Richmond, Virginia, March 29, 1862, Nevill C. Blacklidge, Special Correspondent

We now have further news from the occupied state of Tennessee about the long-winded speeches of the commonest of all in this age of the common man, Governor-General Andy Johnson. We have an unbiased  journalist embedded there, who for the purposes of security, we must only call the Shadow.  He will take us beyond the speechifying of General J. and tell us the impact these events have for all of us as we may be only days from a military confrontation that will decide the western war. We will allow him to narrate the course of events.

“A mere two weeks ago, our Governor-General, Andy Tailor Johnson on March 13th, came among us for the first time in four years, and he spoke of no evil intentions, but he said he had an olive branch in one hand and the Constitution in the other. Then he made a series of repeated references to the flag and described his wife’s flight from Greenville, and his  turned into a Confederate hospital. He then described how he could no longer be a Democrat and how his political favorite, John C. Breckenridge was in reality a Disunionist. He labeled Mr. Yancey a hypocrite for saying slavery was not the cause of the war. The best hope for the protection of slavery was the Constitution. In  secession was an accursed monster and had not people suffered enough from the work of Davis and Toombs? He then called for his countrymen to come to the defense of the Union.

“On March 18th came another appeal to the people of the state.He stated that Tennesseeans had never been happier or more prosperous than under the government of the United States. Men who had taken an oath of support for this government had made use of “rebellious, armed force.” Once the national flag had been established again in Nashville, the state government had evaporated. Archives were destroyed and the vaults of the State Bank looted. The vacant state offices will be temporarily filled until such time as a regular election can be held.

“On March 22nd came yet another appeal, this one very lengthy to the citizens of Davidson County. He enumerated the reasons for war. The claims of rights denied in the Territories for the establishment of slave states. He defied the treason that brought violence becaus he had ‘an oath registered in Heaven to support the Constitution.’  He then returned to Washington after campaigning long and hard for Breckenridge to find that he had a cloven foot; he now supported disunion and rejected the right of the Federal government to coerce any state. Once convinced that he {Breckenridge] had fallen into the arms of disunion, ‘We separated. I turned back on him and said, : You deceived me then–that was your fault; but when you deceive me again, it will be mine.’ This comment was met with laughter from the crowd.  He then fell in to a denuciation of Jefferson Davis covering the old ground of the ingratitude of any who toook up arms in the South. Isham Harris was especially denounced as would-be dictator and at the same time, a man unfit even to be Old Andy’s slave. There would have been no war, he stressed in Andrew Jackson had been President and not the “impotent, truckling old man of wheatland.’ Finally, to those he asked him to free Tennesseans in northern prisons, he said look to Alabama where many are imprisoned simply for their allegiance to the Union. After labeling a man whom hissed him as a serpent or goose, depending on his level of intelligence, he ended. I made the speech as over two hours. We in the crowd were exhausted and parched, and heded for the Central Hotel for food and drink.” We are now alert to any future speeches that Old Andy gives when he says he will be brief. Find some shelter and bring a picnic basket.  If words were cannon balls, not even Napoleon could have fired off this many in two hours”

Richmond, Virginia, March 21, 1862, Nevill C. Blacklidge Special Correspondent

We now continue our narrative of the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac near Hampton Roads on March 9th. We are indebted to the e account of Lieut. John Taylor Woods who was an officer on the Merrimac at the time of the battle, the first real test of the ironclads from each side. The following is the gist of our interview last week, after he had reported directly to President Davis. Mr. John A. Taliaferro summoned a press conference,and after some preliminary comments on the rebuilding of the former wooden warship into an ironclad, Lieut. Woods provided us with the narrative of the events of March 9th.

“There had been news for some time that Capt. John Ericsson was constructing a revolutionary new ship all of iron, not as ours was armor plated only and that it was smaller with half the draft and with much greater mobility than our own ship. We had an early breakfast as our mission was to destroy the Minnesota and then the rest of the Federal fleet. Concealed behind the Minnesota was what we now know was the Monitor, which appeared to be a black funnel atop a cheese box of iron. Shots from our front and read pivot guns had little effort. We soon lost our funnel, and we had serious problems in steering; we were taking heavy blows from the 11 inch guns of tbe Monitor.

