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Every honest Patriot citizen,

and unconditional Union man, who

Ioves Loyalty and despises Rebellion, whether
perpetrated North or South, under one pretence or
another, for the sake of office, power, fame, money, or
malicious resentment; To every intelligent reading
man, who, to whatever party he may belong, is unwilling
to see his Government overthrown by wicked and designing
men, and who has resolved to live and die beneath the folds of the
Star-Spangled Banner: To my companions in the Knoxville Jail, who,
with me, swore upon the altar of our country that, despite the gallows

and the prison, they would adhere to the Flag of the Federal Union, and who look to the mild umpirage of the Union as the only shield of nationality, is this work

Dedicated by its Author,

Who, during the progress of this revolution, has opposed it at every step, regardless

of consequences personal to himself, and of what designing men might say or think, or of what a corrupt and pensioned Southern Press might charge,

as to motives; who still bears in mind that it was WASHINGTON

who told us, "THE CONSTITUTION IS SAOREDLY OBLIGATORY

UPON ALL;" and that it was JACKSON who said,

"THE UNION, IT MUST BE

PRESERVED!"

This is a truth now revealed to us,

"Which kings and prophets waited for,

And sought, but never found."

PREFACE.

I HAVE prepared this work from the single stand-point of uncompromising devotion to the American Union as established by our fathers, and unmitigated hostility to the armed rebels who are seeking its destruction. My ancestors fought in its defence; and while their blood flows in my veins I shall instinctively recoil from bartering away the glory of its past and the prophecy of its future for the stained record of that vile thing, begotten by fraud, crime, and bad ambition, christened a Southern Confederacy. I cannot exchange historic renown for disgrace, national honor for infamy, how splendid soever may be the bribe or how violent soever may be the compulsion. This is my faith as an American citizen; and this book will show how sorely it has been put to the test. I claim, however, no merit, further than that arising from the discharge of a simple duty both of religion and patriotism. Thousands of my fellow-citizens have been

equally faithful among the faithless. Their sufferings may be conceived from this narrative of my

own.

Indeed, it is not from the slightest desire of self-glorification that I have spoken so freely of myself. It would have been sheer affectation of modesty to attempt by circumlocution of speech to do otherwise. For I have, in this matter, rather regarded myself as a type of the large body of loyal people in the border States, and have, accordingly, been the more unreserved, inasmuch as I felt that I might assume to some extent to speak in their behalf. It is important that our countrymen of the North should clearly understand the embarrassing position of this class, and the peculiar privations they have been compelled to undergo. It is chiefly due to them that the battle-field of the Rebellion has not been transferred to Northern homes. Their geographical location and political elements are such that, upon the soil which they inhabit, loyalty and treason have overlapped, and, being thus confronted face to face, they have been plunged into all the horrors of discord and anarchy, of divided communities and sundered households. In many

respects, however, we of that region do not wholly sympathize with the North any more than with the extreme South. We deprecate alike the fanatical agitators of one section and the Disunion demagogues of the other. I believe I represent the views of multitudes of ever-true and now suffering patriots when I declare that, Southern man and slave-holder as I am, if the South in her madness and folly will force the issue upon the country, of Slavery and no Union, or a Union and no Slavery, I am for the Union, though every other institution in the country perish. I am for sustaining this Union if it shall require "coercion" or "subjugation," or, what is worse, the annihilation of the rebel population of the land. These peculiarities in my position, as an East-Tennesseean, it will be seen, have contributed to mould the views which I have expressed.

I am, therefore, prepared to expect that many readers will not concur in all that I have said. But I do verily believe that, as a National man,having had an opportunity, as from an intermediate eminence, to view this question on both sides,—and having observed the bearings of the whole subject for thirty years past, I am enabled