and give you in brief the history of the rebellion in his once prosperous and noble State. He has sacrificed on the altar of his country all that man holds most dear, jeopardizing not only his own life, but the lives of his family and kindred in vindicating the sacred cause of his country. If we honor the bravery displayed on the battle-field, how much more should we honor him, who almost alone, sick and in prison, tempted by seducing offers of power and place, and with an ignominious death daily threatened, maintains for weeks and months with unfaltering trust, his faith and virtue. The instinctive homage of the human heart to genuine courage we pay to an endurance like this. The historian who will record for the perusal of our children the list of heroes that this wicked rebellion has brought forth, will name none whose matchless courage is surpassed, or the bold outline of whose character for outspoken patriotism, so overshadows all cavil and criticism, as the hero of the pulpit and the press. I have now the honor of introducing Mr. W. G. Brownlow, of Knoxville, Tennessee.

SPEECH

Ladies and Gentlemen: – I appear before you in accordance with the arrangement of a committee – a large committee – of intelligent and influential citizens of your own town. I am not before you for the purpose of making an effort as an orator, or a speaker, with any view or wish to fascinate or to charm my audience with the style or the language I employ in the brief address I am about to deliver.

I am before you for the purpose of relating facts and localities, and giving you names in regard to the rebellion in the South, and the persecutions of my fellow countrymen, and their sufferings even unto death. I have met, since I came to this city, with not a few intelligent and high-toned gentlemen – men of years and of knowledge – who have inquired of me seriously: "Is it a fact that they hanged men, shot down men, in your country, for their sentiments?" You cannot, it seems to me, realize the state of things that has existed beyond the mountains.

In what I shall say to you, without effort at all at display, I shall deal in nothing but facts. I will state nothing that I do not personally know to be true – nothing that I cannot sustain, if a controversy is raised in reference thereto.

I have seen the day when I was a young man, ladies (I speak of my age with a great deal of freedom, for I have a wife who is likely never to die) – [laughter] – I have seen the day when I could be heard by an audience of any size – when I have been able for four or five dreadful hours on a stretch to speak in the open air. Those days with me have gone by, and are numbered with the days and years beyond the flood. For some three years back I have labored under a disease of the throat – a bronchial affection – a severe affliction it was. Until the last twelve months I could but whisper. In the providence of God, and through his agency, I am better now. In repeated denunciation of secession my voice has been gaining all the time [applause,] and I shall not be astonished if in six months "Richard is himself again." [Applause.]

You will bear with me, I know, for I shall not detain you long. I shall by no means be tedious, but you will bear with me, I am certain, if I make a few remarks, by way of "preliminary," personal to myself. The circumstances surrounding me, the connection that my name has had for the last twelve months with the rebellion and with this subject, will justify me in so doing, without the dread of incurring the charge of egotism.

I am a native of the Old Dominion – born, raised and educated in the State of Virginia. I have the pleasure of announcing to you this evening that you have before you the first man who ever made the acknowledgment in public, that he was the descendant of one of the second families of Virginia. [Laughter.]

My parents before me, on both sides, were Virginians. On both sides of the house they were slaveholders, as most of the citizens of the Old Dominion are and have been. Although I am branded at home, since the inauguration of rebellion, with being myself an anti-slavery man, and a tory and the descendant of tories, I take great pleasure and pride in announcing to you that my father was a volunteer in the war of 1812, under Old Hickory. My uncle William, after whom I was named, lived and died a naval officer, and his remains sleep in the Navy Yard at Norfolk, Virginia. My uncle Alexander was also a naval officer, and his remains rest in the Navy Yard at New Orleans. My uncle John was also a navy officer. He died at sea and was thrown overboard, and became food for the fishes thereof. My uncle John was the third man who scaled the walls at the battle of the Horseshoe. [Applause.] On my mother's side – the Galloways – not a few lost their lives at Norfolk, from yellow fever, camp diseases and fatigue. They did not fight for a section of the country – not for the yellow fever swamps of the South – but for every State, and every particle of this glorious Union of ours. [Applause.]

I may as well make a remark or two on the subject of politics. I am not here for the purpose of reviving any old party prejudice – not at all – nor yet with a view to drop a solitary remark that shall offend even the most fastidious political partisan who may be under the sound of my voice. In Tennessee, thank God, we have merged all political party questions into the one great question of the Union and its preservation. [Applause.]

