American politician (1805?1877)
Parson Brownlow
|
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|
|
|
In office
April 5, 1865 ? February 25, 1869
|
Preceded by
| Andrew Johnson
as Military Governor
|
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Succeeded by
| Dewitt Clinton Senter
|
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|
In office
March 4, 1869 ? March 3, 1875
|
Preceded by
| David T. Patterson
|
---|
Succeeded by
| Andrew Johnson
|
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|
|
Born
| William Gannaway Brownlow
(
1805-08-29
)
August 29, 1805
Wythe County, Virginia
, U.S.
|
---|
Died
| April 29, 1877
(1877-04-29)
(aged 71)
Knoxville, Tennessee
, U.S.
|
---|
Resting place
| Old Gray Cemetery
Knoxville, Tennessee
|
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Political party
| Whig
American
Republican
|
---|
Spouse
| Eliza O'Brien (m. 1836)
|
---|
Relations
| Walter P. Brownlow
(nephew)
|
---|
Children
| Susan
,
John Bell
,
James
, Mary, Fannie, Annie, Caledonia Temple
|
---|
Profession
| Minister, newspaper editor
|
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Signature
| |
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|
William Gannaway
"
Parson
"
Brownlow
(August 29, 1805 – April 29, 1877) was an American newspaper publisher, Methodist minister, book author, prisoner of war, lecturer, and politician who served as the 17th
governor of Tennessee
from 1865 to 1869 and as a
United States Senator
from Tennessee from 1869 to 1875. Brownlow rose to prominence in the late 1830s and early 1840s as editor of the
Whig
, a polemical newspaper in
East Tennessee
that promoted
Whig Party
ideals and opposed secession in the years leading up to the
American Civil War
. Brownlow's uncompromising and radical viewpoints made him one of the most divisive figures in Tennessee political history and one of the most controversial
Reconstruction Era
politicians of the United States.
Beginning his career as a Methodist
circuit rider
in the 1820s, Brownlow was both censured and praised by his superiors for his vicious verbal debates with rival missionaries of other sectarian Christian beliefs. Later, as a newspaper publisher and editor, he was notorious for his relentless personal attacks against his religious and political opponents, sometimes to the point of being physically assaulted. At the same time, Brownlow was successfully building a large base of fiercely loyal subscribers.
[1]
Brownlow returned to Tennessee in 1863 and in 1865 became the war governor with the U.S. Army behind him. He joined the
Radical Republicans
and spent much of his term opposing the policies of his longtime political foe
Andrew Johnson
.
[1]
His gubernatorial policies, which were both autocratic and progressive, helped Tennessee become the first former
Confederate
state to be readmitted to the Union in 1866, "exempting it from the lengthy federal military reconstruction inflicted on most of the South".
[1]
[2]
Soon after the Civil War, Brownlow utilized the state government to enfranchise male
African-American
former slaves with the right to vote and run for public office in Tennessee. Soon after, ex-Confederate political leaders and military officers used the
Ku Klux Klan
and likeminded vigilante groups to disenfranchise African-Americans.
[1]
Early life
[
edit
]
Brownlow was born in
Wythe County, Virginia
, in 1805, the eldest son of Joseph A. Brownlow and Catherine Gannaway. Joseph Brownlow, an itinerant farmer, was born in
Augusta County
,
Virginia
in 1782 and died during 1816 in
Blountville
, Tennessee and Catherine Gannaway followed three months later, leaving William orphaned at the age of 10. The first Brownlow forebear in Virginia was William Brownlow, who was born in
Magherafelt
,
Ulster
in 1709 and emigrated to Virginia in 1731. Brownlow and his four siblings were split up among relatives, with Brownlow spending the remainder of his childhood on his uncle John Gannaway's farm. At age 18, Brownlow went to
Abingdon
where he learned the trade of
carpentry
from another uncle, George Winniford.
[3]
: 1?3
In 1825, Brownlow attended a
camp meeting
near Sulphur Springs, Virginia, where he experienced a dramatic spiritual rebirth. He later recalled that, suddenly, "all my anxieties were at an end, all my hopes were realized, my happiness was complete."
[3]
: 4
He immediately abandoned the carpentry trade and began studying to become a Methodist minister. In Fall 1826, he attended the annual meeting of the Holston Conference of the Methodist Church in Abingdon. He applied to join the travelling ministry (commonly called "circuit riders"), and was admitted that year by Bishop
Joshua Soule
.
[3]
: 6
The competition in Southern Appalachia for both converts and their tithes among the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians was fierce, and diatribes in both speech and print against rival sectarian Christian beliefs and leaders were commonplace among missionaries. In defending his Methodist Church and its early leaders, Brownlow, took such debates to a whole new level, attacking not only Baptist and Presbyterian theology but also the character of his rival missionaries.
[4]
In 1826, Soule gave Brownlow his first assignment as a circuit rider?the
Black Mountain
circuit in North Carolina. It was here that Brownlow first ran afoul of the Baptists?who were spreading quickly throughout the Southern Appalachian region?and developed an immediate dislike of them, considering them narrow-minded bigots who engaged in "dirty" rituals such as
foot washing
.
[3]
: 18
During the following year in 1827, Brownlow was assigned as a circuit rider in
Maryville, Tennessee
area, where there was a strong Presbyterian presence, and he later recalled being constantly harassed by a young Presbyterian missionary who taunted him with
Calvinistic
criticisms of Methodism.
[3]
: 19
In 1828, Brownlow was sued for
slander
, but the suit was dismissed. In 1831, Brownlow was sued for
libel
by a Baptist preacher, and ordered to pay his accuser $5.
[3]
: 22
In 1832, Brownlow was assigned as a circuit rider to the
Pickens District
in South Carolina, which he claimed was "overrun with Baptists" and "
nullifiers
." Unable to make headway in the district, Brownlow circulated his venomous 70-page pamphlet blasting the district's Baptists, and narrowly galloped safely back into the mountains as the district's enraged residents demanded he be hanged.
[3]
: 25
Brownlow's run-in with the South Carolina nullifiers would influence his later views on secession.
Brownlow soon afterward had his 1834 tome
Helps To The Study of Presbyterianism
(addressing, in part, Brownlow's advancement of the separation of church and state in the United States and the Presbyterian Church domination of the
American Sunday School Union
) published in Knoxville, Tennessee by newspaper and book publisher
Frederick S. Heiskell
.