“After two hours we had continued to fire on the pilot house but could not maneuver except in a narrow but deep channel. We hoped to aim below the water line with a concentrated broadside. We had slight wounds to our ship, but we had made no impression on the hull of the Monitor. Lieut. Jones now had in mind to ram or board her. We had ceased firing because powder was precious and I told Lieut. Jones we could do just as much damage by snapping out thumb as in continued firing on the cheesebox.

“The Monitor turned before she could be effectively rammed; we had by this time lost an hour in manuvering only to strike a glancing blow. Some six more hours of firing took place and then the Monitor moved off. She did return and we steamed to Norfolk for repairs. Although the Monitor left the e first, the battle was a basic draw.The Monitor had failed to strike  us at any time below the water line where we were vulnerable. I visited Captain Franklin Buchanan in the Norfolk Naval Hospital; he had been grievously wounded in the first day’s battle. Then I took a train to Petersburg and Richmond.”

Richmond, March 15, 1862 Nevill C. Blacklidge, Special Correspondent

Thanks to an extensive interview with Lieut. John Taylor Wood, the story may now be told of the construction of the Confederate ironclad, the Virginia, from the burned hulk of the Federal ship, the Merrimac.  The hurried Federal withdrawl, which can only be termed a panic, last spring from Norfolk included the burning of the naval yard and many ships. Lieut. John M. Brooke suggested to Navy Secretary Mallory that the ship’s hull be raised and turned into an ironclad. For our readers unfamiliar with this term, it meant an intense labor to cover both ends of the ship with 4 inch thick plates of iron, and to reinforce the ship with 24 inch thick oak planks from the water line to as height over the gun deck of seven feet. The pilot house was also covered with iron of the same thickness. A total of ten guns were later installed.

What was thought to be a trial run with no guns ever fired and the engines never tested, some 80 crewmen were in for a memorable day. At a speed of about five knots and drawing some 22 feet of water the ship kept to the main channel and headed for Newport News and the Yankee navy. Off Fort Monroe were three frigates at anchor, the Minnesota, Roanoke, and St. Lawrence, they lost a 50 gun frigate. Off Newport  News, some seven miles above the harbor near a strongly fortified area were the 50 gun frigate  Congress and the 30 gun sloop, the Cumberland.

Coming within three-quarters of a mile, the Virginia was fired upon by the Cumberland and then the Congress. The Cumberland was first fired on from the forward pivot which killed most of the crew of their rear pivot gun, and then Lieut. Wood ordered the crew to ram the Cumberland at nearly a right angle. This opened a hole large enough for a horse and wagon to pass through. Then still under fire from the Cumberland,  the Virginia turned toward the Congress. The Congress was hit with three raking shells and then from a distance of 200 yards the ship which had run agound was bombarded for an hour. Finally she ran up the white flag.

The Roanoke and St. Lawrence pushed by tugs came to the rescue, and ran aground, the Minnesota also assisted by tugs, soon ran aground but was in a position to keep firing. Three more ships of the James River Squadron joined the assault to aid the Virginia, and they accepted the surrender of the Congress, took off the crew, and soon set fire to the ship.  With two hours of daylight, it was not possible to continue the attack on the Minnesota, with ebb tide and approaching night, the pilots decided to wait until the next day.

Richmond, Virginia, March 7, 1862, Nevill C. Blacklidge, Special Correspondent

This week is the fourth anniversary of the memorable March 4th, 1858 speech of Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina, known simply as his “Cotton Is King Speech” speech. We have this week received a letter written some three weeks ago by our British acquaintance, Mr. John Watts, author of a series of articles in the Manchester Evening Post on the topic of “The Current Cotton Famine.” He reports that some eighty-five percent of the workers in the great textile mills in his area are now without cotton and, consequently,  without work. A review the predictions made by Senator Hammond compared to Mr. Watts’ most recent article we believe will prove that the Senator’s predictions have been proven beyond any doubt.

Imagine you are in the Senate gallery and a distinguished man has just risen in response to Senator Douglas of Illinois to question his claims for popular sovereignty, and tto answer the retorts of Senator William Seward of New York that it is in reality “squatter sovereignty”.  Senator Hammond first spoke to Senator Seward’s claims that the voting frauds in Kansas were all committed by pro-slavery southerners.

