The Civil War in Southern Appalachian Methodism [1 ed.] 9781621900160, 9781621900016

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The Civil War in Southern Appalachian Methodism

The Civil War in Southern Appalachian Methodism Durwood Dunn

The University of Tennessee Press / Knoxville

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Copyright © 2013 by The University of Tennessee Press / Knoxville. All Rights Reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. First Edition. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dunn, Durwood, 1943– The Civil War in southern Appalachian Methodism / Durwood Dunn. — First [edition]. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-62190-016-0 — ISBN 1-62190-016-9 1. Methodist Episcopal Church—History—Civil War, 1861-1865. 2. Methodist Episcopal Church, South—History. 3. Methodist Episcopal Church. Holston Conference (Tenn.)—History. 4. Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Holston Conference (Tenn.)—History. 5. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Influence. 6. United States—Church history—19th century. I. Title. BX8237.D86 2013 287'.67509034—dc23 2013010715

Dedicated to the memory of the antislavery local preachers of Holston Conference who remained fiercely loyal to the Union

The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner. —mark 12:10

Contents Preface xi 1. Holston Methodism

1

2. Slavery and Free Blacks

31

3. Identity through Dissent

57

4. Confederate Ascendancy

83

5. Union Triumphant

111

Epilogue: Unreconstructed

141

Appendix A: Numbers of Traveling Preachers and Local Preachers, Holston Conference, 1838−1860

149

Appendix B: Local Preachers Elected to Deacon’s or Elder’s Orders in the Holston Conference, 1824−1860

151

Appendix C: Membership in the Holston Conference, 1824−1860

171

Notes 173 Bibliography 227 Index 249

Illustrations Anonymous Methodist Circuit Rider The Holston Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church, South

x xvi

Thomas Ware

2

James Axley

8

Bishop James O. Andrew

49

George Ekin

52

Thomas Stringfield

62

Samuel Patton

66

John B. McFerrin

77

Frank Richardson, David Sullins, and Richard Nye Price

90

Ephraim Emerson Wiley

96

Bishop John Early

100

Brutal Treatment of William Henry Harrison Duggan

103

Absalom B. Wright

106

William G. “Parson” Brownlow

113

Frank Richardson

118

Tombstone of James Axley

143

Engraving of anonymous Methodist circuit rider; from Daniels, The Illustrated History of Methodism, 519. Reprinted as the frontispiece of Pilkington, The Methodist Publishing House: A History, vol. 1, where the caption read, “On them mainly depends our hope of success.”

Preface In a recent essay in the Journal of American History analyzing the current historiography on the causes of the American Civil War, historian Michael E. Woods notes that a broad consensus about the centrality of slavery as the primary reason for disunion clearly reigned in the first decade of the twentyfirst century. In terms of strategies to understand the Civil War, the “long view,” or an attempt to transcend spatial and temporal boundaries of American sectionalism, also prevails, as does a resurgent interest in the role of class and class conflict. Central to understanding both Confederate and Union nationalism has been the role of religion, whose relevance has been emphasized by commentators from Abraham Lincoln to modern historians such as George C. Rable. What is possibly a new direction for bringing all these elements to bear is the complex interaction of each of these important factors within and between subregions of the South such as East Tennessee. This is the topic of the present study: the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, before and during the war. If I ventured to offer a thesis for this study, I might well argue that in many important respects, the actual Civil War that began in 1861 unveiled an internal civil war within Holston Methodism that had been waged surreptitiously for the previous five decades. This study of the civil war within the Holston Conference during the Civil War began in the early 1990s when an elderly friend, Robert L. Hilten, a retired Methodist itinerant serving with me on the Holston Conference Commission on Archives and History, showed me a remarkable polemic published in 1868 by Jonathan L. Mann, attacking Holston ministers during the Civil War for their loyalty to the Confederacy. Since that time, our knowledge of early American Methodism has been wonderfully transformed by the addition of a remarkable collection of new monographs by Dee E. Andrews, Christine Leigh Heyrman, Cynthia Lynn Lyerly, and John H. Wigger that have informed my understanding of both Methodism’s structure, or polity, and its broader role in the early republic. Indeed, the

Preface

perspective of these scholars is what permits the long view of Methodism that is necessary to understanding the critical role later of the earlier antislavery movement within the denomination. I am also deeply indebted to older works by Donald G. Mathews and Russell E. Richey that have deepened my understanding of the Southern context of Methodism and its convoluted struggle with both slavery and an antislavery past. As breathtaking as these new studies of early Methodism are, however, they have not yet begun to move from the general themes to specific locations, and although we know a great deal more about Southern Methodism regionally, variations of annual conferences remain largely uncharted except for the work of local historians. In that regard, the Holston Conference is especially fortunate to have had such an able chronicler as Richard N. Price, whose five-volume history remains a superb example of how an extraordinarily insightful individual can illuminate a century of Methodism in one important border state conference. Although Price’s blatant racism often proved a fatal flaw to his interpretation of slavery within the conference, he nevertheless chronicled with extraordinary sensitivity the characters and motivations of his “brethren,” the traveling ministers, or itinerants, as they were commonly called. The struggle among Methodists in the Holston Conference was nevertheless deeply rooted in East Tennessee’s long history as an alienated section protesting against its perceived discrimination by both the state of Tennessee and the larger South after the 1830s. East Tennessee exceptionalism, therefore, is both cause and effect of this struggle with the state of Tennessee and the larger region, but it also functions as a remarkable index into the internal civil war within the section, consisting of savage guerrilla attacks in almost every community that left a legacy of bitterness and distrust long after the Civil War formally ended. As Price would readily concede, the regionalism of Holston remained a constant factor throughout the nineteenth century, and much of the Holston Conference’s relations with the larger church and its neighboring conferences can be explained by this enduring sense of a separate identity. “Franklinites” was the pejorative term the Nashville Christian Advocate used all too frequently to refer to the people of East Tennessee, based on the abortive “lost” state of Franklin that East Tennesseans tried but failed to establish in the eighteenth century. Another significant theme I explore is the importance of individual agency, especially in the form of “Parson” William G. Brownlow, Holston’s most famous ex-itinerant and newspaper editor. Undoubtedly Brownlow exerted tremendous influence over his native region, but in the final analysis, I agree with historian Robert Tracy McKenzie’s hypothesis that Brownlow

xii

Preface

followed public opinion carefully, anticipating rather than leading his former charges among the numerous circuits he rode while an itinerant. The source of his leadership was indeed this intimate knowledge of East Tennesseans. As even his worst enemy, Jacob A. Sperry (editor of the rival Democratic Knoxville Register), admitted in 1862, Brownlow had preached and made stump speeches at every crossroad, church, or schoolhouse and had come to “know every man, woman, and child, and their fathers and grandfathers before them in East Tennessee.” The other important individual, whose pro-South nationalism was deeply inculcated into generations of Emory and Henry College students under his tutelage, was Ephraim Emerson Wiley, president of that institution. His role and influence are far less known but in many respects were equally important to the course and outcome of the inner civil war in Holston Methodism. The single most important part of my study is the meticulous examination of remaining quarterly conference minutes, which cover lengthy periods of activity and a rather wide geographic distribution, mainly in East Tennessee. In going through these extant records page by page, I have reconstructed active participation by African Americans in class meetings and quarterly conference meetings, as well as their frequent status as exhorters and local preachers. Because many of these important records have been either lost or misplaced, this examination at the grassroots level offers a critically important new dimension to our understanding of how incorporated blacks were in the Methodist polity and economy before 1861. I may have erred in citing too many of these myriad examples in my footnotes, but I think that documentation will stand the test of time. Why this tacit functional equality of worship existed at the class meeting level even up to the Civil War in various parts of Holston is another critical question that had not been entirely answered in previous studies. One answer is the indigenous antislavery activity in East Tennessee during the first three decades of the nineteenth century. The other answer lies in the antislavery stance assumed by early Methodists in America, from Bishop Asbury down the hierarchal ladder. I believe it is important to identify clearly and explicitly those perfervid antislavery activists among Holston’s early itinerants, among whom none was more critical or influential than James Axley. These local records, quarterly conference minutes, and class meeting rolls also give some insight into another extremely important group: the local preachers. Although they manifested as the silent majority, their opinions against slavery and in favor of the Union were critically important to East Tennessee’s rejection of Confederate nationalism, for the most part,

xiii

Preface

and continuing loyalty to the Union. What happened to these critically important local preachers after the civil war within Holston Methodism finally subsided in the 1870s remains an avenue of research open for future scholars, for it is beyond the scope of this present study; I can do no more than speculate. The whole structure of Methodism, North and South, was undergoing rapid changes in the 1860s and 1870s, and these changes were often directly related to new patterns of population concentration, with towns and cities outpacing growth in the rural areas that constituted much of East Tennessee. It seems an unavoidable conclusion, however, that the rise of lay representation at annual and general conferences of both the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Methodist Episcopal Church occurred at the expense of the local brethren. Terminology can be awkward for the uninitiated in Methodist polity, and for that reason I have taken some liberties to try to make my text clearer. I frequently refer to the Holston Conference simply as “Holston,” because that was a common practice among the itinerating clergy themselves during the nineteenth century. I occasionally break down and, for the sake of clarity, refer to the Southern Methodists or to the Northern Methodists, but the actual names of these denominations after the split over slavery in 1844 were, respectively, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS), and the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC). In nineteenth-century Methodist periodicals, anger was often expressed when someone referred to the Northern Methodist church, because its members rightly claimed to be the true, legitimate continuation of the older denomination. That frequently led to a bitter battle over which denomination, the MEC or the MECS, had departed from the ancient ways of Zion first! I wish to thank first and broadly all the numerous archivists and librarians who assisted me with incredible generosity in my search for obscure Methodist records. Robert J. Vejnar, archivist at the Kelly Library at Emory and Henry College, was very generous for many years in making materials, especially the many quarterly conference minutes, available to me. Archivists at Duke University and at the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were also generous in copying badly needed primary materials for me. The Tennessee State Library and Archives facilitated my research with microfilm and copies of primary materials on frequent occasions. I am deeply appreciative of the assistance of Steve Cotham, head of the McClung Historical Collection, Knox County Public Library, and his staff on countless occasions. The staff at the Special Collections Library at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, also

xiv

Preface

frequently assisted me. William B. Eigelsbach actually discovered some incredibly valuable material relating to Brownlow’s trial at the Jonesborough circuit in 1843 and made copies for me. Last but by no means least, Julie Adams, associate director of the Merner-Pfeiffer Library at Tennessee Wesleyan College, proved invaluable in obtaining interlibrary loans of obscure materials for me countless times. I am also very grateful to Scot Danforth, director of the University of Tennessee Press, for his continuing encouragement and for reading these chapters and giving me vital criticism and suggestions. The Appalachian College Association provided two critical research grants that allowed me to undertake the meticulous, time-consuming research for this study: a John B. Stephenson Fellowship in 1997–98 and in 2002–3. During the course of these fellowships I was actively assisted with access to the University of Tennessee Library and other accommodations by Dean C. W. Minkel, vice provost and dean of the Graduate School, whose assistance I wish to acknowledge. At Tennessee Wesleyan College, Dr. Philip W. Ott, formerly provost and dean of the faculty, was always extremely supportive of scholarship done by the faculty and was always willing to write letters of recommendation on my behalf. Finally, readers of this manuscript for the University of Tennessee Press, Gordon McKinney and John Inscoe, offered valuable and incisive suggestions and criticisms for revision. Any remaining errors are entirely my own responsibility.

xv

Dade

Walker

Polk

GEORGIA

Catoosa

Hamilton Bradley

Rhea Meigs McMinn

Anderson

Blount

Knox

Union

Macon

Sevier

Greene

Jackson

Haywood

Grayson

Wythe

Bland

Mercer

N O RT H C A RO L I N A McDowell

Yancey

Carter

Smyth

Tazewell

S O U T H C A RO L I N A

Henderson

Buncombe

Madison

Unicoi

Johnson

Washington Sullivan

Washington

Scott

Hawkins

Cocke

Hamblin

Jefferson

Grainger

Claiborne

Cherokee

Monroe

Loudon

Roane

Morgan

Campbell

Hancock

Lee

Wise

Russell

Dickenson

McDowell

Carroll

Pulaski

Giles

Floyd

Montgomery

VIRGINIA

The Holston Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1860, by counties. The North Carolina counties are depicted as they were at that time, and the Virginia counties of McDowell and Mercer are now part of West Virginia.

ALABAMA

Jackson

Bledsoe

Sequatchie

Marion

Grundy

Van Buren

Cumberland

TENNESSEE

Fentress

Scott

KENTUCKY

Buchanan

Chapter 1 Holston Methodism The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. —isaiah 35:1 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. —ephesians 2:19

In the late fall of 1787, Thomas Ware, an itinerant Methodist preacher originally from New Jersey, made a slow and danger-filled journey to new settlements of American pioneers living near the Holston and French Broad Rivers, in what today is East Tennessee. He was traveling to this new Holston country, as it was called, at the urgent request of some settlers there who deplored “their entire destitution of the gospel.” Although this new territory was as large as eastern New Jersey geographically, so few Americans were scattered in such small settlements that Ware quickly realized he was in the midst of a hostile primordial wilderness.1 Ware’s experiences on this momentous initial trip offer an excellent index of the problems and difficulties that made early settlement in East Tennessee precarious. Scarce log cabins were so cold and dirty that he was constantly ill. The path he followed was so poorly marked that he often became lost and had to depend on his horse to choose the most promising route. Earlier “false prophets” pretending to be ministers had so outraged the population by their gross immorality and cupidity that all religion and proponents of religion had been discredited. Ware actually became caught up in a political dispute over abortive efforts to establish a new government, the state of Franklin, in the area and narrowly escaped angry partisans with his life!2

Holston Methodism

Thomas Ware, one of the earliest pioneer Methodist itinerants preaching in the Holston country. From Price, Holston Methodism, vol. 1, 165.

The greatest danger, however, came from the Indians. Cherokees, justifiably furious over “the wrongs inflicted upon them by the whites,” seized every opportunity to attack and kill stragglers from the sparse settlements. Ware himself narrowly escaped capture or death by these “subtle and terrible enemies.” Traveling through a fine bottom covered with a grove of crabapple trees, his horse suddenly wheeled around, affording him a glimpse of an Indian menacingly following him at a distance. Later, while preaching at the home of the man who had written urging the Methodists to send a minister, he learned that Mrs. Carter had been killed by an Indian hiding in the canebrake while she made sugar in a kettle. Preaching her funeral sermon the next day, Ware could not forbear pointing out to her grieving family and neighbors that Mrs. Carter’s absence from church was undeniably a contributing factor in her death.3 If Thomas Ware’s funeral sermon contains theology objectionable to all the denominations competing for supremacy in the religious free market of post-Revolutionary America—Anglicans, Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, and New England Calvinists—it nevertheless embodies quintessential features of early American Methodism. Speaking plainly, using examples from

2

Holston Methodism

their immediate experience and emphasizing not abstract theological points but rather practical godliness, Ware asked his audience why they thought he was there, despite the dangers and hardships, preaching in their midst. Methodist local preachers had indeed been present in the Holston country from its earliest settlement, paving the way for later itinerant or traveling preachers such as Ware. Before any actual community existed on the frontier of southwestern Virginia and East Tennessee, Methodist laypeople and local preachers were present, enduring all the hardships of wilderness life while ministering to their family and neighbors.4 Methodism was a comparatively new religious movement in the decades of initial settlement in the Holston country, the 1770s and 1780s. Founded by John Wesley in England in the 1730s, Methodism came to the American colonies in the 1760s, only ten years earlier. Whether one credits its earliest beginnings to Robert Strawbridge, a failed and persecuted Irish farmer who settled on a farm near Baltimore, or to Barbara Heck, a bold, pious woman arriving in New York the same year, 1760, Methodism quickly spread to other colonies. By 1769, when Wesley sent two missionaries to America, Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmore, local Methodist societies were thriving as small, loosely organized lay organizations.5 When John Wesley felt his “heart strangely warmed” at Aldersgate Street in 1738, he established a paradigm placing religious feeling, or experience, at the core of later American Methodism. Blending Anglican Reformed and Eastern Orthodox themes, this principal architect of Methodism nevertheless believed in the primacy of the scripture. Yet feeling, or experience, Wesley maintained, could together with reason and tradition become a legitimate source of doctrinal judgment. Unlike the Calvinists in New England, Wesley saw sin and salvation in terms of the traditional Western juridical emphasis on justification and pardon becoming simultaneously melded with a more Eastern focus on therapeutic and nurturing holiness.6 As numerous historians of church history have demonstrated, Wesley’s faith seemed Armenian inasmuch as he rejected both predestination and the doctrine of limited atonement, which said, in effect, that God had previously ordained only a select few for eternal salvation, condemning the vast majority of mankind to eternal damnation. Although he believed in the doctrine of total depravity, wherein every person’s nature was inexorably corrupted by sin, Wesley argued that through the device of “prevenient grace,” God enabled every individual to choose between eternal salvation and damnation. The importance of prevenient grace, from a practical standpoint, was that it gave humans the power to determine their own spiritual

3

Holston Methodism

fate (unlike Calvinism’s denial of free will) and made salvation susceptible to human agency.7 This emphasis on religious self-determination, with the dynamic stress on individual responsibility and opportunity, was the key to Methodism’s great appeal in America, where the church’s numbers rose from fewer than 1,000 members in 1770 to more than 250,000 by 1820. This spectacular growth rate, however, should not obscure the innumerable obstacles strewn along the way to American Methodism’s eventual success. Before the Revolutionary War, Methodists in the southern colonies were a despised, accursed, outcast lot, whose members were bitterly persecuted with the full force of law and public opinion, firmly in the control of the Anglican Church and ruling gentry class. Paradoxically, during and immediately after the Revolution, Methodism suffered under the opprobrious brand of Toryism, since Wesley had been unwilling to formally separate from the Church of England, which had come to be regarded as a major enemy of the people’s freedoms and eventual liberty. Early Methodism pacifism, actually rooted in the desire to separate completely from the world in all its manifestations, was also erroneously interpreted as yet another indication that all Methodists were disloyal to the new American government.8 Francis Asbury (1745−1816) was the chief architect of American Methodism, “packaging” it, as historian John H. Wigger argues, to suit the democratic and leveling tastes of the new democracy. The only one of Wesley’s missionaries to remain in America from 1771 until the end of the Revolutionary War, Asbury became the church’s leading bishop who formally separated American Methodists to form a new church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, at the famous so-called Christmas conference of 1784 in Baltimore. Pragmatic in his approach, Asbury willingly discarded unworkable practices while maintaining the new denomination broadly within Wesleyan confines, if not always with the approval of John Wesley, who had rather acrimoniously disapprobated original American separation from English Methodism.9 What Asbury constructed was an organizational system that carefully balanced individual initiative with centralized control. Traveling, or itinerant, preachers visited newly organized Methodist societies usually every two weeks. These traveling preachers were ordained by the bishop of the annual conference, which met yearly and scrupulously guarded both admission to and continuation in the itinerancy. At the local level, considerable opportunity existed from the very beginning for lay leadership in a wide variety of local offices open to ordinary citizens, even to women and

4

Holston Methodism

African Americans. The whole point of this delicately balanced system of Asbury’s American Methodism was that it was ideally suited to expand into new geographic areas barely inhabited, like the Holston country Thomas Ware visited in 1787. Flexibility was thus the key to Methodism’s remarkable growth and expansion, yet the hierarchy of itinerant preachers, meeting in annual conference, imposed form and order, which preserved the unique Methodist identity throughout the American continent.10 Both Methodism’s flexibility and its connectionalism, as shaped pragmatically by Bishop Asbury, would face their greatest challenge in establishing societies in what would eventually become, by 1824, the Holston Conference. Although the southwestern counties of Virginia, western counties of North Carolina to Asheville, and some counties in northern Georgia were included in Holston before the Civil War, by far its largest part embraced East Tennessee. This latter entity, forged early into a distinctive region of its own by geography and political as well as economic aspirations, would place an indelible stamp on the Holston Conference during the nineteenth century. All later problems confronting Holston would be inseparable, for any practical purpose, from its primary location in East Tennessee or its absorption of this region’s myriad internal contradictions.11 Later Methodist writers liked to conceptualize the denomination’s careful balance between local autonomy and a hierarchical central control as a wheel within a wheel, working in harmony to synergistically operate the church’s major functions. East Tennessee was likewise a wheel within the state, South, and nation, but one that perversely operated most frequently to confound or thwart its larger cogs. Early settlers in upper East Tennessee in the 1770s drew their own compact of self-government, the Watauga Association, to provide for their local political needs, but also in tacit reproach to distant North Carolina’s perceived neglect. At no point, moreover, did these restless citizens await the legal extinguishment of Indian title to the new land they coveted. Rebellion against the authority of North Carolina led these same East Tennesseans to establish their own, short-lived, separate “state” of Franklin in the 1780s.12 The fact that Thomas Ware, one of the first pioneering itinerant Methodist preachers, was threatened in 1787 by both dispossessed, hostile Cherokees and warring Franklinites is an almost perfect metaphor for the inseparability of Holston Methodism from the vortex of its East Tennessee political, social, and economic milieu. Hand in hand with the rapid population increase of the section was the growth of Methodist circuits, stations, and membership. In the first Tennessee census in 1795, inhabitants of the

5

Holston Methodism

eastern counties had grown to 65,338; by 1820, this number had doubled to 135,312; in 1830, the census recorded 196,474 in East Tennessee.13 Although one early chronicler attempted to fix the first permanent organization of Methodist societies in Holston as late as 1776, its origins remain hidden in obscurity. Undeniable evidence exists of much earlier activity within this region of southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee by Methodist local preachers, exhorters, and laymen, however. Methodists were ubiquitous in any frontier movement. Jeremiah Lambert has the distinction of appearing in the 1783 minutes of “Holston circuit” as the first itinerating Methodist preacher regularly appointed to a charge west of the Alleghenies. Actually, Holston (taking its name from the Holston River, where an obscure German frontiersman, Stephen Holston, had first settled near its head in 1748) was in 1783 neither a conference nor yet an actual circuit but merely a pioneer region alternatively and vaguely referred to as “the Holston country.”14 Seminal events followed Lambert’s initial appointment in 1783 to Holston. Convening the first General Conference in Baltimore on December 24, 1784, Asbury organized the newly separate American Methodist Episcopal Church. By 1787, the loosely designated Holston circuit was divided into the Nolichucky and Holston circuits, which together formed a district in the Western Conference. At the General Conference of 1812, the Western Conference was divided into two new conferences, the Tennessee and the Ohio, with Holston falling within the former. Finally, in 1824, the General Conference, responding again to rapid growth of the population, divided the Tennessee Conference into two separate conferences. The new Tennessee Conference embraced Middle Tennessee westward, but the inaugural Holston Conference included all of Tennessee lying east of the Cumberland Mountains, as well as southwestern Virginia and western North Carolina.15 At this time, 1824, Holston had a membership of 13,443 whites (including Indians) and 1,491 blacks, with forty-one preachers located in three districts: Abingdon, French Broad, and Knoxville. Symbolically for future political and ecclesiastical struggles within the conference, the first session of the Holston Conference met November 27, 1824, in Knoxville, already the clear political and economic capital of East Tennessee. Knoxville subsequently became by the third decade of the nineteenth century the undisputed center of Holston Methodism and would remain so into the next century despite the Civil War and the division of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 into separate Northern and Southern denominations.16

6

Holston Methodism

Holston Methodism’s rapid growth owed much of its success to the ubiquitous itinerating or traveling ministers such as Thomas Ware. Tireless in their devotion to duty, these circuit riders routinely traveled a predominantly rural territory, or circuit, of between two hundred and five hundred miles in circumference, preaching to small groups, or societies, of Methodists at least once every two weeks. At the end of the eighteenth century, few meeting houses along these routes in Holston were suitable for large crowds or were adequately heated in winter. Often the circuit rider met the faithful in private homes or in open fields. Itinerating in such large circuits under harsh frontier conditions was usually possible only for younger men, and there was a high rate of attrition even among them because of illness or fatigue. Later the annual conference quite accurately but with unconscious humor referred to those retirees among the itinerating ranks as “worn-out preachers.” Their pay was so little and their daily lives so fraught with hardships that most traveling preachers could not marry during these early years, adding celibacy to their long list of complaints. Bishop Asbury himself remained single and set an unmatched example of self-sacrifice by traveling an astonishing quarter of a million miles throughout his career.17 Later in the nineteenth century, a popular stereotype about the appearance of these early Methodist circuit riders emerged. The severity of style and manner of this “son of Thunder” was supposed to immediately strike terror in the sinner’s heart; his hard eyes and grave, unrelenting expression, his attire of a black, double-breasted coat, his long hair under a broad-brimmed hat reaching down to his shoulders, and his enormous gravity immediately served to check or restrict any superfluous levity among the congregation. While this uncompromising image doubtless was valid in at least some respects for many of Holston’s early itinerants, it nevertheless conceals both the diversity of talents and the complexity of personality among these men. Eccentric or idiosyncratic behavior in a few early evangelists such as John Granade and Lorenzo Dow, who both practiced and preached various supernatural phenomena as an integral part of their worldview, excited much speculation but could not equal the cumulative accomplishments of the majority of their less ostentatious, hard-working brethren in the Holston Conference.18 If one dared to generalize about typical qualities of mind and heart among Holston’s early circuit riders, my own candidates would be James Axley and George Ekin. Born in poverty in Virginia, Axley moved with his family to Kentucky in the last years of the eighteenth century. With no formal education, he followed the usual apprenticeship path of itinerating,

7

Holston Methodism

James Axley, pioneer antislavery itinerant in the Holston Conference, fought a continuing battle throughout his career against Methodists owning slaves. From Lee et al, Illustrated History of Methodism, 460.

from class leader to exhorter in his local society, until he was admitted on trial into the Western Conference in 1802. Thereafter, until he located, he served a wide variety of circuits in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Retiring, or becoming a local preacher, in Monroe County, East Tennessee, in 1822, he nevertheless remained an active preacher until his death in 1838. Despite his limited education, lack of manners or polish, and awkward appearance as an uncouth frontiersman, Axley became, in the opinion of one prominent Methodist editor, the finest orator in the entire conference.19 His strong faith, superb voice, and quick intelligence enabled Axley to reach his frontier audience through the key components of Methodist style—emotionalism, mysticism, asceticism, enthusiasm, and evangelicalism. Axley’s identification as one of the mass or ordinary citizens made his choice of idiom and examples especially effective in his preaching. He also used the Methodist love of singing, and the wealth of appealing hymns available to Wesley’s followers, to good effect. Most importantly, however, despite the flexibility of his style or approach, he was steadfast in his lifelong opposition to what he considered deadly sins: slavery, alcohol, tobacco, Free-

8

Holston Methodism

masonry, and excesses in fashions, especially in women’s clothing. He once rode past a barroom in Dandridge, Tennessee, roaring like a lion, “Hell fire! Hell fire! Hell fire!” Frequently he refused to allow women adorned with jewels or finery to enter church or participate in love feasts, and he resolutely refused to license any local preacher who owned slaves.20 Not without a sense of humor, Axley was nevertheless no respecter of persons. When the Holston Conference met in Madisonville in 1837, Bishop Thomas A. Morris met this preacher, by then famous, whose exploits were legendary. When Bishop Morris introduced himself, Axley, after surveying him critically, replied, “Upon my word, I think they were hard up for bishop timber when they made a bishop of you!” In the General Conference of 1812, Axley audaciously offered the motion that no itinerating or local preacher should retail spirituous or fermented liquors “without forfeiting his ministerial character.” This bold motion was voted down, but its significance lies in the fact that it was offered by a circuit rider on the frontier, where temperance was considered a dangerous threat to both public health and the region’s economic prosperity. Likewise, Axley remained aggressively antislavery, even when pugnaciously serving on a circuit in the new state of Mississippi.21 The quintessence of James Axley’s ministry was his conviction that Methodists should remain a people who completely separated themselves from the world, uncorrupted by wealth, leisure, or drugs that enslaved mind or body. Axley almost seemed to welcome persecution, for he stood firm in the conviction that the ungodly would always persecute the righteous, as the Bible taught. And while the Discipline admonished all Methodists to be diligent, never to be unemployed, and never to be “triflingly employed,” the prosperity resulting from such diligence should never be displayed in indulgences or excesses of any kind—particularly swearing, fighting, drinking, unbecoming conversation, ornamental dress, or owning other human beings as slaves. Axley embodied all these values and until his death in 1838 continued to preach uncompromisingly against all these things, which were increasingly embraced by the Southern patriarchy, with its code of honor.22 George Ekin was very different from James Axley in both his demeanor and his approach to ministry but paradoxically was even more representative of early Holston clergy. Born in Ireland in 1782 of Scots-Irish, Presbyterian parents, he defied his father to join the Methodists as a local preacher before removing to America with his wife in 1810. Father Ekin, as he was affectionately called later in his life, joined the Western Conference in 1811 and would thereafter labor within the bounds of Holston as an itinerating preacher until

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Holston Methodism

his death in 1856. To an even greater extent than Axley, he had the common touch and proved himself able to relate to the hundreds who thronged to hear him preach. Ekin was also very willing to travel into the most remote wilderness areas early in his career to preach to the masses. Dr. Abraham Jobe recalled over a half century later having heard Ekin preach in Cades Cove soon after it was settled in 1823 or 1824, when Jobe was only six or seven years old. Ekin’s gifts were moral rather than intellectual, but his love for his congregants made him virtually unsurpassed as an effective evangelist. During the height of his preaching, 1821−22, membership on his circuit grew from eight hundred to eighteen hundred. In 1851, he noted in his diary that he had received ten thousand persons into the church during his ministry in America and that eight thousand of them were converted because of his preaching. Forty years a traveling minister by 1851, he recalled preaching fourteen thousand sermons and traveling five thousand miles a year.23 Father Ekin’s success with his congregations was matched by the unparalleled love and affection in which he was held by his fellow ministers in the Holston Conference. Yet he was never a presiding elder and never was assigned to any of the larger, more populous and desirable districts, nor did he hold any position of distinction in the conference hierarchy. Paradoxically, he never rose above the levels of deacon and elder in ordination, although his original deacon’s parchments had been signed by none other than Bishop Asbury. Although his approach toward sinners was far more gentle and charitable than that of other preachers such as James Axley, Father Ekin’s moral courage was virtually unmatched. When all the itinerating ministers, divided over slavery, voted in 1845 to withdraw the Holston Conference from the Methodist Episcopal Church to form a new Southern Methodist church, George Ekin voiced the sole dissenting vote on the floor of the conference. In so doing, he wrote a letter of exposition and protest, which was formally recorded in the conference minutes, stating his specific objections.24 Alone among many other preachers who privately opposed church secession, Father Ekin had the courage to publicly and fearlessly express his convictions. Even more significant, given the heated rhetoric over this firebrand issue, however, was the fact that he nevertheless retained the respect and affection of his fellow ministers. Eventually he would be persuaded to join the new Southern church by friends among the brethren, a decision necessitated on his part by the fact that after 1845 there were no Methodist Episcopal churches left in Holston that he could serve. So in the end, it was the peaceable, unassuming, and humble George Ekin who defied his clerical brethren, the entire conference’s ecclesiastical hierarchy, and public opinion

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throughout the South to maintain his integrity. Perhaps the Holston Conference offers no better example, or exemplum, of early Methodists’ willingness to deny the world for their faith.25 At the other end of Methodism’s complex organizational structure from the traveling or itinerant preachers lay the class meeting. Originally envisioned to contain no more than twelve of the faithful, classes in Holston usually far exceeded that number, occasionally reaching as high as the thirties. Each class met at least once a week to pray, to hear exhortation or sermons, and most importantly, to report on the state of each individual’s soul in its progress toward eventual salvation. Class meetings were therefore intensely personal experiences, and to ensure both privacy and ease of communication, nonmembers were barred. No other aspect of early Methodism was so radically different from other denominations or so universally viewed with hostility and suspicion. Yet, paradoxically, no other experience in Methodism gave the individual participant at the same time a strong sense of family, or community, and a feeling of personal empowerment. Classes actually threatened all prerogatives of the Southern patriarchy. Children disobeyed parents, wives defied their husbands, and slaves sought out the consolations of class participation under conditions of nominal equality over the strenuous objections and often brutal persecution of their masters. No other institution in the American religious panoply offered such an overwhelming sense of self-worth to the powerless—especially to women and blacks.26 But in exchange for a loving, caring substitute family, class meetings demanded strict self-discipline. The larger church kept a vigilant eye on its members and reported back to the class meeting any egregious violation or deviation. Unless the sinner freely confessed and sought forgiveness from other class members, he or she would be summarily expelled. Extant Holston class books abound in these expulsions, ranging from adultery to such seemingly trivial offenses as attending a play or working on the Sabbath. Methodists believed that every choice in life was fraught with moral consequence, and constant surveillance of one’s inner and outer life was expected. Even attendance at class meetings was diligently kept by the class leader, who recorded after each session an “A” for absent, “P” for present, or “D” for distant and unable to attend. Faithfully kept by the class leader were also weekly notations in the class book of the spiritual state of each member: “B” indicated a believer, “S” indicated a seeker. Another column recorded the member’s marital status, as “S” or “M.” Classes were also the primary means of raising money for the minister’s salary and for supporting extended ecclesiastical structures of Methodism. Still another column in the class book,

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or class “paper,” as it was sometimes called, recorded the exact amount of “quarterage,” or monetary contribution of each individual member.27 Class meetings furnished the nursery for leadership in the church. Indeed, attendance at a class was a requirement for church membership. Class leaders were chosen by these class meetings, as were exhorters and local preachers. Exhorters could address larger groups by giving their personal testimony, but only local preachers could preach using scripture. Class meetings were the fundamental cell, or building block, by which means Methodists put together all larger entities. Several classes formed a society; societies were visited periodically—at least once every two weeks—by an itinerating preacher whose circuit was made up of numerous societies scattered widely over a geographic area up to five hundred miles in circumference. In the absence of the itinerant preacher, the primary needs of the faithful were attended to by class leaders, exhorters, and local preachers. Another important local official was the steward, who handled and kept records of all financial transactions. Trustees awaited the growth of actual church structures of wood or stone, which were growing out of societies by the 1820s, especially in the more populous, prosperous areas of the Holston Conference.28 Class meetings in Holston were successful during the first three decades of the nineteenth century primarily because of the tireless labor and enthusiastic support of countless unnamed women who sheltered and fed itinerants, faithfully attended all services, and spread the Methodist message to neighbors and kin, as well as to their own families, by insisting on nightly family prayer services in their homes. The names and accomplishments of Holston’s outstanding early itinerants—men such as David Adams, Thomas Stringfield, Samuel Patton, Elbert F. Sevier, and Creed Fulton—are carefully preserved for posterity, but the record of Holston women has fallen into obscurity. One notable exception is the life history of Madam Elisabeth Russell, sister of Patrick Henry, who used both her wealth and her status to aid Methodism, especially Bishop Asbury, during its earliest years in Holston.29 R. N. Price, historian of Holston Methodism, frankly admitted that women constituted the bulk of the church and were “always its decidedly more loyal and spiritual element,” yet their “immense influence” and enormous capabilities were “largely ignored” until the end of the nineteenth century. Price occasionally singled out individual women for particular praise in their services to the church, but he primarily extolled their supporting roles as nurturing wives and mothers. For example, Mrs. Mary Rockhold, of Blountville, Tennessee, had “a passion for doing good,” and Julia Ann Hieronymus, who married the Reverend John Trevis, would establish an

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excellent reputation as a teacher in Kentucky. But the women Price specifically mentioned were, like Madam Russell, socially prominent, wealthy, or married to a leading minister in the conference. Women were permitted to unofficially exhort in class meetings and later camp meetings, but all local offices were the sole prerogative of males. In one rare but fascinating challenge to this rule, the 1826 Rogersville quarterly conference meeting minutes noted that “some observations were made relative to Elizabeth Barker[,] a sister [who was] licenced to exhort relative to her continuing, but the Conference finally determined that she cannot be recognized as an official member or exhorter.”30 One can only speculate, given the paucity of extant records, whether any of these pious and capable women ever unofficially assumed the role of class leader, since they were otherwise the mainstay of their respective class meetings. Women were also at the forefront of band societies, a subdivision of class meetings in which members seeking greater sanctification were segregated according to age, marital status, and gender. Bands with their smaller size and more homogenous membership offered unparalleled opportunities for mutual confession and encouragement to advanced spiritual growth. Equality of members and both openness and intimacy were consequently greater in bands than in class meetings, but practically no records of bands in Holston remain extant, so it is difficult to judge how frequently they were formed throughout the conference. By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, ordinary Methodists in Holston did not even recognize the term “band meetings,” according to historian R. N. Price.31 If class meetings were the foundation of Methodism’s communal character, as well as its corporate piety and discipline, quarterly meetings or conferences were the linchpin of its delicate balance between local participation and episcopal central control. In these meetings, held four times a year, Methodism dramatically opened its doors to the larger community and became on its own terms a church, according to Russell Richey. Quarterly meetings were both a means of grace in extending the Methodist evangelical message to the world and, at the same time, an administrative opportunity to call their leadership to accountability at the local level. In this twoday celebration, usually Saturday and Sunday, most of the preaching and exhortation were open to the larger public, but certain rituals (notably, the love feast) required tickets indicating membership in a class to participate. Modeled by John Wesley after a similar Moravian practice, love feasts were not the sacrament but merely sharing a small portion of bread and water in imitation of the communal fellowship in the early Christian church.32

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Numerous quarterly conference minutes, often entitled “recording steward’s books,” remain extant for Holston and illuminate both the administrative and the judicial function of this critically important meeting. Every local leader had to be present, and together with the itinerating preacher and the presiding elder they collectively constituted the quarterly meeting. Each local preacher, class leader, exhorter, and steward had his name read aloud and his character and behavior examined to renew his license. Presiding elders, appointed by the bishop for each district, were usually in charge of this meeting, whose members were carefully and critically examined. Complaints could even be voiced against the itinerant preacher in charge of the circuit; depending on the gravity of the charges against him and sufficiency of evidence, the quarterly meeting could suspend him, although he had the right to appeal this decision to the annual conference. Most Holston Methodists, like their counterparts elsewhere in America, were inveterate record-keepers, and their quarterly meeting minutes abound in the names of new candidates approved as local preachers and exhorters and of candidates recommended for the itinerating ministry, forwarded to the annual conference. Contributions collected from the various class meetings were meticulously noted, as was the distribution of these sums.33 Access to church government, and the participation of ordinary Holston Methodists in shaping the character and practice of their faith, is revealed most clearly in seemingly trivial or topical concerns frequently expressed in these quarterly meeting minutes. As in practically all other nineteenthcentury American Methodist quarterly meetings, egregious immorality, neglect of church attendance, and expulsions for slander, malicious gossip, and the manufacture of alcoholic beverages were ubiquitous. Yet Reuben Hatcher in 1854 was rather surprisingly allowed to remain in his society in the Little River circuit despite “gambling in the form of a shooting match” and without exhibiting proper “humiliation, contrition, and reformation.” Proclamations, announcements, and general appeals for assistance in various philanthropic activities also abound in Holston quarterly conference minutes. In 1855, for example, the Little River quarterly meeting minutes made a general appeal to all its members to help in the erection of a new “church house which will be a general good to the circuit and the general cause of God” at Trundles Crossroads. Occasionally the quarterly meeting might act as a small claims court, as did the Little River circuit in 1845 in appointing arbitrators to rule on a dispute over a partnership in making bricks between members Amos Trotter and John Nicolas.34 The mechanism for extending basic characteristics of the Methodist quarterly meetings—openness, inclusiveness, and flexibility—was the 14

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camp meeting. Russell Richey argues that early Methodism circumvented the dilemmas of rapid growth and institutionalization by its adaptation of this instrument, which was in widespread use by other denominations at the turn of the nineteenth century. Holston’s first camp meeting occurred in 1796, according to historian R. N. Price, but spread rapidly throughout the conference. The meeting grounds were usually located near a spring to provide fresh water for the hundreds who attended, usually in family groups. All traveling ministers quickly adapted their preaching techniques to addressing such large crowds, and many, such as Samuel Patton, developed very specific rules and strategies for conducting camp meetings. Patton, for example, checked excessive enthusiasm, “the outbursts of which might have led to disorder,” by insisting that all proceedings should be conducted “decently and in order.” He shrewdly identified and preemptively enlisted “the ringleaders of mischief and rowdyism,” thereby preventing any disruption in services, which all too often plagued other camp meetings.35 The names and locations of campgrounds remained and resonated throughout the nineteenth century almost like shrines or holy relics reflecting past spiritual glories. Bat Creek, Eleazar, and Chestua in Monroe County; Sulphur Springs four miles south of Morristown; Stone Dam and Lick Creek or Carter’s Station in Greene County; Chatata Creek, Eldridge’s Red Clay, Airheart’s, and Chilcuto in Bradley County; Spring Creek and Cedar Springs in McMinn County; Brush Creek, where Johnson City now stands; and Pond Spring, a few miles north of Sweetwater, were just a few of the memorable campgrounds in East Tennessee. By 1836, however, the annual conference minutes were lamenting “the manifest deterioration in the success formerly attending” these camp meetings. Many campgrounds were destroyed during the Civil War, but the growth of larger churches is primarily what caused their decline. Nevertheless, camp meetings continued, mainly in more isolated, rural areas of Holston, into the twentieth century, even as they declined in more populous areas.36 Campgrounds such as Reems Creek, in Buncombe County, North Carolina, occasionally hosted the most important event in Holston Methodism, the annual conference. Composed of all traveling ministers “in full connection,” the annual conference was presided over by a bishop, whose broad powers of appointing presiding elders and assigning itinerants to particular circuits, usually for two years, was the hallmark of Methodist centralization of power in the episcopacy. Holston bishops, beginning with Robert R. Roberts in 1824, demonstrated a broad range of both personality and administrative style. Joshua Soule seemed the ideal bishop to historian and contemporary R. N. Price. A man of “massive intellect, logical rather than 15

