There was one remark which the old man made that afternoon which I have never forgotten. Mrs. Brownlow had been telling about the dirt the Rebel guards made in her hall, with their tobacco, as well as the noise incident to the changing of the guard every two hours, and their rude intrusion into the bedroom at all hours--to get warm, they said. The Parson in an undertone, as if exhausted by his previous outburst, said:

"They are worse than weeds in the garden, and exactly like fleas out in my hog-pen there;" stopping for breath, he kept on: "Why, they play cards on my front porch on Sunday, and I, a preacher, have to hear their oaths in my house, that would blister the lips of a sailor."

When I laughed at this a little, he growled out:

"Oh those cowardly assassins, who disarm women and children, and set bloodhounds after their fathers and grandfathers, who are hiding from their persecution in the Smoky mountains in this winter weather, have the meanness, without the courage, to do anything."

I was entertained that afternoon in a way that made such an impression on my mind that I shall never forget even a single striking point that occurred, and the reader is referred to the files of the Cincinnati papers of the winter of 1862 for an account of this interview, which, as a war correspondent, I reported at that time. Once the Parson got fairly started, the rest of the party became interested as well as amused listeners. When he would run down a little, something would be said that would seem to wind him up again, and he would go off like a clock without a pendulum or balance wheel. Something was said about the geographical or commercial effect of the proposed separation of the South from the North. I think I must have said something to lead up to this, as the Parson turning to me, said, while pointing his long, bony finger toward me:

"Young man, it can never be done."

And, by way of illustration, he continued in an impressive and intensely dramatic way:

"This Union will be dissolved only when the sun shines at midnight, or when water flows up stream."

Some one interrupted to say, laughingly:

"Why, the sun is shining at midnight at this moment in the other part of the world."

And his own daughter chimed in:

"Yes, and our teacher says the Mississippi _does_ run up North in its tortuous course."

This created a little laugh at his expense. But, without noticing it or smiling himself--by the way, he was so dreadfully solemn looking--I doubt if he ever smiled--he got back on them by saying:

"Well, it will happen only when Democrats lose their inclination to steal."

After the laugh over this had subsided, he became eloquent as well as emphatic:

"And that will be when the damned spirits in hell swap for heaven with the angels, and play cards for mean whisky."

That's exactly the sort of a man Parson Brownlow was to talk; and we all know that he acted out his words to the bitter end. Then, by way of personal application, the parson said:

"I am not only a Tennessee Union man of the Jackson and Andy Johnson stripe, but I'm a native of Virginia. My ancestors fought for the Union in the Revolutionary War, and their descendents have fought to preserve it in every war since. This country is as loyal as any State in the North."

Mr. Brownlow's astonishing way of putting things was impressed on my mind, by his apt way of illustrating the dependence of the South upon the North, in his argument to show that disunion was not practicable.

"Why," he said, "we are indebted to the North for everything." While he was speaking he held a pocket-knife in his hand; holding it up he said:

"This knife comes from the North; the hats and clothes we wear, the shoes on our feet, every piece of furniture in this room," and, pointing to an adjoining room, where one of the ladies was quietly engaged in preparing the tea-table for our entertainment, "the ware on that table, out there; and the farmer gets all the tools North to work the farm that supplies the food we eat." Then with an expression of disgust: "Even the spades that dig our graves, and the coffins we are buried in, come from the North."

Here Miss Maggie felt impelled to speak a word in defense of her native South, observing:

"But, Mr. Brownlow, they haven't any better minds or people in the North; it's only their educational facilities that give them this advantage."

This gave me an opportunity to say that "the North didn't have any clearer heads than Mr. Brownlow's, nor any sweeter ladies than I had seen in Tennessee."

The Parson didn't even smile at this attempt at flattery, but kept on in the same strain, reciting some of his experiences while in the prison at Knoxville, only one or two of which I can recite.