“Mr. Seward would have us believe that the regiments of immigrants recruited in the North and armed with Sharpe’s rifles, Bowie knives, and revolvers were simply lambs sent to the slaughter under their gentle leader, General Lane. If there were frauds in voting, they were equal on each side. Since there is to be sectional warfare, it is time for the South to consider the advantages of being a separate nation. There are a number of causes. The threats of the North are many and start with the plan to restrict slavery to its present territory, followed by the reconstruction of the Supreme Court, the plundering of the South through higher tariffs, laws impeding navigation, a new national bank to concentrate all finances in the North, and the forced emancipation of our slaves.

“As a separate nation what resouces would the South have? A territory as large as Britain, even larger than the North with the addition of Minnesota and Kansas, three miles of coastline, the mighty Mississippi Valley, and the soon to be acknowledged seat of a world trading empire, a populaation four times that of the original thirteen colonies, and in another generation those to the north will be trading partners with the South, and political opposition will end.  Although the North has 50 percent more population, there is no staple crop the South cannot produce. In exports worth $279,000,00 by my calculations, the South produced $185,000,000 the North $95,000,000. In addition some $30,000,000 in cotton is sent to the North each year.

“As a separate nation the South would have export revenue of $40,000,000 annually. There would be no need for an army or navy, because who would attack a nation raising cotton; who would make war on cotton? It is commerce that breeds war, and the hawking world-wide of manufactured goods that requires a navy. We could without firing a gun, in three years bring the world to its feet, simply by not planting cotton during that time period. It would better for the market to plant half as much annually, but imagine none for three years. The South could endure this, but what of others as the laborers in the great cotton mills of England?Engalnd would fall. The Bank of England last fall attempted to play king and place the screws on the South and failed. With no cotton for three years, England would fall. Cotton is king!

“When Senator Seward said yesterday that rest of the world had abolished slavery, he did not mention the working poor found on any street in any city of the North. Our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; as an inferior race we have elevated their social status. In the North, your slaves are white, of your same race and if they had the power of the ballot box they would divide the land and restructure the government. As it is, they have only the poorest shelter and food. There are more beggars in New York City than the entire South. What if we sent lecturers to the North to urge these workers to throw off their chains and exercise their franchise; would they be welcomed? Our slaves are happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly incapabable, from intellectual degradation, ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations. Still, you send abolitionists to tell them they deserve better and that any laborer in the North has a better life as a free man. In reality, they are free to be underpaid and exploited manual laborers, their pay dictated by a false labor market that drives down wages. Imagine the condition of Massachsetts alone if we exported no cotton to the North. The North wants to open the West to hordes of semi-barbarian emigrants taking their meager propety with them; we in the South ask the same right to expand our agriculture and take our propery with us. The West should be open to all!

“The South, we slaveholders, saved this young nation and have led it through the last seven decades; we wrote the Constitution and we have preserved conservative values and send some $140,000,ooo to the North each year. What we have done to make this nation can never be denied; we have made this a prosperous nation, and we will soon leave to create a prosperous nation of our own; we have the skills and the determination. We will soon free ourselves from the repression  of the North, and Europe will look to us for exports and culture.”

[Editor's note: Mr. Watts begins his letter with a review of the past year. By coincidence, three years to the day after Senator Hammond 's speech, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th and possibly the last abolitionist President of the United States.]

Manchester, February 14th, 1862

Dear Nevill,

I am writing to include a series of my recent articles on the “Cotton Famine” and also this letter to update you on our situation here. Feel free to publish part or all of this letter and the articles so that your readers in the Confederacy will better appreciate our true situation here.

Even with the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln and the firing on Ft. Sumpter, no one here believed in the possibility of war. Either there would be some agreement reached or there would be an amicable parting, and the South would be allowed to live in peace. Did not your famous New York newspaper editor, Mr. Horace Greeley, even say to let you go? Those who thought the Confederate States would never come into being under a central authority were wrong. Those also who thought in the North that the war would end in 90 days were equally wrong. Lincoln eliminated the Douglas compromises with slavery and vowed slavery could exist where it was already, but it was not to be introduced into the territories. While the Constitution protected slavery, war said Lincoln made the constitutional protections invalid.

