.7 
 
 V 
 
9 
 
 
 THE 
 
 CAN UNION COMMISSION 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 OK 
 
 Hox. W. Dennisox, Postmaster-General. 
 
 Rev. J. P. Thompson, D.D., President of the Commission, 
 
 Col. N. G. Taylor, of East Tennessee, 
 
 Hon. J. E. Doolittle, U. S. Senate, 
 
 Gen. J. A. Garfield, M. C, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 HALL OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 WASHINGTON, FEB. 12, 1865. 
 
 iehj fork : 
 
 SANFORD, HARROUN & CO., STEAM PRINTING HOUSE, 644 BROADWAY. 
 
 18GS. 
 
 C^i^'v-'V-^ 
 
THE 
 
 / 
 
 AMERICAN UNION COMMISSION 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 OF 
 
 Hon. W. Dennison, Postmaster-General, 
 
 Rev. J. P. Thompson, D.D., President of the Commission, 
 
 Col. N. G. Taylor, of East Tennessee, 
 
 Hon. J. R. Doolittle, U. S. Senate, 
 
 Gen. J. A. Garfield, M. C, .. 
 
 m THE 
 
 HALL OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 > WASHINGTON, FEB. 12, 1865. 
 
 r 
 
 PRINTED BY SANFORD, HARROUN & CO., STEAM PRINTING HOUSE, Gil BROADWAY. 
 
 ises. 
 
Washington City, January 18, 1865. 
 
 Mev. Dr. J. P. Tliompson, President of tlie American Union Commission, Nevn 
 ■ York: 
 
 Dear Sir : — Believing that the object of your Commission should be 
 better understood by Congress, the people here, and throughout our country 
 generally ; and in order to beget a more practical sympathy and suitable ac- 
 tion, in aid of the many poor white refugees of the South, we would respect- 
 fully invite you to deliver a public address in this city on the subject. 
 Respectfully yours, &c., 
 
 GEORGE W. JULIAN, M. C. 
 
 F. C. Le blond, M. C. 
 
 JOHN WILSON, Third Auditor. 
 
 THOS. CORWIN, Ex. Gov. of Ohio. 
 
 WM. JOHNSON, Esq., of Ohio. 
 
 JOHN W. FINNELL, Esq., of Ky. 
 
 P. D. GURLEY, D. D. 
 ^ Hon. PETER PARKER, 
 
 LORIN BLODGET, Esq. 
 
 FREDERICK N. KNAPP, U. S. S. Com. 
 
 WM. BALLANTYNE, Christian Com. 
 
 Notes of invitation were also sent by the Hon. W. Denuison, Hon. John 
 Sherman, Hon. J. M. Edmunds, and Rev. J. C. Smith, D. D. 
 
 <o 
 
 New York, January 26, 1865. 
 
 Jlon. W. Dennison, lion. Jolm Sherman, Hon. G. W. Julian, Hon. F. C. Le 
 Blond, Jlon. J. 31. Edmunds, Hon. John Wilson, Rev, Dr. P. D. Gurley, 
 and others : 
 
 Gentlemen : — Accept my thanks for your courteous invitation to de- 
 liver an address in Washington, setting forth the objects of the American 
 Union Commission. 
 
 It will afford me special pleasure to bring the work of the Commission 
 to the knowledge of the citizens of Washington, and incidentally of members 
 of Congress and of the National Government. The cause is not only hu- 
 mane and Christian, but patriotic and national. 
 
 Col. N. G. Taylor of East Tennessee, will represent the Commission 
 with me, and we would designate Sabbath Evening, February 12th, for the 
 purpose. 
 
 With high respect, your obd't serv't, 
 
 JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, 
 President American Union Commission. 
 
Ln accordance with the foregoing invitation, a inibHc meet- 
 hvf in behalf of the American ITxion Commissiox was held in 
 the hall of the House of Representatives, Washington, D. C, on 
 Sunday evening, February 12, 1865. Hon. A\^ Dennison,. 
 Postmaster General of the United States presided. 
 
 The exercises were opened with prayer by Rev. A. S. Fiske, 
 lately a chaplain in the U. S. Army. 
 
 Remarks of Hon. ^V. Dennison. 
 
 The Chairman then said : 
 
 The America/n Union Commission has for its object the 
 amelioration of the condition of loyalists, refugees from the 
 South, who have sought an asylum from the calamities of the 
 war, in the loyal states, and within the lines of our armies. 
 It seeks to embrace in a single organization, the granting of 
 relief to all who have been driven from their homes by the 
 rebellion, and are in need of food and clothing, and who are 
 without the means of supplying themselves with the neces- 
 saries of life. The Com^nission charges itself with the duty 
 also of procuring employment fur such of the refugees as are 
 able to work, and makinci: arrano-ements for establishing schools 
 for the childi-en who constitute a large proportion of the ref- 
 ugee population. To use the language of the fundamental 
 article of the Commission, it is constituted " for the purpose 
 of aiding and co-operating with the people of those portions of 
 the United States which have been desolated and impoverished 
 by the war, in the restoration of their civil and social condition, 
 u2)on the basis of industry, education, freedom, and Christian 
 morality." 
 
 Apprehending that the ol)jects of the Commission, as well as 
 the necessities of its organization, are not as well understood 
 by the Government or the country as they should be, and im- 
 pressed with the importance of having authentic information 
 on the subject communicated to Congress and the peoi)le, a 
 numl)er of gentlemen, a few Aveeks since, invited the President 
 of the Commission to deliver a public address in this city on 
 
5 
 
 the subject ; and it gives me pleasure to inform you tliat he is 
 present for that purpose, and will, witli other p;entlemen who 
 have kindly consented to address you, explain fully the objects 
 of the Commission, and the plans adopted for tlieir accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 Speech of Kev. Dr. Thompson. 
 
 Jos. P. Thompson, D.D., of New York, was then introduced. 
 lie said : 
 
 " Mr. President, I thank you for the lucid exposition which 
 you have given of the principles, the objects, and the methods 
 of the American Union Commission, and for the favorable 
 introduction you have given it to this assembly. 
 
 The historian of this war will devote a very important chap- 
 ter to the influence of the war in developing the philanthropy 
 of the nation. Upon the one hand, indeed, when the veil is lifted 
 awhile from the scenes of guerilla warfare, and from the pris- 
 ons within the rebel lines, there are disclosed to us cruelties 
 and barbarities that cause us to blush for American civiliza- 
 tion, and which history will record with mingled incredulity 
 and shame. But on the other hand, this war has developed, 
 through all the loyal nation, a munificence of philanthropy 
 without ju'ecedent in the history of Christianity itself. Had it 
 been a war of aggression — were it a war of merely political 
 interests, or for the aggrandizement of a party — were it a for- 
 eign war— a war of concpiest — tliis might not have been. But 
 this war touches the deepest spring.- of liuman thong] it and 
 action, and leads us up step by step, under the manifest guid- 
 ance of Divine Providence, to the highest moral issues. And, 
 through this training, there has been a development of the 
 philanthropy of the people upon the grandest scale. 
 
 Iso less than four distinct classes have been thrown directly 
 upon our hands for sympathy and aid. First of all, our 
 wounded and suffering soldiers on the field and in the hospital. 
 The unanimous sentiment of the nation, is, that tlie men who 
 4ire perilling all and sufiering all for the country, deserve all 
 .at tlie hands of tlic peojile. The Sanitjiry Commission, which 
 
is one of the best exponents of practical Cliristianity, and the 
 Christian Comniissiuii, wliich is one of the hest exponents of" 
 the vital nnity of the church of God — these two Commissions^ 
 ministerinf^ to the wants of the body, and to the comfort and 
 peace of the sonl, command, and I doubt not, will, till the 
 close of the war, continue to command, the unanimous support 
 of the loyal people of the nation. 
 
 Xext to the soldiers, we have had thrown upon us an 
 utMicted and outraged race, long down-trodden and oppressed, 
 now rising to receive, not only sympathy and charity at our 
 hands, but to receive justice, which, blessed be God, has 
 been rendered to them within this very hall. But this people? 
 who, fur the time, have so large and so pressing a claim upon 
 our resources, will, presently, I think, cease to demand charit- 
 able sympathy and aid. I have so much confidence in that 
 wronged and abused race, in their essential manhood, in their 
 facile character, their power of adaptation to new circum- 
 stances, contingencies and conditions, that I believe the time 
 is not far distant when the black man (as was intimated by 
 his eloquent representative in this place this morning)-^ will 
 have as little need of special legislation as any class in tlie 
 country. Give him his home, give him his family, give him 
 the just wages of his labor, give him his rights as a citizen^ 
 and he will dispense with your tutelage, and cast off the feeling 
 of dependence. Under the instincts of liberty he will shoM' 
 himself a man ; and he who has taken care both of himself 
 and his master, will assuredly take care of himself and of his 
 own ! AVhat the black man should have at our hands is mainly 
 the certainty of protection in his liberty ; and for the rest, he 
 mav well be trusted to look out for himself. 
 
 A third class have been thrown upon us for our sym})athy 
 and aid, concerning whom I will speak but for a moment. I 
 refer to the loyal occupants of portions of States in rebellion 
 and within tlie theatre of war. For example, the people of 
 West Virginia. AVest Virginia has put her full quota into the 
 
 * Rev. Henry Higuland Garnet had preached iii the Hall of Represent- 
 atives in the morning. 
 
iiekl for the defence of the nation nncler every call ; and, I am 
 tokl, has not in a sinii^le instance resorted to the expedient 
 of snbstitutes and bounty-jumpers. Yet, an area of 16,000 
 miles of that State has been overrun by the two contending 
 armies not less than twelve times ; the country has been 
 stripped bare of all the necessaries of life ; and multitudes of 
 her population have beeii driven forth homeless, needing now 
 the hand of symjmthy and of fraternal encouragement. A 
 careful computation by responsible persons in that State shows 
 that not less than ten thousand of its iidiabitants, at this very 
 day, are in these necessitous circumstances, and must be helped 
 by us, not only through the winter, but through the coming- 
 spring, in re-establishing their deserted homes. 
 
