A Year in the South

by Stephen V. Ash

  John took Tennie’s hand and asked if she had made her decision. She replied without hesitating: “Yes, Dear John, if you think I can make you happy, I am yours.” As she spoke, she fell into his arms.21

  “My feelings at that time I can not describe,” John wrote. “None but those who have been lovers know the joy of experienceing love. I had now all I desired. Tennie had vowed before God she would be my companion, what more could I wish.” They held each other for a long time. When he left, he gave her the silver dollar as a keepsake.22

  They set no wedding date, for they were still quite young and were content to wait until John had progressed farther in his career. Fortunately, he now had more time to devote to his studies. About three weeks earlier, toward the end of June, his uncle James Robertson had moved in with Uncle Allen. With him came his wife, Margaret, their six children, and a longtime friend of John’s named Grig Register. They had moved from Greene County, where John’s parents still lived. Their arrival filled Uncle Allen’s house to near the bursting point, but also provided other hands to work the farm, relieving John of that responsibility.23

  John did not go back to his books full time, however, for he had by now concluded that he needed to earn some money. Disliking manual labor, he sought the only other kind of work he was qualified to do, which was teaching.

  There were no public schools in Roane County, only subscription schools. The way a teacher got a position was by announcing that he was “getting up” a school and then trying to persuade parents to enroll their children and pay the tuition. In the last days of June, John went around the area soliciting subscribers. Before the month was out, he had enough to start a school and had secured a suitable building.24

  He began in mid-July with seventeen students. More came to enroll as the laying-by freed them from the fields, and eventually he had thirty-eight—sixteen of them his cousins. Most were rambunctious youngsters, but one was a married woman. “None of my scholars were far advanced,” John noted. What they needed, and what he proceeded to give them, was simply the three R’s along with a little geography.25

  July gave way to August. Five days a week John was at his post in the hot, crowded classroom, explaining the mysteries of spelling and long division, listening to awkward recitations, and trying to keep order. His Saturdays were his own. He spent them with Tennie, or studying, or at Blue Springs Church, or helping out on the farm. The Sabbath was devoted to Sunday school.26

  Thus would John’s weeks have passed until midautumn, when the subscription school term was to end, had events not taken an abrupt turn in late summer. Perhaps it was inevitable that the troubles afflicting so many other communities in east Tennessee would at some point spill into John’s. The wooded ridges that bordered his little world were high and steep, but they were no defense against intruders. In August intruders came and changed John’s life forever.

  The ordeal began on a Saturday. John was at Uncle Allen’s, but the other men of the family were away. Late in the morning a band of six horsemen, all armed, rode up to the gate. He saw them through a window. Grabbing his pistol and stuffing it partway down into the leg of his boot, he headed out the front door, ignoring the pleas of the women to stay inside.27

  When he asked the men their business, he noticed that “they seemed puzzled to know what to say or do.” After a few moments they requested directions to a neighbor’s house and, when John told them, they rode off. “I was glad to get rid of them on such easy terms,” he recalled. He recognized one of the men. He was a unionist named Hale who lived not far from John’s home in Greene County.28

  In the back of John’s mind had long been the fear that his brief career as a rebel vigilante would return to haunt him. The home guard outfit he had ridden with for several months in 1863 in Greene and Washington counties had made itself notorious among the local unionists. “[W]e would go out of our bounds,” John admitted in retrospect, “and do things we ought not to do.” What they did was terrorize unionist families, plundering their homes, threatening them, and arresting any man or boy suspected as a Tory guerrilla. The more elusive suspects they set traps for and tried to waylay. John knew that some of these unionists were itching for revenge; twice someone had attempted to murder him from ambush on his father’s farm. It was for this reason that he exiled himself from Greene County after the Yankee invasion gave unionists the upper hand.29

  He could not be certain that this disturbing encounter with armed riders had anything to do with all that. The men had said nothing to suggest that it did, and Hale had given no indication that he even recognized John. Perhaps it was just coincidence that had brought Hale more than a hundred miles to Uncle Allen’s gate.

  John’s relief at the departure of the horsemen was short-lived. An hour later they returned, and again he armed himself and confronted them. This time Hale called him by name and said he was there to collect a debt John’s father owed him. John knew the debt had been paid long ago, and he said so, adding that even if it had not been paid, it was no responsibility of his.30

  The men then said they would like to have some dinner. John replied that they were welcome to come into the house and eat. They declined, saying they would rather he bring the food out to them; they would wait at the spring nearby. “I feared they were trying to draw me away from the house to abuse me, and perhaps kill me,” John wrote, “but, determ[in]ed to stand them the best fight I could, I took the dinner to the spring.”31

  He stood by as the men ate, watching them carefully and staying close to a large tree, “expecting to make it serve me as a breastwork, should they attack me.” All the while they whispered among themselves, but he could not make out what they said. At last they stood up and mounted their horses. As they galloped off, they yelled and fired their pistols into the air. John then returned to the house, to the great relief of the women, who had heard the shots and feared he was dead. He concluded that he “had run a narrow escap[e],” and that only his boldness had saved him.32