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rhetorical,” Soule nevertheless had the tact and political skill to rule by persuasion and example, showing himself to be always sensitive to the feelings and wishes of the itinerants who comprised his constituency. At the other end of this spectrum was Bishop John Early, whose preemptive use of power and arbitrary decisions during the Civil War had tragic and enduring consequences for Holston.37 The manuscript minutes of the Holston annual conferences between 1824 and 1865 offer a fascinating window into the broad range of political, social, and economic, as well as religious, issues confronting Methodism during these turbulent years. Much routine administrative work was done—admitting new itinerants on trial, voting to elect to deacon’s or elder’s orders those who had satisfactorily completed their probationary period of two years, voting on where the next annual conference would be held, and determining salary issues and payments to superannuated ministers or to their widows and orphans. It was also a time of fellowship and cementing the already close bonds of brotherhood among the itinerants. Most important, however, was the intense scrutiny and examination of the character and actions of each individual preacher by name. One minister recalled that members in session “were more frank and outspoken in reference to each other’s failings and imperfections, with a view to mutual correction and improvement.” Occasionally professional jealousy over rivalry for appointment to superior circuits reared its ugly head. One prominent minister argued that itinerants were too prone to criticize the order in which their circuits had been left by former ministers, too unwilling to tolerate what he termed a “diversity of gifts.”38 No function of the annual conference seemed more important than serving as an ecclesiastical court for itinerants charged with “gross immorality.” The Discipline warned all preachers, in the language of 1 Timothy, verse 2, to “converse sparingly and conduct [themselves] prudently with women.” No scandal was more likely to discredit the church both among its own members and in the larger public, spurred on by rival denominations’ often vituperative accusations against the Methodists’ closed class meetings and love feasts, than sexual misconduct in the ranks of the itinerants. Yet despite the high stakes and sensational nature of these trials, a careful reading of their transcripts reveals a scrupulous regard for fairness and for procedural guarantees of due process, along with respect for the rights of the accused. Most charges originated in the quarterly meetings, which under the leadership of the presiding elder had the right to hold a hearing at the district level with at least three traveling preachers sitting in judgment

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and bringing the accused and the accuser face to face. If convicted by this tribunal, the accused itinerant had the right to appeal the case to the annual conference for a new trial. If the “supposed delinquent” fled from trial, his flight was considered “a presumptive proof of guilt.”39 Two cases from the Holston Conference’s annual minutes illuminate the extraordinary lengths to which most itinerants went to give the accused a fair trial. In 1842, William S. Manson, an itinerant in good standing, was caught “while engaged in the act of adultery” with Julia Ann Rogers by Joseph McKinney. While pointing out the exact location, “about a quarter of a mile north of Sulphur Springs camp ground,” to another church member, John Mansfield, both men investigating again discovered Manson engaged in the same activity in the same location. Although “he endeavored to hide himself behind a bush,” Manson finally “commenced crying and said he was guilty of the act and begged [the investigators] to spare him.” The compelling evidence of two eyewitnesses, his confession, and the fact that he did not appear in person “or by representation” before the annual conference to defend himself seemed to offer indisputable proof of his guilt. Accordingly, the conference without further ado voted to expel Manson from the Methodist Episcopal Church.40 Overwhelming evidence was also arrayed against Stephen D. Adams in the 1848 session of the annual conference, when his presiding elder, Elbert F. Sevier, a renowned and politically powerful minister, charged him with fathering an illegitimate child by Miss Rebecca Biggers. Sevier produced a certificate of the magistrate before whom Miss Biggers not only swore that Adams was the father but also averred that the alleged crime had occurred during the annual conference of the previous year, 1847, in Jonesborough. Another minister, Andrew Gass, then swore that Adams had shared a bed with him at lodgings during the previous conference and that Adams was never absent any night during the entire session at Jonesborough. What was more to the point, Gass maintained, was that Adams slept in the back side of the bed, next to the wall. On hearing this testimony, the conference “by a unanimous rising vote, passed brother Adams’ character; and on motion he was elected to elder’s orders.” Although the unfortunate Adams would later be expelled from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1852 for “deliberate falsehood and willful and intentional slander and with unchristian conduct,” his 1848 exoneration on false charges of adultery demonstrated the brethren’s unwillingness to ignore evidence substantiating his innocence.41 The assembled itinerants were also capable of exhibiting tact and some sensitivity and compassion in dealing with younger brethren who

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awkwardly became embroiled in “premature matrimonial engagements.” When Newton C. Edmondson backed out of one such evidently ill-advised commitment, the 1853 annual conference resolved “that owing to the comparative youth of bro. Edmondson at the time this engagement was contracted, and inexperience, his frank confession and humble penitence, we only depose him from the office of deacon until the next session of our conference.” R. N. Price, a contemporary witness, later wrote that Edmondson “had seen but little of the world” and thought the lady whom he promised to marry “the finest young woman he had ever seen.” Later, upon discovering that “there were other fine young women in the world,” he sought release from his promises, “but not in a candid and manly manner.” In the same session, the conference likewise criticized brother David Sullins for a “premature courtship” but found no evidence “of immorality in the affair concerning which there has been much of rumor and censure, and much calculated to excite prejudice against our ministry.” They nevertheless deemed the “consequent mortification and humiliation which he has suffered and must yet suffer” to be “the proper penalty,” and they refused to take any further action against him.42 Binding the central control of the bishops at the annual conferences with the local autonomy of circuits, class meetings, and individual societies was the Methodist Discipline. This rule book governed all American Methodists throughout the continent with a remarkable uniformity of belief, procedure, and statement of Christian obligation under practically all circumstances. No other denomination possessed such a clearly stated prescription of belief and practice for both laity and clergy as was enumerated by this Discipline, which could be modified only by the General Conference, meeting every four years and composed of all the bishops and representatives from each of the annual conferences. What is particularly notable in Holston is the extraordinary degree with which ordinary Methodists both knew and revered this book of denominational rules. Respect for the Discipline was surpassed only by faith in the Bible. Usually a minister needed only to read the relevant passage from the Discipline to settle any dispute within his church, class, or quarterly meeting. Accordingly, Augustine F. Shannon on December 28, 1849, read from the Discipline the rules on distilling when he expelled Zachariah Cabe from the church, despite the anger from the old man’s numerous relatives. In that situation, the power of the Discipline sustained an itinerant preacher’s extremely unpopular decision in the face of both local custom and strong kinship ties in western North Carolina.43 Respect for the written word, however, had far-reaching effects beyond the power of the Discipline among Holston Methodists. In this regard, David 18

Holston Methodism

Rice McAnally, a prescient observer and itinerant in the conference between 1829 and 1851 (and subsequently renowned as editor of the St. Louis Christian Advocate), argued that widespread circulation of Methodist books and periodicals did more than anything else to increase membership within Holston during this period. Methodists from the beginning had realized how powerful the press was in spreading their particular message, and no other denomination had “used it more diligently or more successfully than they.” “Engines of moral and theological power,” McAnally maintained, these books and periodicals “had tremendous force in moulding the public mind, and directing popular opinion.” The geographical isolation of the region and the extreme difficulty of transporting other books over poor roads and mountains before the advent of the railroad in the mid-1850s made Methodists in southwestern Virginia and East Tennessee particularly susceptible, eager to obtain reading materials of any kind.44 Methodist itinerants were made responsible for distributing these reading materials and were wisely given a small percent of the profit from such sales. Lamenting their “mountainous and sequestered” location, the 1835 session of the Holston Conference voted to establish a depository within conference bounds to alleviate distribution and transportation problems. Between 1824 and 1854, according to McAnally, not less than $150,000, or an average of $5,000 a year, was spent on these books and periodicals within Holston, despite the poverty of its inhabitants and poor roads. McAnally, who served on the conference book committee, recalled that during the peak years, 1834-44, it was not uncommon for individual itinerants to purchase quantities of books from the national Methodist Book Concern costing between $300 and $500 and sell them all on their circuit. These books cemented Methodist identity and self-consciousness in Holston and served as a substitute minister during the lengthy periods between visits from the traveling preachers, who were often spread too thinly on circuits perhaps three hundred miles in circumference. Widespread distribution of books from the Book Concern also made individual church members much more effective proselytizers and defenders of their doctrines in fierce competition with numerous other denominations.45 If American Methodism contained a single, deadly flaw in its operational structure, that flaw was surely the institution of the local preacher. Although a part of English Methodism from its beginning, local preachers were suspended, if not occasionally impaled, between delicate tensions surrounding central control of the episcopal hierarchy and local autonomy in class meetings and societies. Like itinerating preachers, local brethren followed an apprenticeship pattern from exhorter to class leader and finally 19

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to licensing from the quarterly meeting. Their duties were very similar to those of itinerants—preaching, marriages, funerals, presiding at class meetings—but there were fundamental differences that left local preachers almost totally lacking in both status and power. They were not paid salaries, nor were they allowed to vote at the annual conference, and they were very much under the direct supervision of the itinerant preacher assigned to their district or circuit.46 Because itinerant ministers faced physical hardships in attending to their duties, but more particularly because of their low salaries in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, these “princelings” of the church were most often young bachelors. Generational conflict ensued when these younger men were placed in direct authority over local preachers who were older and married with families, and many of whom had far more experience in the ministry. In the early years there were no real differences in education or ministerial training between itinerants and local preachers. Complicating matters further was the retirement of some of Holston’s most outstanding itinerants into the local ranks, usually when they married and started a family. Both resentment and status anxieties of local preachers over this apparent caste system were exacerbated by the presence in their ranks of these distinguished former itinerants. Some former itinerants (notably, James Axley) settled into local status and continued useful pastoral work uncomplainingly, but many resented their abrupt decline in both status and power.47 Practically every schism or rebellion in early American Methodism had its origins in this disaffected class of local preachers. The church vainly attempted to appease these dissidents in the local ranks without giving them any actual power or benefits. First, a parallel system of ordination to the ranks of deacon and elder was tried, with both ranks requiring four years of service in the previous rank, recommendation from the local quarterly meeting, and approval by voting members of the annual conference. Although they had obtained parallel ordination with itinerants by 1812, local preachers were still not allowed to vote and were still viewed as occupying a status far below itinerants. Indeed, in the 1827 session of the Holston annual conference, a motion was lost even to permit the local brethren to “take seats in the conference room as spectators.” A separate district conference for local preachers was organized in 1820 “in consequence of the controversies which were then agitating the church, as to the rights of the laity and the local preachers.” This abortive plan was dropped “as an entire failure” in 1836, however, because the local preachers refused to meet together in what was essentially a powerless assembly.48

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Bitter criticism was directed against local preachers by a counterattack from the Methodist hierarchy. One representative of the establishment, William Jacob Sasnett, argued in 1856 that local preachers were inactive and inefficient because their commitment to the ministry was fatally compromised by pursuit of worldly gain. Preaching would always be “secondary and incidental” to these local preachers, he maintained, whose jealousy of the regular itinerant ministry manifested “itself in exceeding sensitiveness to all imagined neglect and indifference—in the failure heartily to cooperate in their plans—and in secret efforts to injure their position and enfeeble their influence.” Local preachers also were guilty of “frequently inveighing, secretly or publicly, against certain features of the Church organization, and of using the errors or failures of the Church authorities to sow the seeds of discontent and revolution.”49 Even more revealing of the terrible moral and psychological stigma attached to the act of an itinerant “locating,” however, was a poignant jeremiad published in the 1855 Annals of Southern Methodism entitled simply “I Located.” A dying local preacher gave a passing Methodist itinerant a copy of his obituary, to be published in the Nashville Christian Advocate on his impending death. From the point in time when, after serving for years as a traveling preacher, he had retired, or “located,” the hapless man’s life took a downhill turn into poverty, destruction, and ruin: “How fearfully I reaped the harvest of my own guilt and folly!” After his two infant children died, his sainted parents’ ghosts appeared before him to demand, “Why did you locate?” He further described his suffering in graphic detail: “No tongue can tell, no pen describe, what I have suffered on account of this one act of my life.” His only remaining hope was that this experience, “which has beggared me, has broken the heart of my Mary, and is taking both of us rapidly and yet prematurely to the grave,” would serve as a warning to others.50 Clearly this jeremiad was intended for a Methodist audience. Not gambling, drinking, immorality, robbery, or murder but simply the choice to give up the itinerancy in order to become a local preacher doomed the unhappy preacher to ignominious ruin and death. But also included in this message was a clear warning to all Methodist itinerants themselves. Nothing was more important to nineteenth-century Methodists than the experience of a “good” death. As A. Gregory Schneider has shown, a happy death was both the final proof of the validity of Methodist beliefs and values and a domestic ritual symbolizing transcendence over physical dissolution and over the threatened destruction of earthly consciousness. Yet the reporting itinerant “sought in vain for the beamings of that victor faith” that would

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indicate a happy death for the impoverished local preacher. Such denial, deconstructed for a Methodist audience, was possibly the single worst spiritual calamity that might befall a dying man, and it posited the ramifications of locating in terms of cosmic significance.51 R. N. Price, historian of Holston Methodism and a contemporary observer, disapproved of this tendency among itinerants to “claim that leaving the pastoral work and dropping back into the local ranks is a sin.” Admitting that “somewhat invidious” legislation had “impaired the prestige and importance” of local preachers, however, he favored granting them “adequate representation,” if not equal voting privileges, with itinerants in the annual and general conferences. Price further praised the local ministry as the “vanguard” of Methodism in earlier years. With the geographically large circuits that the traveling preachers had traversed so laboriously on the frontier, the local ministry—“unselfish, noble, and powerful preachers”—had filled an important gap in the system, paving the way for established churches in the future. David Rice McAnally, another contemporary observer, likewise praised the manner in which Holston’s early local preachers had struggled zealously, indefatigably, and successfully. Both Price and McAnally doubted that the church could have succeeded, “enjoyed the prosperity and gained the influence she did, but for the important part borne by the local preachers.”52 Yet it was this very success of the church in Holston, Price argued, that ultimately diminished the importance of the local preachers. As circuits shrank in size and more itinerants were sent to new stations and churches, the role of the local ministry was proportionately reduced. Higher salaries for the itinerants enabled them to remain in the traveling connection after marriage. The increased “wealth and intelligence” of the churches by the second decade of the nineteenth century drew “our better talent,” as Price described these individuals, “from the local to the itinerant ranks.” More itinerants with a college education by the 1840s also created a widening gap in education and training between itinerant and local ranks. Nevertheless, these changes occurred only gradually through the 1840s and 1850s, and the local ministry was still large and relatively influential in Holston at the time of the Civil War. Price also went out of his way to praise by name many local ministers, such as William Garrett, Robert W. Wynn, Will K. Cross, Oliver L. Miller, Bennet K. Cunningham, and John Key, all of whom continued to perform exemplary service throughout this period and who cooperated carefully with the itinerant minister assigned to their district.53 Although the number of local preachers continued to increase steadily between 1838 and 1860, from 252 to 425, usually in a 4:1 ratio in comparison

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with the number of itinerants, identifying them individually is problematic (see appendix A). Not until 1858 were the names of local preachers ordained elders or deacons actually listed in the printed annual conference minutes. The manuscript minutes earlier gave the names of local brethren thus ordained; I copied 402 names between 1824 and 1860 (see appendix B). This list is far from complete, however, because many local preachers only obtained licensure from their local quarterly meeting and never sought ordination, which had to be approved by the annual conference. These quarterly meeting minutes have been largely lost, so a complete list of Holston’s local preachers remains hidden in obscurity. The distribution of local preachers among Holston’s circuits tended to proportionately reflect the Methodist church membership in these districts. Commenting on the “congestion” of local preachers in 1835 at the New Market circuit, R. N. Price offered two explanations: the fine surrounding farmlands in that area and the location of a conference school there.54 Hostility toward local brethren at the annual conference from Holston itinerants manifested itself in a variety of subtle ways beyond the initial refusal to allow them seats in that assembly. Local preachers were under the strict direction of the itinerant in charge of their circuit, who assigned them specific tasks and preaching assignments and often held them to standards of strict accountability when their characters were examined at the quarterly meeting. A committee of three local preachers acted as a tribunal to hear charges against local brethren and could expel them from the church if they were found guilty. Appeal of this decision was possible at the annual conferences, but the majority of such expulsions were not appealed, because of practical difficulties in attending and getting witnesses there. In contrast to the care for the defendants’ rights and guarantees of procedural due process that were shown to accused itinerants, Holston’s annual conference most frequently sustained the decision of the quarterly meeting regarding expelled local preachers. The Discipline enjoined local preachers not to own slaves or distill or sell spirituous liquors. A subtle but important procedural change in the trial of local preachers occurred in 1836 in the Discipline, when local preachers sitting as a tribunal to judge one of their local brethren were no longer required to be of the same “station, circuit, or district” as the accused.55 In 1839, members of the Holston annual conference petitioned the next General Conference to insert a rule in the Discipline that gave the presiding elder even greater authority or control over local preachers. In the case of a local brother who had been tried and acquitted by a quarterly meeting, if

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the presiding elder disagreed with the verdict, he could bring the case before the annual conference for a retrial. Even R. N. Price decried the obvious violation of procedural due process under such circumstances, but the determination to completely control local brethren is patently evident here. In a similar vein, the Holston Conference “unanimously” adopted a resolution in 1843 to change the Discipline to make local preachers responsible to other, more distant Methodist jurisdictions for offenses committed by them while away from home. Price pointed out the absurdity of “making a preacher amenable to a body to which he did not belong,” and this ridiculous law was never adopted by the General Conference. But it clearly demonstrates that Holston itinerants were jealous of their power over the local brethren and wished to maintain strict surveillance even when they traveled outside their own district. Another famous itinerant, William G. Brownlow, wrote that “our people are on the eve of revolting in disgust from an established local traveling ministry.” He referred to the occasional practice of allowing local preachers to fill circuits, with partial pay, in the absence of a suitable itinerant. Even this minor concession, which might have weakened caste distinctions between itinerants and locals, Brownlow damned as tending “to anarchy and destruction.”56 Extant quarterly conference minutes give an even more explicit picture of the ongoing conflict between itinerants and local preachers in Holston at the grassroots level. Often, local brethren were far from contrite when charges were brought against them by their superiors. Distilling liquors seems to have occasioned the greatest defiance among local preachers against both the Methodist hierarchy and the dictates of the Discipline. Such controversy appears to have been ubiquitous throughout the area of Holston. An 1836 amendment in the Discipline changed basic procedure toward indicting local preachers according to the severity of the offense. Crimes “expressly forbidden in the word of God” still required a trial before a tribunal of at least three local brethren. Adultery and immorality seem by far the most frequent offences in this category. But less severe “cases of improper tempers, words, or actions” only required the minister in charge to reprehend with severity the guilty local preacher on the first offense. No more compelling indication of a growing rebellion or antagonism toward the Methodist hierarchy by local brethren exists than this amendment.57 On certain occasions, this rebellion against itinerant control and episcopal governance broke out into full flame in the quarterly meeting minutes. In August 1851, for example, Christy Huffaker, a local deacon in otherwise good standing in the Little River circuit, launched an all-out attack against

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itinerants who had joined the Sons of Temperance. Such itinerants were “anti-Christian” and “corrupt” and were associating with an organization whose principles they did not understand, Huffaker maintained. He further charged in a “public address” that the Methodist Episcopal Church had a “corrupt ministry” that was “incompetent to disclose” itself or to “extricate” itself from this unhappy state of affairs. The heart of his diatribe, however, lay in his accusation that the itinerants possessed all the “law-making and executive power.” The “only remedy in case of oppression or otherwise of any of the membership of said Church is withdrawal or self-excommunication,” he dramatically disclaimed. The quarterly meeting nevertheless eventually passed his character on the condition that brother Huffaker “cease his denunciations of ministers, members, and government of the M. E. C[hurch], South.”58 This subterranean conflict between the itinerants and their local brethren would have enormous consequences for Holston during the Civil War. Local preachers had long felt themselves to be powerless, voiceless, and without appeal for their oppression in the moral economy of Holston Methodism. In any future conflict in which political choices and allegiances were necessarily divided, it is not in the least surprising that their latent hostility and frustration would almost unconsciously predispose them to make opposite choices from those elected by the itinerating clergy, who were otherwise so confidently in control of church policy. The overwhelming majority of Holston’s itinerants professed loyalty to the Confederacy in 1861. Accordingly, a significant number, if not the actual majority, of local preachers remained loyal to the Union, along with the majority of Methodist laity in East Tennessee. Even R. N. Price, himself a dedicated and loyal Confederate, was forced to admit that a “very considerable number” of both laity and local preachers sympathized with the North. Holston did witness some local preachers loyal to the Confederacy, but certainly the majority divided sharply with their itinerant brethren over this critical decision.59 That local preachers were rebelling as much against the Methodist hierarchy in their choice of Unionism as against a new political order represented by the Confederacy cannot be proven unilaterally. But that the local brethren’s political instincts were essentially conservative is presaged by the anger of many of them at the Holston Conference’s decision to join the newly established Methodist Episcopal Church, South, when American Methodism split over slavery in 1844. Here many itinerants such as George Ekin objected, as did many prominent Holston laymen. But the local ranks exploded in fury over this decision about which they had never been

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consulted. One prominent itinerant, Robertson Gannaway, recalled attending a quarterly meeting at that time when an unnamed local preacher publicly challenged the presiding elder’s right to examine him under the authority of this newly organized church. He “arose, and said he did not consider himself a member of that body, and would not be examined by it.” Most ultimately yielded to the church’s authority in 1844, however, because there was no other alternative in Holston if one wished to remain Methodist. By 1864, on the other hand, with the choice of membership and service in the newly established Methodist Episcopal Church (North), the situation would be quite different.60 The relative position of local preachers was also tremendously affected by both growth in membership and changing attitudes in Holston. At its inauguration as a separate conference in 1824, Holston claimed a total membership of 14,935. By 1860, that number had almost quadrupled to 52,227 (see appendix C). Such rapid growth in numbers brought even more significant alterations in Methodist beliefs and practices within Holston and throughout American Methodism, however. Bishop Francis Asbury presciently predicted that such growth would ultimately destroy the purity and distinctiveness of early Methodism’s allegiance to what he viewed as the true application of New Testament ideals. Compromise, Asbury argued in his 1813 valedictory address, was the root of the problem; as Methodists began to prosper materially and grow in numbers, there would be among them a fatal tendency to become like other churches. Worse, individual Methodists might forsake the Edenic apostolic order and community of the faithful by embracing the world. It had been a point of pride and a characteristic distinction of early American Methodists to despise wealth and to flee the temptations of the world. Even the Discipline specifically admonished the faithful to avoid “laying up treasures on earth.”61 This critical issue of wealth was precisely where a newly emerging leadership among Holston’s itinerants, many of whom were among the first to be college graduates, diverged from previous Methodist doctrines. R. N. Price, representative of this new leadership appearing in the 1840s and 1850s, explicitly stated that no greater mistake had previously occurred in the church than excluding the “wealthier and more influential classes of the Southern states,” primarily because these people were frequently slaveholders. In that light, he saw the 1844 division of Methodism, and Holston’s adherence to the Southern church, as providential. While conceding that welcoming slave owners and others of wealth and high social status had “brought in a flood of worldliness,” he nevertheless argued that “their money and influ-

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ence ha[d] done much in advancing the material and spiritual interests of the Church.” Price was even more explicit in arguing that slaveholders were the best class of people in the South. Inextricably linked in his mind were education, wealth, refinement, and religion; slaveholders were “among the more wealthy, the more cultivated and refined, the more moral, and indeed, really the better friends of religion.”62 The instrument or agency that ironically inculcated the values of the Southern slave-owning patriarchy and culture of honor into Holston’s new leadership during the 1840s and 1850s was Emory and Henry College. Founded in 1836 at Emory, Virginia, this college became a bastion of proslavery Southern nationalism as it simultaneously prepared young men such as Richard N. Price, David Sullins, and Frank Richardson for positions of leadership in the Holston hierarchy. Sectarian competition, especially with the Presbyterians, had pushed Methodists to establish several earlier “literary institutions,” which flourished briefly, then rapidly declined. Examples of these primarily secondary schools before the advent of public education in Tennessee were Holston College at New Market; Strawberry Plains College in Jefferson County; Holston Conference Female College in Asheville; Athens Female College; Knoxville Female Academy; Hiwassee College in Madisonville, Tennessee; and an obscure institution called Richland Institute in Asheville. Only Emory and Henry College, however, managed to survive and increase in academic respectability to the status of a real college in Holston.63 Ephraim Emerson Wiley (1814-93), who became a professor in 1838 and served as president of Emory and Henry between 1852 and 1879, was more responsible than any other person for stamping the values of Southern nationalism indelibly into an entire rising generation of Holston’s collegeeducated leadership. Although born in Massachusetts and educated at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Wiley upon his appointment in 1838 as a professor of ancient languages and literature became rapidly pro-Southern with all the zeal of a new convert. Charismatic in his personality and leadership, “Old Eph,” as he was affectionately called by his adoring students, became politically active and quickly emerged as a leader in the Holston Conference, to which he was admitted in 1843 in full connection. During his almost fifty years at the college, Wiley wielded enormous influence over the nearly seven thousand students enrolled there during his tenure. So adamantly did he promote Southern values among his students that he actually became a proud slave owner himself. It is not surprising, therefore, that the vast majority of Holston’s college-educated ministers would fervently

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embrace the Confederate cause in 1861. Wiley also pushed his former students to assume positions of leadership in Holston and actively lobbied on their behalf. His great success in increasing both the college’s enrollment and its endowment before the Civil War only added to his prestige and influence. Modeling his faith on Southern values, he served as a Confederate chaplain when the college buildings were used as a hospital during the war.64 The advent of a new leadership in Holston, educated at Emory and Henry College, coincided in the 1840s and 1850s with a national declension in some of Methodism’s most cherished institutions. Class meetings, love feasts, and camp meetings were rapidly declining in many areas of Holston and were being not replaced but displaced by new organizations such as Sunday schools, tract societies, and missionary societies. R. N. Price noted that the rule of excluding persons not members of the church from love feasts and class meetings had gradually fallen into “innocuous desuetude” by 1850. Bands were by then practically unknown among ordinary Holston Methodists, and most of the younger, college-educated clergy were extremely tolerant of the fine clothing and ostentatious dress of the Southern aristocracy, whom they both personally emulated and eagerly welcomed into their churches. Even the time-honored reverence that Methodists had once given to a happy death was ridiculed by those such as Price, who scoffed at supposing that “the eternal destiny of souls hinged on the transient phenomena of the dying moment.”65 Yet even R. N. Price deplored the decline in family worship and argued that the relegation of the Methodist exhorter to history was an “omen of ill.” But both he and his college classmate Frank Richardson argued that the noticeable decline in class meetings and love feasts was simply an indication of “the growing modesty and intelligence of our people and . . . a change simply in the type and not in the degree of the piety of our membership.” Richardson specifically argued that these “primitive agencies,” while “invaluable in the early history of the church,” had fulfilled their function and were no longer necessary. Yet Holston Methodism retained its “conscious identity”; forms and rituals might change over time, but the essential doctrines of Methodism, its undying spirit—“vigorous, elastic, fervent”—would remain, despite the loss of bands, class meetings, and love feasts. Even John Wesley himself had taught that the church had to be able to adapt, change, and move toward self-reliance to fit Methodism, like a growing infant, to a new age.66 The waning of class meetings and other fundamental institutions of early Methodism in Holston occurred gradually, however, and was accompanied by many dire warnings and jeremiads. As early as 1828, an article

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in the Holston Messenger deplored the decline of class meetings, bands, and love feasts within the conference. In 1837 the annual conference solemnly lamented the diminution of “ministerial gravity,” especially “among the junior brethren.” A year earlier, the annual conference had likewise deplored the “manifest deterioration” of camp meetings, appointing a committee to study the problem. David Rice McAnally in 1838 deplored the way in which ministers would “almost unchurch and unchristianize their brethren for the peculiar ‘cut’ of their dress.” Other departures from older Methodist usages included cooking on the Sabbath, use of instrumental music in churches, and members’ attendance at plays or dances.67 What is most difficult to fully understand about such changes or departures from traditional Methodist institutions such as class meetings and love feasts in Holston is that in many parts of the conference they continued unaltered throughout the 1850s. Augustine F. Shannon’s diary between 1848 and 1850, while he served as an itinerant on the Decatur circuit in Bradley and McMinn Counties, clearly reflects this continuity. Indeed, there is an almost timeless quality to his routine of preaching; attending class meetings, love feasts, and quarterly meetings; and reading the Discipline to erring church members on his circuit. Likewise, surviving quarterly meeting minutes from a broad range of locations within the conference show no decline in class meetings or love feasts during the 1840s and 1850s. George Ekins’s diary similarly shows his conduct of class meetings, love feasts, and camp meetings in 1854 and 1855. Ekin did report on January 19, 1854, however, that some of the newer preachers never held class meetings at all, and in some locations the people never met in class meetings at any time.68 In reality, by the 1840s, almost two separate churches had emerged within Holston Methodism, both operating with occasional mutual friction or sporadic recriminating antagonisms, yet each largely oblivious to and almost totally unaffected by the other. Perhaps no better example of this discontinuity of old Methodist usages operating simultaneously with new practices exists than the banishing of women too finely dressed from participation in class meetings and love feasts. R. N. Price reported that when he first joined the conference in 1850, this “demarcation between the Church and the world” in matters of dress had “long since been obliterated.” Yet he also recalled some years earlier the Reverend John Bowman refusing admission to a love feast of an “old shouting Methodist lady by the name of Wilcox” because she wore a small bow in her bonnet. Likewise, in 1845, the members of the annual conference resolved that they “constantly, earnestly, . . . resolutely oppose[d] the practice of selling or renting pews in our

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churches,” noting that such practice subverted “that glorious peculiarity of our holy religion” by displacing and stigmatizing poorer members. Even the suggestion of selling or renting pews, as the Episcopalians were purported to do, would have horrified early Methodists. Yet in these later years, larger churches in growing towns were evidently succumbing to the increasing demands of wealthier, slaveholding elites.69 On the eve of the Civil War, Holston Methodism appeared prosperous, thriving, and apparently unified both internally and in conjunction with the annual conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, myriad conflicting and competing values, attitudes, personnel, and worship practices lay hidden just below the surface. On the one hand, part of the church still revered and practiced older Methodist beliefs and usages, such as class meetings, love feasts, and camp meetings. On the other hand, a younger emerging leadership, educated at Emory and Henry College and indoctrinated there by the rabidly pro-Southern Ephraim E. Wiley, sought to modernize the church by embracing new customs and practices more attuned to the times. Fundamental to Holston Methodism’s growth and expansion, this new leadership believed, was admission to church membership of the wealthy slaveholding elite and increased tolerance of the values of that elite’s patriarchal code of honor. R. N. Price, David Sullins, and Frank Richardson, exemplars and representatives of this new leadership, believed that Methodism should condemn neither the slave owning nor the wealth of the Southern aristocracy. Simultaneous with these changes was increasing tension between the regular itinerating clergy and their much more numerous, albeit powerless, local brethren. It requires no great imagination to anticipate that a cataclysmic event, such as the Civil War, would bring all these conflicting and competing loyalties out into the open—would indeed give proponents on both sides a political raison d’être. Ironically, the catalyst for both the conflict over changing beliefs and practices within Holston Methodism, and the struggle for ecclesiastical power between itinerating and local clergy, was the very same issue: slavery.

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Chapter 2 Slavery and Free Blacks There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. . . . Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. —galatians 3:28, 5:1

Central to the problem of understanding the relationship between slavery and Methodism in Holston is the dearth of documentary evidence, especially at the local or grassroots level. Only a relatively small number of quarterly conference minutes remain extant for Holston out of these all-important records kept so meticulously by diligent church members in the nineteenth century. Even rarer are class meeting records, or class books, as they were then commonly called. Indeed, modern Methodists scarcely understand what exactly these class books are, with their strange rolls and seemingly indecipherable letters, “P,” “A,” or “D,” indicating whether the class member was present, absent, or distant, unable to attend that particular week. Complicating the issue even further was the reality that by the 1850s class meetings were no longer a vital part of Holston Methodism in larger towns and cities, although they continued to be the mainstay of church members in rural districts. Nevertheless, there is clear evidence that in many parts of Holston, class meetings were as vital and energizing as they had been early in the first decades of the century.1 Fortuitous indeed, therefore, was the discovery in 1981 of a class book for Spring Creek Church, dated between 1845 and 1860. Spring Creek was the site of a popular campground in McMinn County, Tennessee, five miles north of the town of Calhoun. The roll for 1860 listed eight “colored” members: Joshua Colville, Harriet Colville, Elizabeth Turk, Ant[h]ony Colville,

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Amanda Sharp, Darthula Sharp, Eliza Colville, and Margaret Bradford. Even more interesting, however, is the notation by the compiler that pages 138-47 had later been “sewed in upside down.” Whether by accident or design, this concealment of the African American members is symptomatic of a much larger problem in trying to recover the past from documentary evidence that, regarding free blacks or slaves, has often been deliberately hidden or destroyed in Holston records.2 Startling examples abound of this moral amnesia. David Sullins, a staunch Confederate who was a prominent itinerant and influential leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, wrote in his autobiography that his father, Nathan Sullins, although he would never own a slave, did not have any clear conviction that slavery was wrong. In 1841, however, Nathan Sullins explicitly told Ezekiel Birdseye, a Connecticut abolitionist living in East Tennessee, that he was “conscientiously opposed to owning slaves.” In 1842, another prominent Methodist local preacher, Spencer Henry, confided to Birdseye his wish to preach openly against slavery in his pulpit but complained that he was prevented from so doing by Tennessee state laws, his limited means, and a large family of small children. Henry readily assisted Birdseye in his efforts to secure the freedom of one slave but in the final analysis kept his antislavery sentiments private.3 Likewise, Holston’s most famous itinerant, William G. “Parson” Brownlow, after becoming editor of the Knoxville Whig, emerged in the 1850s as one of the most forceful proslavery spokesmen in the entire region. He denounced abolitionists in his newspaper with such vituperative rhetoric so repeatedly that none of his contemporaries doubted his total hostility to antislavery agitation in any form. By the time Brownlow publicly debated abolitionist Abram Pryne, a Congregational clergyman, between September 7 and 12, 1858, in Philadelphia, he had emerged as one of the most visible defenders of slavery nationally. Yet in 1834, Brownlow as an itinerating Methodist minister in Holston had actually signed a fervent antislavery petition to the Tennessee state legislature begging that body to abolish slavery in the new state constitution. Abram Pryne could not have expressed a more specific and incisive condemnation of slavery than is to be found in this document, which, ironically, Brownlow himself may have written. This single piece of documentary evidence, hidden in obscurity until I discovered it in 1995, illustrates that the most important public representative of Holston Methodism had in the 1830s been very sympathetic toward the antislavery cause; however, later years changed his belief and attitudes toward the peculiar institution.4

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A careful reading of the manuscript annual minutes of the Holston Conference reveals clear indications that evidence regarding black applicants for the local ministry was purged or not included by the 1840s and 1850s. Very early in these minutes, in 1825, however, Anthony Rhea, “a coloured man, being recommended to receive deacons orders, was elected.” Yet although the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church had approved in 1824 licensing African Americans as both local and itinerating ministers, there is no indication that Holston ever admitted blacks to the itinerating ranks. An ambiguous notation was made in the annual minutes in 1835 regarding a letter being read from “Samuel Hogire[,] a man of color,” but on motion this letter was laid on the table, and no copy of it remains extant in the conference minutes or appendixes. Perhaps most intriguing and revealing is an article in Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig and Independent Journal, October 12, 1850, reporting on the annual conference then meeting in Abingdon, Virginia. While deacons and elders, local and traveling, were being examined and elected for ordination, Brownlow noted, a “colored man of talents and acknowledged piety, was presented, who [was] a licensed [local] preacher, but the Conference very properly declined ordaining him.” The ostensible reason was a Virginia statute forbidding men of color to preach in the state, although “ordination was not prohibited in express terms.” Brownlow heartily approved this decision, especially in these times of “[a]bolition excitement.” Yet not a single word of this significant decision appears in the actual manuscript minutes of Holston Conference.5 Although John Wesley set the tone of early Methodism’s attitude toward slavery when he denounced the slave trade as “that execrable sum of all villainies,” in reality, as historians from Donald Mathews to Russell Richey have ably demonstrated, the struggle against slavery in the American South was fraught from colonial times with complexities and ambiguities. In the final analysis, as historian Cynthia Lynn Lyerly persuasively argues, Wesley and his American followers were at heart more evangelists concerned with saving souls than abolitionists. Their willingness to make concessions to slaveholders in regard to what they considered the more important goal of individual salvation opened the way for an entering wedge that led to a pitched battle between antislavery itinerants and their proslavery laity, which ended only upon the division of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 into separate Northern and Southern churches. The founder of the American church, Francis Asbury, hated slavery so fiercely that his journals, published after his death, had to be edited to remove his abolitionist sentiments. Yet even Asbury, in the end, was forced to compromise with

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the reality of chattel slavery so firmly entrenched in the American South by the first decade of the nineteenth century.6 In a prescient article written in 1850, Bishop Joshua Soule argued that the legislation of the Methodist Episcopal Church regarding slavery had been distinguished from the beginning by “suspension, repeal, change or modification, and exemption” in numerous slaveholding states. At the same time, paradoxically, Soule continued, Methodists have “always and justly considered their Church as a pioneer anti-slavery institution.” The 1784 Christmas conference, at which American Methodists separated formally from British Methodists, marked the high-water mark in Francis Asbury’s crusade against slavery. Every Methodist slaveholder was given twelve months to formally emancipate his slaves through a legal document or face expulsion from the church. Those Methodist slaveholders who sold their slaves were likewise to be expelled. Yet within six months of this famous Christmas conference, such was the outcry among southerners that Asbury and other leaders were forced to suspend these rules indefinitely. The General Conference of 1800 tried once again to address the slavery issue, but every effort to forbid slaveholders from joining the church or forcing members to legally emancipate their slaves was defeated. Even a motion by William McKendree to petition various state legislatures to gradually abolish slavery was met with such hostility from southern members that it was not even printed in the conference minutes or in the Discipline.7 Between 1812 and 1819, unremitting warfare erupted within the Tennessee Conference over the issue of slavery. The locus of this intense conflict is important, because Holston Conference would be formed out of the older Tennessee Conference by 1824. Thereafter, the Tennessee Conference embraced Middle Tennessee westward, and Holston primarily was East Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, and parts of western North Carolina and northern Georgia. Led by Peter Cartwright and James Axley, the majority of itinerating ministers excoriated slaveholders, demanding that any Methodist who bought or sold a slave should be expelled or at least be subjected to a church trial. Friction between laity and clergy increased as these zealous ministers sought to redefine and tighten antislavery rules to ensure compliance. Defiance from local preachers and a minority of the itinerating clergy only intensified the majority of itinerants in their antislavery zeal toward wayward brethren they condemned as “apostates.” Finally responding to this continuing crisis, the General Conference in 1820 in a momentous decision resumed control over the whole question of slavery, and the right to regulate slavery was withdrawn forever from the individual annual