 Of East Tennessee, I shall not assume to speak. The loyalty 
 and fidelity of that region, the sufferings her people have 
 endui-ed, and their present wants, will be set before you 
 to-night by my friend Col. Taylor, who will speak not only 
 with the eloquence of nature and of culture, but with the glow ' 
 of a martyr-patriotism, and the pathos of a suffering exile. 
 That people demand large sympathy at our hands, because 
 their suft'erings have been greatly aggravated by our want of 
 sagacity and promptitude as a nation at the outset of the war. 
 I hesitate not to say that, had we then followed the sagacious 
 indications of two of the most sagacious men in these United 
 States — had Ave adopted the recommendation of the Presi- 
 dent of the United States, to build forthwith the railroad to 
 connect the Ohio Kiver with Knoxville, and the equally saga- 
 cious demand of Gen. Suekman for 200,000 men as a force 
 with which to begin the war in Tennessee- — depend upon it, 
 Sir, it would have cost us but one campaign to have extermin- 
 ated the rebellion from the soil of that State ; and there would 
 have been no question here the other day as to whether there 
 was a State of Tennessee entitled to an electoral vote. — 
 [Applause.] _ 
 
 We owe everything to that brave people who have remained 
 true to our ilao; throuo;h manifold trials and sufferings. I said , 
 to a loyal son of Tennessee, a few months ago, ' We of the | 
 
8 
 
 North liavc known notliin<;- of tibial, and sutt'erinii', and saeri- 
 Hce in the cause of the country, in comparison with wliat you 
 have endiu-ed ; and let nie pledge you, sir, that when these 
 days of peril and of hlood are over, tlie people will rememher 
 you and such as you.' 'lam not inditl'erent,' was his manly 
 answer, ' to the good-will of my fellow-citizens ; but I assure 
 you, that has not been in my thoughts. I had a home ; I had 
 a competence, the result of years of toil ; I had friends ; I had 
 honors and offices, as many as I cared for or deserved. I lost 
 all these ; but it was for my country ; and I have determined 
 to sacrifice all for her sake, and to put down this accursed 
 rebellion.' 1 could but repeat, ' Sir, you will not be foi'gotten.' 
 And the uation redeemed that pledge Avhen it said to him, on 
 the eighth day of jSTovember, ' You, who have no home, shall 
 now be adopted as the second citizen of the Repubhc ; you, 
 who have no State shall sit under the dome of the National 
 Capitol, presiding over the Senate of all the States.' [Applause.] 
 
 Tliere is another class, Mr. President, whom I wish particu- 
 larly to bring to the notice of this assembly, leaving to Col. 
 Taylor the description of his friends in East Tennessee. I 
 refer to that mixed multitude known properly as Eefugees, 
 who are stranded within our lines l)y the tides of war — home- 
 less, friendless, penniless — driven out by their fears — driven 
 out by threats — driven out by guerilla invasions — driven out 
 by starvation — driven out now by the advance of rebel armies, 
 and again by the order of our own commanders under mil- 
 itary necessity. 
 
 As these people began to flow in upon Nashville, upon Mem- 
 phis, and Yicksburg, and various points of military occupation 
 at the South, the two Commissions already in the field, the 
 Christian and the Sanitary, though restricted by their consti- 
 tutions to tiic army and the navy, generously offered such 
 relief as was at hand, under the dictates of humanity. But it 
 was felt that they could not, in justice to the soldiers, assume 
 the care of this vast and increasing number of impoverished 
 people. Then the Government provided for them half rations, 
 and to a limited extent, transportation, lint there was a want 
 
9 
 
 of uniformity in policy, there was want of organization ; and 
 the evil increased in magnitude. It is computed, that not 
 less than 80,000 of this class of people have been thrown with- 
 in our lines since the war began. It was a very nncertain 
 calamity ; we knew not at what quarter it would next break 
 forth upon ns. For example, when Nashville was threatened 
 last fall, the Government, as a military necessity, ejected from 
 that city some four or five thousand refugees, who were 
 then there, and who were housed in barracks, — sending them 
 on to Clarksville, Cairo and other places, in order that the 
 buildings they had occupied might be used as hospitals for 
 the soldiers. At the same time, the advance of Hood's army 
 ex|)elled other thousands from their homes; and within the 
 period of a few days, not less than 5,000 were huddled toge- 
 ther in Murfreesboro, awaiting transportation to Nashville, 
 to take the place of those who had been sent beyond. Local 
 charities were started to relieve this misery at various points, 
 and special appeals were addressed to the people of the North 
 in our principal cities. But still in this sudden emergency, 
 as I have said, there was a want of uniform policy and 
 organization, both among the people at large and with the 
 Government. 
 
 To meet this state of facts — recoo-nizinc; this as a vast nation- 
 al calamity, to be grappled with, with all the resources both 
 of the Government and of popular charity — this CoiscvnssiON 
 was called into existence. Its fundamental article has been 
 read, and its principal object has been set before yon by the 
 Chairman. I am happy to say that at the very outset, the 
 President of the United States was pleased to express his 
 approval (which we possess in writing,) and to commend this 
 organization to public favor. At the same time, tlie War De- 
 partment very liberally granted to us all facilities consistent 
 with military exigencies for prosecuting our work. 
 
 Our first endeavor was to systematize within one oi'ganiza- 
 tion, the various local and spasmodic movements to which I 
 have referred, to relieve this description of misery; and we 
 have been so tar successful, that, in addition to the principal 
 
10 
 
 Commission,- which is organized on the same basis as the San- 
 itary and the Christian Commissions — in addition to the prin- 
 cipal Commission established in the City of New York, there 
 is now a New England branch, represented at the Citj of 
 Boston as its head quarters, with a very efficient Executive 
 Committee there (the lamented Mr. Everett was its Presi- 
 dent) ; there is a branch at Cincinnati (in the hands of gentle- 
 men who have had experience in both this and the Sanitary 
 work), wliich will cover Ohio and adjacent States ; there is a 
 brancli at Chicago, recently organized for the Northwest ; and 
 there are local agencies at Cairo, at Louisville, at Nashville, 
 at Memphis, and at various other points where this distress 
 exists. Moreover, my friend. Col. Taylor, proposes hereafter 
 to carry forward his appeals for East Tennessee in connection 
 with this organization ; and the association fur the relief of 
 West Viro-inia will do the same. 
 
 We have thus simplified and nationalized this charity, which 
 every one will see is a matter of great economy in respect to 
 the distribution of funds and the working of appropriate 
 agencies. Before I enter upon the specific details of the work, 
 let me for a moment introduce you to this class of people and 
 this description of suffering. 
 
 Could I take you for a single hour to the scenes that I 
 witnessed in Nashville a few months ago, when on a visit to- 
 the army of Gen. Suekma^^, then in North-Western Georgia, 
 every heart would upon the instant approve this movement as' 
 necessary and momentous. ' I entered a large building, once 
 occupied as a medical college, and found in it at that time- 
 some 300 human beings, mostly women and children, the 
 remnants of families, each little group clustering by itself ^ 
 very poorly clad ; most of them in rags ; without any means- 
 of subsistence but the half-rations derived from the Govern- 
 ment, altogether inappropriate and inadequate for the sick 
 and the fec1)le ; with no kind of superintendence ; huddled 
 together en masse ; filthy — wretched. I have seen wretched- 
 ness and degradation iu ubnost every lorni and in almost every 
 hind; yet, 1 do soleniidy aver, that 1 had never seen :-i;cli 
 
11 
 
 concentrated wretchedness as there met my eyes. The worst 
 feature of it was its inertia ; it was the very inertia of misery. 
 The people were so utterly prostrated that they could hardly 
 move a finger for their own relief. I went into a little out- 
 building-, measuring, I should think, ten feet by fifteen. In 
 that buildino- there were some ten distinct families — not a man 
 among them — women and children. Each family had assigned 
 to it a little bunk made of the rudest boards. Upon the first 
 bunk, lay a woman, apparently in the last stage uf lung 
 disease; and with her were two little children, half-naked and 
 helpless. On the next lay another, with her eyes set in death, 
 her hands thrown back, just about to expire in the unconcious- 
 ness of the last stages of typhoid ; and (I never shall forget the 
 horror of the spectacle) a little child vainly seeking sustenance 
 from the dying mother, and that babe evidently uncared for 
 for many hours. On another bunk was a little boy, a bright 
 eyed fellow, with the measles — a disease which of course, 
 would spread itself through the whole company. We were so 
 touched bv this scene that we stirred ourselves among the 
 people of the town, and before night had made some arrange^ 
 ments for the relief of that wretchedness. But the people then 
 in IS^ashville, whose hearts were in sympathy with the Govern- 
 ment, were relatively few, and these were overtaxed already 
 in their endeavors to relieve such misery. Let me give you, 
 in one word, a description, more recent, from two very compe- 
 tent agents whom the Commission sent to Nashville early in 
 the present year. This letter is dated the 13tli of January, 
 1865. 
 
 " We have spent the day among the Refugees. Their condi- 
 tion is past description. While they are tenderly cared for and 
 looked after, as far as the nature of the case and the means at 
 command admit, yet it is impossible to prevent great sufi'ering. 
 
 " First we went to the Cliildren's Hospital, — a nursery of 
 fifty or sixty children, from tender infants to ten or twelve 
 years of age. One had just died ; deaths occur daily, and 
 some days nearly every hour notes the passing of some one of 
 these innocent creatures to his eternal home. A large num- 
 ber of these little ones had really pretty faces, and for a man 
 
12 
 
 to look upon theiii as tlievlay tliere, and then tliink of his own 
 flock of seven, and tliink'wliat tliey niis^ht, by some adversity, 
 be reduced to, was toucliino; indeed. 
 
 '' Next, we called on a family living in a tenement of two 
 rooms, l)otli about the size of a (;onnnon office. It compared 
 favorably in its condition with a Five Points' tenement of the 
 old class. Here lived, or rather stayed, a mother with Ave 
 dauo-hters and three grandchildren. They had seendays of 
 conitbrtable living, Ijut now their furniture and bedding were 
 not greater tlian you would find in the i'amily of a rag-picker 
 of tlVree or four j^ersons. 
 
 '■ We next called at a barrack wliere we found three_ hun- 
 dred persons, mostly women and children. After taking a 
 o-eneral survey of this mass of humanity we inquired ' how 
 manv could read ? ' The answer was ' one in twenty.' This 
 must be a mistake w^e thought, and inquired around—' Can 
 you read f ' No,' ' You V '^No,'— and so on to ten, fifteen ! 
 twenty I as w^e passed— not one could read, all of them over 
 twelve years of age. 
 
 •' x\s regards personal piety, a good niany professed to have 
 a knowledge of the Saviour ; say one-third. 
 
 •' Oin- next visit was to a family of the better class, occupymg 
 two moderate sized, ground bedrooms; condition of tenement 
 miserable. A family of twelve to fourteen persons livedthere— 
 four or live sick— one. dead — and several of the sick in a fair 
 
 way to die. 
 
 ''We ])rayed with them, leit a trifle ot money to bury the 
 dead, and w'ill do more for them l)y and by. 
 
 '• Clothing that has been laid ofl", but which js yet warm and 
 comfortable'^is greatly needed for the ^yomen and children- 
 bedding for all — and delicacies for the sick." 
 
 I read a few lines illustrating the state of things existing at 
 Jeflersonville, Indiana, to which point many Kefugees have 
 been forwarded during the present winter. 
 