In all time to come – though I have been a Whig of the strictest sort – though I have lived up to the creed and fought Democracy in all its ramifications, and in all its windings – I would, in the language of Milton, see a man where cold performs the effect of fire – or, in the still more nervous language of Pollock, I would see a man where gravitation, shifting, turns the other way – even hell-ward – before I would vote for any man who was not an unconditional, straight-out Union man. [Great applause.]

I have fought Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, systematically, perseveringly and untiringly, for the last twenty-five years of my somewhat eventful life. He has scored me on every stump in the State of Tennessee, and I have paid him back to the best of my ability. But honors with us are easy. [Laughter.] We take each other by the hand now, as brethren. [Applause.] Now I will fight for him, and under him – engaged as we are in the same cause, against the same vile foe to God and man, and especially to our country. [Applause.]

I have always been a Union man. I commenced my political career in Tennessee in 1828. I remark again, ladies, that although I may have the appearance of being – I confess the fact with more candor from the consideration that I never expect to be – a widower [laughter], I commenced my political career in Tennessee in 1828. I was one of the corporal's guard who, in that State, got up the electoral ticket for John Quincy Adams against Andrew Jackson. I name this fact simply to show you that I was not a sectional man in '28; that I did not go for a man because he was born and lived south of Mason and Dixon's line, nor against him because he resided north of Mason and Dixon's line. Having mentioned the name of Old Hickory, I take pleasure in saying that, while I opposed him in his political aspirations, Jackson was always a patriot and a true lover of his country. If my prayers and tears could have brought him from his grave, during the last twelve months of the iniquitous reign of James Buchanan, I would have brought him out, that he might have destroyed secession as he did nullification – that might have sunk South Carolina in some sort of Lake not unlike the Dead Sea – where she will ultimately go. [Applause.]

In the next contest I was a supporter of Henry Clay. In the next contest I was a supporter of Ulasu White. In the next I supported William Henry Harrison, and I sung louder, jumped higher, and fell flatter and harder than anybody else in the whole State of Tennessee. I wrote upon log cabins, and waved coon-skins and water-gourds high and low. [Laughter.] In succeeding contests, gentlemen and ladies, I supported Taylor, Fillmore and Donelson. The last contest I was engaged in, was in the support of the Bell and Everett ticket. The tail of that ticket is now doing well enough in the State of Massachusetts. It stands erect, and carries itself majestically. But the latter end of the ticket will yet do to tie to, but as to the frontispiece – "pity the sorrows of a poor old man." [Laughter.]

One word before I progress further – upon the subject of slavery. What I have to say on that subject – all I have to say at home or abroad, I will say to you now, for, ladies and gentlemen, I have no sentiments in the South that I do not entertain when I am in the North. I have none in Cincinnati that I do not entertain when I am at home in Knoxville. [Applause.] The South, as I told them months ago, when I was surrounded by three thousand Confederate troops – the South is more to blame for the state of things that now exist than the North is. But yet, I have to say, just in this connection, that if, about two years ago, I had been authorized to collect – if I had been let hunt them up, for I know the men I would have wanted – if I had been allowed to hunt up about one or two hundred anti-slavery agitators and fanatics at the North, scattered here and there, and about an equal number of our God-forsaken, hell-deserving, corrupt secessionists and disunionists, I should have marched the whole army of them into the District of Columbia, and dug a common ditch, erected a common gallows, after embalming their bodies with gipsy weed and dog-fennel. Had this been done, I should not have been here to-night – we would have had none of the troubles which afflict the country now.

One word more upon the subject of slavery. If the issue shall be made by the South – if they are mad enough, if they are fools enough to make the issue of Slavery and no Union, or Union and no Slavery – I am for the Union. [Applause.] I have told them so at home upon the stump in my own town. I will stand by the Union until you make the issue between the Federal Union and the Christian religion; then I will back out from the Union – but for no other institution. [Applause.]

The speaker here commenced the narrative of the doings of treason in East Tennessee. About twelve months ago, he said, a stream of secession fire, as hot as hell, commenced pouring out of the Southern States in the direction of Leesburg, Richmond and Manassas, by way of Knoxville, Tennessee. Then it was that the rebel soldiery of the South, made drunk upon mean whisky, halted over night – day in and day out – in the town of Knoxville, and commenced their depredations, visiting the houses of Union men and stoning the inmates, blackguarding all whom they saw in them, male and female. His (Mr. Brownlow's) house, in Cumberland street, was more frequently visited by them than any other building in the town. At the same time he was reading, in the Mobile and South Carolina papers, that the best blood of the South had volunteered in the cause of "Southern rights." He said to his wife, "If this is the flower of the South, God deliver us from the Southern rabble."