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conferences. Thereafter, slavery would also largely cease to be a major item of business in the General Conference until the final division of the church in 1844.8 If, as historian Donald Mathews argues, this 1820 decision betrayed the antislavery preachers in Tennessee by treating slavery not as an issue of Christian morality but rather as one contingent on sectional economics and politics, the intense antislavery feeling among the majority of itinerating ministers nevertheless did not die. Surviving in full force through ministers such as James Axley in the newly formed Holston Conference, antislavery activity was already widespread in East Tennessee during the 1820s among other denominations, notably, the Quakers and Presbyterians. Indeed, as late as 1827, East Tennessee alone contained nearly one-fifth of all the antislavery societies in the United States and nearly one-sixth of the total membership. The survival in Holston of a core of antislavery sentiment among many Methodist local and itinerating clergy, despite being forced to go underground by the 1850s because of the growth of Southern nationalism and concurrent hostility to abolitionism, rested on both the earlier antipathy to the peculiar institution in Methodism and the rapidly evolving political matrix of antislavery in East Tennessee. This confluence of Methodist and regional antagonism toward slavery was well illustrated in October 1826, just two years after Holston was formed, when the annual convention of the Manumission Society of Tennessee received a message from a district conference meeting at Ebenezer meeting house, Greene County, “expressive of the good will of that body to the cause of legal emancipation.”9 In Holston the antislavery impulse in the 1820s and 1830s manifested itself primarily in repeated struggles to call itinerating ministers who owned slaves to some accountability at the annual conference. For example, John Henninger, upon reapplying for itinerant status in 1825, was questioned about owning a black girl thirteen years old. He was ordered to free her at the age of twenty-one as a condition for admittance and was required to “give said girl and her children (if any) an education sufficient to read the Holy Scriptures.” In 1827, Edmund Pearson, a local deacon readmitted into the traveling connection, was ordered “to return his slaves to his father-in-law within twelve months.” In that same year, a motion to “examine into the situation and condition of the slaves of Thomas Stringfield and report if it be practicable to emancipate them” failed. Stringfield was a prominent itinerant, yet in the next conference, in 1828, George Ekin succeeded in appointing a committee of five to investigate the condition of Brother Stringfield’s slaves and report back to the next annual conference. One member of this committee,

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however, was John Henninger, the same man who had been called to account for owning a slave three years earlier.10 Thomas Stringfield’s prominence and political expertise were clearly apparent when this committee reported back to the Holston annual conference in 1829. The investigating committee reported that they had in fact “done nothing in the case and found themselves incapable of doing anything,” which clearly represented a tacit exoneration of Brother Stringfield. Yet the antislavery itinerants were not willing to stop their apparently increasingly desperate struggle. In 1835, John Bowman, a fiercely antislavery elder, brought charges against Thomas Stringfield for selling ten blacks. Samuel Patton motioned to appoint another committee to examine the charge, whereupon Samuel Patton, John Bowman, and David Fleming were elected. In what was clearly a bitter parliamentary struggle, the motion to investigate Stringfield’s selling ten slaves was amended to read that his “parchments to be taken from him for one year and he [be] permitted to labor on some circuit or station for the ensuing year.” When word spread in Abingdon, Virginia, where this conference was being held, proslavery local citizens sent Colonel David Campbell, later governor of Virginia, to address the clergy. Campbell told the assembled Holston brethren, “[I]t is our duty to inform you that such an abolition body as this cannot sit in the State of Virginia!” So in the end, thanks to this blatant political interference, the annual conference tamely backed down, and Thomas Stringfield won the struggle when his case was reconsidered the next day and the previous “resolution on that subject was rescinded and his parchments restored.”11 The growing divided mind of Holston was also clearly reflected in 1835, when the minutes declared that “we are as much as ever convinced of the great evil of slavery,” yet “the recent course pursued by those who are in favor of immediate abolition regardless of consequences requires a public expression of the sentiments of this conference on that subject[;] therefore,” the declaration continued, “Resolved that we cordially disapprove the principles held by Abolitionists.” The Holston brethren further condemned “sending secret agents and incendiary productions” to the South and argued that Northerners had “neither the political civil [n]or moral right to interfere with the relation of master and servants as it exists in the South.” Finally, there was a specific warning to “all our local brethren and church members” to not accept “inflammatory” abolitionist material sent through the mail. At the next annual conference in 1836, two itinerants of lesser status than Stringfield, Madison C. Hawk and Jacob McDaniel, had their elder’s orders withheld for twelve months for “trading in slaves,” but both men were nevertheless as-

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signed to circuits. This light punishment is clearly indicative that proslavery forces were gaining ascendancy in Holston by the end of the 1830s.12 Yet the use of the term abolitionist as an opprobrious extremist or radical incendiary by the 1830s greatly obscures actual practices by prominent antislavery Holston clergy. James Axley, as one notable example, cherished “an inveterate hatred to slavery” and often preached against it. He “took the extreme ground that no slaveholder could be saved in heaven, or was a proper person for admission into the Church,” according to R. N. Price, chronicler of Holston Methodism. Axley as presiding elder “not only refused to license slaveholders to preach, but actually denied them the privilege of exhorting or even leading in prayer-meeting,” another church historian wrote, concluding that Axley went so far as “to denounce slaveholders as no better than thieves and robbers.” All contemporary commentators nevertheless highly praised Axley as a model itinerating minister, noting how he courageously had made a motion in two General Conferences, in 1812 and 1816, demanding that no itinerating or local preacher “retail spirituous or malt liquors without forfeiting his ministerial character.” In the 1820 General Conference, Axley actually made a motion that no local or itinerating preacher who owned slaves be licensed by the church. But at no point did any minister or official of the Holston Conference call Axley an abolitionist, although he certainly more than qualified for that designation in all his utterances against slavery and in the numerous restrictions he had imposed on his circuit against slaveholders.13 Another pioneer minister of Holston, John Bowman (1773−1847), was widely noted for his “contempt of insincerity and dissimulation,” as well as his rigorous adherence to the doctrines and procedures in the Discipline. Known for correcting bishops and presidents of conferences on questions of church law, Bowman was also a vigorous antislavery advocate from the beginning of his long career. As one of the Holston delegates to the General Conference of 1832, he moved that the church carefully define and specify the “true meaning” of the rule forbidding “the buying or selling of men, women and children, with an intention to enslave them.” Bowman thereby struck terror into the hearts of proslavery Methodists, who insisted that this rule referred only to the African slave trade. Although after a rancorous two-day debate Bowman’s motion was indefinitely postponed, he was characterized by David Rice McAnally, later proslavery editor of the St. Louis Christian Advocate, as “a strong, not to say violent, anti-slavery man— a thorough emancipationist.” McAnally further argued that Bowman had magnified the slavery issue out of all proportion to its true merit, “taking a

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one-sided and too partial view of the question.” Yet he still maintained that Bowman was essentially a good man who had not “gone so far as many have since gone” in his biased views of slavery. In other words, Bowman, despite all the contrary evidence, was no abolitionist.14 African Americans had been attracted to Methodism from its earliest days in America largely because converts from all walks of life found in its doctrines and class meetings a revolutionary expansion of human agency within a caring community of fellow worshippers. Regardless of gender, race, wealth, or status, believers had ultimate control over their own fate as defined by their individual relationship with God. Methodists appealed especially to the most powerless in society, creating a nurturing worldview within which they obtained both agency and voice to develop their own talents and reverse the patriarchal hierarchy of Southern elites. Actual black membership in Holston hovered between 9 and 10 percent of the total between 1824 and 1860 (see appendix C). The highest number of black members occurred in 1859, with 4,875 blacks in a total Holston membership of 50,185. Of course, membership numbers alone reveal only a partial account of actual African American participation in Methodist meetings, whether open camp meetings or churches large or small, rural or urban. Ministers’ diaries and biographies frequently record large numbers of blacks in attendance at their meetings throughout the nineteenth century before the Civil War. William C. Daily, for example, preached to 120 African Americans in Jonesborough, Tennessee, on May 8, 1859, only two years before the war.15 Critical to understanding the interaction between white and black Methodists in Holston is the question of whether these groups worshiped separately or together. Charles F. Deems unequivocally stated that in 1855 “the colored people mostly worship together with the whites, in the same houses and at the same hours.” David Sullins, a prominent itinerating minister, argued that “our custom before the war was to have our colored people sit on the rear seats below or in the gallery, and to give them an afternoon service about twice a month.” Augustine F. Shannon, an itinerating minister on the Decatur circuit from 1848 to 1850, recorded on January 27, 1848, that he preached to many blacks and several whites in the house of Charles Rice. On May 13, 1849, Shannon recorded that a black man named Joshua preached the first sermon to a mixed congregation. In June of the same year, Shannon preached “to the colored people or for them” at a schoolhouse, but he noted that “there were . . . as many whites out as colored folks.” Holston’s venerable pioneer minister, George Ekin, recorded in his diary between 1850 and 1856 that he frequently preached separately to large crowds of Afri-

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can Americans in southwestern Virginia. On August 28, 1854, for example, Ekin preached to “about five hundred” blacks without assistance from any other minister.16 Even more critical is the problem of ascertaining the identity of black preachers, exhorters, and class leaders in Holston. In this regard, it is even problematic to identify white local preachers, because their names were not listed in the printed minutes of Holston annual conferences until 1858. The MEC General Conference of 1824 had granted “coloured” preachers “all the privileges which are usual to others in the district and quarterly conferences,” limited only by the phrase “where the usages of the country do not forbid it.” The General Conference even went so far as to allow annual conferences to authorize African American traveling preachers, a potential challenge to Holston itinerating clergy that was in fact never realized. Yet there is a tantalizing entry in the 1825 Holston manuscript minutes, noting simply that “Anthony Rhea, a coloured man, being recommended to receive deacons orders, was elected.” Nothing about Rhea occurs again in any Holston records, and whether he was indeed being chosen as an itinerating preacher cannot be ascertained. Also very interesting was the rejection by the Holston annual conference in 1846 of Aaron Griffith, “a colored brother from Madisonville,” for deacon’s orders as a local preacher without any reason being offered.17 Further complicating the problem of identifying black local preachers is the parallel system of ordination. All local preachers, class leaders, and exhorters had to be examined at least once a year by the quarterly conference on their circuit. Any of these local preachers could then apply to the annual conference based on formal recommendation by their quarterly conference for official ordination as deacon or elder, after having served successfully in either capacity for four years. The manuscript minutes of Holston duly note those local preachers accepted or rejected by the annual conference, but many local preachers never chose to apply for this conference-wide recognition. Therein lies the problem; an unknown number of white and black local preachers, exhorters, and class leaders faithfully served in multiple circuits, yet their names are recorded only in the all-important quarterly conference minutes, or ledger books, as they were often called. With the destruction of these priceless quarterly conference minutes and class books, the names of countless local preachers, exhorters, and class leaders in Holston remain hidden in obscurity.18 Yet so luminous were three African American local preachers that their names and lives were carefully described in an appendix written by William

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Garrett in John Berry McFerrin’s second volume of History of Methodism in Tennessee, published in 1871. Joseph, a slave of Francis J. Carter, of Dutch Bottom, Cocke County, was a deeply pious man whose ability was widely appreciated. He was educated without charge at Anderson Academy, whose Presbyterian owner, Reverend Isaac Anderson (later, founder of Maryville College), remained opposed to slavery throughout his life. Modest, humble, and diffident, Joseph Carter was licensed to preach in 1818 and attracted large crowds of both races in his frequent preaching at both private houses and churches. Simon Rodgers, a “free man of color, was another minister of good intelligence and usefulness.” Thomas, a slave of Benjamin Thompson, was taught by William Garrett at a Sunday school for blacks, where his “quick ready mind, and a strong desire to learn” enabled him to attain “a knowledge of Scripture” that Garrett described as “surprising.” Garrett, who had in 1869 submitted this “Recollections of Methodism in East Tennessee,” which McFerrin published as an appendix, concluded that Thomas, “a humble, good man, and useful,” had accomplished much good for the church and at that time had been preaching for forty-five years.19 The key to fully understanding the role and participation of African Americans lies not simply in trying to enumerate individuals, however, but in judging how they interacted in the all-important class meetings and quarterly conferences in Holston. Unfortunately, almost all class meeting records have been destroyed, but a sufficient number of recording steward’s books, as they were called, containing quarterly conference minutes for seven circuits between 1808 and 1890 have survived and provide critical evidence. Quarterly conferences were the administrative agency of Methodism, meeting four times a year to make crucial decisions regarding the local circuit and class members. Composed of class leaders, exhorters, local preachers, and stewards, they were presided over by the preacher in charge or presiding elder. The quarterly conference members acted as a court, deciding disputes and expelling any member judged to not be in compliance with the Discipline. This body collectively recommended or approved applicants for both the local and the itinerating ministry and forwarded formal recommendations to the next annual conference for approval. The members of the quarterly conference also licensed exhorters, who could speak or exhort in class meetings and camp meetings regarding their own conversion but were not permitted to preach. Most critically, however, the names of all local officials involved in the quarterly conference were read aloud, and a decision was made at that point whether to approve their character and renew their license. This intensive monitoring maintained the local church, or circuit,

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in strict accordance with the Discipline and also yielded a periodic list of the names and status of specific individuals in the quarterly conference.20 These surviving quarterly conference minutes clearly show active involvement over a wide geographic area of Holston by black local preachers and exhorters alike. Although even these records are often patchy and incomplete, with occasional apologies written in the recording steward’s books for missing minutes, it is unmistakable that African Americans were active participants over extended periods of time, having their licenses renewed over and over for many years. Not only were black local preachers and exhorters active at the quarterly conferences, their full participation continued into the late 1850s and 1860s, right up to the beginning of the Civil War. As many historians have pointed out, the very existence of black local preachers and exhorters challenged prevailing racist attitudes throughout the nineteenth century. More importantly, a critical reading of these minutes clearly indicates that all members of the quarterly conference—class leaders, local preachers, and exhorters—were held to extremely high standards of performance. Absence, neglect of duty, or even perceived lack of sufficient zeal could occasion rebuke and removal of license. The fact that so many African American exhorters and local preachers continued to actively participate in class meetings for many years offers compelling evidence regarding both the esteem, however grudging, in which they were held by white officials and also their intense personal commitment to Methodism in Holston.21 Even with these extant quarterly conference minutes, some caveats are in order. It is not always clear, especially before 1835, whether the local preachers or exhorters were indeed African American. The designation “colored” is used after this date by their names, but not always consistently. Nor do we have any clear indication of the names or numbers of blacks in the actual class meetings, since these records were kept separately and have largely been lost. Occasionally the minutes record only the first name, for instance, “Jessie, L[ocal] P[reacher] and Charles, L[ocal] P[reacher] approved, men of color,” as in the October 10, 1840, Sevierville circuit quarterly minutes, but almost inevitably, later secretaries will list the full names, as occurred in these same minutes on September 9, 1843, when their names were given as Jessie Bogle and Charles Bogle. In some instances, however, such as on the Carter’s Valley−Rogersville circuit between 1827 and 1829, the last name of the “colored” exhorter, Orange, is never given subsequently. Occasionally, as in the minutes of this same circuit on June 9, 1849, the “coloured” members were listed together: Robert Colvile, Wiley Haynes, Hector Hale,

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Charles Mays, and Daniel Speers, all of whom were examined and had their licenses renewed except for Speers.22 There is no real indication of the financial contribution made by black local preachers or exhorters, because individual contributions were listed in the class meeting books, now lost. One tantalizing clue, however, occurred at the Carter’s Valley−Rogersville circuit on April 6, 1850, when “it was resolved by the conference that the dollar paid by Mingo[,] a coloured man[,] for the building of the Greensville parsonage which is now in the hands of Bro. A. Galbraith be paid to the widow of Mingo.” African American local preachers never served as stewards or trustees at the quarterly conferences in Holston, but this situation might be partly explained by their presumed lack of financial or other resources. Rarely were class leaders designated “colored,” although John Easterly was so listed in the July 7, 1855, quarterly conference minutes of the Morristown circuit. Nor do any of the extant Holston quarterly conference minutes indicate whether these “colored” local preachers and exhorters were slaves or free. Anthony and Josh Colville, two local preachers on the Decatur circuit in Meigs County in the 1850s, had been freed by their owner’s will, but a subsequent case in the McMinn Chancery Court indicates that their freedom was legally challenged by the heirs. Given the tenuous legal status of free blacks in Tennessee before the Civil War, however, their participation in Methodist class meetings and quarterly conferences and acceptance by white congregants is remarkable in its own right.23 One can only wonder at the embarrassment or discomfort of black local preachers and exhorters who, as formal members of the quarterly conference, were occasionally forced to participate in trials involving itinerating ministers who owned slaves, contrary to the Discipline. A bitter dispute erupted in 1822−23, precipitated by Joseph Carden’s purchase of a slave. Carden was initially exonerated by the Carter’s Valley circuit quarterly conference, but John Bowman appealed and had this decision reversed. Under the direction of John Teves, the presiding elder, the conference held a “strict examination” of this decision in 1823 and again exonerated Carden, finding in this instance that the purchase of a slave was “an act of mercy.” In another quarterly conference (in 1817) on the same circuit, to keep his license as a preacher, Brother George White had to agree to free a slave when that slave was thirty years old. In the same circuit on June 22, 1817, the quarterly conference expelled Samuel Dodson for “purchasing a Negro woman,” deciding that “said case is not a case of justice or mercy.” On September 30, 1815, the Carter’s Valley−Rogersville circuit quarterly conference had allowed another member, A. Jagoe, to retain his membership,

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deciding that his purchase of “a Negro boy and girl” had been an act of “justice and mercy.” Joseph Bryant, however, was expelled from the church when the same quarterly conference decided that his purchase of a black girl was an act of neither justice nor mercy. Interestingly, James Axley, the famous antislavery preacher, was the presiding elder in the last two cases. But conflict continued over church members owning slaves throughout the 1820s. Joel Gilenwaters was placed on trial for nine months after his class at Caney Creek charged him with selling “a Negro,” even though the preacher in charge appealed the case. Likewise, Thomas Gilenwaters Jr. was charged with purchasing “a Negro” and likewise placed on trial for nine months in May 1829. Paschal Burham was expelled by his class the following year for buying and selling blacks.24 From the extant quarterly conference minutes, Aaron Griffith appears to have had the greatest longevity as a black local preacher. His name first appears in the Tellico circuit quarterly conference minutes on August 15, 1835, with the usual designation “colored.” On September 3, 1856, he was recommended to preach by his class at Madisonville and was approved to do so by the quarterly conference. His name regularly appears in these minutes as he was repeatedly examined and approved and had his license renewed through 1851, the limit of these particular records. Griffith must have been an extraordinary preacher, because he was actually recommended by his circuit for formal ordination as a local deacon to the annual conference meeting in Wytheville, Virginia, in 1846. The manuscript minutes of this conference list his name, noting that he was “a colored brother from Madisonville,” but the conference members did not elect him as a local deacon. No reason was given, but these manuscript minutes rarely if ever had listed “colored” with the name of any candidate for elder’s or deacon’s orders to the local ministry. Had any fault or omission been found in his character, such a candidate would ordinarily have been referred back to his own circuit’s quarterly conference for further investigation. Regardless, Aaron Griffith survived the war and was recorded in the same county, Monroe, as the preacher of record marrying an African American couple in 1867.25 In gauging the degree of active participation by blacks in these quarterly conference minutes before the Civil War, one important fact in the Holston Methodist organization predominates: class meetings were the primary means by which African Americans could participate on anything approaching equality with their white brethren and sisters in the Methodist economy. Not only did earlier Methodist doctrine, emphasized by John Wesley and Francis Asbury, insist on blacks and whites, rich and poor, coming together

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as equals before God in these class meetings, but here alone were leadership opportunities afforded to black men in the respective offices of class leader, local preacher, or exhorter. For precisely this reason, the itinerating preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, rose up in angry denunciation of the very institution of class meetings in the 1858 General Conference, the last before the Civil War began. The delegation from South Carolina’s annual conference led the charge, asking that class meetings be made optional, rather than obligatory, as they had always been in the Discipline. An anonymous article in the Quarterly Review (MECS, published in Nashville) noted that “a large proportion of those seeking the change [were] traveling preachers,” adding further that “very few laymen, or even local preachers,” had asked for any change or previously expressed dissatisfaction with class meetings. All such “radical” changes in the past against the episcopacy, structure, or practice of Methodism had likewise originated from itinerating ministers, not from the laity, the article continued.26 Ultimately the committee appointed by the 1858 General Conference reaffirmed the importance of class meetings, and the committee report concluded by blaming any perceived failure in this pivotal Methodist institution on negligence by those very itinerating ministers who had attacked it. If these preachers supported class meetings, the committee argued, the laity would follow their leadership. Ministers seemed prone to abolish objectionable rules to avoid the charge of inconsistency, they further argued, rather than returning to a faithful observance of the Discipline. Quickly they dismissed or refuted several standard objections to mandatory class meetings: the practice was not unscriptural; class meetings did not keep thousands of people from joining the church; and the charge that class meetings were allegedly similar to the popish confessional deserved little attention because it was “willful misrepresentation and malicious slander” that other denominations had long employed to discredit Methodism. Reverend Charles F. Deems challenged this report on four counts, but the crux of the debate centered on the widely held assumption among the delegates that class meetings were no longer being held or being seriously attended by ordinary Methodists. Were this true, Deems finally argued, how foolish it would be to continue making attendance at class meetings a test of church membership.27 In the Holston Conference, however, inconsistency of practice in regard to class meetings prevailed. Some locations, especially urban centers, no longer had active class meetings, but as the extant quarterly conference minutes clearly reveal, East Tennesseans in a wide geographic area outside

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the major towns and cities continued to support and attend class meetings up to the Civil War. In such areas, the weight of continuity of practices begun in an earlier period played an important role, but there were other reasons as well. As the historian and chronicler of Holston, R. N. Price, accurately observed, the growth of established churches with parsonages in parts of Holston had greatly diminished the usefulness of or need for local preachers, class leaders, and exhorters. Other institutions, such as the Sabbath schools, were assuming importance and to some degree replacing these older Methodist offices. For that very reason, local preachers, class leaders, and exhorters saw maintaining traditional class meetings and the quarterly conferences as a major means of protecting their otherwise diminishing status within the broader Methodist economy. If their ultimate fate was to become merely relics of Holston’s frontier past, however, they were not yet willing to leave the historical stage without a struggle.28 Even more dependent on these offices for their tenuous sense of Christian equality in class meetings, African American class leaders, exhorters, and local preachers could only sustain their concept of self-worth and agency by adhering to these traditional Methodist institutions amidst mounting outside pressure from proslavery ideologues and increasing Southern nationalism. Steady growth in black membership in Holston throughout the 1850s, from 3,645 black members in 1850 to 4,826 black members by 1860, tends to substantiate this apparently continuing appeal of Methodism’s earlier promises of at least spiritual equality within class meetings. And even these membership numbers are deceptive, because many Methodist preachers commented on preaching to large crowds of African Americans during the 1850s. Conversely, an article in the Nashville Christian Advocate on September 27, 1860, specifically condemned ordaining local black preachers because it empowered them, encouraged other African Americans to apply for ordination, and ultimately threatened to upset the delicate balance of proper subordination on which the whole institution of slavery depended.29 Guilt over failure to maintain their earlier antislavery position led Methodists in the South during the 1830s to turn to missions to slaves and to the colonization movement in order to alleviate their consciences. One such “colored mission” in Holston was located at Knoxville and Muddy Creek. Thomas J. Pope, the preacher in charge of the East Knoxville Station, reported in 1856 that “at this time of great abolitionist excitement,” the “colored class” numbered 170 members in good standing, whose members were “very vigilant in finding out, and strict in enforcing, discipline against all offending members.” The congregation attending the church,

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he added, “is large and respectable, frequently amounting to between four and five hundred of as well-dressed, well-behaved people as you will meet with anywhere.” At a funeral of “old Aunt Lucy Gillam,” a black member of long standing known and beloved by all who knew her for her zeal and piety, two sermons were preached by “Uncles Anthony and Robin,” black local preachers whose messages contained ideas and illustrations both “forcible and original.” Pope concluded that these exemplary African American Methodists knew little of “Sharpe’s rifles,” a clear reference to the conflict over slavery in Kansas occurring at that time, and surmised that “they seem to have but little desire to make their acquaintance.”30 If the attitudes of African Americans who were active participants in Holston Methodism are difficult to obtain from the paucity of records and memoirs left by them, there is no such similar difficulty in precisely enumerating the reasoning and worldview of proslavery itinerating ministers in Holston after 1840, however. Thanks to the articulate record left by R. N. Price, we know exactly what these brethren thought, with all the corollary rationalizations that they shared in common with other Southerners of that period. The essence of Price’s apologia for slavery was that it was not a sin per se, because it existed without specific condemnation from either Christ or his apostles in the ancient world. Price surmised that if Jesus Christ or his apostles had meddled with the subject of slavery in the Roman Empire, as Americans had since meddled with the institution in the United States, “the infant Church would have been strangled in its cradle.” That they chose not to so meddle was neither from cowardice nor motives of worldly policy but rather, as Price argued, because they were intelligent enough to recognize the “necessary distinction between the civil and the spiritual.” Slavery was a political problem, a civil evil, which should not stand in the way of Christian ministers’ primary duty of bringing sinners to the gospel to save them from paganism and sin.31 By the nineteenth century, Price maintained, overzealous antislavery Methodist ministers such as James Axley had nearly strangled the infant Tennessee branch of the church by too rigidly enforcing rules in the Discipline against members owning slaves. The battles between slave owners and these early ministers had indeed caused repeated conflict between 1812 and 1820, but to blame antislavery activity for slowing growth in Tennessee Methodism is highly questionable. The attempt to abolish slavery by ecclesiastical action failed because there was some flexibility in applying supposedly humane intentions to specific situations. Between 1800 and 1820, constant changes in rules regarding slavery in the Discipline of the Methodist

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Episcopal Church demonstrated the apparent failure of enforcing such strictures, Price asserted. Because slave owners were “among the more wealthy, the more cultivated and refined, the more moral, and, indeed, really the better friends of religion,” keeping them out of the church merely because they owned human chattel was utter folly. Here, of course, Price was in direct conflict with both John Wesley and Francis Asbury, who had seen Methodism’s great strength coming from its disdain for worldly wealth. Early Methodists glorified in their self-image as a despised, outcast group, whose members nevertheless transcended limitations of status, gender, or race in their egalitarian pursuit of God’s grace. In condemning the patriarchal gentry culture of the Old South, early Methodists warned that wealth was actually a barrier to salvation; asceticism demanded constant rigorous examination of one’s conduct, motives, and desires.32 Price’s defense of slavery was suffused throughout with racism, albeit combined with supposedly charitable intentions toward African Americans, whom he argued had received the benefits of Christianity and civilization through their enslavement. Writing long after the Civil War, he was politic enough to rejoice in the end of slavery and argued that the institution could not have survived much longer. “Having civilized and Christianized the Negro up to a certain point,” he further rationalized, it could go no further, and “what had been a provisional good [slavery] now became an absolute evil.” Herein lies another key fallacy in Price’s defense of slavery: ignoring compelling and numerous instances of horrific physical and sexual abuse, he insisted that the institution was both mild and beneficent in its effect on the individual slave. Even while admitting that the separation of families was “one of crying evils of domestic slavery,” he nevertheless justified separation of slave husbands and wives on the meretricious argument that “the Negroes themselves had very loose notions of the marriage relation, voluntary separation frequently occurring among them.” Consequently, forced separation of slave couples “did not work as great a hardship among them as it would have done among the whites.” Slave women thus abandoned through these forced separations “usually had little difficulty in contracting new marriages.” Moreover, masters frequently spared the lives of their slaves who had committed a felony or capital crime by selling them to slave traders, Price concluded, denying such guilty slaves “the honor of a public hanging or a term in the penitentiary.”33 Price’s reiteration of the Southern proslavery argument is neither original nor especially distinct from similar efforts by other denominations— Baptists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians—to find biblical arguments to

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justify the peculiar institution. More specific to Methodism is the fact that this blending of proslavery ideology and religion with Southern nationalism was widespread among rising Holston ministers educated at Emory and Henry College. Like his classmates David Sullins, Frank Richardson, and many others, Price had fallen under the spell of charismatic professor Ephraim E. Wiley, who indoctrinated scores of students with the most virulent form of Southern nationalism, of which the justification for slavery was a central component. After becoming president of Emory and Henry College, Wiley quickly assumed a dominant role in the Holston hierarchy, melding ecclesiastical and sectional politics into a seamless unity.34 A superb orator, Wiley frequently preached at churches and camp meetings around the conference, often taking groups of students with him. He also served as a delegate to the General Conference nine consecutive times, beginning in 1854, often heading his delegation. R. N. Price maintained that for thirty years, Wiley “was indisputably the foremost man of the Conference.” In some respects, Wiley’s career as a leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, overshadowed his career as a college president, but his great influence over his students resulted in four of them (Walter R. Lambuth, Richard G. Waterhouse, E. Embree Hoss, and James Atkins) later becoming bishops in this same church. Wiley’s special brand of proslavery religion, deep personal piety, and absolute conviction of the superiority of Southern civilization meant that for the rising generation of preachers trained under his charismatic leadership, there would never be any doubt about the modernity of their beliefs. Both instigator and actor on the larger stage of Confederate nationalism, Wiley delivered a key incendiary sermon indicting all who disagreed with Southern values at the famous 1862 annual conference meeting in Athens, Tennessee. That this conference could so readily discard its cherished rules of procedural due process and expel ministers suspected of Unionist sympathies is due in no small part to Wiley’s absolute faith in the righteousness of Southern nationalism.35 When the Southern conferences withdrew in 1844 from the Methodist Episcopal Church to form a new church, the key issue was slavery. Despite the efforts of moderates in both sections, growing abolitionist sentiment in the North caused increasing numbers of Methodists to view slavery as a sin in itself, an immoral abuse and violation of human rights based on race that could no longer be tolerated by the most progressive democracy in the world. The ostensible cause of this historic rupture involved Bishop James Osgood Andrew, a mild-mannered, retiring man who had been elected to the episcopacy in 1832, ironically because he did not own any slaves at that

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Bishop James O. Andrew, slave-owning bishop whose property in human beings occasioned the split in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844. The result was the formation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Early engraving, reprinted in Pilkington, Methodist Publishing House, vol. 1, 295.

time. He had later inherited a black boy from his wife and had a mulatto girl bequeathed to him by an old lady in Augusta, Georgia. Because the state of Georgia had made emancipation illegal, he offered to send both slaves to Liberia or to a free state. Yet both slaves voluntarily declined to leave him. Andrew’s personal integrity and disinterest in continuing ownership of slaves he had never sought made him an iconic symbol to Southern proslavery Methodists, illustrating their long-held contention that slavery per se was not a moral evil and that extenuating circumstances involving the wellbeing of such slaves in question mitigated against the rigid enforcement of absolute, fixed rules in the Discipline. Northern churchmen, in contrast, saw the very fact of slave ownership as such an egregious sin in itself that no justification warranted the continuation as bishop of anyone owning slaves, for whatever reason.36 Ironically, the break in Methodism occurred in the 1844 General Conference because both Northern and Southern delegates feared they were

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losing ground within the church: Northern Methodists saw part of their constituency slipping away when some Northern abolitionists broke away to form their own Wesleyan Methodist Connection in 1843; Southern Methodists saw their position in the church becoming increasingly marginalized by the apparently rapid growth of abolitionism in Northern Methodism. The rejection of Bishop Andrew symbolized to Southerners a struggle between a slaveholding minority and a growing majority hostile to slavery. The Southern delegates who voted to meet in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1845 to form a new Southern Methodist church justified this schism essentially on the basis that Northern Methodists in their continuing antislavery agitation were departing from the basic doctrinal standards of their denomination. But the essential conflict rested primarily on a different definition of slavery between the two sections, with the Northern delegates seeing the institution increasingly as a sin per se and the Southerners continuing to argue that slavery was primarily a civil issue. Southern delegates in this regard angrily hurled back at their Northern brethren the accusation that they had violated a sacred tenet of Methodism by injecting a political issue—slavery—into the church’s primary forum in the General Conference.37 The secession of Southern Methodist conferences and formation of a new church is a story analyzed in exhausting detail by participants on both sides at the time and by later historians. Critical to understanding the growing division over slavery among Methodists in Holston, however, is their reaction to this separation. The 1844 Holston annual conference was deeply distressed at separation: “[O]ur hearts are exceedingly pained at the prospect of disunion.” Unwilling to see the church “lacerated and torn asunder, without one more effort to bind up her bleeding wounds,” the Holston ministers proposed one more attempt at compromise, with nonslaveholding conferences electing delegates to meet with the Southern delegates for the purpose of devising some plan to save the church. No other conference agreed to the Holston proposal; most of the Southern conferences seemed eager to separate and form their own church. In the 1845 Holston annual conference, formal resolutions were placed before the assembled ministers to determine by majority vote whether the Holston Conference wished to remain with the old Methodist Episcopal Church or join the newly formed Southern church. Explicitly they also resolved that they were satisfied with the existing Discipline “as it is, on the subject of slavery,” and would not tolerate any other changes. Although they resolved to “declare [their] adherence to the M. E. Church, South,” they “repudiate[d] the idea of secession in any schismatic or offensive sense of the phrase.” They were determined to “nei-

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ther give up nor surrender anything which [they had] received, as constituting any part of Methodism.” At this point, the vote was taken, names being expressly recorded as to choice. All members present voted for separation, with one exception.38 George Ekin, the venerable pioneer antislavery minister, voted in the negative and demanded that his written protest be entered into the conference record. It was indeed a memorable, deeply moving protest by any standard. Basically, Ekin said that neither the General Conference, the annual conference, nor the quarterly conferences could deprive a Methodist of membership “without a fair trial of accusation of misdemeanour or violation of our engagements with the Church.” Nor could the General Conference deprive them of their membership “even for gross immorality.” The right to expel members or ministers was “consigned to other tribunals whose proceedings must be according to the prescribed rules” in the Discipline. Likewise, the General Conference could not transfer its own powers, “much less . . . grant powers which it [did] not possess.” Under these circumstances, Ekin declared, he could not approve either the separation or the new Southern church formed at Louisville. “Here then in the name of God I make my protest,” he finally concluded, stating that his purpose was “to remain in the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States.” Ekin was so revered by members of the conference, his integrity so unimpeachable, that even his dissenting brethren were forced to admire his courage and audacity. Because he was so beloved by his Holston brethren, they finally managed to persuade him to remain in the newly formed church, largely because there was no immediate alternative. But his protest resonated loudly and clearly throughout the conference, and it was evident that many of his fellow ministers privately agreed with him.39 If some of Ekin’s fellow ministers signed the resolution to separate and form a new church against their wishes or better judgment, protest at the grassroots level in Holston was widespread among both the laity and local preachers. For example, Ekin received a letter from E. K. Hutsell, a superannuated minister living in Asheville, North Carolina. Hutsell disavowed “church division” and thought the General Conference did nothing wrong in Bishop Andrew’s case, “as we do not believe in a slaveholding Bishop,” and concluded by urging his old friend Ekin to write to the Christian Advocate and express his loyalty to the old Methodist Episcopal Church. Another friend, James St. Clair, writing from Wytheville, Virginia, on September 22, 1845, was more explicit about how unpopular separation was among Methodist laity: “I know not one here of the lay or official members who are

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George Ekin, pioneer itinerant in Holston Conference. An opponent of slavery and the separation of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844, he was nevertheless one of the most beloved brethren of his generation. From Price, Holston Methodism, vol. 2, 426.

willing to change their position except Brother James C. Walker,” who was still “undetermined” but of late “inclined to the South,” asserted St. Clair, adding that “Brother Absalom Fisher has taken the voice of several societies on Cripple Creek and the people are unanimous to stay as they always were.” St. Clair concluded that both he and his poor wife were cast off by all the preachers, those who had eaten at their table and sheltered from the winter storms, and their names were “cast out as evil.” They were called abolitionist bandits—“all because we cannot think they are right and go as they wish.” Finally, St. Clair concluded, “some of our preachers think we have no right to say a word about the division because we live in a southern conference.” Bishop Andrew “has brought on the Church a great calamity,” Ekin had earlier written to his grandson, a student at Emory and Henry College. “[C]an we not do as we have done—serve God without a slaveholding bishop?” Ekin plaintively concluded.40

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Even Price had to conclude that Ekin was not alone in his antagonism toward separation; within the bounds of Holston there were a number of preachers and laymen who sympathized with his views. Robertson Gannaway, for example, a prominent itinerant and presiding elder, was even more explicit over the uproar throughout the conference in 1845 over separation. It was only with great difficulty, he recalled, that the people were calmed at all, in districts, circuits, stations, and classes. Indeed, he concluded, “some were never calmed.” In one quarterly conference, the name of a local preacher was called for approval, and the man announced that “he did not consider himself a member of that body, and would not be examined by it.” The presiding elder, Brother Hicks, remonstrated with the local preacher and “endeavored to show the impropriety of his complaining now, if it was even wrong; the division had taken place, and so far, that matter was fixed.” Gannaway himself was “grieved sorely” at the division, but despite being an antislavery advocate who had emancipated his own slaves, he nevertheless supported the conference leadership. One can sense a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction among the local preachers, who already felt disenfranchised because they were denied the privilege of voting in annual conference on such critical issues. One such local preacher, Absalom B. Wright, hated slavery and strongly opposed the organization of the Southern Methodist church. “Could I have had a vote, I should have voted against it every time,” he concluded.41 Some of the itinerating ministers voting in favor of separation in 1845, such as William H. Rogers, James Cumming, William C. Daily, and Augustine F. Shannon, later disavowed their action and would be suspended from the church for Union and antislavery sympathies during the Civil War. How many more succumbed to intense pressure to go along with the leadership is difficult to ascertain, but the Holston Conference during the late 1840s seemed emphatic about maintaining conservative Methodist principles, arguing that Northern Methodists were the ones who had strayed from the path of true Wesleyan doctrines. Because antislavery sentiment had been such an important part of early Methodism, these ministers were placed in a difficult position. Partly for that reason, in 1849 the Holston annual conference expressly resolved, in “a unanimous rising vote,” that “this conference is fully satisfied with the Discipline of the Church, South, so far as it treats of the subject of slavery[,] and request our delegates to the next General Conference to use all prudent means to oppose any change in this particular.” R. N. Price argued that this unanimous vote was a clear indication that the Northern conferences were the “revolutionary party” in 1844

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and that, conversely, the Southern church represented true conservatism and continuity of traditional Methodist practices. Along these same lines, in the 1860 annual conference, the last before the Civil War erupted, the Holston Conference resolved that the word South be removed from the church’s name because it presented a false image “of us as sectional in our character and geographically circumscribed in our work.”42 The complex ambiguity of the actual realities of slavery, racism, and Holston Methodism’s divided mind over these issues came to a dramatic climax in the 1859 annual conference, held in Abingdon, Virginia. Coleman Campbell, the presiding elder of the Franklin district, western North Carolina, was charged by a prominent local preacher, Montraville M. Weaver, with having made “an attempt to have carnal communication with a woman of color.” The first incident occurred on July 6, 1859, “in the case of Easter[,] a colored girl belonging to Rev. M. M. Weaver at the stable” of Weaver’s. The second attempt occurred “in the case of the same girl” near the district parsonage “at the end of said Weaver’s lane this July 12th, 1859.” Weaver, his wife, Jane, and their son, John, all witnessed these scenes, and Campbell was expelled from the church by the conference as a result of their testimony. That the Holston brethren were so shocked that one of their trusted presiding elders would make such a blatant attempt twice seems surprising in light of the ubiquitous exploitation of slave women by the master class throughout the Old South. That a mere local preacher could challenge an itinerating minister successfully is due in this instance primarily to Weaver’s wealth and prominence.43 In the last General Conference of 1858 before the Civil War, the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in their pastoral letter unctuously declared that “the salvation of the colored race in our midst . . . is the primary duty of the Southern Church.” Yet in this same General Conference, the Southern Methodists removed from their Discipline the rule concerning “the buying and selling of men, women, and children, with an intention to enslave them.” Slavery was a question that “belonged to Caesar,” the Southern Methodist bishops piously rationalized, and any “ecclesiastical legislation upon it is contrary to the teachings of Christ and the example of the apostles.” Throughout the years following the division of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844, there were troubling signs that in the Holston Conference the souls of African Americans were being woefully neglected. Augustine F. Shannon, then an itinerating minister on the Decatur circuit, wrote in his diary on January 27, 1849, that he intended to pay more attention to the blacks “than some of the Bro. Preachers have done, [for] they

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are and have been to[o] much neglected by the Church.” On January 14, 1851, an anonymous correspondent likewise expressed great sorrow in the Holston Christian Advocate at the widespread neglect of blacks in religious matters. Even the venerable George Ekin reported in his diary on April 30, 1855, that a runaway slave in Greene County killed himself by cutting his own “throat from ear to ear” with a knife rather than return to an abusive master. Throughout his diary, Ekin lamented these “fruits of slavery” while simultaneously rejoicing at the response of African Americans to his preaching.44 Slavery was thus both the original cause of and a continuing irritant on the part of many Holston Methodists in their growing disdain toward the ascendancy of Southern nationalism in all its virulent forms during the 1850s. The great majority of local preachers throughout the conference were unsympathetic toward the “peculiar institution,” in stark contrast to the majority of the itinerating clergy, who saw tolerance toward slaveholders as a primary means of getting the best, wealthiest, Southerners to join their church. In most rural areas of Holston, class meetings continued unchanged into the 1860s, with their corollary component of African American class leaders, exhorters, and local preachers worshiping together with whites in unconscious harmony. Of course, the inferior status of local preachers in Holston played no small part in their continuing, if largely subterranean, hostility toward the conference leadership. But the continuity of local antislavery beliefs from the 1820s also played a role in their resistance to ecclesiastical authority in the form of proslavery itinerants and bishops. When in 1861 these local preachers were forced to make a political choice between the old Union and the new Confederacy, all these factors that had been seething for so long under the surface would explode in open dissent.

