CHAPTER III
LOYALTY OF EAST TENNESSEE
While we have attempted to show the untenable position
of those who maintain that the majority of the people of
Tennessee were opposed to separation and it was only a
coup d'état of Governor Harris that carried the State into the
Confederacy, it is, however, true that a great number of her
inhabitants did resist withdrawal and remain openly loyal.
This was especially the case with East Tennessee. Her persistent
loyalty is a striking illustration of the physical
conditions and causes which lay behind the Civil War. Tennessee
had been settled by a common stock of pioneers
from North Carolina. Many of these, attracted by the
beautiful scenery and genial climate, had found homes east
of the Cumberland Mountains, while others had crossed the
mountains and taken possession of the rich tablelands and
the alluvial bottoms of Middle and West Tennessee. When
the State was admitted into the Union, in 1796, her population
was homogeneous. The institution of slavery existed
in all sections of the State.
In West and Middle Tennessee, where the soil and climate were suitable for raising cotton, slave labor was very profitable. In East Tennessee, the poor upland farms scarcely yielded a return to white labor. As the result of this difference in natural conditions, slavery flourished in West and Middle Tennessee, but in East Tennessee, by 1860, it had become almost extinct, except upon the rich plantations that bordered the Tennessee River. The efforts to form a Confederacy based upon slavery found, therefore, no support among the inhabitants of East Tennessee. Their interests