  During the week that followed, he heard nothing more of this gang and he taught school each day without incident. He did, however, take the precaution of getting in some target practice with his pistol. By the end of the week he had used up all his ammunition, but he planned to get more at a store near Blue Springs Church. He would be attending a service at the church on Saturday and would stop by the store afterward.33

  When Saturday came, he set off for Blue Springs on foot, leaving the pistol behind. As he passed the home of the Raby family, Mr. Raby hailed him. There was a gang of unionists looking for him, he warned John, and he “had better watch out.” John promised to do so and went on. As he neared the church, he saw a group of horsemen coming down the road toward him. He was able to jump over a fence and into a thicket before they spotted him, and they passed on. He could not get a close look at them.34

  He entered the church and took a seat, and the service began. It was interrupted momentarily by some late arrivals. John turned to look and saw that they were the gang he had confronted at Uncle Allen’s the Saturday before.35

  After the service those in attendance chatted for a while outside the church. John was talking with the minister when a man waded into the crowd on horseback and stopped in front of him. He was a stranger and was wearing a pistol.

  “Why how are ye Mr. Robertson?” he said.

  “I am well sir. But how come you to know me? I don’t know you.”

  “Why my name is Bacon, just from your Pa’s. I have seen you many a time.”

  “I have no recollection of you Sir at all.”36

  Bacon then invited himself to go home with John for dinner. John did not like the idea, but decided not to object. He set out apprehensively, accompanied by Bacon and two other armed and mounted men who seemed to be his companions. Eventually the other two rode off, leaving Bacon and John alone. As they continued down the road together, the one on foot and the other on horseback, Bacon chatted so amiably that John began to relax. Perhaps there was no danger a
fter all.37

  There was a point where the road passed through a stretch of thick woods. As they entered it, Bacon suddenly stopped, pulled out his pistol, cocked it, and curled his finger around the trigger.

  “What do you mean by treating me in that way?” John demanded.

  “I mean to blow your brains out right here,” Bacon replied.

  “You will give me your cause first, wont you?”

  “Because you bushwhacked me in Washing[ton] Co. sir.”

  “I never bushwhacked you in Washington sir.”

  “You are a d—d l[ia]r, and here you’ll die.”

  John again protested his innocence. Bacon pointed to a hole in his sleeve, saying it was made by the bullet John had fired at him from ambush two years before.

  John kept talking. Boldness had saved him a week ago; perhaps it would do so now. “If you wish to kill the innocent and answer for it at the day of Judgment,” he said, “crack away.”

  “You d—d rebel you, you’re too m[ea]n to live anyhow.”

  “Don’t you expect to answer for this when you come to die?”

  “That don’t concern me now, so prepare to die!”

  “Sir I am ready, more so perhaps than you are.”38

  At that remark Bacon seemed to lose some of his nerve. Abruptly he announced that he would let John live if he gave up his pocket watch and pistol. John was wearing his watch in plain sight; how Bacon knew about his pistol he could guess. He replied that he would see about it when they got to Uncle Allen’s, and the two continued on their way.39

  John was carrying a walking stick and kept looking for a chance to use it on Bacon, but the man kept his pistol drawn and cocked and his eyes on John. Maybe, John thought, he would let his guard down while at the house and could be disarmed.40

  When they arrived at Uncle Allen’s, John abandoned all hope of overpowering Bacon, for he was suddenly outnumbered. Bacon’s two companions were waiting inside the house. No adult family members were at home, only some of the younger cousins, along with Tennie, who was visiting. After John and Bacon entered the house, Tennie and the children fled, scattering into the woods.41

  John tried one last ploy. Hoping he might simply wear the men out with delays, he insisted that he was going to sit down and have his dinner before he did anything else. And so he did, eating slowly and deliberately. But the three showed no sign of impatience as they stood over him with guns drawn. Finally, seeing no other way out of the situation, John finished his meal and reluctantly surrendered his watch and pistol.42

  The ordeal was not quite over. As they pocketed their loot, the men swore at John, saying “We have not taken any of your blood yet, and we’re going to have it.” One of them picked up John’s walking stick, remarking that it would do just fine to beat him to death with.43

  John grabbed a chair and made ready to defend himself with it. “You will not kill me by inches,” he said fiercely. “If you strike me you will have to kil[l] me, or die.” The men looked at John and decided to press the matter no further. They left the house, mounted up, and rode off.44

  Tennie soon reappeared. She said she had run to the home of a neighbor and pleaded with him to come help, but he had refused, saying he was afraid. John was grateful to her. “She had showed her fidelity as a true lover in the fray. She had done all she could, but could give me no help. This only served to bind us more close, and dearer to each other if possible.”45

  The next day was Sunday. John stayed away from Blue Springs Church, missing Sunday school for the first time. That night he learned that a band of unionists had shown up at the church looking for him and declared their intention to kill him.46

  They would likely come again to Uncle Allen’s, he reasoned, and they might well come after him at his schoolhouse, too. He would have to hide out for a while. He knew of a place to go. Tennie had recently begun teaching a school of her own in a community five miles away; she boarded there, coming home each Friday evening and returning early on Monday. John decided to go with her and stay in that area until his own community was safer. Uncle Allen agreed to take over his teaching duties for the time being.47