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Chapter 3 Identity through Dissent But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. —2 peter 2:1

John Brown’s raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in October 1859 flashed like a meteor in American history, searing the growing alienation between Southerners and Northerners and making the Civil War seemingly inevitable. Brown achieved his purpose in his crusade against slavery by creating conflicting images of himself in the respective minds of the South and the North. Southerners saw only the psychotic executioner at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas, whose intended slave rebellion into the South was reinforced by the discovery in his possession when captured at Harper’s Ferry of crude iron staves, intended to be distributed among slaves so they could attack their masters at night while asleep. Thanks to Brown’s incredible performance after his capture as a gentle, peaceful old man, Christlike in his behavior, his execution on December 2, 1859, caused church bells to be tolled throughout the North in a public display of mourning in honor of his martyrdom. These dual images proved impossible to erase or modify and essentially removed the last degree of mutual trust or respect from what were rapidly becoming two separate American nations, inexorably divided over the issue of slavery.1 Unfortunately, Brown’s raid and subsequent execution so dominated the American mind, North and South, that it had the unintended consequence of erasing from the popular memory another martyr to the antislavery cause, Anthony Bewley, who less than a year later would be brutally and without a shadow of due process hanged by an angry mob at Fort Worth,

Identity through Dissent

Texas, on September 13, 1860. Bewley’s hanging is even more remarkable because few noted at that time or later that he had begun his career as an itinerating Methodist minister in the Holston Conference, where he was first admitted on trial in 1829. More to the point, Bewley’s antislavery beliefs were typical of most Holston ministers at that time. Although the chronicler of Bewley’s execution, Charles Elliott, argued that the Texas mob made little distinction between antislavery and abolitionism, Bewley was actually conservative, law-abiding, and not in the least inclined to incite slaves to rebel against their masters, murder their owners at night, or burn their houses and barns, as John Brown was supposed to have done. Bewley’s father, John, was a local preacher and, according to a contemporary observer and Methodist local preacher, William Garrett, had been greatly influenced by the earlier antislavery agitation in Greene County, Tennessee, where he lived and raised his large family at the mouth of Lick Creek, on the Nolichucky River. Anthony Bewley married Jane Winton in 1834 and “located,” or became a local preacher. In 1837, the Bewleys moved to Polk County, Missouri, and six years later he resumed his career as an itinerating preacher in the Missouri Conference.2 When the Methodist Episcopal Church split over slavery in 1844 and the Missouri Conference voted to go with the Southern church, however, Bewley rebelled. Exercising the privilege of remaining in the old Methodist Church, a privilege not afforded to his former brethren in Holston, he became part of the new Missouri Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, organized in 1848. From 1852 until his death in 1860, he belonged to the Arkansas Conference of the original Northern Methodist church. In 1858, after having served ten years in northern Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri, Bewley moved his family to Johnson County, Texas, and established a mission of the Northern Methodist church sixteen miles south of Fort Worth. Some Northern Methodists considered Bewley to be weak on the issue of slavery, but in reality he was merely being consistent with what had always been his position. He was firmly and consistently opposed to slavery and never hesitated to tell anyone who asked him his exact views, but he was in no sense of the word an agitator or “ultra abolitionist,” as he was later accused of being. Well respected by his fellow preachers, Bewley never directly or indirectly induced slaves to leave their masters, nor did he “employ any arguments to render them discontented with their position, either in Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, or Texas,” according to his former brethren. The famous preacher and politician Peter Cartwright personally knew Bewley and argued that “a better man hardly ever lived.” Even his former colleague Parson Brownlow, although condemning his actions in the 58

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Knoxville Whig, admitted with a trace of nostalgia that Bewley was “a clever and upright man, but always antislavery, and rather a stubborn man.”3 Unlike John Brown, however, Anthony Bewley had absolutely no desire to become a martyr to the cause of antislavery. The circumstances surrounding his hanging represented almost a chance perfect storm of the collision in Texas of politics and religion. In July 1860, panic swept Texas in response to a widely reported slave conspiracy, presumably fueled by the diabolical abolitionist agents of the Methodist Episcopal Church. A possibly forged letter was mysteriously “discovered,” from W. H. Bailey to Bewley, dated July 3, 1860, which implicated the latter as an accomplice in raising an insurrection in Texas against slave owners. In light of the public clamor about the Bailey letter, Bewley determined to leave Texas and return to Cassville, Missouri, where his former friends resided. Leaving all his possessions and property, he fled with his wife and their eleven-year-old son, George. The other children—two married daughters, William (age nineteen), John (sixteen), Sarah (fourteen), and Robert (nine)—stayed behind, intending to join their parents in Indian Territory. When the family was thus reunited, they traveled on to Arkansas, where they were overtaken on September 3 by a mob “armed with bowie-knives and six-shooters, and having a bottle of whiskey.” Some of this mob had heard Bewley preach, and after questioning him sharply, they finally, albeit very reluctantly, allowed him to leave for Missouri.4 At this point, Bewley made a fatal decision, remaining in Barry County, Missouri, to rest a few days. Placards offering a thousand dollars for his capture and return to Fort Worth, Texas, were already posted in Missouri. On September 4, a mob from Texas seized Bewley, and with much abuse they finally took him back to Fort Worth, where he was summarily condemned, although he had made no confession, and was unceremoniously hanged on September 13. What happened after his death, however, shocked Northern Methodists even more, inextricably convincing them that Bewley’s executioners were fiends. Widely reported in Northern Methodist papers was the appalling fact that Bewley’s corpse was buried without coffin or box in a grave so shallow that his knees were seen protruding above the scanty soil where he lay. Three weeks later the corpse was dug up, the bones stripped of their flesh, and his skeleton placed on the roof of a storehouse, where thereafter it was desecrated by boys making the bones bend in a wide variety of mocking attitudes while they cheerfully shouted “old Bewley.”5 As historian Richard Carwardine rightly argues, Bewley’s reluctant martyrdom has scarcely received its historical due. At that time, however, Southern Methodists saw him as a radical incendiary justifiably prevented from fomenting future insurrections among their slaves. Northern 59

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Methodists, conversely, saw him as a moderate, “modest and peaceful” man whose constitutional and Christian rights had been trampled in the mire by Southern barbarism. But for Holston Methodism, Bewley’s life and death have even greater significance. His conservative but intensely held antislavery convictions were essentially unchanged over the course of his entire life. He refused to go out of his way to condemn slavery, unless specifically questioned, and remained devoted to quietly preaching the gospel as his primary calling. Yet as his former fellow minister Parson Brownlow recalled, Bewley was stubborn. He would not recant or deny his antislavery convictions, even before an angry, abusive mob whom he realized intended to kill him. Hundreds of other local preachers in Holston shared identical views but kept these views largely private in the face of growing Southern nationalism and identification of any antislavery sentiment with radical abolitionism during the 1850s. In this sense, Bewley’s whitened skeleton points a historical finger toward the subterranean attitudes of many East Tennesseans in regard to their latent but stubbornly unchanging opinions.6 East Tennessee’s historical dissent from traditional authority may have had its origins in the 1780s, when early settlers formed the abortive “lost” state of Franklin to protest North Carolina’s neglect of their pressing needs for civil government, courts, and military assistance in confronting hostile Cherokees whose territory they were invading. In the nineteenth century, however, this mountainous region suffered in comparison to the rapidly growing cotton economy in Middle and West Tennessee. Impoverished by comparison to the extraordinary growth in both population and prosperity around the Nashville basin, many East Tennesseans came to see their declining status as directly attributable to the domination of Middle Tennessee, especially. When during the 1830s internal improvements funded by the entire state were judged to have been unfairly monopolized by other sections of the state, East Tennessee proposed in 1841 and 1842 to separate, and form their own state, to be called Frankland. The earlier antislavery movement in upper East Tennessee, fueled by the comparative small numbers of slaves there, further complicated the issue. Although secession failed in 1842, many East Tennesseans continued to blame their relative backwardness and poverty on the other sections of the state and, as a corollary, continued to emphasize their own innate distinctiveness. Adding fuel to the political fire, some abolitionists such as Ezekiel Birdseye hoped that the new state of Frankland might enter the Union as a free state, a proposition that would have been anathema to the plantation slaveholders of the rest of the state.7 Strange to relate, this spirit of dissent also translated into the Holston Conference, a major portion of which lay within the boundaries of East Ten60

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nessee. Holston had been formed out of the Tennessee Conference in 1824, but thereafter a spirit of antagonism toward Nashville’s political and economic domination continued to be exhibited by Holston ministers, even, surprisingly, by those proslavery itinerating preachers who would joyfully join the Confederacy in 1861. As early as 1841, Parson Brownlow, former Methodist minister but at the time editor of the Jonesborough Whig, lamented that East Tennesseans had been too long “mere supplicants at the gate of the Nashville temple.” Earlier in its history, in an article written to the New York Christian Advocate and Journal, George Ekin inadvertently referred to his conference as “little Holston.” This expression became the common term by which the conference was known throughout Methodism for the remainder of the century, but its usage infuriated East Tennessee Methodists. But just as their regional compatriots transformed their supposedly inferior economic and political status into a virtue, so too would Holston Methodists heighten their own distinctiveness by emphasizing the superiority of a people uncorrupted by the wealth gained from slave ownership, reiterating an earlier Methodist belief in the ultimately corrupting power of worldly goods.8 Parson Brownlow best expressed this hostility toward the planter aristocracy of the South, indistinguishable in his mind from the dominant slaveholding class in Middle Tennessee, when he argued in January 1861, “[W]e are a grain-growing and stock-raising people” who refused to “be made hewers of wood and drawers of water for a set of aristocrats and overbearing tyrants.” Brownlow exemplified the fusion of religion and politics that had grown steadily throughout the nineteenth century in Holston. Early Methodists expressly prohibited their ministers from any involvement with politics. “Our kingdom is not of this world,” Bishop Asbury specifically argued in his valedictory, urging his ministers to shun temporal power. Gradually this separation from the world was inexorably breached when Holston ministers sought to persuade their followers to vote for a growing number of specific reforms such as temperance. In the 1839 annual conference, a motion was actually made to require both itinerating and local ministers to preach at least one sermon during the year on temperance. Yet only a year later, in 1840, the annual conference disapproved of David R. McAnally editing the Highland Messenger, a political paper, and resolved “that this conference disapprove of any of its members taking any action and public part in the political discussions and movements of the day.”9 By the 1850s, however, prominent Holston clergy openly belonged to and served on committees of temperance conventions, notably, the one held in Knoxville on February 18 and 19, 1853. Brownlow as editor of the Knoxville Whig urged voters to even go so far as to ignore party labels and vote 61

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for the strongest temperance advocates, with the complete support of other clergy who held positions of power in Holston. To the objection offered by some that temperance was a moral question that should not intrude into the political arena, Brownlow openly scoffed at such distinctions involving separation of church and state. Gambling, murder, counterfeiting, stealing, and false-swearing were all moral questions, he argued. “Have the people through their legislators trusted it to a dispensation of argument merely?” Holston Methodists thus helped shape and develop the forms and language of political discourse almost unintentionally. Their advocacy of Arminianism, under whatever label, reinforced republican political ideology that espoused popular participation, individual enterprise, and equality of opportunity. If advocacy of specific reforms such as temperance served both Methodist theological ends and the goals of republican ideology, fusion—or, to use an old favorite Methodist term, melding—of the two came naturally and painlessly by the middle of the nineteenth century.10 Because Parson Brownlow dominated both the religious and the political expression of Holston Methodism through his editorship of the Knoxville Whig, historical retrospect might suggest that he was sui generis. Noth-

Thomas Stringfield, prominent Holston itinerant who used his influence to weaken the rules against owning slaves. From Price, Holston Methodism, vol. 3, frontispiece.

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ing could be further from the truth. In fact, he was the last of three such Holston ministers to adopt a polemic attitude and fighting stance toward any opponents of Methodism in Holston. Subtly, but increasing over time, this polemical defiance or dissent entered the political realm of sectional loyalty or advocacy of East Tennessee, which would likewise seamlessly meld with religion. The first of these great Holston polemicists was Thomas Stringfield (1797–1858). As a youth he defiantly marched alone two hundred miles through the wilderness to join his father and two brothers, who had volunteered to fight under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. General Jackson personally approved his joining the militia, despite his age, after interviewing young Stringfield. Wounded by an Indian bullet in the forehead at the battle of Emuckfaw, young Tommy was thought to be dead, but he revived when Jackson, using his own bandana, bound up the boy’s wound. Thereafter Stringfield had a lifelong friendship with Andrew Jackson and was always welcomed at the Hermitage by his old commander.11 Upon joining the Methodist Church in 1816 in the Tennessee Conference, Stringfield showed no lessening of his youthful fighting spirit. In the autumn of 1823, while stationed in Huntsville, Alabama, he began publishing the Western Arminian, a monthly magazine dedicated to defending Methodism against increasingly bitter attacks from Presbyterians. Thereafter he continued his career as an editor in a wide variety of conference publications under various names. He served one year (1824–25) with George Atkin as joint editor of the Western Arminian and Christian Instructor, one year (1825– 26) as sole editor of this magazine, one year (1827) as editor of the Holston Conference Messenger, and two years (1828–29) as editor of the Holston Messenger. Between 1836 and 1840 he served as editor of the Southwestern Christian Advocate in Nashville, the predecessor of the Nashville Christian Advocate. He remained an itinerating minister in full connection with Holston except for the four years in Nashville, when he joined the Tennessee Conference. One year only, between 1827 and 1828, he also conducted a political newspaper, the Knoxville Enquirer, in whose columns he espoused the cause of his old friend, Andrew Jackson. Jointly editing both a political and a religious newspaper at the same time, while serving as presiding elder of a large district, brought the accusation against Stringfield that he was using his ministerial influence to gain votes for his friends seeking political office. Although he sold the political newspaper in 1828, the line between religion and politics seemed thereafter inexorably melded in his editorials.12 Stringfield was characterized by R. N. Price as a “controversialist” who showed little restraint in attacking his enemies, especially the Presbyterians, in print. Price concluded that the controversy between the Arminians 63

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and the Calvinists in Holston was inevitable, preceding Stringfield’s entry into the religious battle, but even he admitted that Stringfield’s participation quickly accelerated the bitterness and vituperative rhetoric on both sides. Three separate controversies in which Stringfield was the chief belligerent on the Methodist side were identified by Price: the Winchester controversy, the Rogersville controversy, and the central Virginia controversy. At Winchester, Stringfield objected to Methodists contributing toward a seminary at Maryville solely designed to educate youth for the Presbyterian ministry. In Rogersville, his celebrated debate in 1826 with the Presbyterians in their partially completed new church centered on a debate in previously published pamphlets between Stringfield and the Presbyterian minister James Gallaher. The latter, a member of the Hopkinsian party, was eager to vindicate his position by using Methodism as a gauge to measure the full extent of religious error from all who differed from their specific doctrines. As in contemporary political contests, both sides were convinced that their spokesperson had won the debate and vindicated the respective cause of either Presbyterianism or Methodism.13 The last of the three, the so-called central Virginia controversy, began when the Calvinistic Magazine under the editorship of Gallaher and another controversial Presbyterian minister, Frederick A. Ross, published a pastoral letter of the Presbytery of Lexington, warning of the “extraordinary” means by which the Methodists in their “implacable hostility against our doctrines and institutions” were seeking openly to destroy the Presbyterian Church. Personal attacks, accusations, and theological disputations quickly followed on both sides, but what is truly remarkable, if one painstakingly reads Stringfield’s rebuttals, is both the obviously political rhetoric he employs and the clear sense throughout that Presbyterians were invading Methodist territory in Holston, and not just in a theological or metaphysical sense. When the expression “our country” is used in this context, it is clearly meant to represent the geographical locale of Holston in southwestern Virginia, East Tennessee, and western North Carolina. In this sense of intense localism, whether political or religious, Stringfield ultimately stigmatized Presbyterians as alien invaders, threatening not only Zion but also Methodist citizenship in the Holston country. It is also distinctly an effort on his part to solidify the particular group identity of Holston Methodists within East Tennessee by vigorously dissenting from outside challenges to its ecclesiastical authority and the structure of its church government.14 This transference of regional identity is largely unconscious in the rhetoric Stringfield employed to defeat his Presbyterian enemies, but it is

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strongly entrenched in the examples he used to defend Methodist practices in a very specific location. In point of fact, the extraordinarily rapid growth of Methodists threatened what had always been Presbyterian territory prior to the establishment of the Holston Conference in 1824. When Frederick A. Ross repeated familiar charges that bishops controlling where ministers were placed in Methodism threatened republican freedom and that class meetings were just another form of the Roman Catholic confessional, where corrupt itinerants debauched women members, Stringfield replied with equally vicious countercharges. He cited an example in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where five Presbyterian ministers had gone in quest of a church but had ended up attacking one another, indulging in personal abuse, and ultimately dividing the Presbyterian congregation there in hopeless confusion. Such fallacious practice leading to disputes and contention would never occur under the Methodist system, Stringfield argued, because there was no appeal from any assignment the bishop of the conference made to any itinerating minister. When the Presbyterians denied that this dispute in North Carolina had ever happened, Stringfield indefatigably wrote to prominent citizens of Buncombe County and produced certificates signed by them abundantly corroborating his claim.15 The second great polemicist holding back the tide of Calvinism in Holston was Samuel Patton (1797–1854). Admitted into the Tennessee Conference in 1819, Patton joined the Mississippi Conference from 1821 until 1824, then was readmitted in Holston after locating in 1825. Thereafter he was a major statesman in Holston Methodism, serving as presiding elder and frequent delegate to the General Conference. Unlike Stringfield, Patton was not pugnacious by nature, nor would he condescend to attacking personalities or vilifying his opponents personally. As R. N. Price says of him, he “antagonized error, not men.” Although Patton’s arguments were never unfair or partisan, his stature and personal integrity made him a powerful opponent against the enemies of Methodism in Holston. Like Stringfield, he fought three basic battles in what were called the Arian controversy, the radical controversy, and the second Calvinistic controversy (known also as the Ross controversy because Frederick A. Ross, a prominent Presbyterian minister, was its main leader). The Arian sect claimed to be a no-sect group, denouncing written creeds and sectarian titles of other churches to establish their own nondenominational church, congregational in structure. The group invading Holston country boldly denounced the “bondage of creeds” and denied the doctrine of the trinity, holding that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit were inferior to the Father in every respect.16

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Samuel Patton, influential Holston itinerant and editor of Holston newspapers. He fought to maintain a separate conference newspaper in order to maintain Holston’s identity. From Price, Holston Methodism, vol. 3, frontispiece.

When Patton first encountered this group in 1825 in East Tennessee and southwestern Virginia, they were variously called “New Lights,” “Schismatics,” or “Arians,” but their sole objective seemed to be aggressive proselytism to destroy existing churches and build their own upon the ruins. Often they were former members of one of the established churches who had encountered difficulty with particular rules or restrictions. Patton’s biographer, David R. McAnally, says that while denouncing bigotry, they “themselves were the greatest and most intolerant of bigots.” Also ironic was the fact that while bitterly denouncing sects, these Arians almost inadvertently became the most exclusive sectarians, according to their Methodist critics. Patton hated controversy but reluctantly yielded to pressure from his own church and gave in Scott County, Virginia, on September 25, 1825, a rousing defense of Methodist doctrine while simultaneously attacking Arianism. Publication of this sermon only roused his Arian opponents to more frenzied attacks, and the controversy continued unabated for four more years. Eventually, however, this movement dissipated as rapidly as it had begun;

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R. N. Price argued that it was “an unseemly conglomeration of heterogeneous elements” and shattered to pieces because of its own “innate disharmony.”17 The so-called radical controversy, which Patton was next obliged to deal with, involved a struggle deep in the historical roots of American Methodism for a more democratic distribution of power between the laity and clergy. Although a dissenting group broke away from the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1830 to form the Methodist Protestant Church, which gave representation at annual conferences to the laity, they continued to publicly attack the mother church for its policies. In 1842, these radicals, as they were called, published a scathing attack on the Methodist Episcopal Church entitled “Questions and Answers Explanatory of the Government of the M.E. Church,” which viciously offered “a wonderfully clear and irrefutable exposure of the monarchical and tyrannical character of the government” of the older church. Patton replied in a written pamphlet, severely criticizing every statement in the attack by putting the anonymous author on trial for falsehood and misrepresentation. When this pamphlet, “Minutes of the Trial and Conviction of a Prisoner,” was widely circulated, Patton was again called on to publicly defend his position in a debate occurring in July 1843. He ably defended the polity of his church not on the basis of divine right but rather on grounds of expediency—that it worked best in a particular time and location but could be changed later because the New Testament did not specify any particular form of church government. Despite all the bitterness and accusations hurled at Patton in this debate, his point that Methodism could change its ecclesiastical government proved correct in 1866, after the Civil War, when the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, did grant formal representation in its General Conference to the laity.18 The controversy with the Presbyterians was essentially a continuation of the same debate Thomas Stringfield had fought earlier. By 1846 Frederick A. Ross had renewed his attacks against Methodism in the revived Calvinistic Magazine in Rogersville, attempting to demonstrate that the doctrine of the direct witness of the Spirit as taught by John Wesley was “unscriptural, false, fanatical, and of mischievous tendency.” Patton again responded to these attacks in his published writings and through the columns of the Methodist Episcopalian (1846–50) and the Holston Christian Advocate, the same conference paper he edited under a different name until his death in 1854. William G. Brownlow (a former itinerating minister in Holston until he located and began publishing a political paper, the Whig, in 1839 first in Elizabethton, then in Jonesborough in 1840, and finally moving to Knoxville in 1849) stated facetiously that the religious controversies between Methodists

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and other denominations had reached too low a plane to justify the more decent ministers engaging in them, so he therefore felt it was time for him to enter the fight. Ross, for example, Brownlow felt had been treated far too gently by Methodist ministers, who mistakenly considered him “a dignified Christian minister.” Brownlow resolved to make no such mistake: “I take the slanderer by the throat, and drag him forth from his hiding-place, and shake him naked over hell, in all his deformity!”19 In William G. Brownlow, religious and political controversy became inseparable, melded together by the unmatched vituperation and character assassination meted out to his enemies, whether Presbyterians, Baptists, or Democrats. Essentially Brownlow knew no limits in his personal journalism, yet his extreme partisanship was occasionally tempered by attacks against members of his own party or church. Irascible and independent, Brownlow, although he had located in 1836 when he married Eliza Ann O’Brien, never forgot his formative years as an itinerating minister in Holston between 1826 and 1836. Yet even those years on the circuit had been characterized by controversy; in 1829 the Holston annual conference disapproved “the spirit and manner” of a pamphlet he had written against a Presbyterian elder, William Smith, of Rhea County, who subsequently sued him for libel. Two years later, in 1831, he was again censured for his “style of writing and manner of conducting his opposition to the institutions and proceedings of other denominations.” Yet Holston ministers recognized his talents and usefulness to Methodism in light of increasingly bitter sectarian attacks from both the Baptists and the Presbyterians. At this same conference where his style of writing was censored, he was nevertheless singularly honored to be elected a delegate to the General Conference at what was then considered to be the very young age of twenty-seven.20 Brownlow as a controversial political editor suffered excruciating physical attacks on his person, which he had never had to endure before as an itinerating, if nevertheless disputatious, Methodist minister. On March 2, 1840, someone fired two bullets through his window while he was sitting at home before a candle, writing. Although he pursued his unknown assailant vigorously, the “scoundrel” was never apprehended. Brownlow, however, never doubtful of his instincts, immediately openly charged Landon Carter Haynes, editor of the rival Democratic paper, the Tennessee Sentinel, of having attempted to assassinate him, and an already dangerous confrontation escalated on May 14, 1840, when Brownlow began beating Haynes with his cane on the streets of Jonesboro, and Haynes pulled out a concealed pistol and fired a shot through the thigh of the Parson, as Brownlow was known.

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Neither editor had seriously injured the other, but a savage editorial warfare erupted, with Brownlow calling Haynes “the prince of villains, hypocrites, and political prostitutes” in his Jonesboro Tennessee Whig. In late summer of 1842, Brownlow’s enemies attacked him from behind with clubs at a camp meeting and beat him severely, an assault that ultimately seriously injured his health. Brownlow had publicly lamented in 1841 that he daily moved “in the midst of an unprincipled band of assa[s]sins, bloodhounds, and murderers” seeking to kill him. When his enemies sought to remove him as a local preacher from the Methodist Church, he used these attacks to justify his harsh rhetoric and was acquitted of censure by a vote of twenty to three.21 In 1843, following a protracted dispute again intermingling religion and politics, Haynes accused Reverend W. C. Harris, a Methodist itinerating preacher, of having lied because he had related the details of this dispute to Brownlow and it was subsequently used in the columns of the Jonesboro Tennessee Whig to vilify Haynes. The quarterly conference of the Jonesboro circuit, meeting at Earnest’s Chapel on February 11, 1843, unanimously acquitted Harris of the accusation of lying but then charged Haynes with falsehood and slander. At a subsequent quarterly conference trial at Bethesda, on April 29, 1843, Haynes was found guilty of falsehood and slander by a vote of fourteen to ten. On another motion to silence Haynes from preaching, however, the vote was tied twelve to twelve, and subsequently the tie was broken by the presiding elder, Samuel Patton, who decided against Haynes. In the aftermath of this clear victory for Brownlow, Haynes not only attacked the Methodist Church and Brownlow with incredible viciousness but also subjected the elderly Patton to a bewildering volume of continuous abuse for supposedly showing blatant favoritism toward his old friend. Patton thereafter would remain one of Brownlow’s closest friends, boarding without charge in his home when he edited the conference paper Methodist Episcopalian/Holston Christian Advocate from 1846 until his death in 1854.22 In attempting to analyze or place within the larger context of political as well as religious dissent Brownlow’s battles with the Presbyterians and the Baptists, it is important to acknowledge at the outset that Methodism within Holston was attacked first by these denominations, and attacked, moreover, with initial severity. Frederick A. Ross had been part of the early onslaught against Holston Methodism in 1825 when he and two other Presbyterian ministers, David Nelson and James Gallaher, founded the Calvinistic Magazine in Rogersville for that express purpose. Reviving this magazine in 1846 with Isaac Anderson, James King, and James McChain, Ross further published that year in Philadelphia a book whose scurrilous title made his

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intent obvious: The Doctrine of the Direct Witness of the Spirit, as Taught by the Rev. John Wesley, Shown to Be Unscriptural, False, Fanatical, and of Mischievous Tendency. In point of fact, there was little new of theological substance in these fresh assaults. Emphasizing the despotic nature of the Methodist Church government, Ross claimed that Methodism was an iron wheel that eventually would destroy the country if not stamped out by armed force. Wesley had been a Tory opposed to the American Revolution, Ross further argued, and camp meetings were highly vulgar if not downright immoral occasions for unbridled license at which Methodists shouted like red Indians. All Methodists, Ross continued, believed (as did Wesley) in witches, spooks, signs, and omens, and class meetings were little more than debauched pietism where imagination ran wild and true moral character was “subordinate and degraded.”23 Brownlow responded to these attacks on Methodism by making exaggerated and extremely scurrilous personal attacks against Ross in both his newspaper, the Jonesboro Whig, and in a periodical devoted to Ross, the Jonesborough Monthly Review, published between 1847 and 1848. He accused Ross of being the child of a black slave by her master, a Tory, and frequently referred to him as “Frederick Africanus Ross.” Not stopping at even these depths of scurrility, he resorted to a familiar tactic used in his newspaper of verbally assaulting Ross’s relatives in an equally vicious fashion: Ross’s brother had stolen six thousand dollars from a saddlebag he cut open, and his father “had died as he lived, a debauched old thief.” One of Ross’s nieces had supposedly run away with a married man and was living with him as though they were married; a nephew abandoned his wife and child and eloped with a “base woman,” in the Far West. Another brother had committed suicide, and his son had committed an act so grossly immodest at a camp meeting that Brownlow could not bring himself to describe it. Confronted with this overwhelming barrage of character assassination, Ross abandoned the field of battle and moved to Huntsville, Alabama, in 1853, remaining there until his death in 1882. Brownlow’s boast that Ross’s departure from East Tennessee represented a victory for both himself and Methodism rang hollow in light of the scorched-earth vituperative rhetoric he had employed without restraint against his opponent.24 A far more serious challenge to Brownlow and Methodism came from the militant Baptist editor of the Tennessee Baptist in Nashville, J. R. Graves. One of the most powerful and influential leaders in his denomination, Graves was far more skillful than Ross had been at “assaulting the dead body of John Wesley,” as Brownlow put it. In 1856 he published a best-selling

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attack against Methodism entitled The Great Iron Wheel; or, Republicanism Backwards and Christianity Reversed. Remarkably, in the very same year, Graves also published The Little Iron Wheel: A Declaration of Christian Rights and Articles, Showing the Despotism of Episcopal Methodism on the very same theme. Reviving many of the same charges that Ross and other Presbyterians had previously made, Graves characterized the Methodist organization as a great iron wheel containing many wheels within wheels, from traveling preachers to class leaders. This wheel was antidemocratic in form, dominating its membership through highly dubious means of social control and dangerously threatening to undermine the stability of the republic. Above all, the power of the bishops seemed an exact replica of Roman Catholicism, with all its attendant evils jeopardizing separation of church and state in Protestant America. In the second book, The Little Iron Wheel, Graves resorted to personal attacks on Brownlow, and his writing style was persuasive and far more effective than had been the articles and book by Ross. Brownlow, by then clearly the unofficial spokesperson for Holston Methodism, rose to the challenge and answered Graves’s arguments point by point in his 1856 The Great Iron Wheel Examined; or, Its False Spokes Extracted, and an Exhibition of Elder Graves, Its Builder.25 If Elder Graves was unable to prevent American democracy and Protestantism from being crushed under the oppressive weight of the great iron wheel of Methodism, however, neither was Parson Brownlow entirely successful in extracting all of the false spokes from his opponent’s arguments. Graves’s most telling criticisms of Methodism focused on the status and treatment of local preachers, and these charges had such a ring of truth to them that not even Brownlow’s uncharacteristically weak rebuttals could entirely deny them. If an itinerating minister located, for reasons of health or family considerations, before he reached retirement age, he was essentially denied the pension that was customarily provided for “superannuated” ministers and their families. Further, Graves charged, a local preacher was “degraded at once in the eyes of the whole traveling connection, in the eyes of the bishop.” He was subsequently excluded from participating in annual conferences and assumed a powerless position inferior in every respect to that of his traveling brethren. A local preacher thereafter was subjected to “the most rigid and oppressive espionage” from both class leaders and members of the quarterly conferences, which were largely controlled by the preacher in charge and the presiding elder. He was also expected to routinely attend a class meeting and could lose his license to even be a local preacher if he neglected attending any of these meetings. If he left his neighborhood, he was

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dependent on the preacher in charge or presiding elder of the circuit to give or withhold a certificate of his standing as a local preacher.26 Local preachers generally were a persecuted class, dependent on the will of the preacher in charge or on the presiding elder’s whim. If either of them judged him to be troublesome, or exhibiting restiveness under their petty oppression, they could easily and arbitrarily get rid of him. Always there was the suspicion about why he had located in the first place, and often the assumption (however tacit) was that in so doing he had in essence betrayed Methodism. Furthermore, Graves insisted, if a popular, superior itinerating preacher located, he was immediately judged obnoxious by a jealous preacher in charge. The latter or a class leader could determine whether the local preacher lived near enough to perform pastoral duties on the circuit or whether his health was sufficient for these tasks. Merely the barest report against his character could bring the hapless and helpless local preacher to trial a dozen times a year. Had he used “improper words” or been guilty of “improper tempers” or “improper actions”? Even if these reports were “utterly groundless,” put in circulation by those seeking to injure him, the local preacher’s “influence and usefulness, however great they may have been” were considered “at an end, though he may have been triumphantly acquitted.” In the final analysis, Graves argued, a local preacher in the Methodist church was “a degraded man. He is snubbed about and domineered over by beardless class-leaders and circuit-riders until he loses his self-respect.”27 Brownlow denied all these charges, claiming that he himself had located in 1836, becoming a local preacher in order to edit a political newspaper, and had not suffered any ill effects as a consequence. But Brownlow was obviously not the typical local preacher who had located or simply been promoted by the local quarterly conference to that standing. Fuel for Graves’s powerful arguments came from the columns of editor John B. McFerrin’s Nashville Christian Advocate, which frequently contained articles from either disgruntled local preachers or those traveling preachers who complained about their local brethren. It is undeniable, moreover, that in Holston local preachers often felt as if their status was deliberately inferior to that of their traveling brethren, and many resented their lack of representation at annual conferences. These resentments and status anxiety would surface dramatically during the course of the Civil War, when in contrast to the loyalty to the Confederacy exhibited by Holston’s itinerating preachers, a great majority of the local preachers remained steadfastly loyal to the Union. Not until that point, however, were they able to express their identity as fully capable ministers through dissent.28

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As a corollary to his arguments about the lack of power among local preachers, Graves further contended that in Methodism the itinerating ministers represented a sort of “clerical aristocracy,” corrupted by the excessive power of their position to manifest excessive pride and arrogance toward the disenfranchised laity. Too often there were “favorites” among them who were given unfairly preferential appointments by the bishop, causing jealousy and dissension among their ranks. Criticism of emotional excess and exhibitionism in Methodist revivals and camp meetings prompted Brownlow to relate six specific case studies of Baptist conversions, whose singularities he argued far outweighed any excesses charged against Methodism. Graves also specifically attacked class meetings as a requirement for membership in the Methodist Church, but on this issue he was on much weaker ground, and Brownlow’s rebuttal was devastating. Brownlow simply pointed to both the numbers and the positions of Methodist laity—senators and representatives in both state and national government, governors, Supreme Court justices, and judges at all levels of government, presidents and professors of colleges, and lawyers, doctors, and merchants in every walk of life who were voluntarily members of his denomination. If the civil or religious liberties of such people were threatened, Brownlow asked, why did they remain Methodists? “To say the least of it, the idea is superlatively ridiculous!” He also with devastating sarcasm deconstructed Graves’s “pictorial representation of the Methodist Wheels,” arguing with mock sincerity that his opponent had mistakenly placed the bishops on the outside of these wheels, a proposition contrary to the very point Graves was attempting to make about excessive episcopal control of the church.29 A careful reading of Brownlow’s writings, however, reveals a far more complex defense not just of Methodism but of the geographic area of Holston that in his unconscious attitudes had become part of the religious topography of his country, melded together by attacks from outside. In his 1834 Helps to the Study of Presbyterianism, for example, he assailed the corrupting influences on Holston Methodism of various national nonsectarian ecclesiastical organizations in precisely these terms. He charged the American Sunday School Union, for example, of being sectarian, of having only token Methodist representation on its board, and of advocating reading materials that were offensive to the teachings and doctrines of Methodism. Imposing a “national character upon benevolent societies, so as to merge all distinction of sects in their operation,” Brownlow argued, threatened Holston Methodism at the grassroots level of its existence. He provided written statements from local preachers John Key, Carter Trim, and Reuben Stone to verify that

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agents of the ASSU had misrepresented approval of their literature by the Methodist Episcopal Church. Other exhorters and local preachers—John W. Johnston, James Smith, and Nathan Carter—provided a sworn statement that they had approved uniting their Sunday schools based on erroneous information provided by these same agents. The agency of these local preachers whom Brownlow knew while traveling on the Tellico circuit in 1831 also demonstrates that his fears were not idiosyncratic but were broadly shared by fellow Methodists in Holston.30 Brownlow made similar charges against the American Tract Society, the American Bible Society, and the American Education Society, even drawing the American Temperance Society and the American Colonization Society into his diatribe against national organizations he accused of subverting Holston autonomy and Methodist doctrinal integrity. His greatest ire, however, was reserved for the American Home Missionary Society’s proselytizing in his territory. Founded in 1826 to coordinate the domestic missionary work of the Calvinist churches, the AHMS was supported by Presbyterian, Congregational, Reformed Dutch, and Associated Reformed denominations but was predominantly funded and controlled by New School Presbyterians after the 1837–38 split in that church. Brownlow charged them with pretending to be nonsectarian, seeking donations from Methodists under the guise of foreign mission work but in reality funding Presbyterian ministers to establish churches in East Tennessee. “Almost every young Hopkinsian preacher settled in the bounds of the East Tennessee Synod, having a school, with one small congregation or more, receives at present, or has received, a certain stipulated sum of money from this Society, for his labors as a home missionary,” Brownlow angrily charged.31 These Presbyterian home missionaries, although pretending to believe in the doctrine of “disinterested benevolence,” were nevertheless mercenary to an extreme degree, the Parson further asserted. Ask them to sing one of “the songs of Zion” in the “strange land” of East Tennessee, he sarcastically continued, and the chorus will always be “money! Money!! money!!!” But the single feature of the AHMS that angered Brownlow most was their assertion that most of East Tennessee was a “moral waste” in regard to religion, “utterly destitute” of ministers of the gospel of any denomination. These charges were made in the AHMS publications regarding specific locations in Holston, including Abingdon, Virginia; Knoxville; Anderson County, Tennessee; and Strawberry Plains in Jefferson County, Tennessee. These specific locations were actually strongholds of Holston Methodism, being amply supplied with itinerating and local preachers and having large

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congregations of dutiful Methodist Church members. Of course, the AHMS advertised in this manner to seek donations for sending home missionaries to locations within the United States, regardless of the actual condition of existing denominations already operating there. But for Brownlow, this particular insult combined his defensive attitude toward East Tennessee’s declining political status with Holston Methodism’s fear of invasion from proselytizing outside Presbyterians. It was a characteristic reaction on his part, a pattern that would momentously reassert itself in the debates over secession prior to the Civil War.32 No single issue better demonstrates Holston’s sense of its own identity and status being under attack, however, than the question of having its own conference newspaper. In the late 1820s, Thomas Stringfield had endeavored to supply Holston with such a newspaper, but the exorbitant cost of this undertaking had left him deeply in personal debt. The General Conference of 1836 located a weekly paper at Nashville, called the Southwestern Christian Advocate, and chose Stringfield as editor. Although the basis of this new religious paper rested on the Western Methodist, a paper established in 1833 by Lewis Garrett and John Newland Maffitt, which was bought out by Stringfield and a committee acting with him, the new enterprise faced financial difficulties from the beginning. Better at polemical argument than business, Stringfield left after the General Conference of 1840 paid debts amounting to seven thousand dollars, with the proviso that if the paper did not succeed in one year it would be discontinued. At that point, John B. McFerrin was elected editor (in 1840) of what would become one of the most successful and influential Methodist papers in the South, eventually assuming the name of the Nashville Christian Advocate. The success of this paper paralleled the rapidly growing prosperity of Middle Tennessee, which comprised the Tennessee Conference, and ultimately the paper would become the organ of this much larger, more prosperous conference as Holston and East Tennessee sank in comparative terms in wealth, population, and influence in both the state of Tennessee and the Methodist Church. It also occurred in a period when East Tennesseans felt politically cheated out of their fair share of state tax revenues for internal improvements, and moved in 1842 to try to form a separate state, Frankland, to repair the losses inflicted, as it seemed, by the selfish greed of the dominant middle section of Tennessee.33 To preserve their own identity and self-respect, therefore, there was an overwhelming push in Holston’s annual conference of 1845 to establish their own paper, the Methodist Episcopalian, and members of the conference elected Samuel Patton as editor. In the 1846 annual conference, the enthusiasm

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for this undertaking was underscored by the willingness of Holston to share in any losses incurred in the first and second volumes published and to require that each preacher purchase the paper, in return for 10 percent of the price on all copies sold to other members of the church. The conference minutes further declared “that this Conference shall not only be considered bound as a conference to sustain all the pecuniary responsibilities connected with the publication of the paper, but that the members of this body, severally and individually, shall be considered as bound.” Patton was voted one hundred dollars for his editorial services during the past six months and was recommended to be appointed by the bishop as editor for the next year. The committee, composed of Thomas Stringfield, Elbert Sevier, and Charles Collins, noted “that there is a strong and increasing necessity for the publication of the paper” and that they were “well pleased with the manner in which” Patton had executed his services. As editor, he was further extolled for exercising the “strictest economy” in publishing the Methodist Episcopalian. The high praise and enthusiasm for this paper in the conference minutes does indeed clearly reflect that a broadly based groundswell of public support existed in Holston for its own separate conference paper.34 Samuel Patton’s subsequent attacks in the Methodist Episcopalian (1846– 50), and its successor under another title, the Holston Christian Advocate (1850–54), against the Nashville Christian Advocate amazed and bewildered John B. McFerrin, editor of the Nashville paper. More important is that these continuing attacks clearly reflect a deep sense of hostility toward and alienation from the Tennessee Conference on the part of Holston Methodists. Patton argued in 1849 that his paper had never received one subscriber outside the bounds of Holston and, furthermore, while confronting “the most deadly hostility to Methodism,” the Methodist Episcopalian had received “little or no sympathy from our brethren in other Conferences.” The reason for this hostility and indifference from primarily the Tennessee Conference in Nashville was obvious, Patton observed. “We will not disguise that we have long known the existence of a disposition to undervalue everything connected with the country in which our lots are cast, or with the Holston Conference. We have not the facilities for traveling; neither have we the wealth which is common to those Conferences which border around us.” Here, plainly stated, was the essence of the argument. Holston members and East Tennesseans generally felt inferior to Middle Tennessee and the Tennessee Conference located there, and expressed outrage at the perception of condescension exhibited toward their “country” by the wealthier, more populous sister conference.35

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John B. McFerrin, founder of the Southern Methodist Publishing House, waged a continuing battle to place Holston Conference under his religious paper, the Nashville Christian Advocate, which he edited between 1840 and 1858. From McFerrin’s History of Methodism in Tennessee, vol. 2, reprinted in Pilkington, Methodist Publishing House, vol. 1, 331.