 "A short time since, Ave or six hundred were dumped right 
 upon the dock, in the nuul and snow, bare-footed and nearly 
 bare-backed, manv of them sick, worn out. and in a niost 
 deplorabh' condition. As a friend was giving us this mtorma- 
 tion, we met the City Marshall, who more than conflrmed his 
 statement ; s:iid he counted live women in one group without 
 a shoe in the h.r, in the snow, until they could be got intcj an 
 old tent without Are. More or less of them died. Govern- 
 
.3 
 
 ineiit liad now put np a l)iiilding, in tlie barrack style. It 
 would hold about one hundred and fifty, as soldiers sleep ; 
 could barely cover and keep from freezing for a night, 300 ; 
 had just got it into shape, had got two stoves, and M'as getting 
 the bunks up."" 
 
 Such is a faithful picture, often repeated, of what has met 
 our eyes in visiting these various points of destitution. Of 
 course I do not mean that such utter wretchedness is a uniform 
 and permanent characteristic of the Refugees. Their numbers 
 and their condition, at a given point, are constantly varying ; 
 and the Fnion Commission is doing much for their relief. But 
 just such harrowing scenes have been witnessed a thousand 
 times among them, in the past few months. 
 
 Now, who are these people whom we find in this wretched 
 plight { They represent, of course, various classes of Southern 
 society. Very many of them are the families of men who, 
 to-day, are fighting in the service of our country, or who have 
 alreadv laid down their lives for the defence of our flao-. Let 
 me illustrate this by one or two cases. 
 
 I met in Kashville, a man from East Tennessee, who was 
 enrolled as a private in the arm}' of the Union. lie told me 
 his story, — and he was well introduced, so that I have no doubt 
 of the truth of the story ; — He and some neighbors, numbering 
 forty, banded together to resist for awhile, in their neighbor- 
 hood the encroachments of the rebellion. But by-and-by, find- 
 ing that the rebel army was closing in upon them, they were 
 obliged to betake themselves to the woods, and hide for a long 
 time in caves, — members of their families brinojino; them food 
 by night. Occasionally one of their number would venture 
 out by day as a scout. If he was taken (and he was very like- 
 ly to be caught) this alternative was proposed : ' Enlist in the 
 rebel army, or be shot I ' And not a man of that band thus 
 taken enlisted ; not a man of them would sell his coimtry for 
 his life. — [x\pplause.] At length, they had reason to susj)ect 
 that they had been tracked to the caves wdiich were their 
 hiding places, and it was necessary for them to disperse — to 
 escape as they could, one by one. This man made his way to 
 
14 
 
 ■our lines and enlisted : and when I saw him, he had upon him, 
 as I have said, the uniform of the United States. He owned 
 a little farm of twenty acres, upon Avhich he had lived; and 
 when it was ascertained that he had enlisted in the Union 
 army, the wretches went to his house, they made his wife and 
 children come out of it, they set fire to it and hurued it to 
 the ground before her eyes, and turned her and her children 
 adrift. She set out upon jior \veary way of almost two 
 hundred miles, to seek protection within our lines. On that 
 march, she laid one of her children in the grave. She reached 
 l!^ashville, where her husband was then stationed, barely in 
 time to die in his arms. The poor man had buried her only 
 a day or two before I had the story from his lips. He had 
 three children left. He made arrangements with friends in 
 Nashville to send those children ISTorthward, to be distributed 
 to homes in the West. ' And now,' said he, ' there is nothins; 
 between rae and my country ; I am in ibr this war to the 
 death.' — [Loud applause.'] Shall we not see that the children 
 of such a man have as good a home and as good an educa- 
 tion as the nation can 2;ive them ? 
 
 In the upper story of the building in Nashville, which I 
 have already described, which was used as a temporary barrack 
 for the Refugees, there was a woman apj^arently over sixty, 
 W'itli a daughter of perhaps twenty, and one or two younger 
 children. She told us this story : Her husband was a hatter 
 by trade, living in Georgia, At the outbreak of the rebellion^ 
 in consequence of feeble health, he was left for a time unmo- 
 lested. He was known, however, to be a loyal man. By-and- 
 by, he began to be subjected to stringent surveillance ; and 
 iinally, early last Spring, he was notified that he must go to 
 one of the hospitals (they accused him of ' shamming ' sick- 
 ness) ; he must go to one of the hospitals, where they w^ould 
 cure him up, and make him of some use to the Rebel Govern- 
 ment. 1 should have stated that he had three sons, all of 
 whom were conscripted for the rebel ranks. One of them was 
 seized and compelled to serve ; the other tM'o made their es- 
 cape, and are enrolled in our armies. The old man, advised 
 
15 
 
 of the design witli regard to himself, determined to make his 
 escape ; and throngli the connivance of some old friends, by 
 travelino; at nioht, and hidine; in the woods bv dav, he and 
 his family worked their way along, mostly on foot, till they 
 came to Nashville. The very Urst othce of Christian kindness 
 that my colleague, Dr. Budington, of Brooklyn, performed at 
 Nashville, was a funeral service over the remains of that old 
 man. He barely lived to get within a loyal place of shelter ; 
 and he must be buried within an hour, since a corpse could 
 not lie left amid that mass of living miserv. A few words of 
 prayer and sympathy were all that could be rendered. I 
 afterwards saw the widow, and said to her, ' We will remem- 
 ber you M'hen we return to Ne^v York, and see that you and 
 yours are cared for.' ' Oh ! ' said she, ' I beg you to remember 
 me at the throne of ii;race. ' I learned that she was a sister in 
 the connuunion of the Methodist Church, and evidently one 
 who knew the grace of God in her heart. Here was a lamily 
 who had been in comfortable circumstances, a tamily loyal 
 and true, a family ready to sacrifice blood and life upon the 
 altar of the country, driven out, thus, homeless and outraged, 
 for their fidelity to the Union and to freedom. 
 
 Now, these represent a very considerable proportion of the 
 Ilefu2;ee5. I think that, as neai'lv as we can ffet at it, thirtv 
 per cent, of them at least, are of the class who have been in 
 moderately comfortable circumstances, like this soldier and 
 this aged woman, and of the class who have been unmistak- 
 ably loyal and devoted to the country. 
 
 Then there is another class who have been thrown upon 
 our sympathy, with whom you are all familiar by name ; and 
 doubtless many who hear me have had occasion to know some- 
 thing of them, in their observation of Southern society ; I refer 
 to those who are known contemptuously as 'poor white trash.' 
 
 An intelligent gentleman of Georgia, said to us, 'A great 
 many of the people of this nation have never before known 
 what sort of fellow-citizens they have had in a certain .Htratrnn 
 of society in this part of the country.' I wish it to be distinct- 
 ly understood that I am not characterizing Southern society, 
 
16 
 
 as a whole; hy no means; bnt I ani })(»intin<^ your attention 
 to a class now Ijrouglit to the surface by these upheavings of 
 ^\ ar. If you ask me how far these ])eople are loyal, perhaps 
 the best answer I can give you, is the answer that a bright 
 negro waiter made to our party as we passed throngh a AVest- 
 ern town, when we asked liiiii, 'What are the politics of this 
 town ? Are the people here mostly Union and loyal, or are 
 some of them in svmpathv with the rebellion V ' AVell,' said 
 he, 'I guess dei/''s ^hout ditto.'' — [Laughter.] Tliat is the only 
 answer I can give, and all the res]:)onBibility that I am dis- 
 posed to assume, concerning the class of people of whom I now 
 speak. They are just about ''ditto.'' But I suspect, Mr. Pres- 
 ident, that you do not need to go to that low stratum^ in order 
 to find that style of politicians to-day in the nation. — [Great 
 laughter.] 
 
 In company with an excellent agent of the Sanitary Com- 
 mission, after the bloody day of Kesaca, — when our party 
 were called to minister to our wounded and dying men for so 
 many hours. — I spent the night in a little hut belonging to 
 one of this class of people. I suspect (though we could not 
 ascertain definitely) that the husband of the woman was in 
 the rebel army. But she was perfectly ignorant of the 
 causes of the war — of what all this cannonading meant. You 
 know of course the style of grammar that prevails down at 
 that level, especially their phrase ' we 'uns' and 'you 'uns' — 
 we ones and you ones. This woman exclaimed, after the roar 
 of cannon and musketry had agitated us for hours, ' I do wish 
 that we 'uns or you 'uns would whip, and stop them terrible 
 cannon ! ' That was her estimate of the issue involved in the 
 war ; and very many of that class of people know scarcely 
 more than that, and care scarcely more than that about these 
 issues. Nor will you blame them when you come to hear 
 presently the statistics that I will give you as to their means 
 of information. 
 
 Very many of just that description of people, mostly women 
 and children, come within our lines. Perhaps the husbands 
 have been forced by conscription into the rebel ranks — either 
 
"by the conscription of violence, or by the conscription of 
 prejndice, or by the conscription of ig-norance. Not more 
 than twenty per cent, of the Refugees who come among us are 
 men ; they are women and chihh-en ; they are the aged, the 
 infirm, the sick, the weary. Let me read you two or three 
 lines from our agents, setting forth the appearance of these 
 people. , 
 
 " At Cincinnati we visited in company with Mr. Odiokne 
 and Mr. Starbuck, the Refugee Home, Sanitarj- Rooms, and the 
 Rooms of the Christian Commission ; after that we went to the 
 Barracks, where the Refugees land. These are an old rattle trap, 
 obtained from Government, on short notice, and the only place 
 of shelter that could be had, they are cold and filthy — filled with 
 vermin. They have got the hospital part into a better condition, 
 it is made tight, and thoroughly cleansed from vermin. A des- 
 cription of that class of humanity is too much for me, they nearly 
 all belong to the lowest class of white trash — some exceptions, 
 I will particularize in one family, and they were the l)est of the 
 lot : When they came a few weeks since, they consisted of the 
 father, mother and ten children, ranging from man and woman- 
 hood down to young children. The father died a few days 
 since, the mother we saw lying dead, two children had died — 
 one a (a widow) mother of two children of about four and six 
 years ; another is dead ; another the mother of three children, 
 very sick, 7mifit die — and the children all sick with measles. 
 The whole family and grandchildren w^ere seventeen. The 
 father of the three last children mentioned is very sick, and 
 will stand more than an even chance to die." 
 
 Another agent says : , 
 
 " Permit me to give you a single case of destitution and 
 sufiering which we met at Louisville. 
 
 " On Walnut street we called to see a Refugee, from Camp- 
 bell County, Georgia. She has seven children, and a sick 
 husband. Her children aged from six to nineteen years. 
 She has also one grandchild aged two years. This family of 
 nine persons occupied a room about twelve feet square. As I 
 attempted to enter the room, something from the inside pressed 
 hard against the door. Pressing myself through, I found the 
 obstruction at the door to be the dead body of John, her son, 
 aged about fifteen years. He lay on the floor, his arms and 
 chest bare, without a rag of covering, except the dirty thing 
 
18 
 
 • 
 
 called a blanket thrown over the lower part of his naked body. 
 The other children were all sick with the measles, most of 
 them on the floor with their dead brother. I stepped over the 
 dead body, and then over one and another sick one, to speak 
 a word of comfort to the sniferers. There was no bedstead in 
 the room, no table, only three broken chairs. 
 