The rebel soldiers became more and more insulting and overbearing. Finally, in the month of May, they commenced to shoot down Union men in the streets. The first man they singled out was Charles S. Douglas, a gentleman who had been conspicuous at the election as a Union man. They deliberately shot him down from the window of his house, in the day time. Mr. Brownlow was in the street at the time they made propositions to shoot down other Union men. Thinking prudence the better part of discretion, they retired from the crowd, many of them slipping into their houses quietly. But the work of murder and slaughter went on. Finally, many of the loyal men had to flee to the mountains – to the mountains of Hepsidam, if you please, said the speaker.

They remained away for several days, sleeping in the open air, and subsisting on bread and meat brought from their homes, with a quantity of game which they shot.

The rebel troops took possession of Mr. Brownlow's printing office – destroyed his press and type, and converted the building into a blacksmith shop for altering old flintlock muskets which Floyd had stolen from the Government. They were contemplating the destruction of his dwelling house, and would have accomplished it but for the timely arrival of General Zollicoffer, who, being a personal friend of the Dr.'s, set a guard around the premises, and issued an order confining the Texan troops to their camps for two days.

Retiring to Knoxville, Mr. Brownlow received a letter from Gen. George B. Crittenden, stating that he had been ordered by the Confederate Secretary of War to give him (Brownlow) a passport beyond the Confederate lines into the State of Kentucky to a Union neighborhood. Mr. Brownlow was about to accept the General's proffer, when he was arrested on a charge of treason, for writing and publishing what appeared in the Knoxville Whig as his farewell letter to his patrons and subscribers. On the 6th of December he was thrust into the Knoxville jail. He found in the jail one hundred and fifty Union men – the building crowded to overflowing. Every man confined on a charge of treason was a personal friend of Mr. Brownlow's. They ran around him in astonishment, and asked him what he was thrown into prison for. Some of them shed tears, others smiled when they saw him enter the iron gates. He told them he was under arrest for treason on a warrant just issued. He had been in jail ten or twelve days when a Confederate Brigadier General, whom he had known as an old Union man, paid him a visit. Upon entering the jail with two of his Aides he shook hands with him. The prisoners all crowded round to see the "sight." After a while the Brigadier said it was too bad to see Brownlow in such a place, and tried to impress upon the patriot's mind the propriety of his taking the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, upon which condition he should be released immediately. Brownlow was in a good humor until that proposition was made. That stirred up the bile of his stomach. "Sir," said he to the officer, looking him full in the eye, "I will be here till I die with old age, or till I rot in prison, before I will take the oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy. You have no Government. I deny that you are authorized to administer such an oath. You have organized a big Southern mob – not a Government. You have never been recognized by any civilized Government on the face of God Almighty's earth, and you never will be. And yet you are here asking me to take the oath of allegiance to the vilest mob that was ever organized South of Mason and Dixon's line. Not wishing to be profane, nor desiring to be regarded by you in that light, permit me to conclude my remarks by saying that I will see your Southern Confederacy in the infernal regions, and you high on top of it before I will take the oath." The officer remarked that that was d – d plain talk. Mr. Brownlow replied that it was the right way to make men understand each other. The General turned upon his heel, tipped his duck-bill cap and walked off. [Applause.]

When the speaker entered the jail he found among the inmates three Baptist preachers. One of them, a Mr. Pope, 77 years of age, was charged with having prayed to the Lord to bless the President of the United States, to bless the General Government, and put an end to this unholy war. Another old man – a minister – 70 years of age, was thrust into jail for having thrown up his hat and hurrahed for the stars and stripes when a company of Union Home Guards marched by his house with the stars and stripes flying over them. The third, a young man, was confined for having volunteered as chaplain in a Union regiment.

The sufferings of the inmates of the jail the speaker described as horrible. The food they were supplied with was rank and unwholesome. He, himself, got permission to receive meals from his family, otherwise he should not have been able to live through his long confinement.

