.Cy t? E 531 .G86 Copy 1 LETTEX^JS AND MEMORIALS OF AN m mi;! fEMESSEE UBION SOLDIER, IN BEHALF OP HIS LONG-SUFFERING AND OPPRESSED COUNTRYMEN, UNDEE REBEL ANARCHY IN 1861-2-0-4 — STII.L IN THE MIDST OF WAR, DES0LATI0:N", and WIDE-SPREAD FAMINE, BY PETER H. GRISHAM, CLERK, h'd-Qb's 2d CAV. DIV., D, C. NASHVILLE WILLIAM CAMERON & CO., PRINTERS, UNION OFFICE, 1864. LETTERS AND MEMORIALS. [For the Nashville Union.] Appeal No. 2, from an humble Union Soldier, now long in Activt Service, to the Grreat Loyal Armies, Grovernment and People of the United States ! Once more, 0, my Countrymen! do I pray you in behalf of our long distressed, suffering, bleeding and dying kindred and people beyond the Cumberland Mountains 1 Twenty thousand of us, perhaps, have run the mortal gauntlet, and are now among you, in these mighty, loyal armies, scattered far and wide among strangers ; cut off almost entirely from all communication with those so sacredly near and dear to our hearts, whom we have long ago left helpless in the bloodj hands of the mobs of a most dark and bloody-rebellion. We represent the noble freemen of the "highlands and mountains of these rebellious States. We come from that great, lovely, and poetic section of our great country — called in the writings of learned travelers " The Switzerland of America " — the garden spot of this great continent — East Tennessee. Three months had hostile armies of traitors been marching, almost daily, over our great railroad, toward Virginia and Washington City — striking terror in every heart in our land — before our traitorous Governor and Legislature called a second time upon us to vote for or against the great free Government of our fathers ; and still these loyal people of East Tennessee clung, loith a death grip, to the glorious Star Spangled Banner, which waved in such glorious triumph over the bloody battles in the long wars our fathers fought for freedom and inde> pendence, against despotic and haughty England of old. And, not content with merely voting an immense majority for the Union, we have, a goodly number of us, voluntarily banished ourselves far aivaij from our once quiet and comfortable homes and kindred, escaping the blood-thirsty and subtle traitors — whose mur- derous pickets were already guarding the narrow defiles of the mountains — and we have now long been with you, with musket, sabre and sword, in active service, many thousands of us, for eighteen and twenty months — having left our aged mothers and fathers, sisters, loives, and helpless children to be robbed, starved and murdered by fiery-flying serpents, in humuan shape, which this horrible crater of rebellion and civil war has been throwing out upon them, from the Missouri and Ohio rivers to Baltimore, and from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico to the Rio Grande. They have even murdered innocent mothers and venerable christian fathers, whose hospitalities have often been enjoyed by va% The pen need only tonch the names of the venerable Pleasant Pierce, of Knox, and Talbot Staples, of Scott, recently murdered by them, to cause the heart of many a loyal soldier from those counties to throb with indignant horror I But we are cut off from hearing their cries. The daily trains, freighted with many thousands of letters, bearing glad tidings and news for your veteran and noble patriots from the great free Slates of the North, come in solemn and awful silence to us. No mail for us to-day! None last week! nor month! nor year I Scattered news and chance letters sometime come by some brave son of Colum- bia, who has again eluded the murderous eye of the wily traitors, whose hands have long been dripping with innocent blood ! We still cry aloud unto you, oh, my countrymen! Put us all together, and, well armed and equipped, backed bij you, we tvill cut our own way home to the redemption of our long-lost homes and kindred. These months with us drag slowly and heavily cdong. We know that our people are fast approachingyamine, ruin and starvation, if all these horrors have not already come upon them, unless we make great haste to theirrescue and redemption. But we are scattered far and wide among you, like wandering sheep among strangers, in the regiments of many different States. I enlisted among entire strangers in Kentucky, nearly two years ago, and I know what I write to he so. The only news from my father's house and family was derived through a brother, who, with eighty>one others, escaped to Kentucky in November last, and have mostly joined the loyal armies of their country with us. My people had iieard nothing at aXlfrom me, though they had tried long and hard to do so. This may be said, no doubt, of thousands of others of us scattered wide among you, and when we die, the chance is that no tidings of our death will ever reach our dear relatives. I have received the high encomium of my commanders, of having taken acti'^e part in the great battles near Perryville, Ky., and Murfreesboro', Tenn. ; of being through the arduous campaigns under Major-Generals Rousseau, Buell and Rosecrans, in Kentucky and Tennessee. From the solemn, silent marches through the streets of Louis- ville, in September, 1861, wading the swift waters of Salt River, near Muldro's