 " Mr. Sedwick, a Ba])tist brother, with us, said : ' let us sins^ 
 and then pray.' No, Mr. Sedwick, pr;iy and not sing. Who 
 can snig in such a place as this 'i This is but one case of many, 
 a little more varied." 
 
 Now, I ask you, Mr. Pkesident, shall we, before attempting 
 to relieve this misery, stop to discriminate as to the antecedents 
 of these wretched women and children ? Shall we not feed 
 them ? Shall we not succor them ! Shall we not relieve their 
 miseries, and trust that God wnLl soften their hearts, if their 
 hearts have been prejudiced, will enlighten their minds, if they 
 have been duped by ignorance ? Yes, I will take this poor^ 
 naked, starving boy, no matter who his father was or where 
 he is, I will take him by the hand ; I will nurture him ; I will 
 clothe hira ; I will feed him ; I will teach him ,to read ; I will 
 teach him the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ his 
 Saviour ; I will teach him that he has a country ; I will teach 
 him what he never knew before, the geography of his country, 
 the extent of it ; I will teach him what he never knew before^ 
 the history of his- country, the great name of Washington, and 
 all that is illustrious in our past ; and I will make that hoy a 
 jpatriot ! I will teach him that the men against whom, perhaps, 
 his father, in his ignoVance and prejudice and blindness, 
 goaded on by men of infamous deeds, has lifted Ms hand, are 
 the men who have nurtured and saved and educated and 
 blessed him. And I will sow that land of rebellion thick M'ith 
 these regenerated children. If we are not great enough for 
 that, wo are not great enough to be free. — [Great applause.] 
 
 But what does this Commission propose to do ? First of all, 
 in a word (and I wish to say this with emphasis) the Union 
 Commission xoill not take any ineasuves that icould tend to 
 pauperize these people. We guard against tliat at every point. 
 We must minister to present necessities.. We must eare for the 
 
19 
 
 sick ; we must feed the hungry ; we must clothe the naked. 
 But, in administering your charities and the cliarities which 
 the people of the nation may commit to our trust, we will 
 guard most carefully against creating a long state of depend- 
 ence, and holding these people as paupers. 
 
 Already, in the second place, we are deporting them to 
 various points where labor is in demand. We have an' agent 
 who is now traversing almost weekly, a wide region, from 
 Nashville up through Iventuck;^, distributing the male Refu- 
 gees, and such women as are capable of doing housework, 
 where labor is wanted in consequence of the enrollment of the 
 blacks of Kentucky so largely in the army. We are also 
 distributing them extensively both from Nashville and from 
 Cairo, in the States of Illinois and Indiana ; and we have 
 respectfully solicited, and I trust we shall obtain, a full autho- 
 rization from Congress to the War Dej^artment to grant us 
 free transportation in tliis work of humanity, which at once 
 helps the industry of the country, and relives the Government 
 of the care of these needy people. 
 
 But we cannot thus deport and distribute them all. Some 
 of them must be reserved as a 7iucleus for futnre society in 
 their former homes. They are not all of them by any means 
 adapted to our ISTorthern state of society ; and they love their 
 homes, rude as they were. And with reference to this, we 
 have established at one or two points, and propose, as ex- 
 perience shall suggest, to do it at other points, industrial 
 homes, where the women and the children shall be brought 
 together, and taught to sew, and enabled to maintain them- 
 selves. There was an experiment of this kind on a small scale 
 at Nashville, working very successfuHy. ' The women were 
 already making enough for their own support, by washing for 
 the soldiers and making various articles for the hospitals, 
 when the Government displaced them and made a requisition 
 for the building as a hospital. But we propose, whenever 
 opportunity offers, to establish temporarily these industrial 
 homes, preparing the Refugees to go back to the portion of 
 the country whence they came, better informed, more intelli- 
 gent, more useful than before. 
 
20 
 
 But there is a measure beyond this. We h.)ok to the tcnujio- 
 rary occupation of abandoned estates, by such of the^e ])e()))le 
 as are able to work, so that tliey may be enabled to support 
 themselves ; and if the Government will grant us the use of 
 any such estates under proper military regulation (for the 
 AV^ar Department must be responsible in the case), we offer on 
 our part to take whatever superintendence of the people in 
 respect to education and general improvement, the Govern- 
 ment may be pleased to accept or to direct at our hands. In 
 a word, these people must be educated, and lielped to become 
 better citizens, and by-and-by be re-established in better homes. 
 
 Now all this looks, and with no little confidence, to re- 
 union — a re-union of Xortli and South, and such a re-union, 
 I doubt not, as will eventually obliterate the very names 
 * North' and 'South,' so that we shall have no sections, but 
 ONE COUNTRY, and be one people. I have no question as to 
 the final result on that* score. When the armies of the rebel- 
 lion are broken and scattered, when the leaders are sent forth 
 as fugitives and outlaws upon- the face of the earth — such as 
 they have made these unhappy people — we shall have very 
 little difficulty in dealing with the masses that remain. It 
 will of course require time, and a judicious policy to adjust all 
 interests to a proper harmony. But I have not a doubt, that, 
 when our fellow-citizens of the South shall see that the Union 
 is a fact accomplished, they will accept the result of the war, 
 and then, by kindly influences, we will secure their permanent 
 good-will. I have no doubt that we, against whom the South 
 has harbored so many prejudices, M'ill come to be better un- 
 derstood, aTid in the end truly loved. Yes, sir, we are already 
 conquering in many ways, the prejudices of our Southern fel- 
 low-citizens. I met on the field of battle, at Hesaca, a brave 
 Tennessean, tall and stalwart, \\\\o had been shot through the 
 cheek and jaw, so that every attempt to move his lips caused 
 a gush of blood, lie was a loyal man. lie was giving his 
 life for the country. As I knelt by his side to minister to his 
 wants, he looked at me with a smile : — ' Oh ! ' said he, ' what 
 a wonderful people you Northern people are ! I never had 
 
'21 
 
 been out of my State before tliis Avar ; and though I have been 
 loyal and tightino; for the flag, I had a great j^rejudice against 
 the people of tlie North. But since I have been in this ariny, 
 and have seen what von do for the soldiers — seen what care 
 you take of tliem, and the money you pour forth, and the gifts 
 you send, I think you are a most wonderful people.' His 
 })rejudices were all gone ; his heart was rectified. So will 
 it prove also with those who are fighting against us. Ah I sir, 
 we are fijxhtino- ourselves into union one with another, and 
 to a better understanding of one another. 
 
 I pass on to speak very briefly of the ulterior and more 
 comprehensive objects of this organization. We are dealing 
 temporaril}' with the Refugees in this ministration of mercy ; 
 and for this object alone we ought to have, in the course of 
 the next six weeks — to provide adequately for East Tennessee 
 and "West Virginia, and for the Refugees at large— not less 
 than $150,000. Indeed $200,000 coulcl be well expended in 
 this work ; and Congress itself ought to help in the matter of 
 seed-corn tor the suffering loyalists of Tennessee and Virginia. 
 
 But we are looking beyond this. There is to be a work — 
 I will not say of reconstruction, that subject belongs within 
 this hall and the other — there is to be a work of resuscitation. 
 The South is to be revived, to be lifted up ; and we stand or- 
 ganized, ready to do whatever the providence of God may 
 indicate in that regard ; especially to facilitate, in all kindly 
 and neigh])orly ways, and by the distribution of correct infor- 
 mation — the right kind of emigration, the intermingling of the 
 people of the whole nation ; and in the next place, and emphat- 
 ically, to provide on a broad and intelligent scale for education, 
 assisting our Southern brethren, when restored to fellowship 
 and union, in procuring teachers and in establishing their edu- 
 cational system on a popular basis, corresponding with that 
 which has been so long and so successfullv tried at the North, 
 
 The radical vice, as you know, of our Southern society, has 
 been in the land-tenure. In the State of New York, taking 
 the cultivated land, farms avera'xe 113 acres. In Virginia, 
 with al)out tlie same number of acres under cultivation before 
 
22 
 
 the war, the farms averaf^ed 340 acres — three times as hirge 
 as the average in Xew York. In Louisiana the farms were 
 on an average four times as large as in Massachusetts, taking 
 the same number of acres under cultivation in each State. In 
 Georo-ia, thev averai>;e three times as larire as in Illinois ; in 
 South Carolina four times as large ; while in the South there 
 are, or have been many single estates, ranging from 1,000 to 
 3,000 and even 10,000 acres. A common school system is 
 sim})ly impossible on that scale of land-tenure ; and the eleva- 
 tion of the laboring classes is of course impossible. The prime 
 motive to industry, the procuring a home and an interest in 
 the soil, is lacking. The great land-owner cares for nothing 
 save to wring out of liis tenantry, be they serfs or slaves, what 
 will best minister to the comfort and luxury of his own family. 
 The war is upheaving that system of society ; and these States 
 will be opened now to a productive industry. 
 
 Tlie removal of slavery opens the door to industrial emigra- 
 tion and to evangelistic labors. Hitherto the inventive genius 
 of the Nortli could not have play in the South ; for men of 
 inventive genius have opinions ; and opinions could not be 
 freely uttered there while slavery existed. Such men, there- 
 fore, could not find a safe home in the South. Xow, all that 
 is gone. "With the abolition of slavery, every legal, and pre- 
 sently every social obstruction to the education of the masses 
 will have departed. The gospel will have free course and be 
 glorified. Hitherto it has been bound — so that even the min- 
 isters of C'hrist dared not speak in the ears of their fellow- 
 men, nor in the ear of Almighty God in prayer, their abhor- 
 rence of that system of inicpiity whicli dominated over every- 
 thing at the South. The col})orteur could not freely distribute 
 the Word of God, nor expound it <ii>enly to certain classes. 
 All that will liave departed when the grand consummation of 
 the work so auspiciousl}' begun within these halls, shall be 
 reached, and the constitutional amendment shall have been 
 finallv ratified. Then, ,Ave must enter in with our aij-encies 
 of education. Let me show you why. 
 
 One of our agents being in Alton, Illinois, where was a 
 
23 
 
 prison for rebels, went tlirougli it in detail, questioning them 
 man by man ; and of three hundred rebel prisonei's there, ho%r 
 many could read ( One iin twelve ! In another prison, in Saint 
 Gratiot Street, St. Louis, of two hundred and eighty rebels, 
 one in seventeen could read ! Among the Refugees who come 
 in at Cairo (and tliej have been counted by the hundreds) the 
 average is about one in twelve. I have already given you an 
 instance where among three hundred, but one in twenty over 
 twelve years of age could read. Is it surprising, sir, that, with 
 that mass of ignorance down in the substratum of Southern 
 society, the people have been dragooned by their ambitious 
 and nefarious leaders into striking a blow at a country whose 
 history they had never read, whose boundaries they never 
 knew? Toward such let us have the spirit of the largest 
 charity. How grand the opportunity that opens before us 
 now, to build a nation that shall stand, by God's blessing, 
 through all the ages ; building it on the basis of justice, and 
 of right ; fortifying it with education, and with all the appli- 
 ances of Christian civilization. 
 