Marriage
[
edit
]
Brownlow married a younger Eliza Ann O'Brien during 1836 in
Carter County, Tennessee
, where the two resided in her hometown of
Elizabethton
. Brownlow began working as a clerk managing her family's O'Brien Furnace (iron foundry), which was located along the banks of the
Doe River
at Valley Forge about four miles southeast of Elizabethton.
[5]
[6]
[7]
Brownlow would often travel by
flatboat
on both the
Watauga River
and the
Holston River
in East Tennessee, bringing shipments of iron castings from the O'Brien Furnance to Knoxville.
[8]
Although Brownlow left the circuit shortly after his marriage during 1836, he would continue his staunch defense of Methodism and Methodist leaders against the published attacks by religious leaders and writers of other sectarian Christian beliefs within his later newspaper columns, books, and speeches. For the remainder of his life and beyond, Brownlow was to become known to friend and foe alike as the "Fighting Parson".
[3]
Early newspaper owner
[
edit
]
Brownlow cut his teeth in the newspaper business during 1838 writing for the short-lived
Elizabethton Republican and Manufacturer's Advocate
, initially under its editor William Gott. This weekly Elizabethton newspaper advanced Whig politics, and by the time that Brownlow had later been promoted as its editor, the
Elizabethton Republican and Manufacturer's Advocate
had some three hundred subscribers and was closely associated with Mason R. Lyon.
[6]
Historian Stephen Ash says:
What made the Parson stand out was, more than anything else, his vitriolic tongue and pen. Over the course of his long career, he took up many causes. These included not only Methodism, Whiggery, and the Union, but also temperance, Know-Nothingism, and slavery. His favorite method of promoting those causes was to chastise and ridicule his opponents, and few men could do so with as much venomous wit as he. Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Mormons, Democrats, Republicans, secessionists, drunks, immigrants, and abolitionists?all were at one time or another on the receiving end of Brownlow's merciless broadsides. Not surprisingly, he made many enemies. A number of them replied in kind; some tried to kill him.
[9]
The rising Elizabethton attorney
T.A.R. Nelson
suggested that Brownlow should launch a newspaper to support
Whig Party
candidates in the upcoming elections. Brownlow partnered with the Elizabethton newspaper publisher, Mason R. Lyon, and as the editor within their partnership, with the agreement that Brownlow would receive one-third of the new profits from the
Tennessee Whig
.
[10]
Brownlow and Lyon launched their weekly
Tennessee Whig
on Thursday, May 16, 1839, and within several weeks, Brownlow and Lyon would rebrand their new weekly newspaper as the
Elizabethton Whig
starting with the June 13, 1839 edition of the newspaper.
[11]
As Brownlow's vituperative editorial style quickly brought bitter division to Elizabethton, and he began quarreling with local Whig-turned-Democrat
Landon Carter Haynes
. Haynes had read law under Elizabethton attorney T.A.R. Nelson, and Haynes would later follow Nelson to Jonesborough during 1840, where Haynes would eventually edit a Jonesborough newspaper.
Brownlow and the
Elizabethton Whig
also relocated from Elizabethton and to Jonesborough during the same year, where the weekly Brownlow newspaper was again rebranded as the
Jonesboro Whig
(the Tennessee town has spelled municipal name two different ways through its history), publishing the first edition of the second volume on May 7, 1840. Brownlow had also brought along Valentine Garland along as a new business partner within his
Jonesboro Whig
enterprise. Garland had previously worked as a journeyman printer with the
Elizabethton Whig
and had purchased Lyon's interest in the
Elizabethton Whig
for $550.00, but their business partnership in the
Jonesboro Whig
was short-lived as an announcement published on August 12, 1840 notified the
Whig
readers that the Brownlow and Garland business partnership was dissolved.
[12]
Brownlow would later accost Haynes in a Jonesborough street and then proceeded to beat Haynes with a sword cane, prompting Haynes to draw out his pistol and shoot Brownlow in the thigh.
[3]
: 39
Haynes was later hired as editor of the competing Democratic
Tennessee Sentinel
the following year, and the editors Brownlow and Haynes would publish polemics targeting each other within their respective newspapers over the next several years.
[11]
In 1845, Brownlow ran against
Andrew Johnson
for the state's
1st District
seat in the
U.S. House of Representatives
. Using the
Whig
to support his campaign, he accused Johnson of being illegitimate, suggested Johnson's relatives were murderers and thieves and stated that Johnson was an atheist.
[3]
: 121
Johnson won the election by 1,300 votes, out of just over 10,000 votes cast.
[3]
: 117
Brownlow supported Whig policies such as a
national bank
, federal funding for
internal improvements
(more specifically, public improvements to the
Moccasin Bend
area of the
Tennessee River
near
Chattanooga
allowing for better steamboat transportation of goods to
New Orleans
), developing industries within northeast Tennessee, and a weakened presidency.
[3]
: 111
He called
Andrew Jackson
the "greatest curse that ever yet befell this nation,"
[13]
and attacked Jackson's supporters, the
Locofocos
, in his 1844 book,
A Political Register
.
[3]
: 113
While Brownlow steadfastly supported Whig candidates such as
John Bell
and
James C. Jones
, his true political idol was Kentucky senator
Henry Clay
. Clay was consistently Brownlow's first choice for the party's presidential candidate throughout the 1840s.
[3]
: 112
Brownlow's son John recalled that one of the few times he ever saw his father cry was after he had received the news of Clay's defeat in the
1844 presidential election
.
[3]
: 116
In May 1849, Brownlow relocated the
Whig
to
Knoxville, Tennessee
, where he was already well known for his clashes with the Democratic
Standard
, which he had dubbed a "filthy lying sheet."
[13]
Prior to the departure of Brownlow and his newspaper from Jonesboro, an unknown assailant clubbed Brownlow in the head, leaving him bedridden for two weeks. He blamed this act on Knoxville's newspaper interests, who feared his competition.
[3]
: 37?44
Upon his arrival, he became embroiled in an editorial war with
Knoxville Register
editor John Miller McKee that lasted until McKee's departure in 1855.