Toward the conclusion of his address, Mr. Brownlow related several instances in which prisoners had been taken from the jail and hung by the troops after a few hours warning. Once they hung a father and son, whose sole offence was their loyalty to the Government, on the same gallows. They compelled the father to witness the agonies of the son before permitting death to come to his relief. The most affecting case mentioned was that of an old man, who, after a lengthy incarceration, was sentenced at ten o'clock one morning to be hung at four that afternoon. His name was William Henry Harrison Self. His daughter, a highly intelligent and well educated lady, hearing this awful news during the day, hastened to the jail, and, with great difficulty, obtained permission to visit the condemned man. The meeting of father and daughter was a scene which drew tears from the eyes of a hundred and fifty men long used to hardship and suffering themselves. They embraced and kissed each other, neither of them able to utter a word for some time. At about one o'clock the young lady approached Dr. Brownlow, and asked him to write, in her name, a despatch to Jeff. Davis, at Richmond, asking him to grant a pardon to her father. The Dr. did this, stating in the despatch, as follows:

"Honorable Jefferson Davis:

"My father, W. H. H. Self, is under sentence to hang to-day at four o'clock. My mother is dead; my father is my only hope and stay. I pray you pardon him. Let me hear from you by telegraph.

    "ELIZABETH SELF."

The young lady carried this despatch to the telegraph office, a distance of two miles, in greatest haste, and had it sent to Richmond immediately. Shortly before three o'clock she received an answer from "President" Davis commuting the old man's sentence to imprisonment, for such length of time as the Commanding General should see proper. The joy of his daughter was, of course, boundless. When Mr. Brownlow left Knoxville, on the 3d of March, Self was still in jail. He has been released before this time, Southern "justice" being satisfied in the premises.

REMARKS OF GENERAL S. F. CAREY

General S. F. Carey was next introduced. He referred to the deliverance of Dr. Brownlow as a release from dangers greater than those that surrounded Daniel in the lion's den, and from beasts far worse than beset the prophet. His deliverance was not to be credited to their magnanimity, but their fears.

He did not like to find fault with the Government, but it did seem to him that it was time it should bestir itself, and prosecute the war with greater vigor. Nor did he approve the policy pursued towards those taken in rebellion against the Government, referred with much bitterness to the tenderness displayed in the cases of Magoffin, Buckner, and the rebel prisoners at Columbus. He didn't think the penitentiary the place for them, and would not have the convicts contaminated by them. There was no inmate of the penitentiary, though he had been guilty of murdering his father, mother, or brother, whose crime was not innocence itself compared with that of these rebel prisoners, who sport their uniforms in the streets of Columbus, insulting the fathers and brothers of those men who had fallen in defence of the Union, and sitting in privileged seats in the legislative chambers of the State.

The audience had heard the narrative of the sufferings of loyal women in the South, and yet we have women in the State of Ohio who go to Columbus, with the avowed purpose of making the rebel officers comfortable, – conduct that in his opinion, and notwithstanding their sex, deserved the halter. He had no sympathy with the rebellion or with rebels, and was for cleaning them out root and branch.

In speaking on this subject, he felt the utter feebleness of human language. After it was exhausted, the great crime of rebellion looms up in all its terrible proportions. God speed the day when we shall be delivered! And yet he had no hope for the country till all the remnants of miserable partyism are swept away; he had no hope for it, while politicians were busy at the Capital intriguing and scheming for the preservation of some old broken down faction called a party. We need patriotism, not party.

Referring to the remarks of Mr. Brownlow, respecting the treatment that should be meted out to disunionists North and South, Mr. Carey said that while he respected the right of free speech, he was for hanging any man who favored disunion and dared to say so. Every man has his rights, the convict on the gallows, the thief in the penitentiary, but when a man abuses his rights, the right of free speech, to express himself in favor of disunion, be he Wendell Phillips, or any other man, cut him down.

The masses of the people in the North are in favor of a restoration of the Union as it existed before the war. But if the war continues, and the people of the rebellious States are given over to hardness of heart, if they shoot our pickets, if it proves necessary to send a few more thousand men from the loyal States to put down the rebellion, and people Southern grave yards, a cry will go up from Maine to the Pacific to clean out the rebels, niggers and all.

He believed the whole purpose of the Administration in the prosecution of the war, was to preserve the Republic and all its institutions as they existed when it came into power; and nothing is more certain than that the Union will be preserved, though it cost all our property and half the lives in the Republic.

He appealed to mothers to exert their influence in kindling a spirit of exalted patriotism, and to teach their sons not to be Democrats or Republicans, but to be patriots; and appealed to the ladies of the city to visit the hospitals, comfort the sick, point the dying to the land where there is no secession and no rebels, and give of their time, sympathy, and means to soothe the sufferings and lighten the afflictions of those who had volunteered in defence of the Union.