 Do not misunderstand me. Most fully do I accord with the 
 scope and aim of the measures that it has pleased Congress to 
 order for justice, under the name, if you choose, of retaliation, 
 Tipon the authors of all this crime and misery. Let them 
 receive the just recompense of their deeds ! But when those 
 leaders, as I have already said, shall be sent forth unpitied 
 outcasts, on the wide world, or shut up here to hopeless igno- 
 miny, we shall have yet another conquest before lis at the 
 South ; the conquest of light — the conquest of love — the con- 
 quest of large-hearteduess, of free-handedness — in doing good 
 as we have opportunity. We have another law of retaliation, 
 that must follow close upon the heel of the law that Congress 
 has indicated — that Divine law, to be applied to the individual : 
 ■■' If thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink ; 
 and in so doing thou slialt heap coals of fire upon his head." 
 
 Sometimes, sir, a great principle is best illustrated to us 
 when interpreted and verilied through personal experience; 
 and that I may not seem to touch this difficult question without 
 
24 
 
 due reflection, I may be pardoned for di'awin^ my illustrationi 
 from that source. On the memorable second December, 
 1859, between the hours iof ten and twelve, as I &at alone 
 in my study, I suddenly found it impossible to write, to read, 
 or even to think upon the topic which I had before me, I rose 
 and paced my room for those two hours, absorbed in one 
 tliou<j;ht that seemed pressed upon me ti*om the invisible world. 
 At that hour a brave old man, misdirected in his measures, 
 misguided in his judgment,, but grand in his moral heroism, 
 was yielding up his life on the scaffold, for the vain attempt 
 to extricate his fellow-men from slavery. And though from 
 boyhood upward, I had been a hater of that system, and in my 
 poor measure had tried by speech and by pen to contend 
 against it, I there vowed before God that henceforth my life, 
 my time, my speech, my children, my all, should be given to 
 the extermination of slavery from this land. — [Applause.] 
 
 When, in 1862, I stood in the prison of old John Brown, 
 and then went out to the spot where he was hung — my own 
 first-born boy, clad in the uniform of a private soldier of the 
 United States, with his regiment on picket guard at the 
 gate of the Shenandoah Valley — I felt that the vow had been 
 accepted. And when a year later I brought him home from 
 that Valley to lay him in a soldier's grave, I felt that the vow 
 was sealed and ratified in Heaven ; and now I am sworn to 
 fulfil it to the end. I must retaliate upon Virginia for all that 
 I and thousands like me have been called to suffer at her hands. 
 Yes, fain would I give to her sons the education, the culture, 
 the influence that they have robbed me of in mine. Fain 
 Avould I retaliate love for their hate, light for their darkness, 
 the blessings of a Christian civilization tor the barbarism that 
 has cursed them, and has cursed all the land. Yes, that soil is 
 to me henceforth sacred soil, to be redeemed for every interest 
 of Christ and of humanity. Thus would I practice toward our 
 enemies in the South this Divine retaliation ; thus would I 
 heap upon tiicii' heads these coals of heavenly love. 
 
 You may have seen the forests of Maine kindled for a 
 clearing, or by accident. The tall flames grapple with mighty 
 
25 
 
 trees ; they leap from branch to branch ; they crackle among 
 the boughs. On they go surging and swelling, a hurricane of 
 lire, till the forest is laid low and all the heavens are aglare, 
 or are hidden by the smoke of the conflagration. Go over that 
 land : it is all one dark, blackened waste. There is no new life 
 there yet. You must now go over it again in detail, and 
 kindle a little fire about every stump and root, and burn it 
 down into the soil. Then put in the ploughshare and you 
 will have beauty and verdure. So when this fiery hurricane 
 of war shall have spent itself, we must go over the track of 
 desolation with these hot coals of Christian love, and lay them 
 down at the very roots of this rebellion. Then all these ashes 
 of hate shall be ploughed deep into the soil, and there shall 
 grow" thereafter over all that land nothing but peace and free- 
 dom and purity and righteousness. Sir, it is given us to-day 
 to begin to build a nation such as the world never before has 
 seen — reaching out our hands freely in the spirit of fraternal 
 love, when the desolations of war are ended. Liberty and 
 Christianity have lain buried in that Southern land. What 
 is this rocking of the continent to-day, but the earthquake that 
 unseals the sepulchre ? What is this clang of contending armies 
 that wrings agonized hearts, but the trumpet of resurrection 
 calling to a new life ? It is ours to resuscitate the South. 
 It is the work of this Commission and all kindred agencies, 
 there to build, by God^s blessing, till we shall see one broad 
 temple of nationality and of freedom covering all this soil — 
 one temple built on the foundation of the apostles and pro- 
 phets of 1776 — cemented now with the blood of thousands of 
 of her native, her adopted and her enfranchized sons — inscribed 
 with the long roll of martyrs, whose rude unlettered tablets 
 mark every battle field from the Susquehanna to the Gulf, 
 from the James to the Missouri — one temple for one people 
 and one continent, purged at last of the vile trafiickers in the 
 bodies and the souls of men — consecrated ever more to Freedom 
 and to Justice — the sanctuary of man, the habitation of God. 
 [Loud Applause.] 
 
26 
 
 Speech of Col. Taylor. 
 
 Col. N. G. Taylor, of East Tennessee, was next introduced, 
 and said : 
 
 Mr. CiiAiRMAX, it is not my intention, to-night, to consider 
 the purposes of tlie great i*^ational Association in whose behalf 
 this meeting is assembled, but i-ather to present, to this au- 
 ditory and th6 country, facts and reasons in illustration of the 
 necessity for its existence, and its energetic action. Nor, sir, 
 will I assume to review the eloquent address just delivered, 
 either fully to endorse all the views set forth by the distin- 
 guished speaker, or to point out any difterences that may 
 exist, in matters of opinion, between him and myself. It is 
 enough for me to know that this organization is national and 
 loval, and charo;es itself with the alleviation of the sulferinp-s 
 of the unfortunate, whom this war has expatriated, or made 
 destitute at home. It is mine, this evening, to exhibit, as far 
 as I can, the situation of my own particular section of the 
 country, and this task falls more appropriately to me since the 
 war has paralyzed and suspended the civil organization of my 
 State, and there is now in being no constitutional, civil autho- 
 rity, or tribunal, tlirough which the condition of affairs in 
 Tennessee can be presented, either to the Congress or to the 
 people of the United States. We are socially and politically 
 in chaos, and I am glad to have an opportunity, to-night, from 
 the capital of the nation, to lay before Congress and the 
 country, a few facts illustrative of the extremity of suffering 
 to which many of the people of East Tennessee are I'cduced,. 
 and exhibiting the grounds upon which I claim for them 
 prompt and adequate relief at the hands of loyal people, and 
 of the National Congress. 
 
 East Tennessee is that portion of the State of Tennessee 
 lying east of the Cumberland Mountains. It embraces thirty- 
 one large counties, and had a population, in 18G0, of about 
 300,000 persons, of \vhom 2!), 0(^0 were slaves, and 3,000 were 
 free negroes. 
 
 Almost surrounded by lofty and ])reeipitous mountains, and 
 
27. 
 
 penetrated by elevated ridges, running in every direction — it 
 is rich in all the elements of wealth and power, as well as of 
 physical life. For fertility of soil ; profuseness of mineral 
 deposits ; the elegance and extent of its marble ; the capacity 
 of its water-power ; the grandeur of its forests ; the enchant- 
 ing loveliness of its ever varying scenery ; and the salubrity of 
 its climate. East Tennessee has scarcely a rival on the Con- 
 tinent. Central in position, the blood of the North and the 
 blood of the South mingle in the veins of her people; and it is 
 the crowning glory of this heroic mountain race that in all 
 their history, in war is well as in peace, they have honored 
 tlie memory of their patriotic sires — by devotion to the Union 
 cemented. by their blood; and by loyalty to the Government 
 bequeathed to them in trust. The crack of East Tennessee 
 rifles, on the sides and summit of King's Mountain, was heard 
 in the first struggle for our nationality, while yet Tennessee 
 was wrapped in the swaddling clothes of territorial infancy. 
 
 Our fathers " Eallied round the flag," in 1812-15, and 
 bravely fought at Talladega, at Ennuckfa, and the Horse Shoe, 
 and acted a conspicuous part in the memorable defence of New 
 Orleans. 
 
 When our own illustrious Jackson throttled treason in 
 1832-33, and swore " by the Eternal, the Federal Union must 
 be preserved" — to a man our mountain people answered Amen, 
 and were ready, wi;h their lives, to maintain the Union. 
 
 At a later day, though averse to the policy which precipi- 
 tated the war, when the toscin called to arms in the struffo-le 
 witli Mexico, East Tennessee sent her squadrons to the held 
 afar, and at Monterey, and Verra Cruz, at Cerro Gordo, and 
 around the walls of tlie city, they breasted the storm of death, 
 and triumphed on the plaza of Mexico. 
 
 Thus far, sir, lier record is unblemished, her proud escutcheon 
 without a s})ot. But how shall she meet the trial, and pass 
 through the flery ordeal of treason and rebellion 1 Listen and 
 you shall learn. Tlie flrst scenes in the drama of this stu- 
 pendous war were enacted at the ballot box. The conspirators 
 put forward a leader, and asked us to make him President. In 
 
28 
 
 Tennessee, although they masked tlie issues, tlie people an- 
 swered, with empliasis, Nof and cast a ]ar«:;e majority against 
 their candidate. 
 
 In February, 18G1, the traitors asked for a convention, the 
 people answered No! by 64,000 majority. 
 
 JSTotwithstanding this rebuke, they made the Legislature put 
 the (piestion unmasked, and direct to tlie people, "Separatioiv 
 or no Separation," " Hepresentatiou or no liepresentation in 
 the Confederate Congress," and the vote was had In June. 
 Hitherto argument, persuasion, and promises, and all the 
 artifices of the demagogue, had been employed to bring the 
 people to their plans, but to iu> purpose. Now the policy was- 
 changed, bitter denunciations, terrible threats of confiscation, 
 attainder, imprisonment and death, and a free exhibition of 
 bristling bayonets, in the hands of an organized soldiery, con- 
 stituted the logic, and gave empliasis to the rhetoric of the 
 conspirators. Armed* treason, as it always does, assumed the 
 shape of despotism clothed with terror, holding the rope and 
 the dagger in one hand, and with the other hand pointing, 
 alternately, to the dungeon and the gibbet, and the red blade 
 of the assassin. Our Union leaders, in Middle Tennessee, on 
 the 19th April, 1861, in the morning^ published an appeal to 
 the National men of the State, exhorting them to be firm and 
 faithful, and to remain true to the Union ; that s^ame evening 
 terror compelled them, from the steps of the Capitol, at Nash- 
 ville, to ignore all their patriotic antecedents — swallow the 
 words of their loyal appeal of the morning — and yield their 
 adhesion to the cause of the rebellion. 
 