[14]
Brownlow joined the
Sons of Temperance
in 1850,
[15]
and promoted temperance policies in the
Whig
(one of his more common personal attacks was to accuse his opponents of being "drunkards"). Following the collapse of the Whig Party in the mid-1850s, he aligned himself with the
Know Nothing
movement, as he had long shared this movement's anti-Catholic and
nativist
sentiments.
[3]
: 125
In 1856, he published a book,
Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism and Bogus Democracy
, which attacked Catholicism, foreigners and Democratic politicians.
In the late 1850s, Brownlow turned his attention to Knoxville's Democratic Party leaders and their associates. He quarreled with the radical
Southern Citizen
, a pro-secession newspaper published by businessman
William G. Swan
and Irish patriot
John Mitchel
(who spent time in Knoxville while in exile), and on at least one occasion, threatened Swan with a revolver.
[3]
: 49
Following the failure of the Bank of East Tennessee in 1858, Brownlow ruthlessly assailed its directors. His attacks forced A.R. Crozier and
William Churchwell
to flee the state, and drove
John H. Crozier
from public life. Brownlow sued another director,
J. G. M. Ramsey
, winning a civil judgement on behalf of the bank's depositors.
[16]
: 289?290
Partially a result of Brownlow's persistent opposition to secession within the pages of his newspapers (and partially due to his long-time feud with Confederate sympathizer, banker, and Tennessee historian
J. G. M. Ramsey
), he was later jailed by Confederate States military authorities (the CSA district attorney in Knoxville, Tennessee being related to J. G. M. Ramsey) in December 1861, pardoned, and subsequently forced into exile in the northern United States.
Sectarian debates
[
edit
]
While Brownlow left the preaching circuit in the 1830s, he continued responding to the critics attacking the Methodist faith until the Civil War. In 1843, his feud with Haynes led to Haynes being barred from the Methodist clergy.
[17]
That same year, J.M. Smith, editor of the
Abingdon Virginian
, accused Brownlow of having stolen jewelry at a
camp meeting
. Brownlow denied the charge, and accused Smith of being an adulterer. At a meeting of the Methodists' Holston Conference that year, Smith tried unsuccessfully to have Brownlow expelled from the church.
[3]
: 42
In the late 1840s, Brownlow quarreled with Presbyterian minister
Frederick Augustus Ross
(1796?1883), who, from 1826 till 1852, was pastor of Old Kingsport Presbyterian Church in
Kingsport, Tennessee
, where Ross had taken up in 1818. Ross had earlier "declared war" on Methodism as a co-editor in his
Calvinist Magazine
, published from 1827 to 1832. Although distracted by
internecine conflict within the Presbyterian Church
for nearly a decade, he relaunched the
Calvinist Magazine
in 1845. Ross argued that the Methodist Church was despotic, comparing it to a "great iron wheel" that would crush American liberty. He stated that most Methodists were descended from Revolutionary War loyalists, and accused the Methodist Church founder,
John Wesley
, of believing in ghosts and witches.
[15]
Brownlow initially responded to Ross with a running column, "F.A. Ross' Corner," in the
Jonesborough Whig
. In 1847, he launched a separate paper, the
Jonesborough Quarterly Review
, which was dedicated to refuting Ross's attacks, and embarked on a speaking tour that summer. Brownlow argued that while it was common in Wesley's time for people to believe in ghosts, he provided evidence that many Presbyterian ministers
still
believed in such things. He derided Ross as a "habitual adulterer" and the son of a slave, and accused his relatives of stealing and committing indecent acts (Ross's son responded to the latter charge with a death threat). This quarrel continued until Brownlow moved to Knoxville in 1849.
[15]
In 1856,
James Robinson Graves
, the
Landmark Baptist
minister of Nashville's Second Baptist Church, ripped Methodists in his book,
The Great Iron Wheel
, which used terminology and attacks similar to the ones Ross had used in the previous decade.
[3]
: 67
Brownlow quickly fired back with
The Great Iron Wheel Examined; Or, Its False Spokes Extracted
, published that same year. He accused Graves of slandering an ex-Congressman, argued that Baptist ministers were mostly illiterate and opposed to learning, and charged that the Baptist religion was wrought with "selfishness, bigotry, intolerance, and shameful want of Christian liberality."
[3]
: 73
Brownlow also mocked the Baptist sectarian method of baptism,
immersion
.
[3]
: 75
Slavery and secession
[
edit
]
Brownlow's views on slavery changed over time. While his pre-Civil War writings reveal a strong pro-slavery slant, his name appears on an 1834
abolitionist
petition.
[18]
: xiv
In the early 1840s, Brownlow supported the
American Colonization Society
, which sought to recolonize freed slaves in
Liberia
.
[3]
: 94
In subsequent years, however, he shifted to a staunchly pro-slavery stance. Indeed he owned slaves himself.
[19]
Brownlow's friend and colleague,
Oliver Perry Temple
, stated that social pressure in the 1830s pushed most abolitionist Southerners to adopt pro-slavery views. Historian Robert McKenzie, however, suggests that Brownlow's pro-slavery shift might have been rooted in the rivalry between Northern and
Southern Methodists
over the issue in the 1840s.
[20]
: 38?39
By the 1850s, Brownlow was radically pro-slavery, arguing that the institution was "ordained by God."
[20]
: 108
He gave a Scriptural defense of slavery in a speech delivered in Knoxville in 1857, and in the following year, he issued a challenge to Northern abolitionists to debate the issue. The challenge was initially accepted by
Frederick Douglass
, but Brownlow refused to debate him because of his race.
[3]
: 97
The challenge was then taken up by Abram Pryne of McGrawville, New York, a clergyman with the Congregational Church, and editor of an abolitionist newspaper. At the debate, which took place in Philadelphia in September 1858, Brownlow stated in his opening argument:
Not only will I throughout this discussion openly and boldly take the ground that
Slavery as it exists in America ought to be perpetuated
, but that slavery is an established and inevitable condition to human society. I will maintain the ground that God always intended the relation of master and slave to exist; that Christ and the early teachers of Christianity, found slavery differing in no material respect from American slavery,
incorporated into every department of society
... that slavery having existed ever since the first organization of society, it will exist to the end of time.
[21]
During the course of the Civil War, Brownlow would return to an anti-slavery stance, calling for emancipation.
[20]
: 191
Brownlow was staunchly opposed to Southern secession.
[3]
: 136
He argued that secessionists wanted to form a country governed by "purse-proud aristocrats" of the Southern
planter class
.