  John stayed away for a week, then returned and went back to the classroom. He had no further visitations from the “Lincolnites,” as he contemptuously called them, but he remained uneasy. If they were determined to kill him, there was nothing he could do to stop them—nothing, that is, except go where they could not find him. Through the waning days of August, he agonized over his plight. By September, he had decided he must leave.48

  PART FOUR

  FALL AND ANOTHER WINTER

  JOHN ROBERTSON

  John Robertson would have left east Tennessee early in September but for the rain. It began falling around the second day of the month and continued with hardly a letup for two weeks, drenching the ridges and hills and inundating the bottom lands. The wagon that was to haul his belongings to the train depot was no match for the muddy roads, and so his departure was postponed.1

  He had little to do while waiting for the weather to clear. He had closed his school on September 1—halfway through the three-month term he had planned—and farm work was pretty much at a standstill as long as it was raining. Tennie was away at her school five days out of seven. John thus had a lot of time to think things over, but he did not reconsider his decision to leave. To stay would be to risk his life. The armed gang that had twice accosted him had declared their intention to kill him. Where they were now he did not know; but even if they had left Roane County, they could return at any time, and they knew where he lived, where he went to church, and what paths he walked. Appealing to the authorities for protection was pointless: they could hardly guard his remote community against an elusive band of vengeful unionists, even if they were so inclined—which they probably were not, for they were all unionists themselves.2

  John’s new home would be in Iowa. His uncle Jim Robertson, who had been living with Uncle Allen since June, had decided to seek his fortune there and had persuaded John to go with him. Iowa was far, far away, but John had no close family or friends outside east Tennessee and concluded that, as long as he must live in exile among strangers, he might as well “be 1200 miles from home as 150.”3

  He did not especially relish the idea of living in the North, a “distant clime, where I had but little assurance of enjoyment, and where, I had been told, the hearts of the people were as cold as the climate.” That those people were also his former enemies bothered him little. He had no quarrel with them now, and he anticipated no real trouble from them. The ironic fact was that he was much safer in Yankeedom than in his east Tennessee homeland. Northerners had no love for rebels, but neither did they seek bloody vengeance against them.4

  It was having to leave Tennie that he dreaded most. When he told her of his decision to go, she did not try to dissuade him. She knew as well as he that his life was in danger, and in any event she was not the sort to argue with him. They did not seriously discuss the possibility of her going with him. John thought himself too young to marry—he had turned nineteen in April—and even if old enough, he was in no position to support a wife and family comfortably. There was no other choice, he concluded sadly: he and his beloved would have to separate. Their plans for the future remained intact, however. He promised he would one day return to claim her as his bride, and she promised she would wait for him.5

  The rain let up after the second week of September. By Sunday, the seventeenth, the roads were passable, and John and Uncle Jim agreed that they would leave the next day. That evening John walked over to Tennie’s for a last visit. It was “a gloomy sabbath to me,” he recalled, “and not less g[l]oomy to someone else.” The weather had turned cool and Mrs. Robertson had a fire going in the parlor. Her younger children were gathered around the fireplace, carrying on happily. John took a seat next to the armchair where Tennie sat. Hours passed, but neither said much; not even the cheery fire and the frolicking children could lift their spirits. “Occasionally
a smile would light upon [our] lips, but a deep sigh would follow.” After a while someone suggested singing, and a hymnal was brought out. John loved to sing, but tonight his heart was not in it, and after a few hymns the book was put away. Then Tennie fetched a Bible, and John joined the family in their nightly prayers. It was very late when at last he said good night and left.6

  He returned early the next morning for a final, brief farewell. Tennie met him on the porch. He took her hand and looked into her eyes. “I will return,” he said.

  “Never fear me,” she replied. “I will prove true.” They kissed, and he left.7

  When he got back to Uncle Allen’s, he found a crowd of neighbors gathered to say good-bye. “Whole families were there to see us start,” John remembered, “large and small old and young.” The party bound for Iowa numbered ten in all: John, Uncle Jim, his wife, Margaret, their six children, and a family friend named Newton Mullens. Two wagons were on hand to haul them and their luggage to the railroad station at Sweetwater, eight miles away. Once the wagons were loaded, they said their good-byes. “I gave Uncle A[llen] my hand in sorrow,” John recalled. “I regret[t]ed to part with him [for] he had been a friend to me.… [F]or the first time in [my] life on parting with a friend, a tear rolled down my cheek.”8

  It was well into the afternoon when they finally got away. The wagons, driven by neighbors, carried John and his nine companions eastward over the ridge to Blue Springs, where more friends were gathered to say farewell, and then headed southeast. It was almost dark when the party got to the Sweetwater depot. After unloading their baggage they found themselves with several hours to kill, for the train was not due until midnight. They ate the cold supper that they had brought along, then laid down pallets on the waiting room floor for the sleepy children, who ranged from a toddler to a thirteen-year-old. John and Mullens wandered around the little town a while, then returned to the depot.9