 The people of this section, thus abandoned by their leaders, 
 reluctantly yielded to the st<^rm that howled around them, and 
 the West was engulphed in the pit-fall prepared for it by our 
 faithless and recreant Governor Isham G. Harris. But the 
 people of East Tennessee disregarded alike the ^^romises and 
 the threats, the blandishments and the denunciations, the 
 dungeons and the gibbets of the traitors, and, unawed by 
 bayonets, and by the drilled minions of Harris and his allies, 
 undismayed by the abduction of Virginia, North Carolina, and 
 
29 
 
 Georo;ia, and by their abandonment in the West — unarmed, 
 isolated and alone— sublimely vindicated their courage and 
 tidelity, by casting 3J:,000 ballots for the Union, against 7,000 
 for secession. The State was immediately declared inde- 
 pendent, and thenceforward it was treason to speak, write, or 
 do ought against the Confederacy. The freedom of thought, 
 the liberty of speech, were no more, and the Union press was 
 chained. But though we dare not speak, nor write, nor print, 
 we still had one more vote, and in August, East Tennessee 
 elected Union men to her Legislature, and chose Nelson, 
 Maynard and Bridges to represent her people in the Congress, 
 not of the Confederate, but of the United States. Thus, Sir, 
 you see how East Tennessee maintained her fidelity through 
 the first scenes of the struggle. But how has she borne herself 
 in the tragic sequel of the bloody play ( Let history answer. 
 Hundreds of her gallant sons sought places in Western regi- 
 ments at the very opening of the war. [Applause.] 
 
 In 1861, our people were disarmed in detail, by military 
 force. Then followed the conscription, placing in the Kebel 
 army all white men from eighteen to thirty-five years of age, 
 and subsequently to forty-five. Thousands of our young men, 
 at once escaped to Kentucky, and consecrated themselves to 
 the service of the Union, while thousands of others hid them- 
 selves in our mountain fastnesses, to await the coming of arms 
 and ammunition, with the flag of our country. When, at length 
 the armies of the Government did penetrate East Tennessee^ 
 many thousands more of our mountain boys, at once threw 
 themselves into the ranks, and are now battling at the front 
 for their country. I said we voted in 1801, thirty-four thou, 
 sand for the Union. I am recently informed, Sir, by the late 
 Provost-Marshal General of East Tennessee, that of that 
 number, probably more than thirty-thousand have worn the 
 uniform and borne the arms of the United States in this war. 
 The quota of East Tennessee, since 1861, has (dimys leeii 
 more them twiceftdl, and there has never been a drafted soldier 
 nor a hired suhstitide in her regiments. [Loud applause.] 
 If you would know whether our boys are formed of metal 
 
30 
 
 — tougli and sliarp— and and of tlie stuff of which lieroes are 
 made, let their l)rilliant deeds at Mill Springs, at Murfrees- 
 borougli, at Chattanooga, and CJiickamaiiga ; in Carter's bril- 
 liant raid upon the heart of East Tennessee, in the winter 
 of 18(12 from Iventuckj ; in General Bnrnside's operations 
 in 1868, m Fpper East Tennessee, and at tlie siege of Knox- 
 viUe ; in Sherman's blazing campaign in Georgia, and battles 
 around Athmta ; in Generals GiUam and Stonen'ian's campaigns 
 last sunnner and autumn, in East Tennessee and Yircrinta ; 
 and in a Iiundred nameless actions, which have sprinkled' 
 the whole surface of East Tennessee witli blood. Let these 
 answer. And let it not be forgotten, that he to whom the 
 Crescent Citj bowed her haughty neck, and yielded herself a 
 captive, after lie liad run t]:e gauntlet of her forts ; that he 
 who lashed himself to the mast of his ship, and hurled hi& 
 tleet like thunderbolts upon the navy of the Rebels in Mobile 
 Bay, and swept them from the sea, or dashed them to the bot- 
 tom, is a son of East Tennessee, and that Farragdt, the first 
 American Yice-Admiral, the peerless naval hero of the war 
 l)reathed his first inspiration of patriotic devotion, amid her 
 niountain-girt vales. [Great enthusiasm] Sir, the very soil 
 East Tennessee, from the beetling crags of the White-top moun- 
 tain, to the battle-scarred summit of Look Out, is henceforth 
 classic ground. Every county has witnessed the conflict of 
 arms, a hundred actions have been fought Avithin her limits, 
 and some of the most memorable battles that history will 
 record were delivered on her bosom. Tlie red sea of war has 
 rolled its fiery billows over all her vallies, and rivulets of blood 
 from her slippery hill sides have swelled the tide of death. 
 IJattle-firos have illumined her midnight heavens, from Bristol- 
 on-the-line to the summits of the Cumberland, like the quick, 
 lurid flashings of the tempest. The tramp of cavalry, the 
 clangor of arms, and the solemn thunder of artillery, mingled 
 witli the shrieks of the wounded, the yells of charging columns, 
 and tlie shouts of the victors, have aroused the sTumbering 
 echoes in her remotest solitudes. Rosecrans met disaster there, 
 nn.l thousands of brave hearts ceased to beat on the mournliil 
 
31 
 
 and bloody Held. But near the same ground, the hero of 
 twenty victories won back the standand of the goddess of our 
 country, *and the modest Grant led the hosts of freedom to 
 triumph again, [Great applause] 
 
 The impetuous Sherman, along the slopes of Mission Eidge, 
 leads his tried legions to victory, at the cannon's mouth ; the 
 cool and dauntless Thomas, with his gallant veterans, flashes 
 terror into the hearts of the foe ; but it is reserved for flghting 
 Joe Hooker, and his splendid corps, following the flight of 
 the American eagle, to scale the steep side of Lookout Moun- 
 tain, snatch victory from the rebels on its lofty summit, and 
 re-echo in pealing thunders above the clouds, the shouts ot 
 triumph from the armies below. [Enthusiastic applause] 
 
 But, Sir, this arena of our conflicts and our triumphs has 
 been the theatre of -sacrifices and sufferings, at the contempla- 
 tion of which, humanity shudders and angels might weep. 
 
 In peace my people were not rich, nor yet were they poor, 
 but thrifty, industrious, prosperous, and happy. Sixty thou- 
 sand families, strangers alike to the vices and corruptions of 
 great, wealth, and to the temptations and the miseries of hope- 
 less poverty, pursued the avocations, and rejoiced in the 
 blessings of domestic and social life, just as securely and quite 
 as happily as you do here this day. Gently every class of our 
 social organism glided in its own sphere, and every element of 
 our civilization seemed to move harmoniously toward the 
 development of a higher destiny. Aspiring ambition pranced 
 only in the paths prescribed by law. Youth battled with fate 
 for fortune. Middle life, sobered by experience, toiled on^ 
 content with competence, till life's evening shadows, length- 
 ening in his path, found him cheerfully waiting to welcome 
 his change. Abundance crowned each passing year. Plent}^ 
 presided at the family board ; and ever around many a blazing 
 hearthstone, love beamed in eyes that melted at the glance, 
 and bound with silken chords happy hearts that beat respon- 
 sive each to all the rest. The same roof often sheltered the 
 kindred representatives of three generations, and there the 
 dimpled fingers of playful infancy sported with the silvery 
 locks of cheerful old age. 
 
32 
 
 Halcyon days Low suddenly ye have fled ! Wliat untold 
 horrors reign where ye once smiled ! 
 
 Peace bade our happy land farewell. Madness usflrped the 
 Southern brain, and treason fired the Southern heart. The 
 conspiracy culminated in war — and war, with his demoniac 
 train, poured out his garnered fury, blazing with ruin and 
 redolent of death u]>on our southern homes. East Tennessee 
 would not abandon the Union, nor forswear her allegiance to 
 the National Govenmient. Every failing effort to entangle 
 her in the treason only deepened the gulf between us and the 
 Confederates, and opened wider the floodgates of their wrath. 
 Lifelong friendshi2)s, the strongest party affiliations, the holiest 
 church relations, the tenderest ties of affinity and blood, were 
 severed like threads of gOssamar. Husbands and wives, fathers 
 and sons, and brothers, were estranged, and became eiiemies, 
 and every family' felt, in all its members, the agony of being 
 divided against itself. 
 
 The conspirators hated us malignantly, and yet they feared 
 us. We were in the majority, but thef/ were in power. The 
 military seized our arms, and, very soon the disarmed majority 
 of the country aM^akened to find itself in the iron grasp of an 
 armed and drilled minority. Liberty became a myth. Per- 
 son, property, and life were at the disposal of unscrupulous 
 usurpers. 
 
 They denounced coercion, yet coercion was the lever with 
 which they moved forward their cause. They deprecated war, 
 and flred on Sumter. Proclaiming protection, they seized our 
 arms and property. Defying liberty, they fettered our souls, 
 and sealed our lips, and paralyzed the loyal press, and incar- 
 cerated thousands of our best citizens, in loathsome dungeons. 
 They anathematized tyranny, and inaugurated a despotism as , 
 heartless' and crashing as ever disgraced the earth, or black- 
 ened the annals of cruelty and crime — a despotism which has 
 shot, hung, assassinated, and executed, by the protracted tor- 
 tures of lialf-fed, lingering starvation, thousands of innocent 
 men, whose only crime was loyalty. 
 
 The rebel conscription was rigorously enforced, A few of 
 
33 
 
 our Union men were coerced into the rebel army, others were 
 detailed for home service. Many hid themselves in the moun- 
 tains. Thousands, through great sufferings, and untold perils, 
 escaped to Kentucky, and joined the Union army ; while 
 liundreds of others were shot down, or captured and impris- 
 oned, or executed. Our conscripts were hunted by white men 
 first, then by Indians, and then by blood hounds. To be found 
 in arms, or to resist, was instant death, by bullet, bayonet, or 
 rope. 
 
 Women ^ encieiite^ were beaten, and men, stripped bare to 
 the skin, and securely tied with cords, were scourged until 
 until their blood stood in pools. 
 
 Five thousand Union men of East Tennessee (it is com- 
 puted), besides our prisoners of war, have endured the horrors 
 of Southern prisons; of whom, many died of starvation, filth, 
 and vermin. Attorney Gen. Thomburg, Hon. Samuel Pick- 
 ens, Landon Taylor, Jonathan Bible, Esq., Joi'dan Jones, and 
 scores of other respectable citizens, many of them aged and 
 influential, fell thus, martyrs to their loyalty. 
 