Hill, where I beheld the flames of the first burning Railroad Bridge in Kentucky, by the enemy, thence to the ruins of the noble bridge across Green River, which they had destroyed; to Grayson, Bowling Green, Nashville, Savannah and Shiloh ; to Columbia, Franklin, Shelbyville, Murtreesboro' and McMinnville; to Rock Island, last summer ; thence through that dreadfully terrific simoom of war, which swept from Chattanooga to Louisville, and Perryville, Ky., under Buell and his Generals parallel, and clashing with the armies of the enemy under Bragg and Kirby Smith ; and again to the great battle of Stone's River, near Murfrees- boro', Tennessee, under the great and noble Rosecrans. But my poor services are very insignificant beside the mighty blowswhich you, noble freemen, have struck this horrible ogre of treason — this despotic enemy to the peace and happiness of all mankind ; which aims at nothing less than to rule, with iron rod, over us, this great free people, after having ruined the glorious free Government of our fathers. Mark you ! Thirty^five long years by them have been spent in subtly plotting out this problem of treason, before they plunged our great and happy country into this most horrible civil war. The sons of tories of old, in the revolution, published iu their treasonable papers in 1861 the letters of the English emissary, Russell, which openly announced that " all through the South, the cry was : " If we only had one of the royal sons of England U) reign over us we would he content ! " That's it! And you have it here in book form, published by Russell himself in England, and now for sale in Nashville. I have seen it. I saw it in the Richmond Dispatrh in June, 1861, while at the Union Convention iu Greenville, Tanu.j and mnch mr-rp. of the same. sort. Awake, 0, Freemen of Columbia 1 and with your gleaming scimeters show them your might and power to mow them down like snakes in the tender grass, if they do not submit. From ocean to ocean, and from lakes to gulf, this ^'Master Bace" ot traitors moitiubth,h&\e\cx\gheQn thoroughly organized, and actively at work. Behold a mighty nation of freemen bathed in the blood of her own sons I Turn thekey, let Slavery loose ! — the gieat st'e^gthond^ntext of this rehelKan! and we are not only safe but will save many thousand of precious lives of noble patriots I Put the proud and bloody despots to work or to starve for something to eat, and freeze for something to wear, and they will soon forget to go about exciting bloody war against the innocent. What have the great and enlightened nations of the earth long said to us? What says the noble and amiable Queen of Great Britain to us ahcutii? "^You load loudly of hhtrty and, i re er cm— yet you wulput up and tellat auction fifty men, women and children at a time!" Bloody deceit, to be sure! and and now is the time, IF EVER, to lemedy it ! Did not the warning voices of Washington, Adams, Madison, Monroe, Webster and Clay, come down to us, thats/at'e?-^ would certainly briny these bloody scenes upon us if it was permitted to go on? \es, in thunder tones, reverberating down to eternity, they have long pronounced its sentence — " Ouilty," — 'Uhe greatest of all evils !" Then why do we cherish it and nourish it? This venomous viper in our bosoms striking its fangs into our very hearts! Heaven and a dying people cry aloud unto as — Why?. Then let it be emanci- pated forever, now! (Jently— t?iough as extracting an eye tooth with the loyal, hni rapidly and violently, if tecestary, with theblcody tiaitors! Let the slave go free forever to himself. P. H. GlllSHAMj Clerk, Second Kentucky Cavalry — «» [For the Louisville Journal.] APPEAL FEOM AN EAST TENNESSEE UNION SOLDIER. On the March, near Stanford, Kt., October 17, 1862. lb the Soldiers of the Unicn Armies of the Ohio and the West: Fellow-Soldiers: Sixteen months ago I shook hands with my weeping aged parents in Eastern Tennessee, and started on the cars for Knoxville, one hundred miles on my way to your great loyal State of Kentucky. Here let me say that not one spark of news have I bad i'rom my relatives since I left home, though I wrote three letters to them on my way out. This is the bitter fruit of civil war. From thence I walked, via Montgomery and Monticello, to Liberty, Ky. On my way I stopped four days at the last great Union Convention of East Tennessee, held in Greenville College, Tenn., in June, 1861, being two days after the last election on secession, when the reign of terror caused Middle and West Tennessee to overpower the great Union majority in East Tennessee, and voted the State out of the good old Union of our fathers. I had been requeeted to attend as a delegate to that Convention, instead of my brother, who had been appointed at a meeting of our loyal countrymen in Washington county. The reign of rebel military despotism and treason was so dreadful, even then, that I 6 was afraid to trust any one except my parents and brothers with the knowledge that I intended going to Kentucky to volunteer in the Union army. As I a3<» cended the south-eastern slopes of the Cumberland Mountains, I turned to give a last, long gaze at the fading summits of the Alleghanies, whose lofty ranges bounded my native country on the