McFerrin purported to be utterly amazed by this attitude, arguing that Patton and the Holston Conference were paranoid. “Now we really think Brother Patton undervalues himself and his Conference, for we know that both he and his Conference both stand ‘very high’ among their brethren South.” He went on to praise Holston highly, if somewhat condescendingly, noting the Holston Conference’s “noble stand taken in the defence of Methodism, in sustaining literary institutions, and in the ‘vexed question’ that has endeared them to their brethren of the sister conferences.” Holston’s “beautiful valleys, lofty mountains, pure rivers, rich mines, vast forests and wholesome atmosphere,” McFerrin further argued, “have been the theme of poets and the admiration of the American people.” Admittedly, Holston had “labored under some embarrassments for want of ‘facilities for traveling’ and a good outlet to market, but then so important is your country that your sister States and the other divisions of your own state have determined

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to create ‘facilities’ to go to you if you cannot reach them.” Holston’s “population too is regarded as a noble, chivalrous race; men of iron frames and tempered with steel, and intellectually they are regarded as possessing giant minds, capable of coping with the mightiest of the mighty.” Brother Patton was “laboring under a sad delusion” to suppose other sections undervalued either him or his “country,” McFerrin concluded, adding that he believed the Methodist Episcopalian was “conducted with ability and taste,” except for these “occasional indulgences in little jealousies.”36 Brother Patton, however, was not to be deterred by these apparent attempts at flattery, and the attacks continued unabated against McFerrin’s conference and paper. A correspondent from Holston wrote on February 16, 1849, that he regretted “exceedingly the want of good feeling between yourself [McFerrin] and Bro. Patton.” He further stated that such misunderstandings occurring between wise and good men was not so strange as indeed was the fact that apparently “they should never have an end.” Patton’s repeated insistence that his paper and conference were “undervalued” was judged to be a variety of melancholy running into “hypochondriasis.” Subsequently, the Nashville Christian Advocate and its editor continued to be the “object of frequent jeers and sarcastic remarks” by Patton and his correspondents. Yet when the Knoxville Register, a political paper, in September 1849 attacked the “personal, moral, and ministerial character” of “our friend Patton, editor of the Episcopalian,” McFerrin sprung to a magnificent defense of Patton, praising his probity and integrity in the highest possible terms. Throughout the years of combat, McFerrin tried to conciliate, flatter, and praise Patton, but the efforts at compromise were all one-sided. An example of such flattery can be seen in a statement by McFerrin in March 1854, when he said that the Holston Christian Advocate was “a very ably conducted sheet, edited by our old friend, Rev. Samuel Patton, D.D.,” who “displays sound judgment and much industry” and whose hard-fought battles on behalf of Methodism are “now known to all the world, and the rest of mankind.” In after ages, Patton’s name would be a “watch-word among those who shall be called upon to defend the territory he has so gloriously won.”37 Yet in the final analysis, the hostility Patton displayed toward the Nashville Christian Advocate and its editor was not a personal idiosyncrasy but reflected broadly the attitudes of Holston itinerating ministers at all levels of that conference, as well as the opinions of the laity and local preachers. Evidence of this widespread hostility erupted in the 1854 annual conference after Patton’s death on August 1, 1854, when McFerrin presented a proposal to that body from the Tennessee Conference to merge the Holston Christian

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Advocate and the Memphis Christian Advocate with the Nashville Christian Advocate. He made a strong argument for this merger, citing the fact that the Holston paper was in debt and that neither its geographic size nor its membership was sufficient to support a paper. To the argument that a local paper was needed to defend the conference should another religious controversy arise, McFerrin replied that they had Brownlow to ably and readily fight any such possible battle from the columns of his Knoxville Whig. Ephraim E. Wiley, president of Emory and Henry College, moved that this proposal be rejected even after speeches on its behalf from McFerrin, Rev. E. H. Myers (editor of the Southern Christian Advocate), and Rev. H. P. Pitchford of the Georgia Conference had urged its acceptance. The motion to reject McFerrin’s proposal passed, thirty-six to twenty-five. At this point Brownlow, although initially vociferously opposed to the idea, yielded and spoke on McFerrin’s behalf, pointing out how Brownlow had personally had to subsidize his friend Patton’s editorship by boarding him without charge at his own home. Under these circumstances, the conference members reluctantly reconsidered and voted to merge their paper with McFerrin’s Nashville Christian Advocate.38 Why Brownlow supported McFerrin’s merger proposal scheme against the clear wishes of the majority of ministers and laity in Holston seems obvious. His old friend Samuel Patton had been a financial and ecclesiastical burden on the editor of the Knoxville Whig, but one he had gladly borne as long as the elderly minister remained alive. Clearly Brownlow wanted to be the chief, unrivaled spokesperson for Holston, invulnerable from any contradiction possibly coming from a rival paper in the same town. Also, his old friend Patton had become the target of a bitter attack from Brownlow’s rival paper, the Knoxville Register, and Brownlow did not wish to see any other friends become hostages to his own political battles. When McFerrin visited Knoxville to attend a temperance meeting in the fall of 1855, he was warmly received by Brownlow and stayed at the latter’s home. Not until the early 1860s when the issue of Tennessee’s secession from the Union was raised would Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig come into serious conflict with McFerrin and the Nashville Christian Advocate. By 1864, however, the full fury of the Parson’s incomparable vituperation would be directed at all the Southern Christian Advocates, “edited by arrogant slave-holders, who were flattered by the political demagogues of the South” to destroy both Methodism and the Union.39 East Tennessee’s jealousy of the Tennessee Conference’s success was not assuaged when Nashville was chosen in 1854 as the location for the

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publishing house of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. If the editor of the Nashville Christian Advocate supposed its subscriber list, numbering about thirteen thousand that year, would lead to a cessation in Holston’s demands for its own church paper, however, he was quite mistaken. A reporter from the St. Louis Christian Advocate noted in March 1855 that the people in Holston were extremely dissatisfied about the discontinuance of their own paper and were agitating for another to be established. Reverend William Hicks established the Herald of Truth in Hendersonville, North Carolina, within the bounds of Holston in 1856, and called on his conference to support it. McFerrin protested in April 1856 that Hicks was violating the contract between the Nashville Christian Advocate and Holston whereby the latter had assumed all the outstanding debts of the Holston Christian Advocate when Patton died, in order to merge the two papers. By July 1858, the debate between Hicks and McFerrin was becoming increasingly bitter. Although the Herald of Truth reported increasing support throughout Holston for an independent journal, McFerrin pointed out that Samuel Patton had never had a subscriber list larger than two thousand, a number that could not sustain such a publishing enterprise.40 Complicating this dispute was the reality of dissent within dissent, or rather dissatisfaction, among Holston members in western North Carolina regarding their perceived neglect occasioned by isolation across the mountains from East Tennessee. William Hicks, editor of the abortive Herald of Truth, complained in 1859 that his part of Holston in western North Carolina was indeed “not sufficiently known outside of our mountain-barred territory to be duly appreciated.” By 1860, this North Carolina section of Holston contained slightly under 10 percent of the conference’s total membership. Circuits were frequently assigned to existing districts in East Tennessee, adding to the confusion. In 1859, there were two North Carolina districts, Franklin and Asheville, but those had been reduced to only the Asheville district by 1860. Many of these western North Carolina counties claimed by Holston had only a remnant of Methodists within a small part of their boundaries, he argued. Without sufficient membership, as Hicks complained, these circuits were too large geographically to adequately maintain pastoral care by itinerants or presiding elders. Although some circuits supported preachers only with bare necessities, “others [did] ignobly” with no support whatsoever. “Methodism has a considerable hold upon a large portion of the people,” Hicks further asserted, “but it is not that strong, vigorous, and constantly-advancing character” comparable to other parts of the conference. Too influenced by other denominations, western North Caro-

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lina Methodists had “in most of the circuits fewer class-leaders and men that will lead in prayer at the prayer-meeting than may be found in almost any other part of the Conference.”41 In the middle of this increasingly heated debate by anonymous correspondents from the Tennessee and Holston Conferences alike, almost unwittingly the very core of what had always been Holston’s complaint of being undervalued, in Samuel Patton’s terminology, emerged. Holston was charged with being too poor, too underdeveloped, to produce its own editors, because none of the itinerating clergy “have much reputation as writers.” When Holston members also demanded both a local paper and a book depository in their conference, the very idea was ridiculed in the September 23, 1858, issue of the Nashville Christian Advocate. Directing their scorn against “the lordly pretensions set up in this given case” of Holston Methodists who argued that if they could not have their own conference paper, they did not want a book depository, the Nashville paper sarcastically asked, “[W]hat has a weekly to do with a depository?” When, with barely suppressed glee, the Nashville Christian Advocate reported on June 9, 1859, that Hicks’s Herald of Truth was closing, supposedly for financial reasons, it was quite unnecessary to point out that just such failure to support their own conference paper had been precisely the reason that the Nashville paper had been opposed to the “Holston organ” from the outset. Yet the animadversions and mutual recriminations that had occurred so frequently in the columns of both papers for the previous three years indicated an abiding sense of deep hostility in Holston toward its wealthier, more successful rival, the Tennessee Conference, in the middle of the state. Having dissented from its domineering sister conference so frequently during the 1850s to maintain its identity and self-respect, Holston could hardly be expected to suddenly or automatically concur with the competing section of Middle Tennessee only one year later, in 1860, when the momentous debates over secession began.42

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Chapter 4 Confederate Ascendancy Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. . . . But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand. —ezekiel 33: 4, 6

East Tennessee’s stubborn, indeed, intractable, Unionism from the onset of the secession crisis in 1860 throughout the Civil War prompted one historian to label this section as the Confederacy’s madman in the attic. The Reverend William G. “Parson” Brownlow, chief spokesman of the region as editor of its most widely read newspaper, the Knoxville Whig, would quickly have taken exception to this designation, however, arguing in his vituperative, contentious style that the Confederacy was itself an insane asylum no part of whose interior had ever been inhabited by the loyal inhabitants of America’s Switzerland. When invited by a prominent Middle Tennessee Confederate politician, Gideon Pillow, to serve as a brigade chaplain, Brownlow characteristically replied in the Knoxville Whig “that when I shall have made up my mind to go to Hell, I will cut my throat and go direct, and not travel by way of the Southern Confederacy.”1 Brownlow’s success as a spokesman for East Tennessee, however, rested on his intimate knowledge of its people gained through his years of service on multiple circuits as an itinerating minister in Holston between 1826 and 1836. Traveling on these long circuits and preaching in their homes, schoolhouses, and meeting houses, as well as in the open air, he had visited the sick, comforted the dying, buried the dead, married the young, and baptized

Confederate Ascendancy

children throughout the rugged hills and mountains of Virginia, western North Carolina, and East Tennessee. Consequently, few leaders of either the Confederate or the Union cause had such an intimate, personal knowledge of both families and individuals in this section. One contemporary observer attributed Brownlow’s extraordinary ability to avoid antagonism from so many of his compatriots after he had hurled the thunderbolts of his burning invective against them to his skill in relating to their own personal needs and problems and to his underlying sympathy toward them. Nothing in his career ever seemed to alienate him from the affections of neighbors and friends, who “overlooked and forgave the faults that sprang from his impetuous nature.” Even his chief antagonist, the fire-eating secessionist editor of the Democratic Knoxville Register, Jacob Austin Sperry, belatedly admitted that the Parson had preached and made stump speeches at every crossroads, church, or schoolhouse and knew “every man, woman, and child, and their fathers and grandfathers before them in East Tennessee.”2 Any attempt to summarize East Tennessee’s Unionist stance during the secession crisis or the Civil War threatens to distort the incredible complexity of this war within a war, which historians are still seeking to unravel and understand. After the election of Abraham Lincoln in the fall of 1860, Upper South states refused to be stampeded into the secession frenzy that had seized their neighboring states to the south. In a referendum on February 9, 1861, Tennesseans overwhelmingly voted against holding a convention to secede from the Union by a vote of 68,282 to 59,449, while antisecession delegates outpolled secessionists 88,803 to 24,749. West Tennessee gave a decisive majority in favor of holding the convention, but both Middle and East Tennessee voted the proposal down. However, the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s subsequent call for troops in April 1861 quickly changed the climate of opinion in almost all the Upper South states that had previously been reluctant to secede. In a second referendum on secession held June 8, 1861, Middle Tennessee voted 58,265 (88 percent) to 8,198 (12 percent) for disunion; West Tennessee likewise voted 29,127 (83 percent) to 6,117 (17 percent) to leave the Union. Only East Tennessee voted 32,923 (68 percent) to 14,780 (32 percent) against separation Although the East Tennessee majority voting to remain within the Union had dropped from 81 percent in February to 68 percent by June, there was clearly a substantial majority in this section that opposed disunion even in face of Lincoln’s call for troops, clearly the deciding factor that had overwhelmingly pushed the state of Tennessee along with the rest of the Upper South into the new Confederacy.3

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Even before the final secession referendum in June, which took Tennessee out of the Union, large Unionist rallies had occurred in East Tennessee, where a variety of persuasive speakers ranging from Andrew Johnson to Horace Maynard, Thomas A. R. Nelson, and Oliver P. Temple addressed large crowds, while Brownlow kept up a steady barrage of extraordinarily effective antisecessionist rhetoric in the Knoxville Whig. Refusing to accept the June 8 referendum as binding on their section, Unionist dissenters quickly made plans even before this referendum to hold an “East Tennessee Convention” in Knoxville on May 30–31, 1861, and later in Greeneville nine days after the referendum to consider separate statehood for the disgruntled section. If the federal Union was not indivisible, why should an individual state not also permit an alienated part of its boundary to likewise withdraw peaceably? Yet the Tennessee legislature refused to even consider this subsequent petition for secession from the Greeneville Convention, as it was called, mainly because the vital East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad running through the dissatisfied section was a vital link between states in the upper and lower Confederacy. Despite the fact that East Tennesseans had sought separate statehood less than twenty years earlier, in the early 1840s, as a solution to their economic problems and comparative political weakness, Nashville blandly assumed that they were bound to the rest of the state “by the closest ties of kindred and interest.” Unfortunately, as their fellow Tennesseans were soon to discover, nothing could have been further from the truth. Brownlow publicly called on East Tennesseans as a last resort to secede from the rest of the state and form a new independent state to be called Frankland.4 After Tennessee’s secession in June 1861, the Unionist campaign to throw off Confederate rule in East Tennessee rapidly intensified and occasioned violence on both sides. As loyalists organized and drilled military companies already armed thanks to the old militia system, many sought additional weapons and ammunition from the Union army in Kentucky, and thousands escaped to join the Federal army to avoid growing Confederate assaults on their civil liberties, lives, and property. Although the Confederate government initially made an attempt to conciliate East Tennesseans by appointing Felix K. Zollicoffer as military commander of the region, his moderate policies proved useless after loyalist partisans succeeded on November 8, 1861, in burning three critical bridges in an attempt to cripple the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad and the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad linking the lower Confederacy with Virginia. The Unionists failed to burn four other railroad bridges, but this attempt sparked a general uprising among the loyal population against Confederate occupation.

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The anticipated invasion of East Tennessee by the Federal army in Kentucky failed to materialize, and the uprising was summarily crushed by Confederate forces. Thereafter, a state of martial law was declared in the rebelling section, and violence and often brutal suppression of any further dissent reduced the civilian population of East Tennessee to an unprecedented state of fear and deprivation.5 Historians are still struggling to discover the fundamental causes of East Tennessee’s stubborn Unionism. It is important to note that there was also an active pro-Confederate minority in the section, and the breakdown of law and order that led to guerrilla warfare between these two factions within East Tennessee led to incredible violence and egregious outrages committed by both sides. Economically, the eastern part of the state differed sharply from the other parts of both Tennessee and the South in staple crop production, levels of wealth, and percentages of slaveholding families and of slaves in the population. This economic and demographic disparity had caused East Tennesseans in the 1840s to seek separate statehood because many, including Parson Brownlow, had argued that the much greater wealth of Middle and West Tennessee was somehow an expropriation of what rightfully belonged to their older section. Other factors included the region’s tradition of antislavery in the 1820s, but that had apparently largely faded by the 1850s. Partisan politics, especially the defunct Whig Party ideology, has been argued, but Unionists and secessionists came from both parties, and evidence of causation is inconclusive. Confederate authorities in Richmond dismissed this unwelcome dissent as coming primarily from backward mountaineers, too isolated and ignorant to appreciate where their own true interests lay. Historian Mark E. Neely Jr., however, recently has argued that East Tennesseans were politically advanced and that the most striking quality to their resistance was disinterested selflessness, manifested by their willingness to endure economic hardships to sustain their Unionist convictions and political independence.6 Throughout this difficult period, Parson Brownlow continued to rail against secession and the newly formed Confederacy, but as historian Robert Tracy McKenzie has demonstrated, he always targeted his message to particularly fit the mind of East Tennessee. A leading defender of slavery, the Parson wisely argued that remaining within the Union with its constitutional protections was the safest way to ensure the survival of the peculiar institution. He also focused his attack against the planter aristocracy of the lower South in terms of the inevitable subordination of East Tennessee’s honest yeomen, who would be oppressed within a new government that

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despised the dignity of manual labor. Wielding his most favored political weapon, character assassination, unmercifully against local secessionist advocates, his tirades gradually blurred from attacks against the “aristocracy” to assaults against the “slaveocracy.” After the bridge burnings in November 1861, Brownlow was finally arrested in December and thrown into the Knoxville jail for three weeks. He was allowed to return home after he became ill, but he remained under house arrest until the new commander of East Tennessee, Major General George B. Crittenden, allowed him in early March 1862 to be escorted to Union lines near Nashville. If the Confederacy had thereby hoped to avoid making Brownlow a martyr, however, his great fame as a speaker and persecuted loyal Southern Unionist ironically caused him to become a cause célèbre throughout the North, where his renewed and unfettered attacks against the Southern cause escalated exponentially.7 In one critical area closest to his heart, however, Brownlow had badly failed. Although he had located, or stepped down from his position as an itinerating minister in the Holston Conference, in 1836, the Parson remained a traveling preacher in his attitudes, loyalties, and basic morality throughout his editorial career in Jonesborough and then, after 1849, in Knoxville. In the pages of the Knoxville Whig he continued his assaults against earlier sectarian enemies of Holston Methodism, the Presbyterians and Baptists, and took an active interest in the proceedings of each annual conference. Brownlow was on excellent terms with the Holston leadership and hierarchy and also maintained friendly relations with John B. McFerrin, editor of the former rival Nashville Christian Advocate. In point of fact, he did not seem to consider himself a local preacher and assumed the airs and prerogatives of the caste system of an itinerating minister with the tacit approval of the Holston hierarchy, who appreciated his usefulness to their cause as editor of the region’s largest secular newspaper. How surprised Brownlow actually was when Holston’s itinerating ministry overwhelmingly favored secession and ardently supported the Confederacy is unknown. What is certain, however, is that Brownlow turned on his former brethren in Holston, and on all ministers in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who supported the Confederacy, with unabated fury and rage. These “destroying, Goddefying, and hell-deserving traitors to their country” were the worst class of men in the South, most responsible for secession. Southern Methodists headed the pack, wickedly and profanely using their pulpits to propagate Confederate nationalism.8 At the outbreak of the Civil War, the overwhelming majority of itinerating ministers in the Holston Conference were ardent rebels. A later critic

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of these 127 itinerants claimed that four-fifths of them supported the Confederacy. Richard N. Price, one of these pro-Southern clergy in Holston, fully concurred with this assessment in his history of the conference written after the war. The central question is why these Holston itinerants were so overwhelmingly and passionately in favor of secession so early in the conflict, especially in light of the predominant Unionism throughout East Tennessee. It should be noted also that all sources on both sides of the debate unanimously agree that the laity and local preachers, in stark contrast, were mainly Unionist, pitting them directly against their established hierarchy of governing itinerants in Holston. The most obvious answer lies in the simple fact that Holston geographically embraced southwestern Virginia, western North Carolina to Asheville, and part of northern Georgia, all territories whose sentiments regarding secession were, with few exceptions, identical to those of the larger South. Virginia’s influence was pivotal. Many of the itinerants clearly remembered, for example, the annual conference of 1835, in Abingdon, Virginia, where a group of prominent citizens appeared to challenge the decision just rendered removing Thomas Stringfield from the ministry for selling slaves. When they preemptively asserted that an “abolition body” could not legally sit in Virginia, the conference members had unceremoniously backed down and meekly restored Stringfield’s parchments.9 As part of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Holston itinerants had increasingly throughout the 1850s sided with their brethren regarding Southern rights and slavery. Leadership was also critical, because bishops chosen for Holston were uniformly orthodox regarding their attitudes toward all the issues separating North and South. Holston’s bishop in its annual conference in 1861, for example, was James O. Andrew, the very slaveholding bishop who had split Methodism in 1844 into two competing churches. Yet by all accounts Bishop Andrew was moderate and conservative, keenly averse to mixing religion and politics. His successor, Bishop John Early, who presided over Holston the next four years, from 1862 until 1865, was a horse of another color. Haughty, aristocratic, domineering, he was a typical Southern fire-eater who tolerated no dissent. Brother of the Confederate general Jubal Early, this bishop saw Southern nationalism and religion as identical and acted accordingly to crush any dissent or opposition within the conference. No other bishop in Holston’s history so dominated the conference through blatant intimidation and used all his considerable ecclesiastical powers to stifle any possible resistance to his arbitrary rule. If God and the Confederacy were the same in John Early’s opinion, the slightest questioning of one was an attack on the other. In this spirit of absolute

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intolerance, even traditional procedural rules in the Methodist Discipline were discarded or ignored; proper procedure was whatever Bishop Early thought appropriate for the demands of the time. Even John Early’s portrait from this period reveals his harsh, intimidating character.10 Even more extraordinary in light of his later abuse of ecclesiastical power and disregard of Methodist rules of order while presiding over Holston’s 1862, 1863, 1864, and 1865 annual conferences was the fact that John Early had almost been removed from his bishopric for similar misbehavior before the war by the 1858 General Conference. In that session, he was reprimanded by an investigating committee for not ruling “in this particular instance in accordance with the law governing cases of this sort, as provided for in the Book of Discipline.” The report continued, “Wellauthenticated complaints have been made against Bishop Early—coming from a large number of Conferences—for having been too arbitrary and discourteous to some of the preachers, both in the Conference and [in the] stationing-room.” Eventually his character was reluctantly passed by the committee, however, who concluded that the complaints against Early resulted from “his advanced age and increasing infirmities.” One is almost led to speculate that, knowing all these bad characteristics tending toward arbitrary and inflexible rule in Early, the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, deliberately chose him as the bishop over Holston to ensure strict compliance with Confederate nationalism in an otherwise moderate conference spanning two Upper South border states.11 The other highly influential leader in Holston Methodism during this period was Ephraim E. Wiley, president of Emory and Henry College. At least fifty-six former Emory and Henry students fought for the Confederacy, including J. E. B. Stuart, who attended from 1848 to 1850 before transferring to West Point. Only four former students, one of them Brownlow’s son, James P., served in the Union army. The withdrawal of the student body to join the Confederate army before the close of spring session prompted the faculty to recommend conferring degrees on fifteen members of the senior class without examination, an extraordinary concession that the faculty insisted should not set a precedent. Throughout the wartime conferences in Holston, Wiley promoted loyalty to the Confederacy as inseparable from Christian values. He actively espoused his point of view through sermons, reports, and personal service as chaplain for the Confederate army at Emory and Henry College, used as a hospital for wounded troops later in the war. He was Bishop Early’s most important supporter in the conferences between 1862 and 1865—not that

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Frank Richardson, David Sullins, and Richard Nye Price. Close friends and leaders of Holston Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Richardson, Sullins, and Price were all educated at Emory and Henry College under Ephraim E. Wiley’s influence; they were strong supporters of the Confederacy. From Price, Holston Methodism, vol. 5, 524.

Early especially needed any additional support to condemn Northern aggression in its unholy war against the South. But most importantly, he inculcated his ideas in his former students, including Richard N. Price, James S. Kennedy, David Sullins, and Frank Richardson, who had become leading itinerant preachers in Holston.12 The enormous idealism combined with personal piety that these young itinerants invested in the Confederate cause is clearly apparent in the diary of James K. Stringfield, son of one of Holston’s most influential proslavery itinerants, Thomas Stringfield. Voting in the June 8 referendum on seces-

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sion, he fiercely supported “the immediate, unconditional, and eternal separation of the state of Tennessee from the miserable Yankee Union once called the United States.” He was delighted with the outcome of this statewide vote for secession. “Tennessee (for which I am thankful) has united her destiny and fortunes for weal or woe with the Southern Confederacy; and with that Southern Confederacy I am willing to stand or fall,” he enthused on June 18, 1861. “I would be willing to invest every dollar that I have in the world in Confederate bonds, so as to be penniless if that government should prove a failure. I would be willing to stake my life also upon that issue.” Young Stringfield was not sanguine about his section’s support for the South, however. “East Tennessee I fear will be infested with a horrid den of tories throughout the whole war.” One of his friends, Reverend John E. Harris, a local preacher, remained a “strong Union man, strange to say[,] as are a good many strong antislavery men in this neighborhood.” He had been tremendously relieved in April to learn that his favorite brother, Willie, was “straight-out for Southern Rights and for unconditional secession.”13 Stringfield was typical of Holston’s rising generation of younger itinerants inasmuch as he identified Southern nationalism not only with religion but also with the advancement of progress and modernity in midnineteenth-century America. No one stated this position more cogently or explicitly than did Richard N. Price in his history of Holston Methodism, written in the first decade of the twentieth century. Price rejoiced in the decline of antislavery sentiment in Holston because “the wealthiest and most influential class” in the South were slaveholders, and “no cause can become very popular with these classes arrayed against it.” Dropping hostility toward slavery was providentially beneficial to Southern Methodism, as formalized in the 1844 separation, he argued, because it “opened the doors of the wealthier and more influential classes” to the gospel as preached by Methodists. “Among the better classes of people in the South, in every respect, were slaveholders,” Price further argued, contending that “they were among the more wealthy, the more cultivated and refined, the more moral, and, indeed, really the better friends of religion.” The consequence of this influx of wealthy slaveholders meant that “their money and influence have done much in advancing the material and spiritual interests of the Church.” Even Bishop Asbury, the founder of American Methodism, had softened in his antislavery views after “enjoying the warm, elegant, and devoutly Christian hospitality of the slaveholding membership,” Price rather speciously argued. Ambitious, college-educated itinerants, especially those educated at Emory and Henry College under Ephraim E. Wiley’s powerful influence,

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consequently saw the advent of the new Confederate nation as a boost both to their growing status as professionals and to the advancing tide of modernity in Methodism and society.14 In embracing this new order, itinerants like Price were not surprised or especially dismayed to see the decline of older institutions of Methodism such as class meetings, love feasts, and large camp meetings. Although Bishop Asbury had warned repeatedly against the dangers of seeking after wealth and worldly respectability, as rapid growth came to Methodism, Methodists throughout the country became increasingly prominent among the nineteenth century’s prosperous middle class. With rising wealth and social prestige, moreover, Methodists increasingly wielded enormous political power through their numerous publications. Historian Richard Carwardine has pointed out the supreme irony in the politicization of Methodism, which during the early republic had been a major instrument in integrating American national life, but because of the 1844 split within the church over slavery, became a major channel for sectional alienation. By 1860, Southern Methodists saw political intervention as necessary to protect the basis of Southern civilization, an idea that Asbury would have found horrific.15 Yet the comparative poverty of both East Tennessee and the larger Holston Conference presented aspiring itinerants with another compelling reason to seek some political remedy to their stagnating church economy. James W. Dickey, one of the college-educated youthful itinerants, spelled out the problem in a prescient letter published in the Nashville Christian Advocate on March 28, 1861. Why, he asked rhetorically, was Holston stagnating despite reports of growth and success? What was the opinion of the world and of other denominations when Holston’s churches looked like deserted factories and its parsonages “seem[ed] to be houses whose inhabitants [were] kept up by public charity?” The problem was a lack of support throughout Holston’s districts, support that was needed to maintain preachers, churches, and parsonages adequately. Sadly, joining the Confederacy only exacerbated the poverty of these itinerants. Writing at the end of the war, in October 1864, Richard N. Price (by then editor of the Marion Ensign) excoriated the laity for lack of support, noting that their indifference to the temporal wants of the clergy was “appalling.” Even before the war, he argued, Holston itinerants “were often shamefully neglected and their families compelled to live like paupers.” With rampant inflation and widespread shortages of food and other basic commodities, the itinerants ironically stood in direst need yet were still expected to assist in maintaining Confederate morale.16

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Regardless of the reasons they supported the Confederacy with such initial enthusiasm, however, the most compelling evidence that the vast majority of Holston’s itinerants fervently embraced the Southern cause lies in the sheer number of those who volunteered for active service in the Confederate army, usually as chaplains. Twenty itinerants volunteered as chaplains during the war. Except for two ministers, William Hicks in North Carolina and Ephraim E. Wiley (who served as hospital chaplain at Emory and Henry College), most of these men were relatively young, having been born between 1820 and 1839. A surprisingly high number of them, including Leonidas C. Delashmit, Samuel S. Grant, Milton Maupin, Richard N. Price, James K. Stringfield, David Sullins, and Ephraim E. Wiley, were either college graduates or had at least two years of college. All of Holston’s Confederate chaplains survived the war except for Edwin C. Wexler, who died of consumption in 1865 at the age of thirty-seven. All served in Confederate regiments from Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia; one Holston itinerant, Hezekiah West, served as chaplain in Thomas’s North Carolina Legion, composed mainly of Cherokee Indians. Actual length of service as Confederate chaplains is difficult to determine, but some prominent itinerants such as Richard N. Price and David Sullins had enthusiastically volunteered in 1861 but were back in the regular ministry by 1862. In terms of service to the conference and comparative ranking, they ranged from the youthful Francis A. Farley, who had just joined the conference on trial in 1860 and volunteered as a chaplain in 1863, to Ambrose Gaines Worley, an especially influential pro-Confederate presiding elder in Holston until he volunteered as a chaplain in 1864, serving in General Bragg’s army.17 Other Holston itinerants, including William H. Eblen, Walter H. Stevens, and Wiley F. Parker, fought in the Confederate army as private soldiers rather than serving as chaplains. Parker, who rose from the rank of lieutenant to captain, was considered by Union itinerant Jonathan L. Mann to be “one of the first and also one of the worst rebels of the conference,” delivering the most “vile, wicked, and inflammatory harangues, in favor of treason.” John Ryland Stradley served first as a captain, then as a surgeon in the Confederate army. George W. Penley joined a rebel home guard company, notorious for bushwhacking Union soldiers, according to Mann. John H. Brunner, later president of Hiwassee College, was a colonel in the rebel militia, “hunting down his Union neighbors as conscripts for the rebel army.” Often, older preachers such as William H. Bates never formally joined the ranks but would preach to rebel soldiers in the morning on the Sabbath and in the evening actually drill with them “for religious exercise.”

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William Hicks (former editor of a religious newspaper, the Herald of Truth, in North Carolina) at the outbreak of the war was president of Richland Institute and used his influence to persuade the young men of that school to volunteer in the rebel army. Later he served in the secession convention in North Carolina, voting to take the Old North State out of the Union. Finally, he served as chaplain in the Confederate army during 1861–62.18 Service to the Confederate cause embraced the talents and energies of numerous other Holston itinerants as well. William W. Neal, for example, served as editor for two pro-Confederate papers: the Southern Virginia and Tennessee Advocate, published 1862–63 in Bristol, Virginia; and the Marion Sentinel and Soldiers’ Friend, published later in the war. Carroll Long, a prominent Holston itinerant and later presiding elder, was accused of hiring a proxy to fight in the Confederate army by Jonathan L. Mann, who maliciously claimed that Long had thereby “fought, bled, and died” for his Confederate country by proxy. Yet another prominent older itinerant, Conaro Drayton Smith, had superannuated in October 1862 and subsequently became a senator in the North Carolina state government under the Confederacy. All these varied activities of Holston itinerants seemed to validate Parson Brownlow’s bitter charge that these “reverend traitors to God and their country” went about delivering “inflammatory stump-speeches” on behalf of the Confederacy “under the pretence of preaching Christ to the people.” Frequently these secessionist Methodist preachers would “take the hide of Union men by holding them up before their congregation in prayer,” pretending to pray for them while “condemning their ‘reported’ offences and deprecating their ‘reported’ treachery to their country.”19 The culmination of the melding of Southern nationalism and Holston Methodism occurred in the infamous annual conference held October 15– 23, 1862, in Athens, Tennessee, a town midway between Chattanooga and Knoxville. The fire-eating Bishop John Early presided and completely dominated the proceedings. Later reports said that the assembled itinerants were surrounded by rebel soldiers and that no Union minister dared make the slightest protest against these obvious threats and blatant intimidation. The first order of business was to appoint a committee to investigate the political status of every suspicious character within this conference to determine their absolute loyalty to the Confederate cause. What is most compelling in these proceedings is the elaborate prelude to the report, seeking to exonerate the actions of committee members in light of obvious violations of church law and polity. All committee members were fervent loyalists to the Southern cause, outspoken in their approval of Bishop Early’s actions. John M.

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McTeer chaired this committee, whose other members were James S. Kennedy, William H. Bates, Ambrose G. Worley, and Carroll Long. Such an elaborate justification and exoneration of their actions was contained in this prelude, said to have been written by Kennedy, that it is inescapably revealing of their own uneasiness at violating such basic principles of Methodist law and formal policy as outlined in the Discipline. A careful reading of the manuscript minutes of Holston before 1860 indicates an inordinate desire to be fair, to give every possible legal and ethical form of due process to any of their brethren itinerants charged with an offense. In light of their previous records, consequently, these men must have been acutely aware of how unprecedented and radical their actions were, and the prelude may thus be seen as a preemptive strike to justify themselves before the inevitable historical and ecclesiastical appraisal they feared at some future date.20 First, they argued that the 1844 split in the Methodist Church had in fact been necessary to protect not just the Southern people but the slaves themselves from attacks from the “unholy and anti-scriptural crusade of abolition fanaticism and higher-law infidelity” coming from Northern Methodism. In this light, secession in 1861 of the Southern states had not been merely to protect their own civil rights and freedom. It was also necessary because to the Confederate nation had been “committed, in a sense true of no other people on the face of the globe, the guardianship and moral and intellectual culture of the African race.” The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was thus, “to a great extent, charged, in the Providence of God, with the religious destiny of the colored race.” The old federal government therefore was making war not only to “eventuate the utter destruction of Southern Methodism, as well as of true republican liberty,” but also to prevent the continuing Christianizing of the blacks in their midst. Any Holston itinerant thus “invested with the spiritual oversight of a flock of perhaps fifty thousand souls” who was subsequently disloyal to the Confederacy was guilty not only of treason but also of heresy against his own church and violated thereby a sacred trust to his black congregants as well. In a caveat designed to protect themselves from charges of being spiritual inquisitors, the committee members hastened to omit from scrutiny complaints arising from “former or present opinions touching the abstract political questions of secession and revolution.” Indeed, they righteously argued, any future representation of their actions as contrary to such liberty of conscience or freedom of expression “would be false and malicious.”21 In the final analysis, the committee concluded, no Methodist minister in their church or conference “can throw the weight of his opinions, words,

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Ephraim Emerson Wiley, president of Emory and Henry College. More than any other individual, he inculcated southern nationalism and ideology into the minds of his students and future leaders of Holston Conference with concomitant approval of slavery. From Price, Holston Methodism, vol. 5, frontispiece.

or acts, into the scales of our enemies against us with moral impunity.” Reinforcing this obligation, they further argued that the scriptures and the Discipline made it the duty of these itinerants to “be subject to the supreme authority of the country where they reside” and to “offer supplications, prayers, and intercession for the rulers” of the Confederacy. Ephraim E. Wiley had reinforced the religious necessity of such loyalty in his opening sermon for this conference, choosing his text from Galatians 1:7–8, which enjoined the faithful that if anyone “preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” Holston preachers were thereby under moral obligation, Wiley argued in his sermon, to do even more for the Confederacy “by cultivating unity of thought and purpose of spirit of loyalty, sacrifice, and endurance among the people.” Even his former student, Richard N. Price, was forced to conclude that Wiley’s sermon contained “radical utterances” from a man usually calm and dispassionate, but he exonerated Emory and Henry College’s president by

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reasoning that Wiley was simply caught up in the spirit of the time and circumstance to demand utter, total devotion in word, thought, and deed to the cause of Southern nationalism.22 Bishop Early’s denunciations, Wiley’s threatening sermon, and the prelude of the investigating committee’s report clearly opened the door for unrestrained persecution of any Holston itinerant even suspected of disloyalty to the Confederacy, and in this overheated atmosphere, the ensuing witch hunt came as no surprise. Rumor now replaced formal evidence as all the attending itinerants turned a suspicious eye on their brethren in part to escape suspicion themselves. Even as early as August 21, 1861, youthful James K. Stringfield had marked his conference program by placing an exclamation point by the names of “Southern rights men” and concurrently also underlined the names of itinerants who were Unionists. The logic of such persecution clearly demanded that those itinerants most outspoken in their loyalty to the old Union suffered first. William Milburn, a sixty-five-year-old itinerant who had been licensed to preach in 1827, was unflinchingly loyal to the Union. Twice arrested by Confederate authorities, and released only on the condition that he not leave his farm except to go to the mill or for a physician, he remained adamant in his opposition to the new order. Despite his advanced age, this intrepid minister at last escaped through enemy territory and made his way to Gallatin, Tennessee, where he was appointed chaplain of the Eighth Tennessee Cavalry Volunteers, a position with this Union regiment he occupied until the close of the war. He was ultimately expelled from Holston in 1863 merely by resolution, without any formal trial or hearing.23 Milburn’s experience also illustrates the active cooperation between Holston leaders and the civil authorities of the Confederacy. The other Holston itinerant who displayed undaunted courage from the outset in defending his loyalty to the Union was John Spears. When asked to pray in 1861 for Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy, Spears positively refused. After being roused from his slumber by loud knocking on his door, Spears was confronted with a band of angry men with a rope, threatening him with hanging if he did not swear his allegiance to the Confederacy. Again, Spears refused to be intimidated, and his enemies retreated on this occasion without further molestation. Realizing the danger of his continuing public adherence to the Union cause, Spears took an early retirement at the 1861 annual conference, retreating to the Sequatchee Valley with his wife and children to the home of his father-in-law. Thereafter he crossed the mountains into Kentucky and enlisted in the Union Army as chaplain of

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the Sixth Tennessee Regiment. At the 1862 annual conference, Spears was expelled from both his ministry and membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for taking “a position in the army of the enemy of his country.” Fearing for his family’s safety, Spears returned to take his wife and children back to Kentucky in the late autumn of 1862, an extremely perilous rescue that nevertheless succeeded. Yet in their retreat from Cumberland Gap they were captured by General Morgan’s forces, upon which Spears’s captors offered him every inducement, including money, to return to Tennessee and serve the Confederacy. Spears (again adamant in his loyalty to the Union) and his family were finally robbed of their horse and all their possessions by their Confederate captors and abandoned penniless in the street of Sharpville, Kentucky.24 Yet both Milburn and Spears were exceptional in their absolute refusal to compromise at any stage in their trials. Nearly all the other Holston itinerants investigated for disloyalty at the 1862 annual conference made an understandable effort to temporize—if stopping short of swearing their loyalty to the Confederacy—to save their lives. The difficulty with these forced confessions is that such a confession only spurred on men like Bishop Early and Ephraim E. Wiley to find the accused Unionists even more culpable. Eerily similar in some respects to the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692, the Athens conference of 1862 was so energized by fear and suspicion that merely the accusation of disloyalty proved incredibly difficult to overcome. For example, William C. Daily’s character was passed because of his “present position” regarding loyalty to the Confederate government. Likewise, although Thomas H. Russell had “acted imprudently,” he gave satisfaction to the investigating committee and was also passed. Regarding the case of a venerable elderly itinerant, James Cumming, “while the committee disapprove[d] and deplore[d] his course touching this unhappy controversy,” they nevertheless passed his character, solely because of his “advanced age and consequent infirmities.” They were not satisfied with Patrick H. Reed’s statements of loyalty but were willing to recommend passage of his character because he had asked to locate. Although Jesse A. Hyden’s course was found to be “culpably inconsistent in reference to this controversy,” there was no present evidence of overt disloyalty, so the committee reluctantly passed his character.25 Thomas P. Rutherford, on the contrary, infuriated the investigating committee by stating that “he had opinion on that subject which he did not choose to communicate and gave the committee no satisfaction pro or con on the subject of the complaint alleged.” They flatly recommended that he be discontinued. William Henry Harrison Duggan’s “statements before the

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committee [did] not satisfy them concerning his loyalty,” and he was subsequently deemed in their judgment “an improper person to receive an appointment in the regular pastoral work.” They nevertheless recommended the passage of his character reluctantly but ruled that he was to be left without any appointment for one year. Bishop Early was furious with this compromise and ruled that the recommendation regarding Brother Duggan was not legal. An amendment was made that he be suspended for twelve months, but another member moved to amend the amendment so that he be suspended for only three months. The issue was finally tabled because of a lack of agreement among committee members regarding Duggan’s culpability and suitable punishment. When the case against Duggan was taken up later, the amendment suspending him for only three months was withdrawn, and he was consequently suspended for twelve months, as Bishop Early desired. John M. McTeer, who had offered the substitute motion suspending Duggan for only three months, had evidently been persuaded by Bishop Early to withdraw his motion.26 The bitterest controversy surrounded William Hurd Rogers, an itinerant with long and distinguished service to Holston. Although Rogers had made “ample protestations of loyalty” to many members, the committee was “pained to find evidence of a want of veracity” and filed two formal charges against him. The first charge was “duplicity,” because Rogers had assured both John Brunner and John F. Woodfin that he was a loyal Southern man, but nevertheless he had affirmed “directly the contrary time and again.” This testimony illustrated the unwisdom of revealing one’s doubts even to old friends among the Holston brethren. The second charge, far more serious, was that of “criminal falsehood,” occasioned by Rogers’s assertion that while he had been passing through Knoxville, Confederate authorities had asked him to deliver certain documents to William G. Brownlow, then in hiding in Sevier County. Rogers very unwisely further claimed that he had indeed known where Brownlow was hiding and had actually delivered the documents to him as requested. He subsequently denied both parts of his narrative, and evidently the Confederate authorities in Knoxville refused to corroborate his account. Whatever the actual truth of this incident, it illustrates the prevalence of “guilt by association,” since Brownlow had come to be thoroughly hated by his former colleagues in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and Rogers’s apparently continuing friendship with such an apostate was especially damning in their eyes. Rogers had actually been arrested without trial by Confederate authorities earlier that year and sent to the notorious Confederate prison in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.27

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Bishop John Early, the fire-eating bishop in charge of Holston Conference’s annual meetings between 1862 and 1865. He ignored procedural due process and the Methodist Discipline to expel those itinerants even suspected of loyalty to the Union. From Daniels, Illustrated History of Methodism, 648.)