That which made the greatest impression on my mind was the interview of a young girl with her aged father the morning of the day set for his execution, as one of the bridge-burning conspirators. The Parson's manner was at all times serious, but his story of the heart-breaking farewell of the daughter to an aged father, and its effect upon the one hundred other suspects who were confined with him, and who were obliged to witness the scene, is beyond the powers of my pen to describe.

The one redeeming feature of it was--the rough-talking Parson, acting in the character of a minister, endeavored to soothe the heart-broken daughter as he could in the most comforting words for an hour, alternately praying and talking, amid the sobs of the hardy mountaineers who were witnesses to it all.

The Parson said it occurred to him, as a matter of policy, in order to separate them, and not with any hope of success, he suggested sending a message to Jeff Davis in the name of the daughter, begging a pardon for her aged father--her only dependence in the world. The execution was to occur at 4 P. M., and he had purposely delayed mentioning this last hope that she might have all the time that was possible of the last hours with her father. It was 2 P. M. when he wrote with his pencil, on a leaf torn from his note book, a brief dispatch addressed to Jeff Davis, craving his mercy and a pardon for her old father. The girl herself took it to the telegraph office, which was in the same square with the jail; the kind-hearted telegraphers interested themselves in her behalf, and rushed her message through to Richmond, not expecting a reply, as there was but an hour or so left; when, to the surprise and delight of every person, probably without an exception, a message was promptly returned by Mr. Davis commuting the sentence to imprisonment at Tuscaloosa during the war.

I am glad to be able to record this fact in favor of Mr. Davis. I believe it may also be set down to his credit that much of the persecution of Unionists, and the brutal punishment of the same, was without his knowledge. It has been said that if Mr. Davis has been consistent in anything more than another, it has been in his life-long devotion to his principle of State rights or local self-government. Yet one has to wonder how his relentless attitude toward the coerced Unionists of East Tennessee is to be explained.

In this way I was entertained by Mr. Brownlow, while his good wife and daughter were engaged in preparing an evening tea for us. When we were invited out to the table--I asked to be allowed to wash my hands, and was shown the toilet stand in the same room the Parson occupied. I picked up a brush to dress my hair a little--you know those pretty brown eyes of Miss Maggie were yet in the house, and I wanted to primp up while at the glass--the Parson looked over toward me, after indicating where I would find a comb, and said, without a smile:

"The combs come from the North, too, and now, since the war, there won't be a fine-tooth comb to be had in the South;" then in an undertone to me: "The Rebels are full of squatter sovereigns hunting for their rights in the territories."

We sat down to the tea-table without the Parson's company, he being obliged to remain in his room, partly on account of his parole, but principally because he was just recovering from a serious illness, it being necessary to guard against a relapse, which would come from taking cold.

He had done pretty much all the talking while we were in his company, and as we all knew he was in the habit of speaking right out in meeting without any regard to consequences, even before the war, and the fact of there being an armed guard at his own door, as well as the presence of my gray uniform alongside of his, did not at all prevent his ready "flow of language." I do not imagine that he would have talked so freely, and in such a harsh criticizing way, in my presence had I not encouraged him to believe that I was a disappointed Marylander, while Miss Maggie added to this impression by endorsing me as a homesick refugee.

At the tea-table the ladies of the family did most of the talking. I kept my mouth occupied devouring some hot biscuit and honey, and drinking coffee with real cream in it, out of dainty old-fashioned tea-cups, while my eyes feasted on the sweet face and brown eyes of Miss Maggie.

I had enough of the visit, and as soon as it could politely be done, we gave our host and hostess a pleasant "Good-by."

After this visit to the Brownlow's, where I had been permitted to witness, in one case, the effects of the dastardly treatment by a government of Rebels, who were advertising to the world that "they were contending only for their rights against the tyranny of the Lincoln Government," and heard from the lips of one who seemed to be a dying Unionist martyr, it may be imagined that I was in no frame of mind to dally any longer in the Rebel camps.

I wanted to go home--I wanted to go badly--and I determined before I left the Parson's house that evening that I should--unknown to him at the time--advise the authorities at Washington, and give to the Northern press a careful account of my interview with him. I did it, too, through the Cincinnati papers a few days subsequent to the interview as stated.