south and east. I wept over my once happy but now distracted country, where great armies of their enemy had been march- ing eastward for almost three months daily on that great railroad which belonged chiefly to loyal Union men, myself being one of the stockholders. Having joined, at Liberty, Kentucky, a company of Union volunteer patriots, chiefly from Pulaski and Casey counties, Ky., we marched forthwith to General Rousseau's Headquarters, at Camp "Joe Holt," Indiana, since when we have been drilling, scouting, skirmishinj, and fiirhting, enduring a great many privations and hardships, peculiar to all soldiers in the field. Fellow-Soldiers 1 I was a total stranger to all I saw of you for nine months after I came into Kentucky. Though not permitted to take an active part my- self in fighting the bloody battles of the past fifteen months, I have ever beeo ready for and went on duty when my superior officers gave the command, in whatever capacity I was capable of performing. I was near you as a cavalryman in the great battles and glorious victories of Green River, of Shiloh, of Rock Island, and of Perryville. I witnessed your heroic bravery in the hottest of the last dreadful battle, whilst the messengers of death whizzed about me for hours, and I saw and wept over the multitudes of our heroic slain on that awful field, where the inhuman enemy left hundreds of their dead unburied, at least for several days. Fellow-Soldiers ! Soon after my enlistment I read in the homsv'iWe Journal the Decliration of Orievmces which we published at the last Convention of loyal East Tennesseeaus mentioned above, which I hope may be republished in that able paper, that you may have your memories refreshed with their sufferings fif- teen months ago. But, oh! think of what has been their distress since I lef\ them ; since I came to implore aid from loyal Kentucky and from the great loyal States of the North. Fellow^Soldiers! here we are yet, on a halt, after driving the armies of the enemy from a second invasion of Kentucky through and from mv State; this last one through the mountains from my native East Tennessee. There are but few good wagon roads over the Cumberland mountains, and the settlements are thin, and water at this season is generally scarce ; but are we to stand still, with our miy^hty armies and let the enemy hold the gaps until he has them all fortified with heavy artillery to murder us when we come ? Multitudes of aged, weepiuij fathers have long been waitin? for you to come to their deliverance from the burning, iron fetters of traitors. Two hundred thousand loyal fighting Unioa men have lonijed in vain for eighteen months for you to come and open the way, for them to join you no doubt, until the enemy has killed and imprisoned most of their leaders, and the hardy plouirh boys have been forced on the cars and run far away from tlieir once peaceful and happy homes to fi nessee, on to the summits of the dark and lofty Alleghany and Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina and Georgia. Thus the central seat of this great and dreadful war has now long been at our very doors, and most of that time the greater portion of the country held by the rebels, subsisting entirely perhaps npon the people there, overrun, robbed and murdered, already the great mobs of hungry rebel cavalry and infantry, from the beginning of the war. Their loyal sons having long since escaped their murderous pickets in the gaps of the' mountains, and enlisted many hundreds among strangers in the regiments of Kentucky and many other loyal States, but manr thousands elected their owtf officers, and organized into East Tennessee regiments of their own, which have 6Gen long and arduous service already, and still they come by battalions ana regiments. Thus the dark picture of famine and civil w;ir is tingjed with the gold and starry diamonds of true loyalty in a brave people, cat oSF from homes and kindred by traitors. 11 This " Switzerland of America," — garden spot of tbis vast continent — is A densely populated region of country, lovely, picturesque and romantic, abounding in nearly every resource of wealth in mineral and soil. Her colleges have edu« cated very many of the greatest American statesmen in the land — of Governors, Orators, Senators, Lawyers, Judges, Doctors and learned Ministers, occupying high positions of honor in many different States. Her people, though sadly c<«ught napping, and victimized before they could organize and drill for success- ful resistance, are nevertheless a brave people, who love the old flag which their fathers fought under in the wars of the Revolution and 1812-15. My own vene- rable father is one of the living veterans who lought under it then, and would do so again if advisable. In siiort, their love for the Star-Spangled Banner of their fathers is intense, even unto death. Surrounded almost entirely by lofty and widely desolated mountains, as in a vast prison of starvation, but few of them can escape to more peaceful and plentiful States, and starvation awaits them unless relieved from abroad — a matter we hear is not overlooked by the great and good people of the North — in this hour of their distress ; bless the Lord. My own term of three years will soon be