The election year for you in 1860 was a year of tremendous profits in the great textile mills; there were half a million employed, and the wages were at the highest point ever reached. Those who invested in cotton mills had a return of thirty or forty percent profits. Then came the news of the war in America, but there was a certainty that the South would continue to sell cotton, and the mills had a four months’ supply at Christmas 1861, and there had been steady imports for the past three months. Other sources would provide a twelve months’ supply and the five months’ stock held by the merchants would be sold.

Prices remained constant through most of 1861, then later last year speculators moved in and the price of raw cotton began to rise without any increased demand for the finished product. The blockade of southern ports seemed at first a paper blockade, but then as supplies diminished, there was the feeling from the South that if Cotton was King, then Britain would have to intervene on the side of the South to protect the supply line.

The mills first began to run short in October, and the first indications were those seek poor law relief from the guardians of the funds in the unions; it was too early for out-door labourers to apply. The mid-winter high numbers had come three months early, but in October there were only 3,000 applications among 28 unions, then in November came 7,000 then in December 7,000 more, by January there were 16,000 more, and 9,000 more at the last count in mid-February. Soup kitchens were suggested but many unemployed are too proud to ask for aid and are consequently foodless. In terms of persons with no money for food, there are in Ashton 3,197, in Stockport 8,588 and in Preston 9 ,488, and the numbers are growing daily. Committees are now forming to aid these people. Overall, pauperism has risen some 131 percent over last year.

People want cheap calico, and they do not care whether it is from free labour or slave labour. Had they known the costs, even a farthing more and many would not have advocated the end to colonial slavery. What the the policy of Her Majesty’s Government will be or if relief is coming is unknown at this point. I know you are hoping for the blockade to be broken and the free passage of arms and money, but only time will tell.

Yours,

John Watts

Richmond, Virginia, March 4, 1862, Nevill C. Blacklidge, Special Correspondent

A combination of telegraphic communications and official reports have today been made public by the War Department of the Confederacy. In a special conference at the Department, President Davis’ Secretary, John A. Taliaferro, read to the press a series of reports from the field and then responded to questions.

“It is my sad duty to confirm that Nashville fell on February 25th with all Confederate troops safely evacuated under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston. Initial reports are that Confederate forces to prevent the Union advance from the north burned the railroad bridge, and cut the cables on the 7oo foot long suspension bridge. Generals “Bull” Nelson and Don Carlos Buell have invested the city; General Buell claiming to have 55,000 troops under his command, actually had only 15,000, and General Grant perhaps some 40,000 more having in the last month defeated forces at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.

“General Albert Sidney Johnston had arrived in Nashville on Sunday February 16th after his retreat from Bowling Green amid reverses that had included the defeat at Mill Spring and the death of General Zollicoffer.  The city was in false sense of elation believing the forces of General Grant had been defeated in West Tennessee at Fort Donelson. A correspondent on the scene, who has requested anonymity has contibuted for this report a detailed narrative of the situation in Nashville.

“It now appears this premature celebration was due to the over-optimistic messages of two virtually disgraced commanders, General John B. Floyd and General Gideon Pillow. Once the true story of the loss of Ft. Donelson was revealed around 10:00 in the morning of February 16th, which left undefended the city of Nashville, a panic ensued. General Johnston had revealed the true military situation to Governor Isham Harris. General Buell was reported to have army units moving from Clarksville, and his troops and federal gunboats would all arrive about 3:00 P.M. that same day. Governor Harris made no statement due to his general distrust of newspapers, which he regards as only making the situation worse. He was falsely credited with the rumor at 11:00 A.M. that women and children should flee as gunboats would shell the city in three hours which would be 2:00 P.M. Sunday.

“People immmediately began to race from the city with personal belongings by train or personal vehicles. Private conveyances were rented at enormous prices, and many others fled on foot. On that Sunday afternoon the state archives were packed and sent by train to Memphis. A proclamation by the Governor that afternoon requested the state legislature to meet in four days time, February 20th, in Memphis. A large portion of General Johnston’s army had passed through the city also on Sunday which only heightened the panic.

“The situation was not improved on Monday the 17th by the appearance of first heavy rain and churning mud. The generals Floyd and Johnston, and Mayor R. B. Cheatham, spoke to crowds at the Public Square, and Mr Cheatham, promised an equitable distribution of food. In the late afternnon a handbill announced a 7:00 P.M. speech of General Gideon Pillow, who appeared at that hour and gave a brief address to the crowd before boarding a train for his home near Columbia, Tennessee. He stressed that no military forces would fight to hold Nashville, and the civilian leaders would be left to quietly surrender the city. However, he promised to return and drivbe the enemy north of the river. That Monday, there were no enemy gunboats or troops, just retreating troops, wet and hungry, marching south. Under orders of General Floyd military supplies were shipped all day long by train.

