The Confederate Government and the Unionists of East Tennessee

Preface: The events with which this thesis deals left behind them a heritage of hatred, bitterness, and prejudice. In the years immediately following the Civil War, those persons who were by birth or by nature "Northern" in sentiment stubbornly believed that the Confederate government overstepped the bounds of civilized warfare - that it was unnecessarily and maliciously cruel to the Unionists of East Tennessee. On the other hand, those of "Southern" sentiment despised the East Tennessee Unionists as traitors to their state and friends - as persons wholly untrustworthy and treacherous.

I have not sought to either condemn or justify the Unionists or the Confederate officials. Both believed they were right; both were fighting for their principles. Neither was free from the barbarities attendant upon war.

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