out. I went out weeping over the dark and gloomy prospect, yet full of hope. I returned skirmishing above the clouds of Lookout Mountain and beyond, and fighting in the front ranks at the great battle of Chicamauga. I was engaged also in the front ranks at Perry- ville, Stone River, i- Ik River, and in many severe skirmishes ; was on duty near the battles of Pittsburg Landing, Green River and Farmington. My father, brothers, students and loyal countrymen are mostly in the Union Armies. Upon the heads of a few hundred thousand proud, selfish and rich lordly elaveholders of the South rest all the horrors of this war, which has concentrated 60 much suffering upon the loyal families of East Tennessee. They are the ones that should be made to foot the bill for the poor families they have brought to so much suffering and death, as long as they have a foot of land or a dollar's worth of property left, and then make a partial atonement for the many hundreds of thousands they have murdered in tbis war, by forfeit^ ing their own lives for their crimes. It was all done to perpetuate slavery — that most scandalous and foul stigma npon our national escutcheon. The blood thirsty traitors wished to lord it not only over the blacks but over the great masses of poor loyal hearted white people, whom they have so utterly ruined and murdered in trying to accomplish their Tillainous ends, to establish themselves as proud, haughty, selfish and devilish masters and lords over the honest, industrious people of this great and once happy land of Columbia. The Constitution of the United States never did strictly justify these proud people in holding slaves ; on the contrary, its whole tenor is against slavery, and for liberty and freedom to all men, of all colors, except as a punishment for crime after trial. It guarantees protection to life, liberty and property to every person, no matter what color. It guarantees a republican form of government to every State and every man — of every color, nation or climate among us. Thus it knocks the whole " peculiar institution " into pie, and no where jutifiea it at all when it speaks of certain persons owing service to certain other per- eons, manifestly intended for persons making voluntary contracts, or for bound apprentices for a few years only, and not from age to age, as they claim for this guilty institution of slavery. Our people suffered this false intrepretation to be given, until now, at last, it is brought to judgment at a fearful cost of blood and treasure. Its crinies of deep- est die and crimson hue have ascended to Go^, and a vi lent death is the coo- sequence, instead of following the example of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, llonroe, Randolph and their great compatriots of old, who eraancipattd all the olATes Uiey had — many of them never had any at all. 12 013 703 639 3 W« need to have that same old Constitution circulated more among these people South, that they may read it and correctly interpret it for themselves. Washington's Farewell Address also, and the Declaraiion of Independence ought to be circulated more South. It is almost impossible to find any one of them in the Slaves States. They are most too radical for circulation among slaves and poor whites. These rich and haughty slaveholders have been aiming to establish a system of Lords and Manors in this free country, worse than that of England and other monarchical countries, where only a few men own all the lands and the great masses of working people are tenants at their mercy from age to age. They actually openly advocated this sort of doctrine in their papers, and it is the design of their rebellion, if successful. It must not — nay, may we not say in the free spirit of our fathers, it shall not he alloiced? They have had brother fighting against brother, and friend against friend — and cannot help themselves ever since this war began. They kill the deserters, if caught, and they murder prisoners captured from the Union army, and if continued, we will make the earth drunk with their blood in retaliation. When we climb to the top of this beautiful tree of liberty, planted by Wash- ington, we are surprised to find, that its broad branches, clothed with evergreen* leaves, spread in every direction, and intended to protect the liberty of all men of every nation, color and tongue, who come under its refreshing shadows. And yet we find ourselves in the midst of a civil war brought on expressly to perpet- uate the iron fetters of slavery on many millions of sable colored men, by those of a paler face. This is the stigma upon our national escutcheon which has so long been pointed out to us by people of kingly governments, and as scandalous foul stigma now bathed in the people's blood. Wipe it out! noble freemen! Wipe it out NOW and FOREVER! Purify the moral atmosphere under this noble tree of LIBERTY! The martyrs for it already count many hundreds of thousands in the last three years,but the star of morning begins to shine in all its brilliancy, and victory is yours. The millenium of glory may soon come. A thousand years of bliss for our long distracted people, in heaven's liberty. P. H. GRISHAM. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 013 703 639 3