When the annual conference next met in 1863 at Wytheville, Virginia, on October 7–13, the tides of war were changing rapidly, as Burnside’s invasion of East Tennessee and successful occupation of Knoxville on September 2 had badly divided Confederate control over the territory of Holston. Bishop Early was again in charge of this conference, however, and was as defiant and preemptory as ever. Four itinerants—Jonathan L. Mann, William H. Rogers, William Milburn, and W. H. H. Duggan—were summarily expelled from the conference and church without trial. On this occasion, a young itinerant, Richard N. Price, directly challenged Bishop Early’s expulsion of these ministers on both substantive and procedural grounds. Price courageously argued that this conference had no jurisdiction over purely political questions regarding a minister’s preference for the Union or the Confederacy. As an ecclesiastical, not a political, body, Holston should approve any itinerant who maintained a good moral character and faithfully discharged their ministerial responsibilities. Even worse was the viola-

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tion of historic Methodist procedure, clearly specified in the Discipline and carefully observed in the past, of affording any minister charged with offenses a fair trial before the appropriate church tribunal. Simply to dismiss an itinerant by resolution, without any procedural due process, ignored the fundamental principles of Methodist polity. Bishop Early overruled him, and although Price made repeated efforts to argue his points, he could detect absolutely no sympathy from his fellow itinerants.28 Price was understandably discouraged at the obduracy of the bishop and the sycophancy and fear motivating the majority of Holston’s itinerants. In the 1862 conference, for example, his highly esteemed former professor, Ephraim E. Wiley, had unctuously offered a resolution of gratitude to Early for exhibiting “that spirit of Christian courtesy and episcopal firmness so becoming in one in his position.” This resolution and Wiley’s inflammatory opening sermon to the conference only demonstrated the radical spirit of the times on a man “usually so calm and dispassionate” and the total domination of the assembled itinerants by Bishop Early, according to his former student. After his failure in the 1863 conference, Price remarked to a friend that “by this day’s work we have lost in Holston at least ten thousand members.” Even more absurd was Early’s attempt to exclude Dr. W. G. E. Cunnyngham, Holston’s venerable missionary to China, who had failed to return to the conference solely because he was not permitted to pass through Union lines. In this blind fanaticism to ferret out any possible itinerant remotely suspected of Union sympathies, Holston, Price feared, was destroying all its moral authority as a Christian church. No one else seemed to realize the “marked inconsistency,” he argued, “that in prosecuting the supposed violators of law, it violated the law itself in its method of procedure.”29 Unfortunately, this pattern of surveillance and effort to control every utterance of Holston itinerants extended down the hierarchy from the annual conference to the presiding elders at quarterly conference meetings. One young itinerant who immediately suffered after the Athens conference in 1862 was Jonathan L. Mann. Sent to the Cleveland Station in Bradley County, Tennessee, Mann was under the supervision of a fire-eating rebel presiding elder, A. G. Worley. Worley informed him after his first quarterly conference on the new charge that there were complaints that he had not been praying for Jefferson Davis, the Confederate army, or the success of the rebellion. Mann angrily responded, “I am going to pray just as I please, and no man nor set of men shall dictate to me how I must pray.” Such defiance earned him Worley’s bitterest animosity. Rebel spies were sent to his church to make reports on his sermons and prayers, and these were forwarded to

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military headquarters at Knoxville. Mann became the object of inflammatory news articles and increasing harassment and intimidation from both church and state. At Mann’s last meeting with his presiding elder, Worley informed Mann that he would prefer charges against him at the next annual conference and have him removed from the ministry. Mann was finally forced to flee for his life, but he managed to escape East Tennessee and join the Union army, serving as chaplain of the Ninth Tennessee Cavalry. His name was indeed among those itinerants expelled from both the church and the conference in 1863 for disloyalty to the Confederacy.30 Unionist itinerants in Holston such as Mann, John Spears, and William Milburn were fortunate to be able to escape the violence, beatings, and murder increasingly being inflicted on loyalists in East Tennessee by Confederate guerrillas and “bushwhackers.” One Holston traveling minister, however, was not so lucky. William Henry Harrison Duggan, the itinerant in charge of the Athens circuit, was arrested at a quarterly conference meeting on Friday night, early in October 1861, and marched on foot the following Saturday nine miles after being refused the privilege of riding his own horse. Although a large, overweight man, weighing 281 pounds, he was refused food and water, cursed, denounced, and threatened with bayonets. Upon arriving in Knoxville on Sunday, he was thrown into jail and indicted on the charge that he had “prayed for the Government of the United States.” This charge was patently false, according to Parson Brownlow, because the praying had been the previous winter and spring, before Tennessee seceded. A poor man with a wife and six small children, Duggan apparently lost his mind as a result of this ordeal. Although Brownlow’s wife sent several blankets to him in jail to help him endure the cold nights there, he never seemed to recover his health, even after his release on the following Thursday. Duggan’s martyrdom became a cause célèbre, and the story was told in Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig at that time and later repeated in Parson Brownlow’s Book for the edification of a Northern audience.31 What made Reverend Duggan’s story so compelling was the apparently random selection of an otherwise innocent forty-seven-year-old itinerant on seemingly frivolous or unsustainable charges. There is historical evidence, however, to suggest that Duggan on previous occasions had exhibited such partisanship from his pulpit in earlier circuits as to bring him notoriety, if not outright discredit. Throughout the year 1857, his good friend and fellow Whig, Parson Brownlow, outlined Duggan’s battles in the Sweetwater Valley with Democrats who charged him with being a member of the Know Nothing party and tried to have him removed from office as an itinerating

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The brutal treatment of Rev. William Henry Harrison Duggan as depicted in a drawing that appeared in 1862 in what came to be called simply Parson Brownlow’s Book (opposite p. 145). The incident epitomized both Confederate viciousness and Brownlow’s superb manipulation of the story for propaganda against the Confederacy.

minister. Brownlow gleefully joined the fray, since he hated Democrats almost as much as Presbyterians or Baptists, and his accounts in the Knoxville Whig of Duggan’s ongoing struggles are themselves clouded with bitter partisanship, invective, and character assassination. It is unmistakably clear, however, that Duggan had either spoken or identified his political ideas from the pulpit in some fashion highly provocative to the group of Democrats charging him with Know Nothingism and putting up posters to discourage people from attending any of the churches he served. This previous engagement in partisan battles certainly in no way justifies or exonerates the Confederate authorities for their brutal treatment of Duggan in 1861. It does offer some possible explanation, however, why Duggan was singled out so early in the conflict for persecution.32 In some respects, the actual Civil War that began in 1861 unveiled an internal civil war within Holston Methodism that had been waged for the previous five decades. At the outset of the conflict, there were 127 itinerating preachers but approximately 425 local preachers. Identifying these local preachers remains a serious problem, largely because they were licensed at the quarterly conferences throughout Holston’s circuits, and only if they sought ordination at the annual conference as deacons or elders were their

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names recorded in the minutes. So 425 local preachers is an approximation because extant quarterly conference minutes for only some of Holston’s circuits exist, and only a complete record of these latter minutes would contain all the names of the local preachers. What is virtually undisputed by both Confederate and Union accounts of Holston during the Civil War, however, is that the overwhelming majority of these local preachers were Unionist in sentiment. Thus, the internal civil war within Holston was between largely pro-Confederate itinerants and the local preachers, overwhelmingly Unionist as were the laity in East Tennessee Methodism. To properly understand this internal civil war within Holston, it is necessary to briefly analyze the changing role and status of local preachers during the pre–Civil War period (a topic discussed in some detail in previous chapters).33 R. N. Price argued that the local ministry served a vital role in the spread of Methodism in the early years when the territory of Holston was primarily an unsettled frontier and circuits were geographically so large that itinerants could only preach monthly at numerous locations on their charge. To supply weekly Sunday preaching to Methodists, local preachers were necessary in large numbers to fill in the gaps occasioned by itinerants spread too thinly over enormous unpopulated areas. With the growth of population in the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century, however, there was a multiplication of stations and shrinkage of circuits, both of which increased the demand for regular itinerants but diminished the necessity for local preachers. As wealth and intelligence increased in Holston, Price further argued, the better salaries paid to itinerants drew the moretalented, better-educated preachers into the ranks of the itinerants, further reducing the necessity for local ministers. Price saw this evolution continuing until ultimately the local ministry would become wholly unnecessary. In the early years, able itinerants such as James Axley often retired or “located” when they married and started a family, so the differences between itinerating and local brethren at that time were not so great. Increasingly, however, a caste system developed as a larger percentage of the local ministry were licensed by the quarterly conferences and had never served as itinerants.34 Almost from the beginning, however, Methodism in America had determined that only the itinerating ministers had real power or authority over church policy and doctrine. Local preachers were in an inferior position, under the control of the itinerants, often much younger and far less experienced, appointed to their location and subject to the broad authority of the presiding elder. Even Price readily admitted that the legislation in

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Holston had been “somewhat invidious” to the local ministry. The symbol of their powerlessness and lack of status rested in the fact that they could not vote at annual conference. In 1827, for example, a motion was voted down that would allow the local brethren merely to take seats in the annual conference as spectators. The activities of local preachers were carefully scrutinized by the presiding elder, who gave them a fierce “hackling” if they had not preached much and who could also object to the passage of their character at the quarterly conference meeting for any offenses. Even Parson Brownlow in 1834 excoriated the practice of “an established local traveling ministry,” occasioned by the need to furnish a local preacher to a charge when no itinerant was available. “It is manifest that our people are on the eve of revolting in disgust” at such a blurring of caste lines between local and itinerant roles, the Parson thundered, and he seemed to retain his disdain for the local ministry years after he himself “located” in 1836 to become a newspaper editor. Although Brownlow expressed the sentiment most graphically, virtually all itinerants were eager to keep their local brethren “in their place.” And despite the widespread opposition among the local ministry at Holston’s withdrawal in 1845 to become part of the newly formed Methodist Episcopal Church, South, collectively they had no real power or influence over this decision, voted by the itinerating ministers at the annual conference.35 In 1861 the entire situation was quite different. Local preachers were embedded in communities, often rural, and were supported in the main by Unionist laity in Holston. This very local control of such preachers by the quarterly conferences thwarted any effort of the pro-Confederate hierarchy and traveling ministers to control or punish dissident local preachers. If a local preacher chanced to be applying for ordination during this period at the annual conference, he might be accosted for suspected Unionist sentiments. Such was the case when M. H. B. Burkett applied for elder’s orders in the 1862 annual conference and was refused on the grounds that he was disloyal to the Confederacy. Burkett was subjected to an intense interrogation by Ephraim E. Wiley, who demanded to know the exact time and moment Burkett had had a change of heart regarding his Unionist loyalties. For the most part, however, these local preachers were beyond the direct reach of the hierarchy, who characteristically regarded them as being too unimportant to challenge. All the anger at their repeated humiliation at the hands of itinerants now seemed to explode in overwhelming support for the Union. Everything progressive itinerants were seeking to abolish in their church as outdated or no longer relevant, such as class meetings, love feasts, camp

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Absalom B. Wright. An antislavery local preacher in the Holston Conference, South, before the war, Wright joined the newly organized Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1864 as an itinerant. From Wright, Autobiography of Rev. A. B. Wright, frontispiece.

meetings, and other local officials such as class leaders and exhorters, were structures still dear to the hearts of a majority of these local preachers. They had a substantial interest in maintaining all the functions of older Methodism, just as they largely were convinced that they had nothing politically to gain from giving up the old Union for the new Confederacy.36 To be sure, a small number of local preachers supported the Confederacy and joined the army to demonstrate their loyalty to the South. The vast majority of local preachers, however, remained largely silent and bided their time. They left few records or autobiographies, but some threads remain to determine other reasons for their Unionism. Spencer Henry, a local preacher originally from Blount County, had told Ezekiel Birdseye much earlier, in the 1840s, that he abhorred slavery but feared to preach against it in his pulpit, because he had a large family to support. Nevertheless, Henry was a delegate to the Knoxville Convention to consider seceding from the state of Tennessee in 1861. Another excellent example of a local preacher

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who opposed both secession and slavery was Absalom B. Wright. Wright had opposed the secession of Holston in 1844 from the Methodist Episcopal Church and was determined to rejoin if the opportunity ever occurred. He labored in Fentress County throughout the war, conducting meetings and funerals, preaching sermons, and marrying young couples. Unobtrusive and committed completely to his ministry, he escaped harm himself but witnessed numerous atrocities on both sides. Finally, in 1865, he joined the newly formed Methodist Episcopal Church, Holston Conference, and became an itinerating minister, ironically in the same church in which he had begun his ministry two decades earlier.37 Other local preachers remaining loyal to the Union who had previously opposed slavery or its abuses included Anderson Trim, who had openly preached against the peculiar institution, according to one report, in 1842. Augustine F. Shannon indicated sympathy toward black local preachers in his diary while serving as an itinerant on the Decatur circuit between 1848 and 1850. After he located in Bradley County, Shannon was noted for his loyalty to the Union during the Civil War. The vast majority of these local preachers remain hidden in obscurity because no record remains of their activities, but they played a vital role in allowing African Americans to have an active participation in class meetings before the war (as related in chapter 2). Even the occurrence of black local preachers, class leaders, and exhorters, revealed only in the few scattered quarterly conference minutes now remaining extant throughout Holston, was permitted or made possible solely by sympathetic local preachers committed to older Methodist values. And despite initial Confederate successes and control of East Tennessee until 1863, these Unionist local preachers remained steadfast in their beliefs and opposition to secession. Many of them, such as Father Bird in Hawkins County, were killed in a brutal fashion or fled the region to join the Union army. Bovell McCall was one of these local preachers; he fled Jonesborough, Tennessee, to become a chaplain in the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, U.S.A. While returning to his regiment after a visit home in 1864, he was captured by rebel forces in Greene County, was accused of being a spy, and was immediately shot.38 Levi Carter, a middle-aged blacksmith in Bradley County, lower East Tennessee, was an exhorter and local preacher killed for his loyalty to the Union by Confederate bushwhackers on September 27, 1863. Carter’s bloody body contained wounds from six bullets. His son, Robert, was also killed by these outlaws, who then proceeded to cut his eyes out, which they carried around in their pockets. Further evidence indicated that young Robert’s eyes

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were cut out before he was murdered, and while thus blind, he was made to run from his captors in a game of “hellish fiendishness that language cannot describe” until he could not rise again. Thereupon he was shot through the heart and killed. One witness swore that regular Confederate soldiers under General Joseph Wheeler actively participated in the murder of the Carters. Robert Carter’s eyes were preserved in brandy and exhibited as ghoulish souvenirs by his murderers throughout the community for several weeks. So terrified were loyal Union citizens of Bradley County by these atrocities that the widows of the murdered men had difficulty finding anyone to help them bury the bodies. Finally an elderly black man came with a cart and helped haul the mangled corpses off to be buried.39 This kindly assistance from an elderly African American raises the question of what was happening to the black members of Holston, numbering 4,826 in 1860 out of a total membership of 52,227. There is practically no documentary evidence extant to measure how these black members, including African American local preachers, exhorters, and class leaders, were weathering the terrible maelstrom surrounding them. R. N. Price wrote in 1862 about a polite black woman in Watauga expressing approval to him of Confederate efforts to destroy the Northern enemy. He foolishly concluded that she was “a fair sample of a majority of Southern slaves.” Far more credible regarding the actual attitudes of blacks, however, were the actions of numerous slaves who hid Jonathan L. Mann, a strongly antislavery Unionist itinerant, during his flight from Confederate authorities who had placed a price on his head through East Tennessee to Virginia, where he finally succeeded in crossing into Union lines and enlisted as a chaplain in the Union army. These slaves hid him in their own cabins during the day, furnished him with food, and helped guide him safely to the Union forces at enormous personal risk to their lives and families. In a curious fashion, they operated almost an underground railroad in reverse to help Mann escape, and he later gratefully credited them with saving his life.40 Despite such horrible atrocities, which were occurring on both sides as law and order increasingly broke down in East Tennessee, the most important campaign in this internal war in Holston was ideological. Ironically, it was being debated in 1862 among itinerants at the very time local preachers were being bitterly persecuted and the war was drawing closer to the actual boundaries of East Tennessee. The central issue in this debate was the future structure of the conference, whether itinerants ought to be “stationed” at fixed churches in more populous towns and cities. One elderly minister argued in favor of going back to large circuits, which, he argued, “keeps down

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castes and keeps out jealousies among the ministers.” Quarterly conferences had suffered with the growth of stations, he further contended, because smaller numbers in attendance meant that their decisions “carr[ied] but little influence.” The key issue was whether itinerants were better supported financially on circuits or stations. Another correspondent emphatically disagreed with the elderly preacher and argued that support was much better for preachers when they were stationed in towns. The final correspondent in this debate was none other than the ubiquitous R. N. Price, who pointed out that in Holston most rural areas were largely Methodist, whereas towns and cities were dominated by other denominations. The Methodist churches in towns, Price maintained, did not have enough regularly stationed itinerants to satisfy the demand for a full-time pastor to minister to their daily needs that a modern congregation both expected and required.41 Even more ironic is the fact that during the course of this great ideological debate, the one group most dramatically affected by its outcome—the local preachers—were never consulted or even mentioned as a consideration. Yet the simple reality remained that if circuits were abolished altogether in Holston, there would no longer be any need whatsoever for a local ministry to cover the gaps occasioned by traveling ministers making their rounds to so many different preaching engagements. Also made obsolete by this new plan to abolish circuits would concurrently be other critical components of an older Methodist political and ecclesiastical economy—class meetings, class leaders, exhorters, stewards, love feasts, and campground meetings and revivals. Despite their devotion to sustaining Methodism at the grassroots level in Holston for so many decades, local preachers were now about to be confronted with a new scheme developed in the midst of the Civil War to strike a death blow to their very existence as a class. Nor is there any clear evidence that those progressive itinerants promoting their vision of a new Methodist organizational restructure necessarily saw the slightest connection between their plans and the almost total Unionism of a vast majority of local preachers and their impending demise as a class in Holston Methodism. It is difficult to even conjecture that these forward-looking proConfederates had the slightest thought of revenge, for the very simple reason that the local brethren, regardless of their faults or virtues, were not even mentioned casually at any point in the deliberations.42 In the same obscure, ephemeral newspaper that had published these debates over the future structure of Holston Methodism, the Southern Virginia and Tennessee Advocate, published in Bristol, Virginia, there appeared in March 1862 an article about the prophetic dream of Lorenzo Dow, as told in

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his journal. This famous pioneer circuit rider began his career in 1798, when he was first licensed into the traveling connection by the venerable Bishop Francis Asbury. Eccentric and controversial in his early years of preaching in the territory that would become Holston, Dow nevertheless had an almost iconic following among later itinerants in the conference. R. N. Price devoted an entire chapter to Dow in the five-volume Holston Methodism, and tales of Dow’s exploits were still circulated by the outbreak of the Civil War. Dow related a dream in which he saw the Capitol in Washington, D.C., rise up and “fall into parts and burst into ten thousand atoms.” In relating this prophetic dream in 1862, William W. Neal, coeditor of the quasi-Methodist newspaper, naturally interpreted Dow’s vision as predicting the dissolution of the federal Union.43 But in reality, the dream came much closer to foreshadowing the near destruction of Holston within the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as a direct result of the Civil War. With the ultimate military triumph of the Union over the Confederacy, there emerged a far lengthier battle for possession of the hearts and minds of the people called Methodist in Holston. Confronting them would be their disgraced and expelled former Unionist itinerant brethren, reinforced by the long-suffering loyal local preachers and the power and might of the victorious Union army. Leading this new crusade with characteristic ferocity and unforgiving vindictiveness would be Parson Brownlow, who had triumphantly returned to Knoxville in 1863 with unparalleled political power, backed by the full weight of the Lincoln administration. Reestablishing his old newspaper under a revealing new title, Brownlow’s Whig and Rebel Ventilator, the “Fighting Parson” was determined to wreak revenge on his former brethren in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who had largely supported the Confederacy with extraordinary enthusiasm. In many respects, this new civil war in Southern Appalachian Methodism would overshadow all previous battles within Holston.

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Chapter 5 Union Triumphant Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression . . . —isaiah 58:1 For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it; neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company. —psalm 55:12–14

In February 1862, J. Austin Sperry, editor of the pro-Confederate Knoxville Register and archrival of Parson Brownlow on both professional and personal terms, expressed his seething anger at the Confederate authorities, especially Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, for allowing Brownlow to leave Knoxville and proceed safely to Union lines. Although Brownlow hid his real intelligence and profound knowledge of human nature under a cloak of “eccentricity and extravagance,” Sperry argued, he was a master manipulator who had badly outwitted the Confederate authorities using “consummate skill,” diplomacy, and “legerdemain.” Once safely in Kentucky, Brownlow would use both his unparalleled knowledge of the people of East Tennessee and his extraordinary rhetorical gifts to lead a crusade with “fanatical alacrity” against this region that would rival Peter the Hermit in the first crusade. Brownlow rarely took any step, Sperry realized from bitter experience, unless he knew exactly what the outcome would be and exactly how he would accomplish his objectives.1

Union Triumphant

Sadly for the Confederacy, Sperry’s fears proved prescient. After his release in March 1862, Brownlow assumed primary control over the second phase of the civil war within Southern Appalachian Methodism. From the outset, his stated objective was to destroy the Holston Conference and the disloyal Methodist Episcopal Church, South, totally and replace it with an entirely new church. Because Brownlow publicized both his intentions and his means of carrying out his objectives, first in his 1862 best-selling book, Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession, which universally came to be called simply Parson Brownlow’s Book, and later in the Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator, his old newspaper quickly reestablished upon his return to Knoxville after Burnside’s victory in the fall of 1863, there can be absolutely no doubt regarding his agency in this implacable war against Southern Methodism that he now inaugurated, indeed, like a medieval crusade. Enormously aiding Brownlow in his objective was the popular reception he received throughout the North, where he was hailed as a martyr providentially rescued from Southern barbarism. As Sperry had rightfully predicted, his rhetorical skill made him almost a cult figure as a living symbol of oppressed East Tennessee loyalty throughout the North and thereby gave the “Fighting Parson,” as he was called thereafter, unprecedented political power and influence, especially with both the Lincoln administration and the Union army.2 After his return to a liberated Knoxville, Brownlow began a skillful propaganda campaign to justify his all-out assault against Southern Methodism. “No set of men in the South have done more to bring on this war, and to inflame the minds of Southern men, than the Methodist clergy,” he declared repeatedly. The essence of his formal charges against the Holston Conference leadership, personified by the villainous Bishop Early, was that they had violated all previous Methodist teaching and doctrine by becoming a political church. Expelling itinerants without trial or any due process for suspected disloyalty to the Confederacy was a crime against the Methodist Discipline even greater than preaching Confederate nationalism from the pulpit. In his constant reiteration of the wicked politicalization of Methodism by the Holston clergy, however, Brownlow was being disingenuous to the point of absurd hypocrisy, because no other Methodist clergyman had fused politics and religion to such a degree as the “Fighting Parson” in his earlier career as a journalist. Nor were members of the Northern Methodist Episcopal Church any less guilty in identifying their denomination with absolute loyalty to the federal Union. But regardless of the difficulty of seeing the splinter in the eye of their ecclesiastical opponents because of the beam

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William G. “Parson” Brownlow, former Holston itinerant editor of the influential Knoxville Whig. He vociferously opposed secession and led the effort to replace the old pro-Confederate Holston Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with a new conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church (North) in 1864. From Parson Brownlow’s Book (1862), frontispiece.

in their own eye, the charge of becoming a political church resonated in the minds of Methodists throughout the country when directed toward Southern Methodism during the Civil War.3 Even more intriguing was Brownlow’s new propaganda offensive begun in 1864 to denigrate the institution of slavery as the basic evil that had caused both the 1844 split in the Methodist Episcopal Church and later the Civil War in 1861. By denouncing what John Wesley had termed “that execrable sum of all villainies,” Brownlow thereby deftly managed to attack the peculiar institution as the chief crime of Southern Methodism, and routinely he identified the Holston itinerants as allied with the slaveholding planter aristocracy against the honest nonslaveholding yeomen of East Tennessee. Here again one is struck by the irony of the Parson’s extraordinary change of attitudes. Although he had signed an 1834 antislavery petition to the Tennessee state legislature, and quite possibly authored this document,

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Brownlow in subsequent years became a national spokesman defending the peculiar institution. In 1858 he actually engaged in a debate in Philadelphia as the defender of slavery, a debate that attracted national attention. The Civil War had forced him to choose between Union and slavery, however, and he began a subtle campaign to revive the memory of East Tennessee’s antislavery societies and activities during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. He went so far as to actually publish in the Knoxville Whig a full account the proceedings of the Manumission Society of Tennessee, held in Greene County on November 19 and 20, 1816.4 With characteristic audacity, Brownlow asserted that these antislavery views “expressed the sentiments of the great body of people in Tennessee then. They are the honest sentiments of the great body of the people of East Tennessee now.” Using statistics from the 1860 census of the two largest East Tennessee counties, Knox and Greene, he further maintained that “not every tenth man owns [a] slave.” Nevertheless, they were called upon to “wrangle over slavery, quarrel and contend, and vote for what they have no interest in, and what has laid the country in ruin, sent their fathers, brothers, and sons into the army, and from the battlefields to graves among strangers.” All this was done to benefit the few aristocrats in towns and villages who owned slaves and “whose families point the finger of scorn at the honest, virtuous, and industrious sons and daughters of the country people when they come into the market to dispose of what they have produced by their own labor.” Note how dexterously Brownlow managed to identify class antagonisms with the earlier crusade against slavery in East Tennessee, juxtaposed also against the disloyal slaveholders of the Lower South and long-standing sectional rivalry toward Middle and West Tennessee.5 The trump card in his propaganda campaign against Southern Methodists, however, was disloyalty to the Union, and in orchestrating this hatred against his former church, Brownlow rose to new heights of vituperation. Rebel Southern Methodists had been “false to the principles of their church, to the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, to their country, themselves, posterity, and their God.” When asked by a Southern Methodist minister who had remained loyal to the Union to say nothing more abusive against the Holston Conference, Brownlow revealed his clear intention to destroy the Southern Methodists as a separate denomination. He stated flatly that he had just begun his attack against this “corrupt organization” and that he intended “no affiliation with it, or its corrupt leaders—its lying, whiskeydrinking, Tory preachers, or those in sympathy with them.” A “truly loyal man, desiring to flee from the wrath to come, and be saved from his sins, can-

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not consent to have any fellowship with them,” he expostulated. Brownlow personally would “feel much more honored to be associated with a pack of professional gamblers, than with a conference of Methodist rebel preachers.” He concluded that it certainly “would be as edifying to listen to the harangues of a noted liar, as to sit in church and listen to one of these rascals attempt to preach!”6 A skilled polemist from his earliest years as a circuit rider and later as a bitterly partisan political editor, Brownlow knew instinctively that to clinch his arguments he needed to exhibit tangible victims of his opponent’s villainous crimes. The expelled Holston itinerants from the conferences of 1862 through 1865 proved the perfect vehicle for this tactic, and he carefully enshrined these “best men they ever had in the ministry” by encapsulating them, individually and collectively, in the warm embrace of Christian martyrdom. The 1862 conference in Athens was especially profitable for imaging the persecution of itinerants whose only crime was loyalty to their country. Bishop John Early readily fit the image of an intolerant, hate-filled tyrant, threatening to turn over to Confederate soldiers waiting outside with bayonets any disloyal or even lukewarm member of the conference. When Thomas H. Rutherford, for one example, refused to commit himself, shouts were heard from his assembled Confederate brethren: “Hang him!! Hang him, G-d d-m him!” Even more compelling was the oftrepeated tale of the forced march of another itinerant suspected of sympathy for the Union, William Henry Harrison Duggan. Brownlow particularly capitalized on the brutal treatment shown Duggan by including a sketch of Duggan’s suffering in his best-selling account of East Tennessee in the war, Parson Brownlow’s Book. Nor did the “Fighting Parson” undervalue the importance of repetition in effective propaganda; these tales of loyal Methodists suffering persecution at the hands of their Confederate brethren were repeated over and over in the Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator between 1864 and 1869.7 Brownlow’s reestablished newspaper was playing to both a Northern audience and native East Tennesseans, however. When he advocated complete annihilation of the Southern Methodist church and seizure of all its property by loyal Methodists, he could not have been more closely aligned with prevailing attitudes among the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the North. In a form identical to that politicalization they so condemned in Southern Methodism, Northerners quickly identified God with country throughout the Civil War. Northern Methodist bishops were especially influential with both the Union army and key members of Congress

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and the Lincoln administration, such as Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. In late November 1863, the War Department consequently placed under the disposal of Bishop Edward R. Ames all houses of worship belonging to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Missouri, Tennessee, and the Gulf region where a loyal minister did not officiate. Such ecclesiastical cannibalism was precisely what Brownlow had been vociferously advocating since 1862. Identifying true religion with their own church, Northern Methodists believed that no reconstruction of the South was possible without reestablishing their denomination, “old Methodism,” to completely cleanse Southern states of their disloyalty, support of slavery, and habit of melding Methodist theology with Confederate nationalism.8 In a very real sense, the defeated South now seemed to Northern Methodists a mission field ripe for the harvest, and they were prepared to spend a large amount of money to achieve this objective. Using the venerable Missionary Society and a newly fledged Church Extension Society, ordained by the General Conference of 1864, the Methodist Episcopal Church prepared to fund its central belief that political reintegration of the rebellious Confederate states could never be achieved without spiritual reconstruction, directed by the largest and, in some respects, the most nationalistic denomination in the North. To what degree the “Fighting Parson” influenced or shaped Northern Methodism in its attitudes regarding missionary activity in the South is impossible to accurately determine, but it is obvious that Brownlow wasted no time whatsoever contacting Northern Methodist bishops regarding his fixed intentions of destroying the old MECS Holston Conference and replacing it completely with a new Holston, funded by Northern charity and amply supplied with recently expropriated churches, meeting houses, and parsonages of his defeated former conference. Nor did Brownlow deem it politic or expedient to conceal these negotiations; to the contrary, he advertised them blatantly in the pages of the Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator.9 Arguing in January 1864 that he belonged to the “old Methodists” who “never can or will come under the control of men who have disgraced the Church, and sought to ruin the country,” Brownlow frankly admitted that he had intended all along to go before the Methodist Episcopal Church General Conference in Philadelphia and ask for an annual conference of that denomination to be separately organized in East Tennessee. Also in January 1864, at Brownlow’s insistent urging, Bishop Matthew Simpson appointed a preacher from Indiana, Calvin Holman, as agent for the region and authorized him to receive loyal former members of the Holston Conference of the Methodist

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Episcopal Church, South, into the Northern church. Thus ordained by the Kentucky annual conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, four such itinerants were sent back into East Tennessee as missionaries, a necessary prelude to organizing a new annual conference. Subsequently the indefatigable Brownlow had a “free and full” conversation with Bishop Matthew Simpson in Philadelphia, and later in Cincinnati he visited with newly elected Bishop Calvin Kingsley, who had been placed in charge of the Southern work, urging his plans to these Northern Methodist leaders already highly disposed in favor of his ideas. In an amazingly short period of time, Brownlow had covered all his bases and gotten approval from the Methodist Episcopal Church hierarchy to call a convention in July 1864 of loyal Methodist clergy and laymen to form a new annual conference over the ashes of the old Holston Conference. It mattered not in the least to the Fighting Parson that the corpse of the old Holston Conference was not quite dead!10 If not yet quite dead, however, the remnant itinerants of the MECS Holston Conference were in very dire circumstances by late 1864. After Union general Ambrose Burnside had recaptured much of East Tennessee and entered Knoxville on September 2, 1863, Confederate general James Longstreet led a counterattack in early November with twenty thousand soldiers in an attempt to recover this territory, but Longstreet was forced to retreat to Virginia after he failed to capture Knoxville in early December. East Tennessee’s economy was thereby ravaged by being forced to feed not one but two armies, leading to a new level of privation and suffering. Some Holston itinerants, such as A. G. Worley, a presiding elder whom Brownlow characterized as one of the “vilest tyrants” in the conference, fled to Georgia with their families, “ragged and destitute.” Others sought refuge in the corner of southwestern Virginia, the only part of Holston except for circuits in western North Carolina unoccupied by Union forces. Poverty and lack of giving to the clergy was exacerbated by the explosive inflation of Confederate currency: R. N. Price later recalled being forced to pay forty dollars for a pound of coffee during the last year of the war. David Sullins, a prominent member of the conference, was indicted for treason on specious charges of having counseled Thomas A. R. Nelson and Andrew Johnson not to speak at Blountville in May 1861. Sullins was subsequently not able to enter Tennessee for two years because of these charges. Another prominent member of Holston, Frank Richardson, after being repeatedly robbed of his crops and livestock by both Union and Confederate armies, “devouring everything in their reach, like the locusts of Egypt,” found refuge with his family in western North Carolina until the end of the war.11

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Frank Richardson, a prominent pro-Confederate Holston itinerant educated at Emory and Henry College. Shown here at the age of twenty-four, he left an insightful biography of his life, From Sunrise to Sunset; Reminiscence, from which this picture is taken (following p. 110).

Also clearly indicative of the disintegration of morale in Holston was the extraordinary change of attitudes exhibited at its forty-second session meeting in Marion, Virginia, on September 14, 1865. Bishop John Early had metamorphosed into a “broad, liberal, and tolerant” leader who offered many kind words about President Andrew Johnson and who had no objection to the declaration of many of his former rulings as being improper and illegal. A lengthy report written by Ephraim E. Wiley and signed by the most radically nationalistic former Confederate itinerants unctuously declared that it was now the duty of ministers to take the amnesty oath, swearing allegiance to the United States. The report accepted as a fact that “slavery as it existed among us is dead” and disapprobated any effort on the part of its ministers to be an agent for any political cause or government. These itinerants stated that actions taken at previous conferences expelling itinerants for suspected loyalty to the Union were, in a choice word, “hasty.” Although they could not legally restore these former itinerants at this an-

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nual conference, they would “instruct [the] delegates to the next General Conference to ask that body to do so.” Finally, the report declared that any brother who had withdrawn from the conference and connected himself with “any other ecclesiastical body, under a misapprehension of any kind, but now desires to return” would “be cordially received by us.” One of those expelled itinerants, Jonathan L. Mann, later expostulated bitterly against the use of the word “hasty.” To have used that expression, “was hasty, is infinitely worse than to have said nothing at all,—it is false, and therefore, wicked.” Mann obviously felt that such an expression denied the essential deliberateness and fixed intentionality of these expulsions.12 Such ecclesiastical obsequiousness, even if it had occurred much earlier, could in no way mollify Brownlow, however, or alter his determination to destroy the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Holston Conference entirely. In May 1864 the Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator announced a convention of all loyal Methodists, preachers and laymen, to meet the first Thursday in July to form a new Holston Conference completely separate from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Brownlow opined that the recent action of the General Conference of the Northern Methodists invited reunion with the “old mother church,” but he held out the alternative of organizing an independent Wesleyan Church should those plans not be realized. When this convention did meet, fifty-five delegates, twenty-seven of whom were preachers, met in Knoxville. In reporting on this convention, one important fact was emphasized by Brownlow explicitly: the large number of local preachers within Holston who had remained loyal to the Union. “We have one hundred and twelve loyal preachers, and at least forty more whose name we could not obtain” because large portions of the conference were still under Confederate control. Brownlow also noted that many of these local preachers were ready to enter into the traveling connection “upon the platform adopted by the convention.” Almost unconsciously, the former Holston itinerant had publicly noted the large number and importance of loyal local preachers within the conference. In light of Brownlow’s former contempt for these local preachers, such a tacit acknowledgement of their importance to the Union cause in East Tennessee was remarkable by any standard, exceeded, perhaps, only by Bishop Early’s newfound sycophantic civility and tolerance the following year.13 Contemporary observers in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, also noted the preponderance of local preachers in the newly organized MEC Holston Conference, but they viewed such numbers as a species of reproach. One such prominent Southern Methodist itinerant, A. L. P.