“On Tuesday the 18th General Nathan Bedford Forrest arrived with his troops. They had cut their way out of Fort Donelson . General Floyd began under Forrest’s oversight, the widespread distribution of food to civilians and the shipmnet of other food out of the war zone. General Forrrest stated later in an interview that he personally oversaw the  loading of 7oo bales of cloth and other military goods, and 700 or 800 wagon loads of meat. The shoes from the Quartermaster’s supplies had already been stolen by civilians. On Tuesday also came the destruction of the suspension and railroad bridges and two boats along the river which had been destined for conversion to gunboats, but this was not to be. Had the rumors been true of a bombardment and troop deployment by the Federals on Sunday, these bridges would have provided easy access to the city. A few Rangers from Texas caused undue stress by promises to burn the city rather that surrender it, but it soon was learned that these were stragglers, the Rangers had been sent on first on Sunday.

“General Forrest on at least two occasions had to dispense unruly crowds at the point of the sword, but there were no serious injuries. On Wednesday General Floyd, as Commandant of Nashville, ordered the halt to the distribution of food to civilians, as the enemy were no nearer, and more food was shipped to the troops. Bales of clothing on several occasions were tossed from fourth and fifth floor windows on the Public Square to the waiting crowds. Consequently, a mob on Friday believed that  the Quartermaster’s Department was about to dispense clothes in a similar manner, and the unruly crowd was dispensed with water from a fire engine hose.”

It was later learned from our sources that on Sunday, that General Buell was still near Bowling Green. With the final detachments of Confederate troops evacuated on Sunday the 23d, General Forrest and then Captain John Hunt Morgan protected the rear of the retreating army.

“General Albert Sidney Johnston has sent a full report in a letter from the field dated February 25 from Murfreesboro. The following are the salient points in his narrative. His decision not to defend Nashville was the only way to save his army after the fall of Ft. Donelson. Despite his earlier requests sent from Bowling Green for defensive lines to be constructed in and near Nashville, by the time of his arrival at Edgefield on the 15th of February, it was obvious that plantation owners and householders has refused to have trenches and fortifications constructed on their property. The city and outlying areas were therefore indefensible.  On February 17th and 18th his troops were removed to Murfreesboro from Nashville, where they encamped for a week.

“The Federal troops need not feel secure in Nashville as General John C. Breckenridge has sent to us a copy of the dispatch from Captain John Hunt Morgan on his scouting expedition of Febraury 26th with a company of twelve men. They penetrated the Union lines in Nashville and successfully set fire to a steamboat, the Minne Tonka, which was near several gunboats in the river; they escaped successfully with one wounded in a gunfight where they nearly sent three Union officers to their Maker.”

“We now have word that yesterday, March 3rd, Columbus, Kentucky, the Gibraltar of the West is now occiupied by the Union forces. General Leonidas Polk was ordered to withdraw as the fortress was not defensible after Ft. Donelson. We are waiting for detailed report from General Polk, which we will share as soon as possible. Wwe have also just learned that Andrew Johnson has been commissioned to be military governor of Tennessee with the rank of Brigadier General. Tennessee has in ten days passed from a freely elected civiliasn government to a state of miltary dictatorship.”

I will  now entertain questions for a brief period of time.

Q: What is considered defensible in the West since Ft. Donelson was the apparent key to everything?

A. General John P. McCown has adequate forces to defend the river at New Madrid on the Missouri side and at Island No. 10; these forces number some 8,500 men.

Q. What is the current strategy other than retreat, or withdrawl in force?

A. All forces for the first time will be assembled under General Johnston near Corinth, Mississippi. The Union forces under Generals Buell and Grant are to be driven out of Tennessee. This is the essential strategy put forth by President Davis and agreed to by the generals in the field.

Q. Where is General Beauregard in all of this?

A. He is with General Johnston as his second-in-command.

Thank you for your attention.

.