 It is estimated that more than fifteen hundred Union citi- 
 zens have been assassinated or inurdered in East Tennessee, 
 within the past three years. Fifty-flve of this number, I am 
 reliably informed, have been murdered in my native county of 
 Carter. The details of some of these terrible deeds, for diabol- 
 ical refinement of wickedness and cruelty, are unsurpassed in 
 the calendar of crime. One of my neighbors was seized by a 
 band of Ilel>el soldiers, on a freezing day, and placed on a 
 raw hide, saturated with the M'ater of the tan-vat — astride of 
 his horse — his feet tied tiglitly under the animal, and com- 
 pelled, in that situation, to ride nineteen miles. He was then 
 dragged by a rope over his own yard in presence of his family. 
 His house and its contents, including all the wearing apparel 
 of his wife and children, were burned to ashes. Poor Thomp- 
 son was then lead some distance, tied to a tree as a target, and 
 his body riddled with balls. 
 
 Another of my neighbors who had been twelve months a 
 prisoner in ' Libby,' and liad just returned to liis family, was 
 3 
 
34 
 
 assailed in his yard l)y rolicl suldicrs. and sliot dead in the 
 arms (•!" his wife. 
 
 ^^aj()r -John McG uughey uf Athens, over sixty years old, hut 
 in the military service, was recently captured by raiders in the 
 streets of his village. Twenty miles from home, the Major 
 commanding the rebels rode down the line and calh-d for 
 McClaughey. Pie stepped out from the line, and was ordered 
 to lie down in the road. The officer then detailed live men 
 to murder him, and they instantly obeyed, putting five balls 
 tl) rough his body. 
 
 J^ut I close this catalogue of bloody horrors, and turn to 
 other horrors as full of gloom. Ijurnside, whose mime will 
 ever be dear to every loyal East Tennessean, lead his gal- 
 lant army across the Cumberland Mountains, to redeem om* 
 land from rebel rule, and to break the yoke that crushed our 
 people. The gratitude that throbbed in breaking hearts, and 
 streamed from tearful eyes, and trembled in thanksgivings to 
 God and that noble army, were the ovation that greeted that 
 gallant chieftan and his veteran host. But idas ! the coming 
 of our friends pi'oved but the signal to our foes. You have 
 seen a l)rilliant meteor shoot alonii; the midnio'ht heavens, 
 rending the vestments of night, usurping in momentary grand- 
 eur her sable throne, and suddenly expiring in blacker gloom. 
 Such was the coming of the IS^ational army to upper East Ten- 
 nessee. The briij-htness of its advent onlv revealed the hid- 
 eousness of our misery, and the suddenness of its exit cast a 
 dee])er gloom over every loyal home and heart. As the 
 re])els retired before Burnside, capture, pillage, arson, and 
 miu'der, marked their track. The National forces retaliated 
 on secession property. Ordered to support Rosecrans, Burn- 
 side suddenly fell back, the enemy following. The 'lex ta- 
 Hi)iii.\' now fell in turn upon the Union people, aiul the rebels 
 helj)ed themselves. Suddenly our army turned u})on the 
 rebels, from BulTs Gap, and drove them beyond the Tennessee 
 line, and then, retiring, left our people again uncovered. 
 Thus, our mountain-bound vallies, since 1803, have been the 
 tlu^atre wluM'o hostile armies, like ocean's waves storm-tossed 
 
35 
 
 have swept t'orwanl and back, and often met in full career, 
 grappling in M-ar's deadliest end^race, and leaving in their 
 bloody track shallow graves, uidjuried dead, nuitilated death- 
 stricken wounded, torn banners and exploded guns, broken 
 blades and battle-shivered imjdeinents of death, and worse 
 than these a desolated country, the smouldering ashes of a 
 recent prospei'ity, wasted farms, pillaged houses, devastated 
 fields, ruined gardens, blackened chimneys, mementos of once 
 happy homes ; and /r(//:d of <fl/, a loyA population of women 
 and children and old men, (most of them, the loved ones of 
 li'allant mountain volunteers awav at the front with Sherman, 
 
 ~ t,' -' 
 
 and Tliomas, and Gillem, and Stoneman, courting death for 
 tJieir counti-y), plundered and ])illaged of every comfort and 
 necessary of life, turned homeless and penniless, bare-fout and 
 in tatters, upon the charities of the country ; or left breadless, 
 to die of famine in desolated homes. !Such are the melan- 
 choly monuments the great rebellion has left all over East 
 Tennessee. 
 
 Relie^'ed last year by generous contril)utions from the North, 
 our people, in large part by hand, M'itli liot^s and maddocks, 
 l)lanted crops last spring; and, with a propitious season, cul- 
 tivated them almost to maturity. But while yet their crops 
 were in the milk, -John Morgan swept down upon them, with 
 1,800 hungry cavalry from Virginia. After him wdth rebel 
 armies followed Wheeler, Vaughn, and Breckenridge succes- 
 sively, and Gillem, Jhirrbridge, and Stoneman, with national 
 forces of cavahy. Thus, since August last, no less than seven 
 cavalry armies of friends and foes, have swept over and for- 
 aged upon this already blighted and ruined section. 
 
 AVho then is surprised again to hear the wail of famine- 
 struck thousands crying for bread i Sir, Avhile I am talking 
 here to you, hundreds of tenderly raised intelligent women 
 and little innocent children, who have never known want 
 before, and perhaps never saw a professional beggar, are 
 crowding the refugee homes and stores at Knoxville, who 
 have left their once happy homes, trudged more than a Imndred 
 miles with unshod weary feet, through snow, and mud, and 
 
36 
 
 ice, clad in threadbare and rag<^ed <i:arnients, to escape the 
 persecutions of" a niali<;nant foe, and death l)y destitntion and 
 famine. 
 
 And yet sir, I wouhl not liave you nor the country under- 
 stand, tliat I am here a begi2;ar, or the representative of beg- 
 gars. They wlin never willingly bowed the neck to the yoke 
 of a cotton oligarchy are too proud, even now, in the deep 
 humiliation of i)enury, to bend the supple hinges of the knee 
 to Northern brethren, and ask for ahns. 
 
 Having one history, one country, a conimon struggle for a 
 common destiny, who will deny that we are bound to suifer 
 and to sacrifice equally and alike, in prosecuting this common 
 struggle in the defence and malntainance of our common na- 
 tional itij. But this cruel war for a common good has enriched 
 you and cost us the sacrijice of all v^e had. Our ruined homes, 
 on the border, are the hreakwater upon which the rebellion 
 hurled its wrath ; our hosoms, like rods of steel, caught the 
 live thunders of relel vengeatice aimed alike at you. In the 
 aggregate you have not only oiot sacrificed, but actually ^?'0'i6Vi 
 rich, you, have not only not suffered, upon the whole, but 
 peace, plenty, and prosperity have hrightened all yoxir hoines 
 'nx\(S. jiilled your hearts icitli gladness ?a\(\ joy. You have en- 
 joyed the kewards of loyalty. We have experienced iV^jy^n- 
 alties ; we have felt its cost ; we have ])aid its j9Wctf in goods, 
 and TEAKS, and BLOOD. Four years of terrible war find 
 your social, ecclesiastical, commercial, industrial, and political 
 systems stronger than ever, moving harmoniously on toward 
 the grander development of a peerless civilization. Li the 
 horderdand of East Tennessee, the war has demolished all 
 our systems, and the treason-shivered elements of our organ- 
 izations alone remain, and civil chaos and civil war, twin sis- 
 ters, reign supreme. 
 
 Then is it arrogance in me, to say, in the name of the loyal 
 sufferers, I represent here to night, in the name of justice, as 
 well as of patriotism and humanity, ' I demaxd kelief for 
 them, at the hands of the Loyal people of the North, and at the 
 hands of the Government? '' What -sve demand, sir, in the 
 
37 
 
 name of our services, and sacritices, and sufferings, in tlie 
 name of our battle-torn and still bleeding East Tennessee ; in 
 the name of our M^ar-worn soldiers, and of their homeless, and 
 starving, and tattered wives and children ; in the name of 
 Christianity and of God, what we demand is present relief in 
 food,, and clothing,, and shelter, and military irrotectloniQx all 
 OF East Tennessee ; and permanent relief, (in following out 
 the sagacious councils of the President, and of many military 
 leaders who have served and commanded in East Tennessee,) 
 by completing the Railroad connection between Knoxville 
 and the North West. [Applause] 
 
 "We ask no alms, sir, we seek no gratuities. ISide by side 
 with our earnest demands for reliet^ we ]>resent the proofs that 
 we deserve it ; and if M'antonly or indifferently, our call is un- 
 heeded, and the destitute remnant of that most faithful pop- 
 ulatitHi is permitted to perish of famine ; l)e assured that jus- 
 tice, sooner or later, will send a fearful retribution into the 
 homes and hearts of those who pro^•e callous to her righteous 
 demands. 
 
 In conclusion, sir, permit me to add that the sons of every 
 loyal State in the Union are mingled in the history of East 
 Tennessee, as on her bloody fields, where they won their fame. 
 Our vallies and hillsides entomb the remains of the j^atriots of 
 every State, who died there for their country. Together they 
 fought, united they fell, aiul the same sod that was enriched 
 by their blood, mingling as it flowed, grows green over the 
 bosoms that rest side by side, in the same grave. They died 
 under the same starry banner, in defence of the same great 
 country, and their \)Yh.xq souls together were heralded to the 
 spirit-world by the loud thunders of battle. No classic urn 
 preserves their dust. No marble monument records their 
 names. But they sleep in East Tennessee's bosom beside her 
 own murdered sons. The maidens of our mountains will 
 plant flowers on tlieir graves, and w\ater them with tears ; 
 generations of patriots wmII honor their memory. The sio-hino- 
 winds of autunm, and the bright waters of our vallies, will 
 murmer their requiem, and our everlasting mountains will 
 sentinel their dust. [Loud applause] 
 
38 
 
 Remarks ok Senator Dooliitle. 
 
 Hon. James II. Doolittle, of Wis., was next introduced. 
 He said : 
 
 Mr. President, and ladies and gentlemen : — I have no 
 speech to make ; and if I had had one, I should have forgot- 
 ten it ; for as I listened to tlic eloquent remarks of our friends 
 who preceded nie, and especially to mj elo(|ucMit friend from 
 East Tennessee, I have given myself up entirely to think of 
 what he has been saying, and to feel I believe what he has 
 felt. Instead of thinking of making a speech, I have been 
 weeping like a child, shedding tears of sympathy for the peo- 
 ple whom he has described. My patriotism, I think, has been 
 very much quickened, as he has pictured the patriotism of that 
 people ; and I have experienced emotions of indignation to 
 which I cannot give utterance, towards those infernal traitors 
 who have brought all this trouble upon the country. 
 