[3]
: 135
Brownlow endorsed his friend, pro-Union candidate
John Bell
, for president in 1860, and in September of that year, interrupted a pro-
Breckinridge
rally in Knoxville to spar with the rally's keynote speaker,
William Lowndes Yancey
of Alabama.
[20]
: 29
When South Carolina seceded following Lincoln's election in November 1860, Brownlow derided the state and its "miserable cabbage-leaf of a Palmetto flag" as being descended from British loyalists, thus giving it an affinity for the aristocratic types that would govern the proposed Southern Confederacy.
[3]
: 140
By 1861, the
Knoxville Whig
had 14,000 subscribers,
[3]
: 159
and was considered by secessionists the root of the stubborn pro-Union sentiment in East Tennessee (the region had resoundingly rejected a referendum on secession in February of that year). Knoxville's Democrats tried to counter Brownlow by installing radical secessionist J. Austin Sperry as editor of the
Knoxville Register
, touching off an editorial war that lasted throughout much of the year. Brownlow called Sperry a "scoundrel" and a "debauchee," and mocked the relatively small circulation of the
Register
.
[16]
: 214
Throughout the Spring of 1861, Brownlow and his colleagues, Oliver Perry Temple, T.A.R. Nelson, and
Horace Maynard
, canvassed East Tennessee, giving dozens of pro-Union speeches.
In May and June 1861, Brownlow represented
Knox County
at the
East Tennessee Convention
, which unsuccessfully petitioned the state legislature to allow East Tennessee to form a separate, Union-aligned state. In the weeks following Tennessee's secession in June 1861, Brownlow used the
Whig
to defend Unionists accused of treasonous acts by Confederate authorities. By the Fall of 1861, the
Whig
was the last pro-Union newspaper in the South.
[20]
: 98
He was quoted as saying "We intend to fight the secessionists until hell freezes over, and then fight them on ice."
[22]
American Civil War
[
edit
]
On October 24, 1861, Brownlow suspended publication of the
Whig
after announcing Confederate authorities were preparing to arrest him.
[16]
: 254
On November 4, he left Knoxville and went into hiding in the
Great Smoky Mountains
to the south, where there was a strong pro-Union presence, and would spend several weeks staying with friends in
Wears Valley
and
Tuckaleechee Cove
. On November 8, pro-Union guerillas
burned several railroad bridges
in East Tennessee, and attacked several others. Confederate leaders immediately suspected Brownlow of complicity, but he denied any involvement in the attacks.
[3]
: 182
Brownlow asked for permission to leave the state, which was granted by Confederate Secretary of War
Judah P. Benjamin
. On December 6, as he was in Knoxville preparing to leave, however, Knox County Commissioner Robert B. Reynolds and Confederate States District Attorney John Crozier Ramsey (a son of Confederate States treasury agent
J. G. M. Ramsey
, the elder who Brownlow earlier in that year referred to as "the vain old historian of Tennessee") arrested and jailed Brownlow on charges of treason. While jailed, Brownlow witnessed the trials and last moments of many of the condemned bridge-burners, which he recorded in a diary. He sent a letter to Benjamin protesting his incarceration, writing, "which is your highest authority, the Secretary of War, a Major General, or a dirty little drunken attorney such as J.C. Ramsey is!"
[16]
: 318
After Benjamin threatened to pardon Brownlow, he was released in late December 1861.
[3]
: 200
Brownlow was escorted to Nashville (which the Union Army had captured), and crossed over into Union-controlled territory on March 3, 1862. His struggle against secession had made him a celebrity in northern states, and he embarked upon a speaking tour, starting with speeches in Cincinnati and
Dayton
in early April. He spoke alongside Indiana governor
Oliver P. Morton
at Metropolitan Hall in Indianapolis on April 8, and spoke at the Merchants' Exchange in Chicago a few days later. On April 14, he addressed the
Ohio state legislature
in
Columbus
. He hosted a banquet at the Monongahela House in Pittsburgh on April 17, and spoke at
Independence Hall
in Philadelphia two days later.
In Philadelphia, publisher
George W. Childs
convinced Brownlow to write a book,
Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession
, which was completed in May 1862. By September, the book had sold over 100,000 copies.
[3]
: 239
Brownlow then headed to the northeast, where he addressed the New York City Chamber of Commerce on May 14, and spoke at the
Academy of Music
on May 15. In subsequent weeks, he spoke in Boston and various cities in New England, and later toured western New York and Illinois. In late June, he testified at the impeachment trial of
West Hughes Humphreys
, a Confederate judge who had denied Brownlow bail following his arrest in December.
[3]
: 221?233
In June 1862, workers at the
Colt Armory
in Hartford presented a revolver to Brownlow's daughter,
Susan
, who had threatened to shoot two Confederate soldiers attempting to remove the American flag from the Brownlows' home in Knoxville in December of the previous year.
[3]
: 230
Later that year, author
Erastus Beadle
published a
dime novel
,
Parson Brownlow and the Unionists of East Tennessee
. In 1863, Philadelphia-based music publisher Lee and Walker issued a musical score,
Parson Brownlow's Quick Step
.
[3]
: 242?243
Brownlow returned to Nashville in early 1863, and followed
Ambrose Burnsides
's forces back to Knoxville in September. In November 1863, using proceeds from his speaking tour, he relaunched the
Whig
under the title,
Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator
, and began vengefully pursuing ex-Confederates.
[3]
: 251
He spent a portion of 1864 attempting to reorganize his church's Holston Conference and realign it with the northern Methodists.
[3]
: 297
Reconstruction-era as Governor of Tennessee
[
edit
]
Brownlow was nominated for governor by a convention of Tennessee Unionists in January 1865. He was the only nominee. This convention also submitted state constitutional amendments outlawing slavery and repealing the Ordinance of Secession,
[25]
thus making his state the first of the Southern states to leave the Confederacy. The military governor, Andrew Johnson, had enacted a series of measures that essentially prevented ex-Confederates from voting, and on March 4, Brownlow was elected by a 23,352 to 35 vote, and the amendments passed by a similarly lopsided margin.
[3]
: 261
The vote met President Lincoln's "1/10th test," which recognized elections in Southern states if the total vote was at least one-tenth the total vote in the 1860 presidential election.