I had gathered so much information since leaving Richmond about the Union hopes and sufferings, and I felt so great a sympathy for them, that I was, to use a vulgar term, "slopping over." There was now no chance to communicate with the North by mail from Tennessee--that I had yet got on to--as there had been in Richmond, and beside I was so full of news that it couldn't be put on paper in the brief style which the simple cipher permitted me to use.

We spent the evening after the tea at the Parson's in the Craig family's parlor, in a way highly enjoyable to me. I felt like a boy who had been absent from home for months, and who was being entertained at a farewell party in his honor.

As I have said before, there were several ladies in the Craig family, all of whom were present that evening; in addition there was a Miss Rose Maynard, who was the daughter of the loyal Congressman from that district. Their residence was on one of the main streets of the town, and at the time of which I write the Hon. Mr. Maynard was exiled to Congress at Washington. I will state here that I met him on my return to Washington, a few days later, when I gave him the latest news of his family.

Among the gentlemen present was a Mr. Buchanan, who was a Confederate soldier then stationed at Knoxville. He was, I think, the son of a Buchanan who had been a Minister to the Netherlands, under the former Democratic Administration. I mention him here, on account of his having been more recently from Washington than myself. I was able to gather from his talk to the ladies, in a general way, that he had in some way been acting as a sort of a spy for the Rebels; at least he had been in communication with those who were so engaged, and it was through his boastful talk of his family connections that I secured one of the most important secrets of my mission.

I will do Mr. Buchanan the justice and credit to say that he was an accomplished young gentleman. He had been abroad with his parents, or perhaps it was an uncle, and being raised, as it were, in the diplomatic world, he was, of course, able to conduct himself in a becoming way in the society of ladies. Indeed, he seemed to completely eclipse me for that evening with these ladies, but I was so filled with homesickness just then that I did not care so very much about it. One of Mr.

Buchanan's happy accomplishments was his ability to recite, in what we all felt to be a perfectly delightful way, Poe's and Byron's poetry.

Somebody had learned of his talent in this direction, so we kept the young fellow "going" right along.

Only one of his recitations remain in my memory, that of "Annabel Lee"; indeed, and in truth, I may say now with him, that "The stars never rise, but I see the bright eyes" of Miss Maggie, who seemed to be so much infatuated with him.

The younger Miss Craig and Buchanan were of the same mind on the war question. My gray uniform talked for me, while Miss Maggie, to my great delight, amused the parlor full of company with a ludicrous account of the battle of Mill Spring, or Fishing Creek, given her and her friend, by the Rebel troops from that section, who had participated in it.

It will be remembered that this little fight was one of the first, if not the very first, Union victory in the West. Zollicoffer was killed, and the Rebels retreated in the very worst disorder as far to the rear as Knoxville, Tennessee, over a hundred miles from the battlefield.

Miss Maggie told the story in her delightful way, appealing, as she went along, to her Rebel sister and others who were opposed to her side for confirmation as eye-witnesses to the ludicrous appearance of the Rebel soldiers as they rode back to town on mules--in their dirty, ragged clothes, many of them hatless, and sometimes two or three on one old mule.

To make it more interesting, she related, as a preliminary, how the gallant Secessionists had marched out of town but a few days before with a whoop and a hurrah, she declaring: "She felt sure those men would go straight through to Boston, and bring Lincoln back as they returned via Washington." The father, who had been quietly sitting back in the corner, enjoying Maggie's fun at her sister's and Mr. Buchanan's expense, broke his silence to add drily:

"Mr. Brownlow says, when they saw the Stars and Stripes and looked into the muzzles of the Union guns, they started to run, and didn't stop 'till they got to the other side of sundown."

If there are any readers of the Western armies who participated in Mill Spring or Fishing Creek, I can assure them that their little victory that day was a great God-send to thousands of the noblest-hearted Unionists of East Tennessee, who, from their hiding-places in the rocks and crevices of the mountains, saw the boastful Rebels run like wild sheep a hundred miles without stopping.