Richmond, March 4, 1862, Nevill C. Blacklidge, Special Corespondent

Coming within one week of the fall of Nashville is the news that Andrew Johnson was this week appointed by Abraham Lincoln as both Brigadier-General and Military Governor of Tennessee. Our readers deserve some background on this man, who has so often  mentioned that he is one of the common people. He is not the man to spare the rod; he is a man with a violent disposition, who hates any who possess wealth and culture, particularly those who spurned him in his youth in North Carolina and his adult years in Tennessee. We predict he will cause havoc during his time in power in Nashville. Even his associates such as Thaddeus Stevens can see no precedent for installing him with an army in Nashville, where he is now journeying. Where in the history of America since the time of British rule has there been a military governor, or a President who ruled with an army?

In a later article we will discuss more about his associates in Congress and Tennessee. For now it is enough that you know that he moved from a Breckenridge Democrat in opposition to Lincoln to the close companion of Ben Wade, Parson Brownlow, and every Union Whig in Tennessee and Kentucky. When not in Congress, he has been this past year in exile in Kentucky, as Tennessee has been made too hot for him since he denounced Governor Harris and others in the most intemperate terms, safe under the marble dome of the Capitol in Lincolnland.

His recent activities since December 1859 have shown a steady attempt to gain national recognition. He from that session sought to dominate the Democratic Party and be an alternative to Douglas and Breckenridge. He denounced the Calhoun wing of the party as a sect and then he singled out the distinguished Jefferson Davis for his venom. Then he quickly introduced his most elaborate plan yet to achieve voter supporter for such a presidential run; the 25 cents per acre land promise, reduced to 18 cents and five years to pay. He sought a flood of landless people of the lowest classes to settle on 6 million acres and thereby swell the population of the territories and the consequence would be new states and more members of Congress to imperil slavery. The Homestead Bill as vetoed by President Buchanan would have cut by 8o percent the anticipated federal land revenues of $5,000,000 for the budget of 1860.

The logic of Mr. Buchanan’s veto message was as follows. The land is to be sold at 25 cents per acre, one-fifth of the current rate, with five years to pay, the land’s actual costs was 18 cents, or 3 and 2/3 cents per acre per year. The federal government is not empowered to give away public lands. The same argument was made by by Mr. Buchanan in the Agricultural College Bill of February 24th, 1859. That bill would have given over six million acres to the states at $1.25 per acre. In return each state was to build at least one college within five years or forfeit the grant. The grants were restricted to states in which governors felt there was land worth $1.25 an acre. Those states without such land would be given scrip by the Department of the Interior. In the case of unfortunate conditions, the states would make good  on the payments. In this case also, the loss of revenue would be extreme given the current financial stress on the 33 states in the nation. As can be seen Mr. Johnson comes from that strata of society that proposes legislation and leaves the states or the federal treasury to pay the bills. He even thinks paper scrip is a sensible solution to financial problems. No wonder the Lincoln Republicans have rewarded him; he believes in their paper money schemes.

Next he proposed a series of constitutional amendments that would void the Dred Scott decision. In return for the direct election of the President and Vice President as well as the federal judiciary, he would guarantee equal numbers North and South. Then  a permanent line would be drawn with no slaves north of the line. Either slaves are portable property to be freely moved anywhere, or they are not. Mr. Johnson believes we all seek to return to the guidelines of Missouri Compromise of 1820 and ignore the legal protection of slavery and void the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott decision at the same. For a man without property or culture that appears to be a compromise to end sectional strife.

He said in January 1861 that if the South Carolina senators would return the South would have a majority of six, and he would help them all to fight Lincoln. Not even a first class postmaster could be appointed; Lincoln would be thwarted and slavery protected. When this ploy failed and South Carolina left the Union, he argued against the right of secession. He said secession was a gift to the abolitionists who would now claim a revolution was at hand. Secession was the surest way to end slavery. By February 1861 he was claiming those who departed the Senate had committed treason.

Governor/General Johnson must now be on his way to Nashville to govern with bayonets. What he could not accomplish, the prevention of the state of Tennessee freely leaving the Union, he will now accomplish as subverts the will of the state, his home for his entire adult life. He comes not with peace, but with a sword and his state, and the city that is the Athens of the South, will never recover its glory until his removal. The cry should be: ”Free Nashville from the reign of a new Robespierrre!”