[3]
: 261
In early April 1865, Brownlow arrived in Nashville, a city which he despised, having called it a "dunghill," and stating it had a "deadly, treasonable exhalation."
[26]
He was sworn in on April 5, and submitted the
13th Amendment
for ratification the following day.
[3]
: 265
After this amendment was ratified, Brownlow submitted a series of bills to punish former Confederates. He
disfranchised
for at least five years anyone who had supported the Confederacy, and, in cases of Confederate leaders, fifteen years. He later strengthened this law to require prospective voters to
prove
they had supported the Union. He tried to impose fines for wearing a Confederate uniform, and attempted to bar Confederate ministers from performing marriages.
[3]
: 269
After a few months in office Brownlow decided Johnson, who had by then become
President of the United States
, was too lenient toward former Confederate leaders, and aligned himself with the
Radical Republicans
, a group which dominated Congress and vehemently opposed Johnson. In the elections for the state's congressional seats held in August 1865, Brownlow rejected nearly one-third of the total vote to allow Radical candidate
Samuel Arnell
to win in the
6th District
.
[3]
: 280
A small group of state legislators, led by state Speaker of the House
William Heiskell
, turned against Brownlow, alleging his actions were too despotic, and aligned themselves with Johnson.
[3]
: 309
By 1866, Brownlow had come to believe that some Southerners were plotting another rebellion, and that Andrew Johnson would be its leader.
[27]
Opposition to the Ku Klux Klan
[
edit
]
Brownlow began calling for civil rights to be extended to freed slaves, stating that "a loyal Negro was more deserving than a disloyal white man."
[3]
: 291
In May 1866, he submitted the
14th Amendment
for ratification, which the Radicals in Congress supported, but Johnson and his allies opposed. The pro-Johnson minority in the statehouse attempted to flee Nashville to prevent a
quorum
, and the House sergeant-at-arms was dispatched to arrest them. Two were captured?
Pleasant Williams
and
A. J. Martin
?and confined to the House committee room, giving the House the necessary number of members present to establish a quorum. After the amendment passed by a 43-11 vote, Heiskell refused to sign it and resigned in protest. His successor signed it, however, and the amendment was ratified.
[3]
: 314
In transmitting the news to Congress, Brownlow taunted Johnson, stating, "My compliments to the dead dog in the White House."
[3]
: 315
Tennessee was readmitted to the Union shortly afterward, and was represented in Congress again by 1866; Tennessee was the only former Confederate state that bypassed
Military Reconstruction
.
[28]
The Radicals nominated Brownlow for a second term for governor in February 1867. His opponent was
Emerson Etheridge
, a frequent critic of the Brownlow administration. That same month, the legislature passed a bill giving the state's black residents the right to vote, and
Union Leagues
were organized to help freed slaves in this process. Members of these leagues frequently clashed with disfranchised ex-Confederates, including members of the burgeoning
Ku Klux Klan
, and Brownlow organized a state guard, led by General
Joseph Alexander Cooper
, to protect voters (and harass the opposition).
[3]
: 333
With the state's ex-Confederates disfranchised, Brownlow easily defeated Etheridge in the
1867 election
.
[3]
: 339
By 1868, Klan violence had increased significantly. The organization had sent Brownlow a death threat, and had come close to assassinating Congressman
Samuel Arnell
.
[3]
: 356
General
Nathan B. Forrest
joined the Klan, becoming its first
Grand Wizard
, partially in response to the disfranchisement policies of Brownlow.
[27]
The
William G. Brownlow Family Papers, 1836-1900
, archived by the Tennessee Secretary of State, contains one letter dated July 4, 1868, from the Great-Grand Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan Stella Morton, in which Morton threatens Governor Brownlow's life.
[29]
In an interview with the
Cincinnati Commercial
, Forrest stated, "I have never recognized the present government in Tennessee as having any legal existence." He objected to Governor Brownlow calling out the militia and warned if they "committed outrages" that "they and Mr. Brownloe's [
sic
] government will be swept out of existence not a Radical will be left alive." Forrest claimed the Klan had more than 40,000 members in Tennessee and 550,000 in the southern states. He said the Klan supported the Democratic Party. Forrest suggested that a proclamation of Brownlow called for shooting members of the Klan. Forrest denied being a member of the Klan himself.
[30]
Forrest and twelve other Klan members submitted a petition to Brownlow, stating they would cease their activities if Confederates were given the right to vote.
[3]
: 360
Brownlow rejected this, however, and set about reorganizing the state guard and pressing the legislature for still greater enforcement powers.
Brownlow endorsed
Ulysses S. Grant
for president in 1868, and asked for federal troops to be stationed in 21 Tennessee counties to counter rising Klan activity. The state legislature granted him the power to throw out entire counties' voter registrations if he thought they included disfranchised voters. In October 1868, prior to the election, Brownlow discarded all registered voters in
Lincoln County
. Following the election, two of the Radicals' congressional candidates,
Lewis Tillman
in the
4th District
and
William J. Smith
in the
8th District
, were initially defeated. Brownlow, believing Klan intimidation to be the reason for their defeat, rejected the votes from
Marshall
and
Coffee
counties, allowing Tillman to win, and rejected the votes from
Fayette
and
Tipton
counties, allowing Smith to win.
[3]
: 366?367
In February 1869, as Brownlow's final term was near its end, he placed nine counties under
martial law
, arguing this was necessary to quell rising Klan violence. He also dispatched five state guard companies to occupy
Pulaski
, where the Klan had been founded.
[3]
: 372
After Brownlow left office in March, Forrest ordered the Klan to destroy its costumes and cease all activities.
[27]
U.S. Senate and his later life
[
edit
]
Following his reelection as Governor of Tennessee in 1867, Brownlow decided he would not seek a third term, and instead sought election to the U.S. Senate seat that would be vacated by
David T. Patterson
, Andrew Johnson's son-in-law, in 1869. In October 1867, the state legislature elected Brownlow over
William B. Stokes
by a 63 to 39 vote.
[3]
: 347
By the time he was sworn in on March 4, 1869, a persistent nervous disease had weakened him considerably, and the Senate clerk had to read his speeches.
[3]
: 387
One of his speeches was a defense of
Ambrose Burnside
, the Union general who had liberated Knoxville from Confederate forces in 1863.