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Green, noted with ill-concealed contempt that the ministers of the Northern church serving Holston “are not generally men of mark—quite a number of them were local preachers before the war, belonging to the Church, South.” Many of them, he continued, were eager before the war to become traveling ministers but evidently did not measure up to required standards. When the Northern church occupied Holston and offered a generous salary to its itinerants, quite a few of these local ministers saw the opportunity to rise in both station and wealth by becoming itinerants in the newly formed conference. This argument cleverly ignored the strong prewar antislavery stance of a majority of Holston local preachers, however, and also offered no explanation for their Unionist sentiments during the Civil War, which often placed their own lives in mortal danger. Further, many of these local preachers, such as Augustine F. Shannon, had superannuated as itinerants before becoming local, and some of these local preachers, such as Spencer Henry, had previously held prominent positions in county government or otherwise had independent means of support.14 Conspicuous among the delegates to this convention in July 1864 were former Holston itinerants expelled from the conference between 1862 and 1865 for suspected disloyalty to the Confederacy. J. Albert Hyden, William Hurd Rogers, William C. Daily, Thomas P. Rutherford, Thomas H. Russell, Joseph Milburn, and James Cumming, all former apostates, were now among the brightest stars of the new Holston Conference, MEC. Especially embarrassing to the old Holston Conference was the defection of two presiding elders, William C. Daily and Francis M. Fanning, although these men had kept their silence during the stormy sessions of 1862 and 1863, leaving the Southern church only in 1864. Later additions to this list of expelled itinerants who would join the newly organized Holston Conference, MEC, in 1865 were W. H. H. Duggan, William C. Graves, Jonathan L. Mann, and William Milburn. The single characteristic that united these dissident itinerants more than any other attribute was their hatred of slavery. Francis M. Fanning had an intense hatred of the peculiar institution, as noted by his good friend Frank Richardson, a pro-Confederate Holston itinerant. William C. Graves carried his concern for former slaves into the new Holston Conference by helping to organize the East Tennessee Conference for African American Methodists and actually became a member of that conference for some time. He was also instrumental in founding a college for educating blacks, the Morristown Normal Seminary, under the auspices of the Northern Methodist church.15 Regardless of the motives of former Holston itinerants in joining the new Methodist Episcopal Church conference, however, Brownlow’s inten120

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tions remained unaltered and were explicitly stated: he would be satisfied with nothing less than the total destruction of the Southern Methodist church, beginning with the Holston Conference. The 1864 convention resolved that “all who willingly engaged in this rebellion” had “forfeited all the rights, privileges, and immunities” of American citizenship. Loyal members, in contrast, were entitled in law “to all property belonging to said ecclesiastical organization,” and the convention consequently proposed that “at the earliest day practicable” all property of the Southern Methodists within Holston should be transferred to the Northern Methodist church. Loyal ministers still within the bounds of the old Holston Conference should encourage their circuits, stations, and missions to change their church relations by going en masse to the Methodist Episcopal Church. Thereafter, throughout the remainder of 1864 and into 1865, Brownlow’s paper carried on an unrelenting campaign to urge Holston Methodists to “rejoice at the prospect of being severed from that ‘body of death’ known as the Methodist Church, South.” Although occasional editorials held out the olive branch to former rebels who had “sincerely repented of their folly,” Brownlow clearly believed that the “Church South,” as he anathematized it, was hopelessly corrupt and could not and should not be allowed to survive.16 Even before the convention had been called, William C. Daily and Patrick Henry Reed, two Holston itinerants who had located in 1862 and subsequently been expelled from the conference, organized on the first Sabbath of March 1864 the first society of what would later be the MEC Holston Conference at Mars Hill, Bradley County, with twenty-five members. Similar commitments to the Northern Methodist church came from other parts of Holston in response to Brownlow’s fervid editorials. In October 1864, the quarterly conference of the Sevierville circuit heartily approved the resolutions of the Knoxville convention held in July and formally changed their relations from the “M. E. Church South to the M. E. Church of the United States.” R. N. Price bitterly criticized Daily and other preachers who had joined the Northern Methodists for blatantly and repeatedly calling themselves the “United States Church,” as William Hurd Rogers had apparently done at Axley’s Chapel in Blount County. Price pointed out that critics had rightly condemned Bishop Early’s identification of Methodism with Confederate nationalism, but he argued that in using any tactics available, including identifying the Northern Methodist Episcopal Church with the Union, these Methodist Episcopal Church preachers had “out-Heroded Herod,” confusing religion and politics beyond rational credulity.17 Later Southern Methodist critics would charge that elaborate chicanery was used to manipulate many unsuspecting members of the old Holston 121

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Conference, MECS, into joining the new conference of the same name organized in 1865 by the Northern Methodists. Dr. A. L. P. Green asserted that the Methodist Episcopal Church preacher announced to his society or congregation that he had their names on class books and would consider them members of the loyal Methodist church unless they wished to belong to the rebel church. If, however, they should unwisely choose to withdraw from the true church to remain with the rebel church, he would publish their names, because “if the country has enemies in our midst the people ought to know it.” Whether or not such charges were true, it is undoubtedly clear that many former Holston circuits willingly transferred to the Northern Methodists, mainly because the majority of East Tennesseans remained loyal to the Union and had opposed slavery. This new Holston Conference was formally organized in Athens, Tennessee, on June 1, 1865, in the very same building where the most infamous 1862 MECS Holston annual conference had met. One can only guess at the motivation of the Northern Methodists in wishing to remind everyone of the abuses of the fire-eating Bishop Early at that 1862 conference, surrounded by threatening Confederate soldiers, or of its actions in expelling itinerants suspected of loyalty to the Union.18 The Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church thus began under auspicious circumstances, with visible martyrs to freedom, the federal Union, and antislavery enshrined as charter itinerants. William C. Daily, William C. Graves, J. Albert Hyden, Jonathan L. Mann, William Hurd Rogers, Thomas H. Russell, and Thomas P. Rutherford were prominently listed in the minutes and assumed leadership positions in the new organization. Bishop Davis W. Clark of the Cincinnati Conference presided over this “re-organization” and introduced other members of the Northern church who had transferred, including John F. Spence of the Cincinnati Conference, Thomas H. Pearne from the Oregon Conference, L. F. Drake and T. S. Stivers from the Ohio Conference, and George A. Gowin, Robert H. Guthrie, and William C. Daily from the Kentucky Conference. Eager to support this first conference organized in the South, the Methodist Episcopal Church also funded the new Holston Conference generously at the outset. The Missionary Board appropriated $15,000, and the Church Extension Society gave $10,000 the following year. In the second year of operation, 1866, there were six districts with presiding elders assigned to them, sixty stations and circuits, and a total of 18,300 members, in contrast to 5,146 members in 1865. With two hundred preachers, traveling and local, in 1866, the new conference faced only one obstacle, which they neverthe-

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less deemed not insurmountable: their new territory was already occupied by the old Holston Conference of the Southern Methodists.19 This founding conference of the “reorganization” of the Holston Conference explicitly reaffirmed that the “loyal ministers and members” were entitled in law to all the property of the Southern Methodist church, which had forfeited its rights through treason in the late rebellion. Justified by “Divine blessing,” this ecclesiastical cannibalism unleashed a widespread conflict over church property thus expropriated by the Northern Methodists, a conflict that raged for years in almost every community in East Tennessee. Early in the battle to “rebuild the waste places of Zion,” the new Holston Conference “stole” a very important asset from its sister conference, a transfer that occasioned cries of outrage throughout the various journals of newspapers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Brownlow wanted a college for the new conference, important in training ministers but also necessary to challenge the predominance of Emory and Henry College’s role in leadership within the bounds of the old Holston Conference. At the Knoxville convention in 1864, he gave himself the responsibility of corresponding with the stockholders of the Strawberry Plains College, which had closed in 1859. In all probability, he was not sanguine about taking over Emory and Henry, located in Virginia, and wanted a college closer to the center of Holston to attract Northern Methodist support and philanthropy.20 In 1865, just as the reorganizing conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was taking place in Athens, a better opportunity appeared. In 1857 the Holston Conference had obtained an uncompleted three-story brick building on two acres of land, which subsequently opened as the Athens Female College. Dr. Erastus Rowley, a graduate of Union College in Schenectady, New York, was chosen president in 1858 and was admitted to the conference. Under his leadership, the college prospered, having an initial enrollment in 1858 of seventy young women. Although a native of Massachusetts, Rowley became the owner of nine slaves and remained loyal to the Southern Methodist Holston Conference throughout the war. Although classes were suspended in 1863 and the college building was used as a military hospital, Rowley continued to be appointed president until 1865. In that year, he joined the Northern Methodists and sued the college for outstanding debts, which he claimed were due him because he had paid for repairs, equipment, and additional acreage at his own expense without reimbursement. Although the trustees representing the Southern Methodists contested Rowley’s claims on the basis that these expenses were never sanctioned by the trustees, Chancellor D. C. Trewhitt ruled in Rowley’s

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favor and awarded him $5,755.92 in damages. The college and its assets were to be sold at public auction to raise this money, but on September 6, 1866, the Reverend Edwin A. Atlee, acting as an agent for Rowley, bought the entire property at chancery sale for $7,150, less than half its estimated value. In 1866 Rowley offered to sell this college property for the sum he had received after other debts were paid—approximately $6,000—to the newly formed Northern Holston Conference. The transfer occurred in 1867, and the Northern Methodists obtained assets valued in excess of $20,000 to open their own college, East Tennessee Wesleyan College.21 The uproar in Southern Methodist journals and papers reached a crescendo when the details of this transaction were publicized. Rowley was offered the presidency of the Depauw Female College in Albany, Indiana, in 1867, and managed to escape the controversy at an opportune time. David Rice McAnally, former Holston itinerant and at the time editor of the St. Louis Advocate, led an excoriating personal attack on Rowley, accusing him of being the worst sort of clerical opportunist. Rowley responded with an effective counterattack, reprinting an offer McAnally had made to him in 1860 for the presidency of a Methodist college in St. Louis. The editor of the Episcopal Methodist in Richmond, Virginia, called the entire transaction a “fraud” and denoted “the purchasers as grand thieves and rascals.” Thomas H. Pearne, one of the leaders of the new Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, replied that these accusations were “unqualifiedly false!” The circumstances of this purchase, however, were sufficiently suspicious to allow Southern Methodists to vent their anger without reservation, and the whole issue became a cause célèbre, repeated for many years thereafter in the Southern Methodist press. In an article published in 1908, R. N. Price succinctly summed up the Southern Methodist complaint against Rowley. “The president of Athens Female College,” he maintained, “whose heart was not with us, looking to his own financial interests, engineered that institution out of the hands of the Church which he represented.”22 Although the Civil War had formally ended in April 1865 at Appomattox, the internal civil war in Southern Appalachian Methodism was just getting started. When the new Holston Conference began to assign ministers to circuits and stations already occupied by the Southern Holston Conference and to seize control of both churches and parsonages, the conflict disintegrated into myriad local contests throughout East Tennessee, western North Carolina, and southwestern Virginia. Southern Methodists, although their numbers and resources were badly depleted at the end of the war, continued to struggle for their very existence as an organized denomination against

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this assault. The 1866 MECS Holston Conference minutes listed a loss of 26,477 members, to give just one indication of the appalling weakness of the Southern Methodists, down to a total membership of 24,173, nearly half its prewar membership. Brownlow justified this continuing assault against what he considered a moribund Southern Methodist church countless times in the pages of the Knoxville Whig, and his election as governor of Tennessee in 1865 meant he could lend the full force of state government and police to assist in the blatant seizure of Southern Methodist church properties. Soon accounts of these seizures and confrontations between ministers and laity of the rival Holston Conferences filled the presses of both denominations, with charges and countercharges, and lawsuits over disputed property. Unlike the story of the disputed baby brought to King Solomon, neither side seemed to object to splitting the ecclesiastical infant in half.23 Trying to recover the actual events at the local level occurring when both Holston Conferences began to struggle for occupation and possession of existing churches is a historiographical minefield. Especially in East Tennessee, both Northern and Southern Methodists were absolutely convinced that in using intimidation, lockouts, boycotts, and even overt violence, they were nevertheless acting in both a morally and a religiously correct manner; conversely, they were both persuaded that their opponents were agents of Satan. This struggle was also occurring within the context of four bitter years of guerrilla warfare that killed almost indiscriminately after these partisan bands degenerated into little more than outlaw groups robbing anyone. At the root of the problem, however, was nationalism, whether Confederate or Union, merged with religion and justifying thereby behavior among its own partisans that it bitterly condemned in the opposing side. As a wise Northern presiding elder, Nelson E. Cobleigh, later wrote, there must be a lack of consistency, if not a want of sincerity, “in a Church which denounces as criminal in the other Church an act which it persistently justifies in itself.”24 At bottom, the war had occasioned such bitter partisanship that neither East Tennessee Unionists nor ex-Confederates were willing to compromise. As Holston historian Isaac Patton Martin argued, there was absolutely no place in the Southern Holston Conference for loyal Union men, and no place in the newly organized Northern Holston Conference for former Confederates. Yet neither Holston conference was willing to allow the other to exist or to accommodate those Methodists whom they themselves refused to admit to fellowship or communion. Both conferences, after the Northern Holston Conference was organized in 1865, began to routinely assign ministers to the same circuits and stations on paper. Inevitable conflicts .

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immediately erupted between contending parties, with both sides convinced that their claim on church property was indisputable in both equity and law. At the close of the war, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in East Tennessee was in financial disarray and many of its itinerants had fled to southwestern Virginia for safety. After peace was declared, they often found the MEC Holston Conference in charge of their former circuits when they returned, and subsequently they began a bitter contest of denouncing their opponents and attempting to lock them out or sue them for church property in the county courts. But who actually owned Methodist churches—the local congregations or the larger denomination? Often, older church property deeds had been made before the Southern Methodists separated in 1844, so the title read “Methodist Episcopal Church,” the exact name of the Northern church after the war.25 Every Methodist church in each district or circuit had its own separate dispute, and each dispute varied but at the same time had a monotonous similarity to all the others. There was occasionally some unintentional humor in these contests, as, for example, when in 1867, the presiding elder of the Jonesborough district of the “loyal” church, Reverend L. F. Drake, was holding a funeral service for the daughter of James Vaughan at Boones Creek in Washington County. Just as the corpse was being lowered into the grave, the “reverend (?) J. D. Tadlock, of rebel notoriety,” elbowed his way through the crowd and, “without consulting Dr. Drake, disturbed the solemnity of the proceedings by abruptly taking charge of the exercises himself!” Illustrative of the problems in accurately reporting these cases is the fact that the Reverend James Doak Tadlock was actually a prominent Presbyterian minister. The legal problems surrounding these disputes were complicated and settled only gradually over time. One class of church property had never been deeded to the Southern Methodist church, and after 1865 the owners joined the Northern Holston Conference. Often, Southern churches were heavily entangled in debt and were either sold at auction or redeemed by members of the Northern Methodist church. Frequently, individual congregations were so badly divided that neither group could obtain a clear title to the church property. What would become the most prominent Methodist church in Knoxville, Church Street, was taken over by the Northern Methodists under Thomas H. Pearne in 1866, for example, but was finally returned to the Southern Methodists ten years later under the threat of a lawsuit.26 Critical to understanding the raging war between the two Holston Conferences is an awareness of how important the written word was to all

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Methodists, regardless of affiliation. The Methodists had always been inveterate record keepers, indefatigable in properly maintaining their class books, church rolls, and quarterly conference journals or minutes just at the local level. Stealing or removing these critical records made the opposition seethe with rage, because both denominations claimed to be the “true” Methodist Church, forced to separate from their wayward brethren in 1844 over irreconcilable differences to maintain their ecclesiastical purity. It was therefore important for each small church, regardless of size, to seek some public forum in print to justify themselves before their community and the larger denomination. A classic example of this conflict published in their newspapers was the conflict that occurred in 1868 in the Wesleyana church, a small congregation in McMinn County, Tennessee. Southern Methodists had been publishing a series of assertions in the Nashville Christian Advocate under the name of Bishop McTyeire or an anonymous writer signing his name “Holstein.” This author claimed that the Sabbath school meeting in this church denied admission to the children and grandchildren of members of the Southern Methodists, although these founders had initially given the money to build the church. Further, argued Holstein, the entire neighborhood was dissatisfied with this Northern occupation and favored taking steps to reoccupy the church they believed rightly belonged to them. Yet when the Southern Methodists tried to hold a Sabbath school for their children in this church, the representatives of “Radical Methodism took a number of armed men” to the building and, in “the most abrupt insulting manner, stamping his foot violently on the floor,” ordered them all to get out.27 George W. Coleman, the Northern itinerant in charge of the Athens circuit, which included Wesleyana, denied all these charges as “wholly false.” In point of fact, Coleman argued, when he arrived at the church accompanied by only one other unarmed member, John S. Barker, there was not a single member of the rebel school there. He had actually previously invited these children to participate in the Northern Sabbath school, to no avail. The only mob-like demonstrations Coleman saw, he reported, were made by a disorderly crowd of rebels breaking out of the church and hurling terrible epithets at the loyal Methodists, “who had been guilty of no crimes but that of assembling on Sabbath morning at the time that they had been accustomed for two years” for their Sabbath school. Moreover, only a few rebel families were dissatisfied. If they had gone to the officers of the Northern Sabbath school in the first place and sought a compromise, it could have been effected, but no such effort was made. On the morning in question, the second Sabbath in March, the rebels had shown up in force to demand that these Northern

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“church thieves” vacate their property. In conclusion, Coleman maintained that although they had more than twice the membership that the rebels had, they had never forbidden the rebels the use of the church building. Five members signed an affidavit to the truth of Coleman’s assertions, and the whole article was published in the Athens Republican on March 16, 1868.28 Even more revealing of both the complexity and the intensity of the hostility between the rival Holston Conferences was the savage beating of Henry C. Neal on February 2, 1868, when he was en route to preach at Axley’s Chapel on the Maryville and Louisville circuit in Blount County, Tennessee. Neal, an ardent young itinerant in the Southern Holston Conference, had actually gone to this circuit early in December 1867 and had already had numerous encounters with hostile Unionists who tried unsuccessfully to thwart his preaching at various locations, including the church at Mount Moriah. A captain in the Federal army, Mr. Fulkerson, tried to warn him, as did other members of the community, but Neal persisted in what he believed was his sacred duty to preach at these locations. Numerous, repeated warnings, mixed with threats, and some mob-like efforts to interrupt his services did not deter Neal at any point. Even more revealing in his narrative, however, is the number of sympathetic friends and people in these communities otherwise completely hostile toward him who continued to come out to hear him preach. Finally, he was ambushed on February 2, 1868, heading toward Axley’s Chapel, by a group of cursing men who blindfolded him, struck him in the head with a pistol, then tied him up to a persimmon tree and beat him mercilessly with withes until he lost consciousness. After awakening, he managed to make his way to the home of an old friend, Dr. W. H. Douthit, who removed a handful of splinters from the lacerations on Neal’s back. The Union League was very strong in Blount County, and Neal later learned that his protagonists blamed those people friendly toward him for his persistence in preaching and ordered their names to be listed on paper, making them the objects of future vengeance.29 The other interesting fact in Neal’s story is the inclusion of African Americans in the numerous groups of hostile men who confronted Neal at different points. On the day of his brutal beating, he had earlier arrived at Axley’s Chapel to discover it filled with people, two-thirds of whom were black. The pulpit was occupied by a black man and a white man, and the congregation seemed intent on mocking Neal, which caused him to depart after only two minutes. Newspaper coverage quickly followed this incident, with both sides characteristically blaming the other. The Democratic Knoxville Daily Press and Herald sarcastically condemned the attack on Neal as an example of “the extraordinary measure of religious liberty which we enjoy 128

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in loyal East Tennessee.” Thomas H. Pearne, presiding elder of the Knoxville district for the Northern Methodists, strongly condemned all such attacks in the Knoxville Whig and excoriated as “basely and wickedly false” any implication of the Northern Methodist church in such proceedings. A year later, another Southern Methodist minister, Jacob Smith, was brutally beaten with clubs on April 25, 1869, when he attempted to reach his appointment at Mr. Peter Brakebill’s schoolhouse on Little River in Blount County. Although badly beaten by numerous assailants, he continued on and delivered his sermon. Smith was an elderly man, and this outrage provoked yet another round of charges and countercharges in the Knoxville Whig and the Knoxville Daily Press and Herald.30 Yet despite the brutality of these savage beatings of Southern Methodist preachers, R. N. Price saw them as providentially turning public opinion in East Tennessee against the Methodist Episcopal Church. Brownlow and others had used the expulsion of loyal preachers from the Holston Conference during the Civil War, especially the horrific forced march of W. H. H. Duggan, as iconic symbols of Southern Methodist inhumanity. Thanks to the Union League and the overzealous Northern Methodists in Blount County, the Southern Methodists had legitimate martyrs of their own in Neal and Smith, and they did not hesitate to spread this message to newspapers outside the region. Price thus argued that his church was “under real obligations to the persecutors, especially those of Blount County, for turning the tide in our favor” and putting the Northern Methodists on the defensive. Although he could not forbear pointing out that Reverend George Thomas Gray of the Southern church had a walking cane made out of the persimmon tree to which Neal was tied, Price nevertheless argued that these acts of overt violence awakened the conscience of many Methodists in the section and that they, although Unionists, refused to countenance such lawlessness against Southern Methodist clergy thereafter. There was continuing competition and hostility between the two Holston Conferences after 1869, and the property claims would linger for many years to come, but physical attacks against Methodist clergy had finally ceased.31 At the 1868 annual Holston Conference of the Southern Methodists, an eloquent memorial written by Ephraim E. Wiley was addressed to the General Conference and members of the Northern Methodist church, protesting the seizure of Southern Methodist churches and parsonages by the rival Northern conference. Over a hundred church edifices were still held, valued at not less than $75,000. Southern itinerants were routinely threatened, locked out, and actually beaten by hostile mobs of this rival conference, with the tacit approval of their ministers and presiding elders. Such outrages 129

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violated the honor of Methodism and threatened the common Christianity of all believers, and Wiley further argued that one word from the bishops of the Northern Methodist church, or condemnation in their church papers, would mitigate these actions that were harming all Methodists. Wiley made two critical arguments in his appeal. First, he argued, why should the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, have her property taken when the federal government had not confiscated property from any other rebels? Lee might have surrendered to Grant, but the Southern church had not likewise surrendered either its property or its rights to the Northern Methodists. Finally, he conceded hypothetically that the members of the Southern Methodist church and their clergy might have been “sinners, rebels, traitors touching our civil and political relations to the government.” Even if these assertions were valid, however, “for our moral obliquities we are responsible alone to God,” not to the U.S. government or to the Methodist Episcopal Church. Herein was clearly stated the importance of separation of church and state, a principle, ironically, that neither the Southern Methodists nor their Northern brethren had scrupulously observed before, during, or after the Civil War.32 This memorial was sent by the MEC General Conference back to their Holston Conference, but Price believed that the ensuing negotiations between the two rival conferences resulted in little immediate resolution of the problem of church property. In the 1869 annual conference of the Southern Methodists, a committee of five itinerants was appointed to meet with the MEC Holston Conference convening in Jonesborough to negotiate terms for some sort of settlement. According to the committee members’ calculations, the Northern Methodists were still in illegal possession of forty-six churches valued at $52,500 and three parsonages valued at $2,900. All of the disputed property was in East Tennessee. These men, including R. N. Price and Ephraim E. Wiley, met with five members of the rival conference, which, somewhat ironically, included Francis M. Fanning and J. Albert Hyden, former members of the Southern Holston Conference, and the Northern committee members duly agreed to the written demands of their Southern counterparts in a pleasant and harmonious atmosphere. However, when the Northern committee made its report to its own conference, the Southern committee members were “surprised and mortified to hear quite a different report, and felt that they had been dealt with treacherously.” Appeals and counterappeals continued until a joint commission of both the Southern Methodists and the Northern Methodists met in Cape May City, New Jersey, on August 17–23, 1876, to unanimously agree to a final settlement.33

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In the meantime, what had happened to the loyal local preachers in Holston whose opposition to the Confederacy had played a pivotal role during the war in East Tennessee? Many of these local preachers, men such as Spencer Henry and Absalom B. Wright, had joined the Northern church in 1865. Spencer Henry in particular played a dominant role in the new Holston Conference, and his editorials in the Knoxville Whig in 1868 rivaled Brownlow’s rhetoric for scathing denunciation of “rebel” Methodist ministers and their misdeeds during and after the war. Meeting for the first time after the war in 1866, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, made some major changes in its organizational structure that impacted local preachers adversely. Whether these changes were intentionally directed at the local ministry is impossible to determine, but their effect was undeniable. First, this 1866 MECS General Conference ended the requirement for attendance or registration in a class meeting for actual membership in the church. Although class meetings continued in some parts of Holston Conference into the 1880s, this change effectively killed class meetings, an institution that older Methodists had considered essential. The progressive itinerants in Holston by the 1850s were seriously questioning class meetings, love feasts, camp meetings, and all the machinery of early Methodism at the grass roots where local preachers thrived. Even in the last year of the Civil War, Holston itinerants had been debating the usefulness of these “outdated” forms of the Methodist economy and arguing for their diminution, if not abolition. Part of this debate had involved circuits versus fixed appointment in specific locations, deemed especially suitable for towns and cities.34 The other major change in the 1866 General Conference of the Southern Methodists was lay representation, as well as a new system of district conferences that was proposed but not passed until 1870, both of which might be viewed as diminishing the role and importance of the local preachers. In a sense, allowing lay representation at annual and general conferences highlighted the absence of any formal representation at either of these critical decision-making bodies of the local brethren. R. N. Price tells us that the district conference plan adopted by Holston was the first in the Southern Methodist church and that its constitution was substantially the same as the one adopted by the 1870 General Conference. In a certain sense, these district conferences might also be viewed as weakening the role of local preachers in the traditional quarterly conference meetings. In this regard, Bishop Holland N. McTyeire pointed out that these new district conferences were nothing like the district conferences in effect between 1820 and 1836, which were “confined to local preachers, and never popular or useful.”

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Rather, McTyeire argued, these new district conferences assisted in electing lay delegates and took “cognizance of a class of subjects” not so well handled by quarterly conferences. In any event, Holston voted for the adoption of lay representation by an overwhelming majority of forty-one in favor and only seven against the motion. No explicit statement was given regarding local preachers’ disloyalty to the Confederacy in Holston, but all the itinerants knew and freely admitted this fact.35 Regardless of the causes, local preachers suffered serious loss of status in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, throughout the 1870s. A prescient article appeared in the Southern Methodist Quarterly Review in 1882, outlining succinctly the causes for this decline. David Wilson, a chaplain in the U.S. army, argued that despite their former usefulness, with the end of the circuit system local preachers were no longer needed. An “unemployed ministry is a useless ministry,” he pointed out, and with the demand for bettereducated itinerants to compete with ministers from other denominations, local preachers had become “a penal colony of ministers, who, as a class of unfortunates, are without hope of restoration.” Further, he argued that it was indispensable that the power to license local preachers be withdrawn from the quarterly conferences and be conferred only on district or annual conferences to ensure high quality and end all pernicious “local” influences. Finally, he bluntly asserted that such halfhearted, inefficient, and “inchoate” local preachers should never be ordained. If they were allowed to dwindle away without replacement, “that which has been often opprobriously described as the ‘Botany Bay’ of the inefficient traveling preacher—the local preachers’ department proper—will have passed away; there will be no clerical ‘penal colony.’ ”36 Despite initial success in seizing rebel churches and other property, the Northern Holston Conference suffered from its own internal problems. From the beginning there was bitter complaint that the leadership, particularly presiding elders and bishops, all came from the North. Davis W. Clark, Calvin Kingsley, D. W. Scott, and Matthew Simpson, bishops of Holston between 1865 and 1869, were all outsiders, as were Thomas H. Pearne, John F. Spence, Lemuel F. Drake, and Nelson E. Cobleigh, who occupied the important presiding elder positions and thus effectively controlled the new conference. Many of these men blended Methodism with loyalty to the Republican Party and often exhibited a sense of cultural superiority to native East Tennesseans, however unintentional. Cobleigh had been editor of the important organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church’s Zion’s Herald between 1863 and 1867, for example, and it is undoubtedly true that such men had

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been chosen by the MEC General Conference for their unquestioned loyalty and orthodoxy. One native itinerant, Absalom B. Wright, who had been a local preacher in the old conference before joining the new MEC Holston Conference in 1865, bitterly complained, “Northern men seem to have great influence with the bishop, and from his arrival until he leaves they have his ear, and in a large measure they dictate the appointments.” Consequently, he continued, Northerners were given the best circuits and stations regardless of their ability as preachers, and native itinerants were forced to take second- or third-class appointments. Such sectionalism within the new conference, he feared, made the future of the Methodist Episcopal Church in this region very precarious.37 Although Wright served in second- and third-class appointments— usually in the mountainous counties of Cumberland, Fentress, Morgan, or Scott—he enjoyed great success but periodically was deeply troubled at the ostracism and hostility exhibited by Southern Methodists toward his Northern denomination. Itinerants from the rival Holston Conference universally proclaimed that defections from their ranks to the Northern Methodists were occasioned solely by better salaries. This charge was especially leveled at prominent Southern presiding elders, men such as Francis M. Fanning and William C. Daily, who joined the new Holston Conference, MEC, in 1865. In reality, generous funding initially from the Methodist Episcopal Church’s Missionary Society and Church Extension Society made it possible to pay the salaries of itinerants and presiding elders in a section impoverished by the Civil War. Yet in 1868 there was great dissatisfaction over the distribution of these funds, which apparently went disproportionately to the hierarchy, the presiding elders, and the bishop, who were all Northern men. One courageous itinerant, George W. Coleman, moved to add itinerants to the Missionary Board disbursing these sums. Coleman was himself a Northern transplant, and his objection ultimately prevailed, but the question rose again in 1870. By 1871, the largest salary paid to a presiding elder in the Knoxville district was $992; in contrast, white itinerants averaged salaries of $261.55, and black ministers received an average salary of $83.43.38 Unfortunately, the controversy between the two rival Holston Conferences over church property and the internal dissent within the Northern Holston Conference have tended to obscure the fundamental differences between the two Methodist denominations. Ephraim E. Wiley, president of Emory and Henry College, was indisputably the single most influential member of the Southern conference, dominating its leadership from the 1850s until the 1870s. Besides training the leadership of Holston and backing

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Bishop Early in his crusade against itinerants disloyal to the Confederacy, Wiley had written most of the significant memorials presented by Holston, including the 1868 memorial on recovering church property. Undoubtedly R. N. Price’s subtle defense of slavery came directly from Wiley’s instruction, along with the sense of the innate superiority of the Southern slaveholding aristocracy. The core issue, however, between the opposing forces in the civil war within Holston Methodism was chattel slavery. The local preachers who remained stubbornly loyal to the Union, along with a handful of dissident itinerants, were fundamentally convicted of the essential sin, or moral wrong, in holding other human beings as property. After the Civil War formally ended, the battle was rejoined over the issue of the treatment of former slaves, now freedmen, in their midst. Northern Methodists who came South to help form a new Holston Conference, MEC, were primarily intent on ensuring that former slaves were treated fairly in this region, as their individual testimony repeatedly emphasized.39 At the end of the war, Wiley saw one more opportunity to try to salvage the Lost Cause within Southern Methodism. He wrote a lengthy appeal in January 1866 to his old professor and mentor, Daniel D. Whedon, formerly at Wesleyan University, who had become editor of the Methodist Quarterly Review, one of the most influential Northern periodicals. Whedon, author of numerous scholarly books on theology, had ironically disagreed with other prominent Northern Methodist leaders about extending a charitable hand of Christian forgiveness to the Southern church, defeated and prostrate, in 1865. Wiley thus saw his former professor’s charity toward the South as an opportunity to approach Whedon with a lengthy rationalization about both slavery and the future treatment of freedmen. Whedon, however, clearly saw through Wiley’s subtle and sophisticated casuistry. Exploding in anger, he attacked his former student on numerous points. How could Wiley argue that to emancipate his slaves was no better than to “steal his horse”? How absurd, after enslaving and abusing the African American population for two centuries, for Wiley to glibly declare that after emancipation, “whatever becomes of the Negro now, the South does not hold themselves accountable.” Finally, Whedon excoriated Wiley for the specious argument that slavery was a “political” question from which the church should remain aloof. “If then, there happens to be any iniquity upon which the label politics can be fixed, the Church can wrap herself up in irresponsibility, refuse to rebuke it and freely indulge in it.” Of course, this argument that slavery was a political question was used extensively by Wiley’s student, R. N. Price, in his later justification of slavery in Holston.40

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“Whether it be buying or selling a man, robbing him of his wages, selling his children, depriving him of holy matrimony, prohibiting his education or enfranchisement, or pursuing him with blood hounds, are all beyond rebuke if you call them politics,” Whedon thundered in righteous indignation. Whedon also demanded to know why Wiley considered only the Southern slaveholding oligarchy “the South.” The bottom line, he finally argued, as “the single term or condition of conciliation” between the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was “justice and equity to the oppressed colored people among you.” Wiley’s clear refusal on this point underscored the fundamental difference between the two Methodisms before, during, and after the Civil War. Resistance by local preachers in Holston during the war was primarily due to their antipathy to slavery; the hostility after the war between the two rival Holston Conferences centered on the fundamental issue of the treatment of former slaves. “It is that spirit of diabolic inhumanity in the South that keeps us separate,” Whedon maintained. If the lynching of African Americans and Black Codes passed to enslave them in another fashion in 1866 was supported by Southern Methodists, he concluded in extraordinarily harsh language that “Southern Christianity may go to the Devil, where it belongs.”41 For years after this exchange of letters, Whedon attacked Southern Methodists, Wiley in particular, in numerous church periodicals, notably in Zion’s Herald, published in Boston. When Wiley replied to these attacks, he characteristically focused his article on the “stolen” church property, which had become an extremely convenient vehicle to obfuscate the real issue of the treatment of former slaves in the South. Whedon expressed his fears that “if . . . the principles that seem to animate your letter are inculcated in the minds of your young men, bitter indeed will be the fruits.” In effect, Wiley’s former professor presciently perceived that Wiley had indoctrinated an entire generation of his students at Emory and Henry College with a unique melding of Wesleyan theology with Southern ideology, which indeed is precisely what had actually happened. If R. N. Price is an example of this particular form of indoctrination, no bitter fruits occurring later during Reconstruction ever changed any of Wiley’s former students’ minds about either slavery or Southern ideology. Holston as part of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, under the leadership of Wiley’s proselytes subsequently retained this unique melding of religion, politics, and unapologetic racism well into the next century.42 The treatment of black Methodists by both the Southern Methodists and the Northern Methodists is perhaps more instructive than their rhetoric.

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Attendees at the General Conference meeting of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in New Orleans in 1866 made hypocritical utterances about their historic mission to African Americans but in fact began the process of segregating those blacks remaining in their church into separate districts and conferences, ultimately leading to the organization of an entirely new denomination, the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1870. Already by 1866 the number of African Americans in the Southern church had dropped precipitously from a high of 207,766 before the war to 78,742. The simple reality was that the Southern church had no concept of how to deal with its black membership, which had become politically free and proved unwilling to assume a subordinate role. Although the Southern Methodists did not want these black members, they feared that blacks would swell the ranks of the Northern Methodist church, thereby legitimizing its missionary intrusion into the defeated South. As a consequence, the Southern Methodists entered into an unholy, if totally cynical, alliance with the older African Methodist denominations—the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Zion—to take these members off their hands so they would not fall by default to the Northern Methodists. Many black Southern Methodists willingly went along with these arrangements to obtain title to their separate church buildings, which were still legally deeded to the Southern Methodist church. They also avoided direct conflict with their former masters in an atmosphere of increasing hostility and racial tensions by segregating into separate Methodist denominations. As long as they did not join the Northern Methodists, both parties were satisfied.43 Holston Conference, MECS, saw a parallel drop in its black membership, from 4,826 in 1860 to 1,263 members in 1866. David Sullins, a prominent itinerant who had been educated under Wiley at Emory and Henry College and later became president of that institution, is quite explicit about the treatment of these black members, whose very presence in his congregation in Wytheville, Virginia, just after the war ended was especially awkward to him. Before the war, he explained, African Americans sat obediently in the rear seats or in the gallery of the church, but after the war they were free and beginning to assert their independence. He accordingly informed these black members, whose numbers were large, that they should forthwith join one of the older African Methodist denominations, where they would be happier and more independent—and solve his dilemma of exactly how to deal with them. Sullins promptly sent a letter to one of these denominations, which responded by sending a representative to meet with his black members and persuade them to join their church. This meeting was suc-

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cessful, and Sullins thereby ended what he considered “a somewhat puzzling factor in our work.” Taking the black members’ names off his church register when they transferred to one of the African Methodist churches, he joyfully concluded that “all were pleased.” One cannot help but recall after Sullins’s joy in getting rid of his black congregants (and Wiley’s comment to Dr. Whedon that the blacks were no longer the responsibility of the Southern church) that in 1862 in a lengthy justification for their actions, the Holston Conference actually stated that the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, “had been committed in a sense true of no other people on the face of the globe [to] the guardianship and moral and intellectual culture of the African race” and further that they were “to a great extent, charged, in the providence of God, with the religious destiny of the colored man.”44 In contrast, the Northern Methodists saw recruiting former slaves to their ranks as a major reason for invading the South, and to win these freedmen, about four-fifths of the funds expended by the Methodist Episcopal Church during Reconstruction went toward this specific goal. Part of what the Northern church promised former slaves was ecclesiastical equality, full membership in the only Methodist denomination that welcomed all Americans, white or black, to equal enjoyment of its privileges. It is ironic, therefore, that the Holston Conference of the Northern Methodist church would fail in this mission almost as badly as had the Southern Methodists, who early abandoned any further responsibility to African Americans after the war. The basic reason for this failure was a pervasive racism that made partisan charges of “Negro equality” and “abolitionist church” difficult, if not impossible, for the Northern brethren, despite all their best intentions, to overcome. An early indication of this problem occurred when a Southern itinerant, William H. Bates, publicly accused the Northern Holston Conference of allowing two or three black preachers to come up to the altar and receive the sacrament at the same time whites did. Instead of defending their right to do so, however, Thomas H. Pearne, presiding elder at Knoxville, temporized and tried to excuse this action. He replied in the Knoxville Whig that “no colored persons were invited to the sacrament with the whites” intentionally. What were the Northern Methodist clergy supposed to do when black preachers appeared at the altar, Pearne asked: “[T]ell them to go back and wait, until their turn came?” 45 The real story of what occurred with black members in the Northern Holston Conference can be discovered only by close examination of the annual conference minutes. In the 1868 minutes, 24,132 white members were listed, along with 674 white local preachers. Separately, 1,598 black members

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were enumerated, with only 13 black local preachers. In 1871, black preachers were listed separately: William Bluford, Jeremiah Gudger, Harrison Huston, Charles K. Mays, Samuel Patterson, John C. Tate, James Yarnell, and Clem Shaw. In 1875, the names of the black preachers were listed together with the white itinerants, an effort at inclusion possibly occasioned by the visit during the previous conference of Bishop Gilbert Haven. Yet segregation was nevertheless evolving, because in 1877 two districts, Russellville and Cleveland, were listed with only black preachers, and each district had a black presiding elder, John C. Tate and A. P. Melton, respectively. Problems seemed to be occurring with some of these black ministers; Harrison Huston was expelled with no reason given in 1873, and in 1878, James Yarnell was granted a location at his own request and the case of Clem Shaw was referred to his presiding elder, but no charges were specified. In the 1879 minutes, committees reported the results of their investigation of both John C. Tate and Clem Shaw but recommended passage of their characters. No charges were specified in these minutes, so unfortunately there is no indication of their alleged offences.46 The real bombshell was dropped in the 1875 minutes when Nathaniel Greene Taylor presented resolutions to establish separate conferences for the “colored people.” In 1879, this separation was actually effected when two black ministers, S. J. Harris and A. P. Melton, formally requested their Holston delegates at the next General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church to “constitute the colored members of this body a separate Annual Conference, to be known as the East Tennessee Conference.” The vote approving this request was unanimous. Accordingly, the East Tennessee Annual Conference held its first organizational meeting at Greeneville, Tennessee, on October 28, 1880. Although several MEC Holston Conference white itinerants (William Hurd Rogers, D. B. Lawton, and William C. Graves) were included initially, African American members in effect had their own separate annual conference, completely segregated from the other Holston Conference yet covering the same territory. Bishop Gilbert Haven, well-known for his belief that segregation of black members should not be allowed in the Northern Methodist church, was nevertheless the presiding bishop of this new conference. The conference met at the Greeneville Episcopal Church (Colored), so clearly African Americans had formed their own separate congregations. The earlier separate and segregated districts of the African American Northern Methodists clearly presaged this development, yet such finalization of segregation surely violated a basic conviction held by many Methodist lay and clerical members of this denomination since the Civil War about ecclesiastical equality for all Americans, regardless of race.47 138

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The hesitancy, or uncertainty, about the status of blacks in their denomination in the Northern Holston Conference opened the door for the most bitter, vicious attacks from the Southern conference in this continuing civil war within Methodism in Appalachia. R. N. Price, editor of the Holston Methodist, excoriated his Northern brethren for establishing separate districts, then a separate conference, for African Americans. On what basis, he taunted, did the Northern Methodists make this division, other than race? He ridiculed Nelson E. Cobleigh, president of East Tennessee Wesleyan University, for accepting three thousand dollars from the Freedman’s Bureau with the promise to admit blacks, then never fulfilling this commitment. Price’s main argument was that the members of the MEC Holston Conference hypocritically were as reluctant to allow black integration into their church or college as were their Southern counterparts. The full weight of his attack, however, was directed against Bishop Gilbert Haven, sent to the South to direct the conferences of the Northern Methodist church in that region. Haven was an outspoken advocate of complete social equality between the races and used provocative, if at times sexual, language to promote miscegenation. Far in advance of his fellow bishops and church leaders in the North, Haven was fearless in advocating his vision of a biracial society, and he especially championed mulattos as superior in every respect to their counterparts in either separate race. Yet Haven had a wonderful sense of humor, and when one of his superior black presiding elders, John Tate, mocked racism at the 1878 Holston Conference where he presided, the bishop smiled in approbation. Tate berated some mulatto preachers under his charge, suggesting that in one, “Scotch-Irish blood had spoiled him and made him high-tempered!” Another was made lazy by his Anglo-Saxon blood, Tate continued, and “Dutch-Irish blood had demoralized a third,” who he claimed “ought to have been in the penitentiary long since!”48 In attacking Haven, Price fully exposed his own absolute racism but touched a responsive chord in the population of East Tennessee, who, although largely opposed to slavery, were unprepared for any sort of racial amalgamation. Mulattos, Price claimed, were “an unfortunate race, physically, mentally, and morally,” like a mule a “violation of the laws of nature,” and “a living, walking curse to himself and to his race,” an “unfortunate and unnatural amalgam.” Page after page of Haven’s writings were reproduced in Price’s Holston Methodism, with his withering comments attached, asserting that “God has implanted in the minds of the white race an instinctive opposition to social equality with the black race.” Price also took great pains to separate antislavery sentiment from racism, arguing that there was no logical corollary between opposition to the peculiar institution in the 139

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Old South and hostility to inequality between the races after the Civil War, although this was precisely the point Bishop Haven emphasized with his often-repeated assertion that “anti-slavery means anti-caste.” Price had finally found a potent issue that resonated in the minds of white East Tennesseans, and he used it mercilessly and viciously to attack the rival Holston Conference. Even some members of his own conference who otherwise agreed with Price in principle (such as John Montgomery McTeer) protested against the unseemliness of Price’s rhetoric, with all its ridicule of Haven’s sexual imagery, including reference to mulatto women as “tinted Venuses.” 49 In April 1877, R. N. Price called on his former friend and fellow itinerant, Parson Brownlow, just a few days before the latter’s death. Their earlier friendship was separated by nearly seventeen bitter, barbed-wire years, during which both men had worked diligently, and evidently without any ecclesiastical or moral reservation, to destroy the Holston Conference championed by the other. Brownlow had been primarily responsible for inviting the formation of a separate conference under the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1864 and had systematically vilified Southern itinerants as godless traitors without pity, encouraging the takeover of their churches and congregations in the columns of his Knoxville Whig. Price had responded in kind, using the issue of race to alienate East Tennesseans belonging to the Northern church. Yet at this moment, the mystical bond of brotherhood among Methodist preachers reasserted itself, and Brownlow welcomed his old friend’s last visit. Nothing in the protracted war in Southern Appalachian Methodism is more ironic than the fact that these two men, both leaders of their separate army of followers, nevertheless shared and continued to extol the virtues of an older Methodist economy and polity. Both men were at heart racists, and both retained nostalgia for earlier class meetings, campground revivals, love feasts, and quarterly conferences. Both held local preachers in something akin to ill-concealed contempt. But the bitter war they fought would continue to divide Methodism in their respective Holston Conferences for another sixty-two years. Worse, from a historical perspective, was the burial of the memory of early Methodists in Holston, when antislavery views prevailed among itinerants such as James Axley and Father George Ekin. Even more tragic, with the loss or deliberate destruction of relevant records, was the moral amnesia erasing the ephemeral image of black and white Methodists earlier sharing a common religion in uncommon fellowship together.