 I believe that to East Tennessee we owe as a people, a debt 
 of gratitude that we can never repay — -never. Why, to 
 Andrew Johnson, of East Tennessee, we owe a debt of grati- 
 tude which his election as Vice-President of the United States 
 does not begin to discharge. I say here, in the presence of 
 Senators and members of Congress, that in the Senate of the 
 United States, Andrew Johnson was the rock on Avhich this 
 rebellion split. It was Andrew Johnson who, in the Senate 
 of the United States, first pronounced the words which no 
 I other tongue dared to pronounce in the teeth of those rebels, 
 ! when they were withdrawing, when he denounced them as 
 traitors to the countr}-, and traitors to the CTOvernment they 
 I had sworn to support. 
 
 To that people of East Tennessee, I repeat, we oAve a debt 
 of gratitude that we can never repay. And it encourages my 
 heart beyond all measure, when I hear an account given of the 
 devotion of that ])eople to the Union, to the flag of the country, 
 and to its government. Oh ! fellow-citizens, much as we have 
 sacrificed for this glorious country and the glorious constitu- 
 tion under which we live — though we have sent our friends 
 
39 
 
 and our brothers to the contlict — thono-h we have been called 
 upon to lay our own iirst-born children "in the soldier's grave, 
 we liave sutt'ered nothing and sacriliced nothing, compared 
 with that people of East Tennessee. Let their example quick- 
 en our patriotism and nerve our hearts in this struggle. All 
 that men can do, we ought to do to rescue that people, and to 
 repay the debt of gratitude that we owe to them. 
 
 While I have listened to the remarks of the elocjuent gentle- 
 man from Tennessee, I have been shedding tears of indignation 
 as we have had depicted to us, the conduct of those vile rebels 
 who led the South into rebellion asrainst the United States. I 
 have no language in which to express my indignation. I know 
 of no punishment that can be inflicted on this earth that is 
 ade(piate to the crime of the great leaders of this rebellion. 
 Tf all the blood and tears that have been poured out in conse- 
 (juence of this crime, could be gathered into one great pool, 
 Jeflerson Davis and his Cabinet and his whole Congress could 
 swim in it I On this subject, I feel very much as a chaplain 
 of the army, who left the town where I reside, in the State of 
 Wisconsin, felt and expressed himself when he returned and 
 ad(h'essed the people of Racine, in reference to what he had 
 witnessed, and the sufferings wdiich had been brought npon 
 the people, both black and white, by the leaders of this rebel- 
 lion. Pie was a very eloquent man, and I had many a time 
 heard him preach. Often to our people, in the kindness of 
 his heart, he had preached the doctrine that men are sufKcient- 
 ly punished in this life for the great crimes of which they are 
 guilty ; and that he could not concieve that there conld be any 
 feuch thing as a hell beyond the grave. lie went away with 
 our Fourth Regiment ; -he spent some two or three years in 
 the service, witnessino; the horrors that this rebellion had 
 brought upon the people of the country ; he looked the rebel- 
 lion in the face in all its enormity. After this experience, he 
 returned ^nd addressed the people of Racine, and I shall 
 never for<>:et one tliino- that he said. ' Fellow-citizens of Ra- 
 cine,' said he, ' you know me ; you know my profession ; you 
 know what has been my religious creed. I have often preached 
 
40 
 
 to you that there is no such thing as a hell beyond the grave. 
 But I tell you now, tliat, since I have been with the army and 
 have seen this rebellion as it is in all its enormity — since I 
 have seen ull the sutierino- and crime and horror that have 
 Ijeen brought upon our country by the leaders of this infernal 
 rebellion — I tell you, fellow-citizens, that there is now a hell 
 in my (u-eed for traitors [ap})lause] ; I have come to believe 
 in a hell as a military necessity ! ' — [Laughter and applause.] 
 And after listening to our friend's eloquent description of the 
 sufferings of that people, in my very heart of hearts I do thank 
 God that there is such a thing as infinite justice — that there 
 is a tribunal before which all these men will be brought to 
 answer for their crimes, where their punishment will be just 
 and will be certain. 
 
 But I have no speech to make, and I shall not detain you. 
 I will simply state in conclusion my earnest conviction that 
 all that men can do they ought to do to rescue the people of 
 Eastern Tennessee, and to strengthen the hands of all the loyal 
 people who are fleeing from that country to us for protec- 
 tion. — [Applause, during which, the speaker took his seat.] 
 
 The Chairman then said: The programme of the meeting 
 contemplates a speech by Gen. J. A. Garfield. The General 
 has made a request that he may be excused.. But I cannot 
 find it in my heart to excuse him altogether, and I hope he 
 will at least say a few words. 
 
 Kemakks of Gen. J. A. Garfield. 
 
 Gen. Garfield then came forward and said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman and fellow-citizens: — I will not trespass' 
 upon your time this evening further than to say that M-hat has 
 been already so well and so fully said on the great subject 
 before ycni, has my most heart}- approval, in every ])ossible 
 aspect of the case. I know from my own personal ex])erience 
 very much of what has been said concerning Tennessee. It 
 has been my pleasure to l)e with our army in almost every 
 district of that State ; and I know that these things here 
 uttered by our friend from Eastern Tennessee, are true, and 
 that he has iu)t told us the half of the terrible, bloody story. 
 
41 
 
 I heartily concur in the appeal which has been made to you 
 to-night by all these gentlemen Avho have spoken. I trust 
 that this larse-hearted charitv that is stretching out its hands 
 from the North, giving, by this organization, every person in 
 all our Northern homes, a chance to exercise his feelings of 
 love and X)hilantliropy toward those destitute regions, will 
 have full scope, and that our people everywhere will assist in 
 the great work. 
 
 [The exercises of the evening here closed with the benedic- 
 tion by Eev. Dr. Thompson.] 
 
 ORIGIN AND OBJECTS OF THE UNION COMMISSION. 
 
 The Amertcan Union Commission, like the Sanitary and 
 the Christian Commission, has l)eeii called into existence by 
 the emergencies of the War. Its Avork is Relief and Restora- 
 tion. Thousands whom the war has reduced to want, or has 
 driven from their homes, must now be fed, clothed, and saved 
 alive. As fast as possible, the waste places must be repaired ; 
 homes which have been impoverished or demolishedj must be 
 restored ; and the blessings of industry and of peace must be 
 revived wherever war ha^ spread its desolations. For these 
 objects this Commission is organized. 
 
 It is a " Com^ndsuon^'' having the approval of the President 
 of the United States, and the facilities of tne War Department 
 in the prosecution of its work. 
 
 It is a " Union'''' Commission, caring for those who, amid 
 the threats and terrors of the Rebellion, have remained faith- 
 ful to the National Government ; and saving for the Country, 
 by timely generosity, the thousands of Refugees whom the 
 tides of war have cast upon our hands. 
 
 It is " American^'' because as its object is national, it aims 
 to embrace in one national organization, a work that has 
 heretofore been attempted by local and limited movements, 
 but which belono-s to the nation at laro-e. 
 
 Already there is opening before us a vast and imperativeT 
 work of philanthropy, as fast as the theatre of the Rebellion ' 
 is reclaimed to the Union ; and the broad basis of this Com- 
 
42 
 
 mission will enable it to adapt itself to the various industrial, 
 economical, and educational phases of that work which will 
 arise upon the return of Peace. By its fundamental article, 
 approved' by the Government at Washington, the Commission 
 
 1 " is constituted for the purpose of aiding and co-operating with 
 tlie people of those portions of the United States which have 
 
 , been desolated and impoverished by the M'ar, in the restoration 
 of their civil and social condition upon the basis of industry, 
 education, freedom, and Christian morality." 
 
 In the six months, from October, 1S64, to April, 1S65 — 
 wliicli cover the period of its active organization — the Com- 
 mission has distributed to liefugees, at various points in the 
 South and the South-West, nearly five hundred barrels of 
 clothing, at an estimated value of §25,000 ; also, several bales 
 of blankets and cases of shoes. It has appropriated $29,000, in 
 cash, wdiich has been expended for the transportation of Refugees 
 to homes in the West ; in providing hospital stores for the 
 sick at Nashville, Cairo, Louisville and other points ; and for 
 supplies for the destitute at Charleston. The New England 
 Branch has raised, in addition, upwards of $20,000, chiefly for 
 the relief of suffering Unionists in East Tennessee. By ar- 
 rangements with the military authorities, the Commission has 
 assumed the care of deserters from the rebel army, who need 
 clothing, and assistance in finding work. It is about to open 
 schools in Charleston, in Savannah, in Memphis, and in other 
 southern cities now redeemed from the rebellion. It has also 
 undertaken to relieve the wants of the loyal people of West 
 Virginia and of East Tennessee, and especially to provide 
 them with the means of raising their crops during the present 
 year. For these purposes the Connnission needs at once not 
 less than One Hundred Thousand dollars 
 
 The foUowino; p-entlemen constitute the Commission : 
 
 Rev. Jos. P. Thompson, D. D., President. 
 
 Rev. Lyman Abbott, Corresponding Secretary. 
 
 H. M. Pierce, Esq., Recording Secretary. 
 
 A. Y. Stout, Esq., Shoe and Leather Bank, Trea><iirer. 
 
48 
 
 William A. Booth, Esq. 
 
 Rev. Wm. Ives Budingtox, D. J). 
 
 Charles Butler, Esq. 
 
 Charles C. Colgate, Esq. 
 
 David Dows, J^sq. 
 
 Rev. J. T. Duryea, 
 
 E. L. Fanciier, Esq. 
 
 Wm. Ct. Lambert, Esq. 
 
 Geo. W, Laxe, Esq. 
 
 A. "A. Low, Esq. 
 
 Rev. J. McClixtock, D. D. 
 
 Hexry T. Morgan, Esq. 
 
 Christopher Robert, Esq. 
 
 Samuel B. Schieffelin, Esq. 
 
 Rev. S. II. Tyxg, Jr. 
 
 Rev. H. G. Westox, D. D. 
 
 The Xew England Refugees' Aid Society acts as a Braiicli 
 of the Commission. Its Executive Committee are Hon. Mar- 
 tin Brimmer, Hon. Dwight Foster, Rev, Joseph W. Parker, 
 D.D., Thomas C. Wales, Esq., Hamilton A. Hill, Esq., 
 Henry P. Kidder, Esq., all of Boston.. 
 
 Contributions from New England may be sent to Henry 
 P. Kidder, Esq., 40 State St., Boston. From other sources, 
 money may be sent to A. V. Stout, Esq., Treasurer, Shoe and 
 Leather Bank, New York, and goods to No. 14 Bible House, 
 New York. T. G. Odiorne, Esq., of Cincinnati, Ohio ; and 
 C. N. SiiiPMAx, Esq., of Cairo, Ills., are Associate Secretaries 
 of the Commission. 
 
LiBRftRV OF CONGRESS 
 
 012 028 920 2 
 
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 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 012 028 920 2 
 
 J 
 
 HoIIinger 
 
 pH8.5 
 
 Mill Run F3-1955 
 
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