[3]
: 390
Brownlow was a member of the U.S. Senate when the final version of the bill S. 810 was introduced onto the Senate floor on April 19, 1870, enacted the next month by the U.S. Congress, and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on May 31, 1870 as the
Enforcement Act of 1870
(also known under the popular titles as the Civil Rights Act of 1870 or the First Ku Klux Klan Act) and the later
Second Enforcement Act of 1871
(also known under the popular titles as the Civil Rights Act of 1871 or the Third Ku Klux Klan Act) of the United States Congress which empowered the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in order to combat the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacy organizations.
Interviewed (while suffering visibly from the "palsy" that afflicted him in later life) in 1871 by a reporter from the
New York Herald
, Brownlow essentially predicted the failure of Reconstruction, the coming
nadir of American race relations
, and beyond:
[31]
"The leading men in the South still look upon the separation of the south from the Union as a hopeful probability. The devil is in them, and they will get up another rebellion if they see any chance of success. They exalt in private over the reduction of the regular army, which Congress foolishly cut down to 30,000 men, and they boast of having enough arms to organize an army at any time.
Davis
,
Toombs
and
Stephens
express the sentiments of the masses of the Southern people...[the plan is to] try to accomplish at the ballot-box and by legislation what they failed to do in the field...to get control of the National Government by the aid of the Democratic party, to destroy all the work of reconstruction, and during the administration of a Democratic President to reorganize the Southern Confederacy, after long and careful preparation."
?
Parson Brownlow, August 1871
[31]
After his Senate term ended in 1875, Brownlow returned to Knoxville. His successor as governor,
DeWitt Clinton Senter
, had undone most of his Radical initiatives, allowing Democrats to regain control of the state government.
[32]
Having sold the
Whig
in 1869, Brownlow purchased an interest in the
Knoxville Chronicle
, a Republican newspaper published by his old protege,
William Rule
. The paper's name was changed to the
Knoxville Whig and Chronicle
.
[3]
: 385
In 1876, Brownlow endorsed
Rutherford B. Hayes
for president.
[3]
: 396
In December of the same year, he spoke at the opening of
Knoxville College
, which had been established for the city's African-American residents.
[33]
On the night of April 28, 1877, Brownlow collapsed at his home, and died the following afternoon. The cause of death was given as "paralysis of the bowels."
[3]
: 396
He was interred in Knoxville's
Old Gray Cemetery
following a funeral procession described by his colleague, Oliver Perry Temple, as the largest in the city's history up to that time.
[34]
Legacy
[
edit
]
In 1870, William Rule, who had been a journalist for the
Whig
, launched the
Knoxville Chronicle
, which he considered the
Whig
's pro-Republican successor. Rule continued editing this paper, which was eventually renamed
The Knoxville Journal
, until his death in 1928. The
Knoxville Journal
remained one of Knoxville's daily newspapers until it folded in 1991.
Adolph Ochs
, who later became publisher of the
New York Times
, began his career at the
Chronicle
in the early 1870s.
[35]
William Rule wrote that Brownlow was "a master of invective and burning sarcasm, and he flourished in an age when such things were expected of a public journalist."
[36]
J. Austin Sperry, Brownlow's rival editor in pre-Civil War Knoxville, admitted that Brownlow was a remarkable judge of human nature.
[37]
Brownlow's long-time colleague, Oliver Perry Temple, wrote of him:
It was easy for friends to persuade Mr. Brownlow to do anything that did not violate his sense of right; to force him was impossible. A child could lead him; a giant could not drive him. When his mind was once made up, it was as immovable as the mountains.
[38]
Brownlow remained a divisive figure for decades after his death. In 1999, historian Stephen Ash wrote, "more than 120 years after his death, merely mentioning his name in the Volunteer State can evoke raucous laughter or bitter curses."
[18]
: xi
Brownlow has been described as "Tennessee's worst governor," and the "most hated man in Tennessee History."
[5]
A 1981 poll of fifty-two Tennessee historians that ranked the state's governors on ability, accomplishments, and statesmanship, placed Brownlow dead last.
[39]
Journalist Steve Humphrey argued that Brownlow was a talented newspaper editor and reporter, as evidenced by his reporting on events such as the opening of the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis and Knoxville's 1854
cholera
epidemic.
[37]
The Capitol Committee of the Tennessee General Assembly removed the official portrait of Governor Parson Brownlow that had only been briefly installed during April 1987 within the Legislative Library of state capitol building, upon the recommendation of Democratic
Tennessee state Senator Douglas Henry
.
[40]
Family
[
edit
]
Brownlow married Eliza O'Brien (1819?1914) during 1836 in Elizabethton, Tennessee. They had seven children:
Susan
,
John Bell
,
James Patton
, Mary, Fannie, Annie, and Caledonia Temple.
[24]
Eliza O'Brien Brownlow lived at the family's home formerly on East Cumberland Avenue (at the present day James White Parkway) in Knoxville until her death in 1914 at the age of 94. In the 1890s and early 1900s, numerous visitors, including three presidents (
William McKinley
,
Theodore Roosevelt
, and
William Howard Taft
), called on Eliza Brownlow when visiting Knoxville.
[40]
The Brownlows' older son,
John Bell Brownlow
(1839?1922), was a colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War. In the decades following his father's death, he helped finance the development of a Knoxville neighborhood (just north of modern
Fourth and Gill
) which for years was known as "Brownlow." Brownlow Elementary School, which served this neighborhood from 1913 to 1995, still stands, and has been converted into urban lofts.
[41]
[42]
The Brownlows' younger son,
James Patton Brownlow
(1842?1879), was also a colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War, though he was later
brevetted
to brigadier general by President
Andrew Johnson
. He served as an adjutant general in the state guard during his father's term as governor.
[43]
Walter P. Brownlow
(1851?1910), a nephew of Parson Brownlow, served as a U.S. congressman from
Tennessee's 1st district
from 1897 until his death.
[24]
James Stewart Martin
(1826?1907), another nephew of Parson Brownlow (the son of his sister, Nancy), served as a U.S. congressman from
Illinois
in the mid-1870s.
[24]
Louis Brownlow
(1879?1963), a prominent 20th-century political scientist and city planner, was a grandson of one of Parson Brownlow's first cousins.
[24]
He served a tumultuous 3-year term as Knoxville's city manager in the 1920s.
