Excerpt from The Testimony of a Refugee From East Tennessee

Came to me and asked me to join the Southern Confed cracy. You remind me, said I, of a good old bishop, when he was led to. The stake he was advised to abjure the Savior and save his life. Eighty and five years, was the answertof thebishop, has 'my Savior graciously pro tected me, and should I now forswear him So say I to you: thirty and five years has the flag of the Union with the help of God nobly protected me, and should I now forswear it The secessionists, however, became so violent in their measures that I found it necessary to go to Wash ington in order to consult the Hon. Andrew Johnson, Who by that time had succeeded in taking his place ln Congress, and to find out whether we soon would obtain help or Whether I Would 'be compelled to move W1th my family to the North. When I went to Washington, Tennessee was still in the Union, when I returned it had been taken out by force and by fraud, and I was compelled to find my way through the Cumberland Mountains as best I might. Governor Harris had ln vain endeavored to get a convention sanctioned by the people, by the means of which he had hoped to carry the State out of the Union. He had then called an extra session of the Legislature, and that body 1n violation of the express Will of the people had declared an ordinance of separation on the 6th of May, submitting the question of Separation from the Federal Government and of Representation 1n the Richmond Congress to be voted on by the people on. The 8th day of June. Against Separation from the Federal Government and Representation in Richmond, East Tennessee gave a majority of 18, 300. It would have been much larger if the votes of rebel troops had not been counted, though under. The constitution they had no author ity to vote at any election. In this Way however the State was forced out of the Union when a majority of her people were utterly averse to any such separation.

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