Works
[
edit
]
Newspapers
[
edit
]
- The
Whig
, Brownlow's primary mouthpiece, was published under the following
masthead
titles:
- Tennessee Whig
(May 16, 1839 in Elizabethton ? June 13, 1839)
- Elizabethton Whig
(June 13, 1839 in Elizabethton ?
nameplate
change)
- The Whig
(May 6, 1840 in Jonesborough ? November 3, 1841)
- Jonesborough Whig
(November 10, 1841 ? May 11, 1842)
- Jonesborough Whig and Independent Journal
(May 18, 1842 ? April 19, 1849)
- Brownlow's Knoxville Whig and Independent Journal
(May 19, 1849 in Knoxville ? April 7, 1855)
- Brownlow's Knoxville Whig
(April 14, 1855 ? July 27, 1861)
- Brownlow's Weekly Whig
(August 3, 1861 ? October 26, 1861)
- Brownlow's Knoxville Whig, and Rebel Ventilator
(November 11, 1863 ? February 21, 1866)
- Brownlow's Knoxville Whig
(February 28, 1866 ? January 27, 1869)
- Knoxville Weekly Whig
(February 3, 1869 ? March 1870)
- Weekly Whig and Register
(c. 1870 ? 1871)
- The
Knoxville Whig and Chronicle
(1875?1877), co-owner with
William Rule
Books
[
edit
]
- Helps to the Study of Presbyterianism: Or, An Unsophisticated Exposition of Calvinism, with Hopkinsian Modifications and Policy, with a View to a More Easy Interpretation of the Same
(1834)
- A Narrative of the Life, Travels, and Circumstances Incident Thereto, of William G. Brownlow
(1834, a book supplement bound within
Helps to the Study of Presbyterianism:
)
- Baptism Examined: Or, the True State of the Case
(1842)
- A Political Register, Setting Forth the Principles of the Whig and Locofoco Parties in the United States, With the Life and Public Services of Henry Clay
(1844)
- Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism and Bogus Democracy, In the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; In Which Certain Demagogues in Tennessee, and Elsewhere, are Shown Up in Their True Colors
(1856)
- The Great Iron Wheel Examined; Or, Its False Spokes Extracted, and an Exhibition of Elder Graves, Its Builder
(1856)
- Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession; With a Narrative of Personal Adventures Among the Rebels
(1862)
Speeches and debates
[
edit
]
- "Speech, Being a Reply to
Thomas Dog Arnold
, Ass, Who Appeared Before the Invitation, On Saturday Night, the 18th of September, 1852, in the Hearing of a Large Audience, and Assailed Said Brownlow" (Knoxville, Tennessee, September 19, 1852)
- "A Sermon on Slavery: A Vindication of the Methodist Church, South: Her Position Stated" (Knoxville, Tennessee, August 9, 1857)
- "
Ought American Slavery to be Perpetuated? A Debate Between Rev. W.G. Brownlow and Rev. A. Pryne Held At Philadelphia, September, 1858
" (1858)
- "Speech of Parson Brownlow, of Tennessee, Against the Great Rebellion" (New York, May 15, 1862)
- "Address to the Loyal People of Tennessee" (Knoxville, Tennessee, March 18, 1868)
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
Forrest Conklin,
William Gannaway "Parson" Brownlow
.
Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
, 2009. Retrieved on October 18, 2012.
- ^
Jack Neely, "
Requiem for Parson Brownlow
,"
Metro Pulse
, 6 April 2011] Accessed at the Internet Archive, September 20, 2017
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
r
s
t
u
v
w
x
y
z
aa
ab
ac
ad
ae
af
ag
ah
ai
aj
ak
al
am
an
ao
ap
aq
ar
as
at
au
av
aw
ax
ay
az
ba
bb
bc
bd
be
E. Merton Coulter
,
William G. Brownlow: Fighting Parson of the Southern Highlands
(Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1999).
- ^
"
"Finding Aid for the William G. Brownlow Tennessee Bonds Circular MS.2750". Special Collections Online ? The University of Tennessee. Retrieved November 5, 2017"
. Archived from
the original
on November 7, 2017
. Retrieved
November 5,
2017
.
- ^
a
b
Jack Neely, "
Requiem for Parson Brownlow
,"
Metro Pulse
, 6 April 2011. Accessed at the Internet Archive, 2 October 2015.
- ^
a
b
"Early History of Carter County 1760-1861", p. 55. Frank Merritt, 1950. East Tennessee Historical Society, Knoxville, Tennessee.
- ^
"O'Brien Furnace ~ 1A 73 ~ Valley Forge, TN - Tennessee Historical Markers on Waymarking.com"
- ^
"That D--d Brownlow!", p. 176. Steve Humphrey. Appalachian Consortium Press, 1978.
- ^
Stephen V. Ash, "Introduction" in E. Merton Coulter,
William G. Brownlow
(Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1999) p xi
- ^
"Early History of Carter County 1760-1861", pp. 55-56. Frank Merritt, 1950. East Tennessee Historical Society, Knoxville, Tennessee.
- ^
a
b
Paul Fink,
Jonesborough: The First Century of Tennessee's First Town
(Johnson City, Tenn.: Overmountain Press, 2002), pp. 140-145.
- ^
"Early History of Carter County 1760-1861", pp. 58. Frank Merritt, 1950. East Tennessee Historical Society, Knoxville, Tennessee.
- ^
a
b
Jonesborough Whig and Independent Journal
, 18 June 1845.
- ^
Verton Queener, "William Gannaway Brownlow as an Editor," East Tennessee Historical Society
Publications
, No. 4 (1932), pp. 72-76.
- ^
a
b
c
Forrest Conklin and John Wittig, "Religious Warfare in the Southern Highlands: Brownlow versus Ross,"
Journal of East Tennessee History
, Vol. 63 (1991), pp. 33-50.
- ^
a
b
c
d
William Gannaway Brownlow,
Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession
(Philadelphia: G.W. Childs, 1862).
- ^
James Bellamy, "The Political Career of Landon Carter Haynes," East Tennessee Historical Society
Publications
, Vol. 28 (1956), pp. 105-107.
- ^
a
b
Stephen Ash, Introduction to E. Merton Coulter's
William G. Brownlow: Fighting Parson of the Southern Highlands
(Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
- ^
"Congress slaveowners"
,
The Washington Post
, January 19, 2022
, retrieved
July 10,
2022
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Robert McKenzie,
Lincolnites and Rebels: A Divided Town in the American Civil War
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
- ^
Brownlow, William Gannaway & Pryne, Abram
Ought American slavery to be perpetuated?
: A debate between Rev. W.G. Brownlow and Rev. A. Pryne. Held at Philadelphia, September, 1858
J.B. Lippincott & Co. (1858)
- ^
"The Jeffersonian"
. Stroudsburg, Pa. August 15, 1861
. Retrieved
January 14,
2023
.
Parson Brownlow recently declared in relation to the Union men of East Tennessee: We intend to fight the secessionists until hell freezes over, and then fight them on ice, Or any other man.
- ^
Uffelman, Minoa (November 21, 2011).
"Tennessee's Fighting Parson"
.
Opinionator
. Retrieved
June 29,
2023
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Zella Armstrong,
Notable Southern families, Volume 1
, (Chattanooga, Tenn.: The Lookout Publishing Co., 1918), pp. 39-45.
OCLC
1079125
. Retrieved: 29 October 2012.
- ^
Wilson D. Miscamble, "Andrew Johnson and the Election of William G. ('Parson') Brownlow as Governor of Tennessee,"
Tennessee Historical Quarterly
, Vol. 37 (1978), pp. 308-320.
- ^
Jesse Burt,
Nashville: Its Life and Times
(Tennessee Book Company, 1959), p. 67.
- ^
a
b
c
Phillip Langsdon,
Tennessee: A Political History
(Franklin, Tenn.: Hillsboro Press, 2000), pp. 169, 178, 190, 239.
- ^
Schroeder-Lein, Glenna R.; Zuczek, Richard (2001). "Brownlow, William Gannaway 'Parson' (1805?1877)".
Andrew Johnson: a biographical companion
. ABC-CLIO biographical companions. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. pp. 39?41.
ISBN
978-1-57607-030-7
.
- ^
"
"Guide to Manuscript Materials : MF. 1800 - MF. 1899", Tennessee Secretary of State"
. Archived from
the original
on October 30, 2017
. Retrieved
October 29,
2017
.
- ^
The Charleston Daily News
. "A Talk with General Forrest." September 8, 1868: 1.
- ^
a
b
"Senator Brownlow: What He Thinks of the Next Presidential Election, the 'Rebel' Spirit, the Kuklux..."
The Tennessean
. August 5, 1871. p. 3
. Retrieved
June 24,
2023
.
- ^
William E. Hardy, "The Margins of William Brownlow's Words: New Perspectives on the End of Radical Reconstruction in Tennessee,"
Journal of East Tennessee History
, Vol. 84 (2012), pp. 78-86.
- ^
William MacArthur,
Knoxville: Crossroads of the New South
(Tulsa, Okla.: Continental Heritage Press, 1982), p. 49, 74.
- ^
Oliver Perry Temple,
Notable Men of Tennessee, From 1833 to 1875, Their Times and Their Contemporaries
(New York: Cosmopolitan Press, 1912), p. 143.
- ^
Doris Faber,
Printer's Devil to Publisher: Adolph S. Ochs of the New York Times
(New York Messner, 1963), pp. 24-25.
- ^
William Rule,
Standard History of Knoxville, Tennessee
(Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1900; reprinted by Kessinger Books, 2010), p. 326.
- ^
a
b
Stephen Humphrey, "The Man Brownlow from a Newspaper Man's Point of View," East Tennessee Historical Society
Publications
, Vol. 43 (1971), pp. 59-70.
- ^
Temple,
Notable Men of Tennessee
, p. 282.
- ^
Tennessee Historical Quarterly
, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Spring 1982), p. 100.
- ^
a
b
Jack Neely, "
Gov. Brownlow's Bad Reputation
,"
Metro Pulse
, 6 April 2011. Accessed at the Internet Archive, 2 October 2015.
- ^
Knox County Development Corporation,
Brownlow School Redevelopment & Urban Renewal Plan
Archived
March 3, 2016, at the
Wayback Machine
, August 2007. Retrieved: 29 October 2012.
- ^
Brownlow Lofts
. Retrieved: 29 October 2012.
- ^
Roger D. Hunt and Jack R. Brown,
Brevet Brigadier Generals in Blue
(Gaithersburg, Maryland: Olde Soldier Books, Inc., 1990), p. 86.
ISBN
1-56013-002-4
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Alexander, Thomas B.
Political Reconstruction in Tennessee
(Vanderbilt UP, 1950).
- Alexander, Thomas B. "Strange Bedfellows: The Interlocking Careers of TAR Nelson, Andrew Johnson, and WG (Parson) Brownlow."
East Tennessee Historical Society Publications
24 (1952): 68+.
- Alexander, Thomas B. "Whiggery and Reconstruction in Tennessee."
Journal of Southern History
16.3 (1950): 291-305.
online
- Alexander, Thomas B. "Kukluxism in Tennessee, 1865-1869."
Tennessee Historical Quarterly
(1949): 195-219.
online
- Ash, Stephen (1999),
Secessionists and Scoundrels
, Louisiana State University Press,
ISBN
0-8071-2354-4
- Robert Booker, "
Brownlow Roared Pro-Union Message
,
Knoxville News Sentinel
, 28 June 2011.
- Coulter, E. Merton,
William G. Brownlow: Fighting Parson of the Southern Highlands
(1937; reprinted 999).
Full text online free of 1999 edition, with important new introduction by Stephen V. Ash pp xi to xvii.
- Downing, David C. (2007),
A South Divided: Portraits of Dissent in the Confederacy
. Nashville: Cumberland House,
ISBN
978-1-58182-587-9
- Kelly, James C. "William Gannaway Brownlow"
Tennessee Historical Quarterly
43.1, 2 (1984): 25-43 and 155-72.
part 1 online
; and
part 2 online
- Haskins, Ralph W. "Internecine Strife in Tennessee: Andrew Johnson Versus Parson Brownlow"
Tennessee Historical Quarterly
24#4 (1965), pp. 321?340
online
- Miscamble, William G. "Andrew Johnson and the Election of William G. ("Parson") Brownlow as Governor of Tennessee."
Tennessee Historical Quarterly
37.3 (1978): 308.
- Severance, Ben H.
Tennessee's Radical Army: The State Guard and Its Role in Reconstruction, 1867-1869
(Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2005).
External links
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]
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