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Epilogue Unreconstructed A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city; and their contentions are like the bars of a castle. —proverbs 18:19 We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men. We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation but it is far off from us. —isaiah 59:10–11

With very few exceptions, the most important group in the Holston Conference during the Civil War opposing the overwhelmingly pro-Confederate sentiments of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South—the local preachers—left no records to indicate their feelings or attitudes about the internal civil war in which they were engaged. Many of them were killed by rebel guerrillas for advocating their beliefs, however, and their martyrdom in this regard speaks volumes. Nevertheless, one very articulate member of this group, Spencer Henry, was determined to make his voice heard over the din of conflicting claims and countercharges. We know from his conversations with a visiting Connecticut abolitionist, Ezekiel Birdseye, in the 1840s that Henry was viscerally opposed to slavery from the beginning of his ministry. Although he served in various capacities in the local government of Blount County, Tennessee, Henry continued to function as a local minister long after he was ordained as a deacon in 1839 on the Newport circuit by the Holston Conference at a time when it was still part of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was also concerned enough to serve as a delegate to the Knoxville Convention of May 30–31, 1861, that momentous gathering to

Epilogue: Unreconstructed

determine whether East Tennessee should secede from the rest of the state rather than leave the federal Union. At what point he became friends with Parson Brownlow is unknown, but in 1868, he was invited to write several lengthy articles for the Knoxville Whig.1 Henry’s testimony in these articles is quite revealing and affords us a rare glimpse into the mind of these otherwise silent local ministers. He obviously clearly understood the ongoing debate between the MECS Holston Conference itinerants struggling to regain their churches and status in the region, especially since he had himself joined the rival MEC Holston Conference when it was organized in 1865 and had actually become an itinerant in this new conference. Like his friend Brownlow, Henry knew almost every Holston itinerant in the conference intimately and was well aware of their political affiliation during the late war. Unlike his friend, however, Henry had largely managed to maintain civil relationships with former Confederates living in his county. “I have no ambition to gratify, many who were rebels are my personal friends, all treat me respectfully,” he claimed, “from a Supreme [Court] Judge to a hack driver.” Nevertheless, he regarded Southern Methodist preachers as “the greatest enemies to the M.E. Church, the greatest enemies to the Government, to reconstruction, peace, and the building up of the waste places of Zion and the country generally.”2 Despite his blatant partisanship, however, what is impressive about Henry’s articles, if one can strain out the wormwood and gall, is his knowledge of the origins of the conflict, specifically, his intimate knowledge of the causes and procedures of the original split of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 into two separate denominations over the issue of slavery. He owned a copy of all these proceedings and admitted to having studied them carefully for twenty years. In a very real sense, the debate over slavery and Methodist polity and economy began in the 1830s and manifested itself finally in the 1844 division. Henry meticulously outlined how earlier Holston itinerants, especially James Axley, whose “name ought to be written with a fine gold pen,” had “strictly” adhered to the antislavery provisions in the Discipline, giving this rule “a fair and legitimate interpretation.” According to Henry, the real problem began between 1820 and 1830, when some of Holston’s presiding elders and itinerants became connected with slavery themselves. At this point, he argued, they justified owning slaves on the ground that the Discipline “rule only meant that we were not to buy from kidnappers and slavers from the coast of Africa.” Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, became increasingly proslavery, while the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, was “guarding the bulwarks of American Methodism against one of the most fearful evils that 142

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Tombstone of James Axley, pioneer Holston itinerant. One of Holston’s most famous and outspoken early antislavery itinerants, James Axley was famous in his own time for his wit and audacity. His grave is on a hill overlooking the Sweetwater Valley, Monroe County, Tennessee. Photo by Sam Roberts.

ever cursed a free and enlightened nation.” Henry demolished all of Price’s arguments, from the assertion that slavery was a civil question, not a moral issue, to the rather absurd proposition that only the Methodist denomination ever had a rule against slavery.3 This analysis of the development of proslavery sentiment, with numerous fits and starts, is largely corroborated in the manuscript minutes of the Holston Conference from 1824 to 1860. Henry reiterated Brownlow’s rhetoric about East Tennesseans being honest nonslaveholding yeomen, scorned by the planter aristocracy of the Tennessee Conference, which dominated the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, before the war. He also recalled the persecution of loyal Holston itinerants by the conferences between 1862 and 1865, presided over by Bishop Early, and noted specific names of Confederate 143

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Holston itinerants who had gone out of their way to persecute former members of their church who had remained loyal to the Union, naming specific victims and locales wherein these abuses had occurred. Finally, Henry recalled with some pathos how his own extended family had suffered during the war from Confederate persecution. The Confederate conscription act had caused one of his brothers to be captured and thrown in prison for four months in Knoxville, where Union prisoners were routinely given nineteen lashes on their naked backs. Three of his nephews were likewise captured by the Confederates when they tried to flee to the Union lines; one was shot down in less than half an hour after being taken prisoner and another escaped at night, while a third managed to escape but had several rounds fired at him as he ran. Two other nephews were driven out of Sevier County; one of them died in the Federal army, the other was lost in the Sultana accident. Many of his relatives were robbed of their cattle, horses, and provisions routinely, including their clothing, because of their Unionist sympathies. Yet despite this litany of suffering, after the war ended, loyal East Tennesseans were still called “church-taking, preacher-mobbing, Negro-equality, fanatical, political, radical” extremists merely because they had joined the Methodist Episcopal Church.4 What is nowhere made explicit, however, by even articulate local preachers like Spencer Henry, was the actual situation of African Americans in Holston between 1824 and 1860 who in large numbers routinely attended Methodist camp meetings and services and actually served as exhorters and local preachers, year in and year out, in innumerable class meetings and at countless quarterly conference meetings. Only the grassroots records of these quarterly conference meetings, outlined in chapter 2, give incontrovertible evidence of black participation in all the forms at the local level of Methodist polity. Sadly, this sharing of a common Methodist religion unseparated by race abruptly ended by the close of the Civil War. As we have seen, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at their General Conference in 1866 made clear provision that in the future African Americans would have to segregate into either their own denominations or separate conferences. For whatever reason or justification, against Bishop Haven’s wishes, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1876 permitted separation and segregation into separate conferences among the newly organized MEC conferences in the South. Holston Conference, MEC, accordingly had permitted the segregated African American conference, the so-called East Tennessee Conference, to be separately organized for blacks in 1880. As historian John Morrow rightly points out, Northern Methodists

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continued to pour money and manpower into various institutions at the primary or secondary level in the South to educate former slaves, but in their conferences, segregation held sway until the reunion of various Methodist denominations, which did not occur until 1939.5 In an almost humorous fashion, the interdenominational ideological battles that had so engaged Holston itinerants before the war—and especially honed and sharpened to a fine point the polemic skills of such men as Thomas Stringfield, William Patton, and William G. Brownlow—emerged in a weakened form in the 1880s, when Methodism’s old nemesis, the indefatigable Baptist Reverend James Robinson Graves, updated and reissued his old polemic against Methodism, entitled The New Great Iron Wheel: An Examination of the New M. E. Church, South, in a Series of Letters Addressed to Bishop McTyeire. It regurgitated many of the older charges Graves had made against Episcopal Methodism as a tyrannical form of antidemocratic church government, but what really stuck in Graves’s craw this time was the decision on the part of the MECS General Conference of 1866 to allow lay representation and effectively end attendance at class meetings as a requirement for membership in the Methodist church. Graves had considerable difficulty attacking lay representation, because that was one of his big complaints against the Methodists before, but he rationalized that the Methodists themselves had always insisted that class meetings were inseparable for their denomination’s proper function, and previously they had furiously rejected lay representation as challenging the power of the itinerants. Brownlow had been dead seven years when Graves resurrected his “old wine in new bottles,” but one can only imagine the “Fighting Parson’s” response to this latest absurdity. It did eerily recall a time, however, when Brownlow had been the chief defender of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, against all outside attackers.6 Graves’s latest attack did serve to remind many Methodists in both denominations of the essential sameness of their churches, in terms of polity and economy, once the basic question of slavery had finally been settled by the Civil War. John H. Brunner, an itinerant of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (and later president of Hiwassee College), wrote a book entitled The Union of the Churches in 1885 specifically using the two Holston Conferences as examples to urge reunion of the two Methodist denominations. Although a fierce Confederate during the war, Brunner had softened, and he was appalled by the damage of “altar against altar” in the divided church. Yet his position was extremely unpopular among his Holston brethren, and he felt that Union of the Churches was responsible for his never being

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elected to the General Conference and for other evidence of lost prestige in the MECS Holston Conference. Bishop Elijah Embree Hoss (a prominent leader of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who had graduated from Emory and Henry College and begun his career in Holston Conference) wrote a somewhat similar book in 1913, entitled Methodist Fraternity and Federation, but he was much less sanguine and more cautious than Brunner had been. Bishop Hoss specified eight “conditions for organic union. First, all existing compacts, including those made in 1876 by the Cape May Commission, had to be actually honored. Second, negotiations could not proceed on the basis that denominationalism as such was “schismatic or sinful.” Third, no real progress could be made as long as anyone insisted that past separations among the Methodists had been “wicked or evil.” Fourth, any attempt to bring about union by pressure would be “foolish and futile.” Fifth, any real union would have to involve compromise on the part of both denominations, not only on trifling points but also on matters of real importance. Sixth, the smaller denomination would have to be safeguarded in advance by stipulations of organic law guaranteeing their rights. Seventh, he frankly admitted that the “vast alterations” made by the Methodist Episcopal Church in the original conditions of membership were “a stumbling block to some of us.” Finally, he insisted that the Methodist Episcopal Church would have to be honest and frankly admit what they expected the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to give up.7 These conditions set down by Bishop Hoss in 1913 and the poor reception Brunner’s book was given in the MECS Holston Conference clearly indicate enormous hostility and distrust among Methodists in both rival Holston Conferences lasting long after the Civil War ended. Obviously the bitter contest over the war, and the invasion of the Northern Methodists immediately afterwards, engendered greater bitterness than existed in any other Methodist conference, MEC or MECS, in the postwar South. Brunner and Hoss were, after all, native sons of East Tennessee, and Brunner had actively promoted the Confederate cause during the war. Yet ironically, all of East Tennessee’s stubborn sectionalism and rugged independence, whatever the causes, had become permanently enshrined within the region and perpetuated by these rival Holston Conferences, each with the same official name and covering essentially the same geographic area. In the final analysis, it would take the enormous changes—political, social, economic, and ecclesiastical—in the twentieth century before the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Protestant Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, were finally united in 1939.8

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Historian Isaac Patton Martin argued that the existence of two Holston Conferences operating in the same territory was destructive and harmful to both churches, causing continuing hostility, frustration, and suspicion. As a young itinerant in the 1890s assigned to the Maryville circuit, Martin visited the MECS church in Tuckaleechee Cove, a remote cove surrounded by mountains. Yet there was a rival MEC church “so near that a stone might be thrown from one to another.” By the closing of the nineteenth century, the Southern Holston Conference had regained a commanding lead in membership, usually more than double the rival Northern Holston Conference. For example, in 1885, the MEC had 21,112 members compared to the MECS membership of 48,859; in 1890, the MEC had 23,452 members compared to the MECS membership of 43,505; and by 1895, the MEC had 24,405 members compared to the MECS membership of 52,677. During the twentieth century, the MECS Holston Conference expanded this lead; its membership rose from 98, 274 in 1930 to 126,048 in 1939, the year of unification. In that year, the MEC Holston Conference membership had grown to 51,397.9 The enduring legacy of the civil war within Southern Appalachian Methodism was indelibly etched on the landscape of countless communities in East Tennessee and, to a lesser extent, in southwestern Virginia and western North Carolina. Throughout this Holston country, as it was originally called by early Methodist pioneers, every small town and village had two Methodist churches: one Northern and the other Southern. Despite increasing efforts toward civil fraternal relations, there was never any real healing in these internal divisions visibly scarring communities with the bitter memory of the Civil War and its destructive course of intensive partisan and guerrilla warfare, which left no family unscathed. Were Parson Brownlow’s restless ghost to return to his beloved Holston in the twentieth century, there would be much in the enduring character of its people to cause him to smile in recognition. I think he would disclaim any agency in the tumultuous events of this internal civil war, however, pointing to Thomas Ware’s narrow escape two centuries earlier from warring factions in the fight to establish the “lost” state of Franklin. Even after the Civil War ended, East Tennesseans met yet again in convention at Knoxville on May 3 and 4, 1866, to form a separate state. Not even all the efforts of Brownlow, who was at the time governor of Tennessee, could entirely quell this seemingly irrepressible drive for independence. In an even more ironic sense, Methodist beliefs and practices had melded with this sense of separate identity to tragically exacerbate the bitterness and unyielding hostility of both sides in the civil war in Southern Appalachian Methodism.10

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Appendix A Numbers of Traveling Preachers and Local Preachers, Holston Conference, 1838−1860 Year Traveling Local Preachers Preachers 1838 81 252 1839 72 268 1840 78 304 1841 77 313 1842 72 227 1843 77 299 1844 86 231 1845 97 322 1846 96 310 1847 102 333 1848 97 n.a. 1849 102 313 1850 99 339 1851 101 319 1852 99 333 1853 110 347 1854 125 354 1855 126 370 1856 120 379 1857 134 388 1858 108 402 1859 117 417 1860 144 425 Source: Price, Holston Methodism, vols. 1–5.

Appendix B Local Preachers Elected to Deacon’s or Elder’s Orders in the Holston Conference, 1824−1860 Abernathy, Berry Elected deacon, 1824; elected elder, 1829 (spelled Barry) Ackerson, George Elected deacon from Green circuit, 1839 Adams, John C. Elected elder, 1825 Adams, William B. Elected deacon, 1829 Alspaugh, Henry Elected elder from Johnson and Watauga mission, 1850 Armistead, Cardin Elected deacon from Tazewell circuit, Knoxville district, 1833 Atkin, Thomas W. Elected deacon from Asheville station, Asheville district, 1856 Atkins, Ambrose Elected deacon from Grayson circuit, Wytheville district, 1853 Atlee, Edwin A. Elected elder from Athens circuit, 1851 Austin, Clisby Elected deacon, 1836 Austin, Hezekiah Elected deacon from Sequachy Valley circuit, 1827 Bain, Milton Elected elder from Jefferson circuit, Wytheville district, 1857 Baldwin, John D. Elected deacon from Pattonville circuit, 1850 Baley, William Elected deacon from Jonesville circuit, Greeneville district, 1841 Banian, Jefferson Elected deacon from Estilville circuit, Abingdon district, 1855 Beavers, David W. Elected deacon from Philadelphia circuit, 1851

Appendix B

Bedwell, James Elected deacon from Grayson circuit, Abingdon district, 1832 Bell, Hardin H. Elected deacon, 1860 Bellamy, William R. Elected deacon from Kingsport circuit, Rogersville district, 1846; elected elder from Kingsport circuit, 1850 Bewley, Calvin Elected deacon from Green[e]ville circuit, Rogersville district, 1847 Bird, John W. Elected deacon from Webster circuit and Cheo[w]a mission, Asheville district, 1855 Bird, William S. Elected deacon from Way[n]esville circuit, 1851 Bishop, Henry Elected deacon from Hillsville circuit, 1850 Bishop, William P. Elected elder from Newbern circuit, 1846 Bolding, John Elected deacon, 1825; elected elder from Athens circuit, Washington district, 1829 Boman, John H. Elected deacon from Little River circuit, Knoxville district, 1856 Bordin, John Elected deacon from Greenville ircuit, Asheville district, 1840 Botner, Elias Elected deacon from Kingsport circuit, Rogersville district, 1852 Bower, John Elected deacon from Cleveland circuit, 1839; elected elder from Cleveland circuit, Asheville district, 1848 Bowman, George Elected elder from Tellico circuit, 1828 Brandon, Hiram Elected deacon from Decatur circuit, Athens district, 1849 Brewer, Samuel Elected deacon 1836 Brooks, Archibald T. Elected deacon from Abingdon circuit, Abingdon district, 1847; elected elder from Taylorsville circuit, Jonesboro district, 1855 Brooks, F. T. Elected deacon from Green circuit, 1839 Brooks, Jacob F. Elected elder, 1860 Brown, Evan H. Elected deacon from Princeton circuit, 1851; elected elder from Greenville station, Jonesboro district, 1855 Brown, George W. G. Elected deacon from Tazewell circuit, Wytheville district, 1845; elected elder from Jeffersonville circuit, Wytheville 152

Local Preachers Elected to Deacon’s or Elder’s Orders

district, 1849; elected elder from Jeffersonville circuit, Wytheville district, 1853 Brown, Thomas Elected deacon, 1836 Broyles, John J. Elected deacon from Green circuit, 1831 Bruce, Joshua Elected elder from Giles circuit, Abingdon district, 1829 Bryan, Morgan Elected deacon from Grayson circuit, Wytheville district, 1846; elected elder from Princeton circuit, 1859 Bryan, Shadrack Elected deacon from Grayson circuit, Wytheville district, 1853 Buckley, Jackson Elected deacon from Tazewell circuit, Knoxville district, 1840 Burgin, Simpson W. Elected deacon from Jonesville circuit, Rogersville district, 1852 Burkitt, M. H. B. Elected deacon from Sneedville circuit, Rogersville district, 1856 Burley, John Elected elder from French Broad district, 1828 Burum, John J. Elected elder from Lebanon circuit, Abingdon district, 1832 Butram, Hiel Elected deacon, 1837; elected elder from Philadelphia circuit, 1851 Byrum, David Elected elder from Parrisburg circuit, Wytheville district, 1843 Calloway, William Elected elder from Jefferson circuit, 1859 Cardin, Amstead Elected deacon from Clinton circuit, 1839 Cardwell, Perrise Elected deacon from Knox circuit, Knoxville district, 1840 Carlton, Blake Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, Abingdon district, 1847 Carpenter, Dan Elected deacon from Montgomery mission, Cumberland district, 1847 Carroll, James P. Elected deacon from Lebanon circuit, Abingdon district, 1841; elected deacon from Lebanon circuit, Wytheville district, 1843; elected elderfrom same circuit and district, 1847 Carter, Charles W. Elected deacon from Guess River mission, Abingdon district, 1847 Carter, Jacob Elected deacon from Greenville circuit, 1850 153

Appendix B

Carter, Lewis Elected deacon from Tellico circuit, 1831; elected elder from Madisonville circuit, 1839; elected elder from Madisonville circuit, Athens district, 1848 Carter, Nathan Elected deacon, 1836 Carty, John D. Former elder in Baptist Church; elected elder from Taylorsville circuit, Jonesboro district, 1856 Cash, James I. Elected deacon from Sulphur Springs circuit, Cumberland district, 1845; elected elder from Kingston circuit, Cumberland district, 1849 Cass, Mosses A. Elected elder from Athens circuit, 1851 Clark, Isaac Elected deacon, 1860 Clear, Caperton Elected deacon from Clinton circuit, Knoxville district, 1845; elected elder from Clinton circuit, Knoxville district, 1856 Clear, Rowan Elected deacon from Clinton circuit, Knoxville district, 1858 Cochran, R. Recent member in the Methodist Protestant church, recommended from Reems Creek circuit, Asheville district, elected elder, 1856 Coffelt, Wyatt Elected deacon from Madisonville circuit, Athens district, 1849 Cole, Joshua Elected deacon, 1825; elected deacon from Watauga mission, Jonesboro district, 1857 Cooper, Thomas J. Elected deacon from Webster circuit, Asheville district, 1854 Cooper, William Elected deacon from Pigeon circuit, Asheville district, 1829 Cowan, Samuel Elected elder, 1825 Cox, Aras B. Elected deacon from Grayson circuit, Wytheville district, 1847; elected elder from Jefferson circuit, Wytheville district, 1857 Cox, John Elected deacon from New Market circuit, Knoxville district, 1848 Crabtree, Abraham Elected deacon from Lee circuit, Greenville district, 1832; elected elder from Louisville circuit, Abingdon district, 1843 Cross, William K. Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, 1850; elected elder from Blountville circuit, Abingdon district, 1855 Cumming, John Elected deacon from Carter Valley circuit, Greeneville district, 1829

154

Local Preachers Elected to Deacon’s or Elder’s Orders

Cunningham, Bennett K. Elected deacon from Marion circuit, Wytheville district, 1843; elected elder from New Market circuit, Knoxville district, 1848 Cureton, George Elected deacon from Charleston circuit, Chattanooga district, 1858 Cureton, Wm. Elected elder, 1860 Curington, William Elected deacon from New-port circuit, Asheville district, 1848 Curtis, Asbury Elected elder, 1860 Curtis, Moses Elected deacon from Black Mountain circuit, 1827; elected elder from Catawba circuit, Asheville district, 1852 Daily, Hiram Elected deacon from French Broad district, 1828; elected elder from M. Sterling circuit, Greeneville district, 1833 Davenport, Wilson Elected deacon, 1860 Davis, James A. Elected deacon from Abingdon circuit, Abingdon district, 1855 Dawson, Thomas J. Elected deacon from Hendersonville circuit, Asheville district, 1852 Deyerle, John Elected elder from Newburn circuit, Wytheville district, 1853 Dickinson, John Elected deacon, 1834; elected elder from Jonesville circuit, Greeneville district, 1841 Douthat, Jacob Elected deacon from Pearisburg circuit, Wytheville district, 1846; elected elder from Pearisburg circuit, 1850 Dowell, W. T. Elected elder from Muddy Creek circuit, Knoxville district, 1852 Drake, Isaiah Elected deacon from Esteetville circuit, Abingdon district, 1840; elected elder from Estilville circuit, Abingdon district, 1848 Draper, Johnathan Elected deacon from Estilville circuit, Abingdon district, 1847 Duggan, William Henry Harrison Elected deacon from Madisonville circuit, Athens district, 1848; elected elder from Tellico mission, Athens district, 1852 Duncan, Benjamin Elected deacon from Jonesville circuit, Greeneville district, 1841

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Appendix B

Dunn, Samuel Elected deacon from Clinton circuit, Knoxville district, 1845 Earls, Elijah Elected deacon from Benton circuit, Athens district, 1845 Edmondson, John Elected deacon, 1837 Elliot, Abraham Elected deacon from Grayson circuit, Wytheville district, 1853 Ellis, Stephen Elected deacon from Raiborn circuit, 1827 Ely, Arthur Elected deacon from Jonesville circuit, Rogersville district, 1857 Embree, Worley Elected deacon from Jonesborough station, Abingdon district, 1848 Emert, William Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, 1831; elected elder, 1837 Emmert, Peter Elected deacon from Elizabethan circuit, Abingdon district, 1843 Ensor, Thomas P. Elected deacon from Elizabethton circuit, Abingdon district, 1847 Evans, Flemming B. Elected deacon from Rogersville circuit, Rogersville district, 1847 Evans, John Elected deacon, 1836 Everett, J. C. Elected deacon, 1837 Everitt, Joseph P. Elected deacon from Kingsport circuit, Rogersville district, 1854; elected elder from Jonesville circuit, 1859 (spelled Everett) Farley, Francis Elected deacon from Pearisburg circuit, Wytheville district, 1846 Finnell, George W. Elected deacon from Philadelphia circuit, 1839; elected elder from Cleveland circuit, Athens district, 1849 Fisher, Absalom Elected deacon, 1837; elected elder from Wytheville circuit, Wytheville district, 1843 Fisher, Andrew Elected deacon from Wytheville circuit, 1859 Fisher, James Elected elder from Wytheville circuit, 1850 Fisher, James W. Elected deacon from Jefferson circuit, 1850 Fitzgerald, James B. Elected deacon from Waynesville circuit, Asheville district, 1852 Forbes, Simon Elected deacon from Elizabethton circuit, Greeneville district, 1852

156

Local Preachers Elected to Deacon’s or Elder’s Orders

Ford, George Elected deacon from Claibourne circuit, Greeneville district, 1843; elected elder from Claibourne circuit, Knoxville district, 1847 Ford, Thomas Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, 1839; elected deacon from Blountville circuit, Abingdon district, 1841; elected elder from Blountville circuit, Abingdon district, 1847 Forkner, Isaac Elected elder from Clinch River mission, Greeneville district, 1841 Formbee, Jacob Elected deacon, 1829 Forrester, John Elected deacon from Jonesville circuit, Greeneville district, 1841; elected elder from Rogersville circuit, 1846 Fowler, John L. Elected deacon from Clinton circuit, Knoxville district, 1841 Frost, Jonas B. Elected deacon from Washington circuit, Cumberland district, 1848 Gaines, James Elected deacon from Pickens circuit, Asheville district, 1829 Gains, Samuel D. Elected deacon from Kingsport circuit, Rogersville district, 1846; elected elder from Kingsport circuit, 1850 Gamble, William Elected elder from Kingston circuit, 1828 Gannaway, Thomas Elected deacon from Pikeville circuit, Cumberland district, 1845 Gannaway, William Elected deacon from Washington circuit, Cumberland district, 1849 Garrerd, Brittain Elected deacon from Sevierville circuit, 1839 Gass, Andrew Elected deacon from Sulphur Springs circuit, Asheville district, 1829; elected elder from Dandridge circuit, Knoxville district, 1833 Gibson, Elias Elected deacon from Benton circuit, Athens district, 1849; elected elder from Benton circuit, Athens district, 1854 Giddens, Riley A. Elected deacon from Cleveland circuit, Athens district, 1847 Gilbreath, John F. Elected deacon from Madisonville circuit, 1839; elected elder from Madisonville circuit, Athens district, 1848 Godby, Gabriel Elected deacon from Hiwassee circuit, 1827 Godfrey, John Elected elder from Black Mountain circuit, 1827 Godsey, Gregory L. Elected elder, 1837

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Appendix B

Goodwin, Jeremiah Elected deacon from Jonesville circuit, Rogersville district, 1855 Goodman, William Elected deacon, 1824 Gowin, George A. Elected elder from Hamilton circuit, Cumberland district, 1858 Graddy, Richard Elected deacon from Lewee circuit, Lewee district, 1858 Grant, John Elected elder from Knox circuit, Knoxville district, 1840 Green, Benjamin Elected deacon, 1836; elected elder from Newport circuit, Greeneville district, 1841 Green, Samuel Elected deacon from Harrison circuit, Athens district, 1854 Grumley, Fleming Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, Abingdon district, 1857 Haddon, David Elected deacon from French Broad circuit, Asheville district, 1832 Hage, John Elected deacon from Pearisburg circuit Wytheville district, 1843 Hail, William Elected deacon from Sequatchie circuit, Washington district, 1829 Haines, Caleb Elected deacon from Athens circuit, Washington district, 1840 Hale, Jeremiah Elected deacon from Grayson circuit, 18389; elected deacon from Grayson circuit, Wytheville district, 1846 Hale, Jesse M. Elected deacon from French Broad district, 1827; elected elder, 1834 Hale, John W. Elected deacon from Newport circuit, 1839 Hale, Wiley D. Elected deacon from Grayson circuit, Wytheville district, 1857 Hale, William Stephen Elected elder from Grayson circuit, 1839 Hames, W. W. Elected elder from Charleston circuit, Athens district, 1854 Harkins, Thomas Elected deacon, 1836 Harle, William Elected deacon from Clevenda circuit, New Town district, 1840 Harris, C. W. C. Elected deacon from New Market circuit, Greeneville district, 1841 Harris, Warren W. Elected deacon from Fall Branch circuit, 1859 158

Local Preachers Elected to Deacon’s or Elder’s Orders

Harris, William P. Elected deacon from Newport circuit, 1839 Harrison, Nathan Elected deacon from French Broad circuit, Asheville district, 1829 Harvell, Doctor C. Elected deacon, 1860 Haynes, William W. Elected deacon from Athens circuit, Athens district, 1848 Hays, William N. Elected deacon from Newport circuit, Jonesboro district, 1857 Headrick, Hugh Elected deacon from Greenville circuit, 1850 Hedrick, William W. Elected deacon from Wytheville circuit, 1859 Henry, Spencer Elected deacon from Newport circuit, 1839 Hill, James W. Elected deacon from Pearisburg circuit, Wytheville district, 1853 Hilton, Charles Elected elder from Blountville circuit, Greeneville district, 1829 Hobbs, Nathan Elected deacon from Lee circuit, Greeneville district, 1833; elected elder from Morristown circuit, Rogersville district, 1856 Hoge, John H. Elected elder from Pearisburg circuit, 1850 Holmes, William Elected deacon from Newport circuit, 1839 Holroyd, William Elected deacon from Princeton circuit, 1859 Holt, Henry Elected deacon from Sequatchie circuit, Washington district, 1829 Holt, Irby Elected deacon from Hiwassee circuit, 1827 Horton, Johnson P. Elected deacon from Gass River circuit, Abingdon district, 1853; elected elder from Guest River circuit, 1859 Horton, Thomas Elected deacon from Estilville circuit, Abingdon district, 1847; elected elder from Estilville circuit, 1851 Hoyl, John Elected deacon from Athens circuit, Athens district, 1841 Hoyle, Thomas S. Elected deacon from Athens circuit, Athens district, 1848 Huffaker, Christy Elected deacon from Little River circuit, Knoxville district, 1848; elected elder from Dandridge circuit, Knoxville district, 1856 Huffaker, Jacob Elected deacon from Little River circuit, Knoxville district, 1849 159

Appendix B

Hughes, Samuel Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, 1828; elected elder from Blountville circuit, Greeneville district, 1832 Humbart, John G. Elected deacon, 1837 Hurt, William D. Elected deacon, 1837; elected deacon, 1838 Hutson, William B. Elected deacon, 1837; elected elder from Newport circuit, Greeneville district, 1841 Igon, Andrew Elected deacon from Harrison circuit, Athens district, 1856 Ingle, Willis Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, 1839 Jacks, Richard Elected elder from Sulphur Spring circuit, Knoxville district, 1829 Jackson, Asahel Elected deacon from Washington circuit, 1851; elected elder from Hamilton circuit, Cumberland district, 1856 James, Jessee J. Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, 1850; elected elder from Chattanooga circuit, Athens district, 1854 Janes, Jas. Elected deacon, 1860 Johnson, George Elected deacon from Green circuit, Greenville district, 1833 Johnson, Thomas Elected deacon from Decatur circuit, 1851 Jones, Lewis Elected deacon, 1824 Jones, William F. Elected deacon from Ellejay mission, New Town district, 1840 Julian, George Elected deacon from Chattanooga circuit, Athens district, 1848; elected deaconfrom same district and circuit, 1849; elected elder from Washington circuit, Cumberland district, 1854 Julian, Isom Elected deacon from Benton circuit, Athens district, 1849; elected elder from Benton circuit, Athens district, 1854 Justus, Isaac Elected deacon from Hendersonville circuit, Asheville district, 1852 Kendrick, William P. Elected elder, 1824 Kenn, Joel Elected elder, 1860 Kennedy, James S. Elected deacon from Dandridge circuit, 1851 Kerr, James Elected deacon from French Broad district, 1827; elected deacon from Carter Valley circuit, Greeneville district, 1832 Key, John Elected deacon, 1834; elected deacon, 1837

160

Local Preachers Elected to Deacon’s or Elder’s Orders

Keys, James Elected deacon from Abingdon circuit, Abingdon district, 1846; elected elder from Taylorsville circuit, Jonesboro district, 1855 King, Joseph A. Elected deacon from Jefferson circuit, Wytheville district, 1846; elected elder from Jefferson circuit, 1850 King, Lewis Elected deacon from Sandy River mission, Abingdon district, 1857 King, Nathan Elected deacon from Clinton circuit, Knoxville district, 1841 Kirkpatrick, Arthur Elected deacon from Clinton circuit, Knoxville district, 1833 Lawrence, John Elected deacon from Little River circuit, Knoxville district, 1845 Lawson, Alfred H. Elected deacon from Benton circuit, Athens district, 1854 Lawson, James D. Elected deacon from Little River circuit, Knoxville district, 1858 Lawson, William A. Elected deacon from Maryville circuit, 1851; elected elder from Maryville circuit, Knoxville district, 1856 Lea, Robert H. Elected deacon, 1834 Legraves, Joel Elected deacon from Pikeville circuit, 1858 Leslie, Johnathan Elected elder from Elizabethton circuit, Jonesboro district, 1855 Lewis, William Elected deacon, 1837 Lillard, R. M. Elected deacon from Philadelphia circuit, Athens district, 1856 Longley, Edmund Elected deacon from Abingdon circuit, Abingdon district, 1846 Lotspeich, Samuel Elected deacon from Green circuit, 1831; elected elder from Newport circuit, 1839 Loyd, Absalom Elected deacon from Lee circuit, Greenville district, 1833 Loyd, James T. Elected deacon from Jonesville circuit, Rogersville district, 1855 Luckbridge, Ebenezer Elected elder from New Market circuit, 1850 Lucy, John H. Elected deacon from Cumberland mission, Cumberland district, 1849

161

Appendix B

Luster, Reubin Elected deacon from Madisonville circuit, 1839 Lyle, Daniel Elected elder from Sulphur Spring circuit, Knoxville district, 1829 Mahoney, James Elected deacon from Rheatown circuit, Jonesboro district, 1856; elected elder, 1860 Maness, Alexander Elected deacon from Estelville circuit, 1850; elected elder from Russell mission, Abingdon district, 1855 Marshall, James M. Elected deacon from Jacksboro circuit, Knoxville district, 1847; elected elder from Jacksboro circuit, Knoxville district, 1856 Martin, Edward L. Elected deacon from Tellico circuit, 1827 Massengale, John C. Elected deacon from Huntsville mission, Cumberland district, 1858 Massey, Jacob H. Elected deacon, 1860 Mathes, Allen H. Elected deacon from Tellico circuit, 1831; elected elder, 1837 Maulden, Tyre D. Elected deacon from Pickens mission, 1839 Maupin, Milton Elected elder, 1860 McConnell, George Elected deacon from Estilville circuit, Abingdon district, 1843 McCrary, Joseph Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, 1839; elected deacon from Blountville circuit, Abingdon district, 1843 McDaniel, John Elected deacon, 1837 McDowell, John Elected deacon, 1834; elected deacon, 1836; elected deacon from Franklin circuit, 1839; elected elder, 1860 McMahon, James B. Elected deacon, 1829 McSpadden, Joseph Elected deacon from Tellico circuit, 1832; elected deacon, 1837; elected elder from Charleston circuit, 1851 Milan, William Elected deacon from Abingdon circuit, Abingdon district, 1833; elected elder, 1838 Milburn, Joseph Elected deacon from Rheatown circuit, Rogersville district, 1848; elected elder from Green[e]ville circuit, Jonesboro district, 1856 Milburn, William Elected deacon from Jonesboro circuit, Greeneville district, 1833; elected elder from Jonesboro circuit, 1839 Miller, Charles P. Elected elder, 1835 162

Local Preachers Elected to Deacon’s or Elder’s Orders

Mitchell, Charles Elected deacon, 1837; elected deacon from Lebanon circuit, 1851 Mitchell, James Elected elder from Sweetwater circuit, 1831 Montgomery, William S. Elected deacon from Cleveland circuit, Athens district, 1847; elected deacon from Cleveland circuit, Athens district, 1849 Moore, Isaac Elected elder from New River circuit, Greeneville district, 1829 Moore, Matison Elected deacon, 1860 Morrell, Thomas Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, 1850; elected elder from Blountville circuit, Abingdon district, 1855 Mossier, J. J. Elected elder, 1837 Mountcastle, George E. Elected deacon from Athens circuit, 1831 Munsey, Zachariah Elected elder from Parrisburg circuit, Wytheville district, 1843 Murphy, W. Elected deacon, 1860 Neal, William E. Elected deacon from Parrisburg circuit, 1850; elected elder from Mechanicsburg circuit, Wytheville district, 1857 (spelled Wm. E. Neel) Nelson, David Elected deacon, 1829 Norman, Thomas Elected deacon, 1825 Oaks, Rama Elected deacon from Jamestown mission, Cumberland district, 1854 Oliver, Charles Y. Elected deacon from Clinton circuit, Knoxville district, 1833 Padget, Elias Elected deacon from Harrison circuit, 1851 Paine, Madison Elected deacon from Lewee circuit, Lewee district, 1858 Pardo, John Elected elder from Kingston circuit, 1831 Parsons, James Elected deacon from Pikeville circuit, Washington district, 1840 Patterson, John R. Elected elder from Burnsville circuit, Asheville district, 1852 Paul, Martin E. Elected deacon, 1837 Payne, Uriah Elected deacon from Athens circuit, Athens district, 1858 Pendergrass, John Elected deacon from Cleveland circuit, Athens district, 1845 163

Appendix B

Pendleton, John Elected elder from Scott circuit, Greeneville district, 1833 Perkins, Phillip Elected deacon from Jefferson circuit, Wytheville district, 1848 Peters, Tobias Elected deacon from Kingston circuit, 1827 Pharr, Joseph Elected deacon from French Broad circuit, Asheville district, 1829 Phillips, James Elected deacon from Grayson circuit, Wytheville district, 1843 Phillips, Martin Elected deacon from Rogersville circuit, Rogersville district, 1847 Pledger, Wesley Elected deacon from Spring Place circuit, New Town district, 1840 Plummer, Joseph Elected deacon from Jefferson circuit, 1828 Pogue, John Elected deacon from Greenville circuit, Rogersville district, 1847 Price, Henry Elected deacon from Hiwassee circuit, 1828; elected elder, 1837 Quinn, John Elected deacon from Green circuit, 1831 Quinn, William P. Elected deacon, 1824 Real, George Elected deacon, 1824; elected deacon, 1825; elected elder from Sequatchie circuit, 1831 Reed, James Elected deacon from Jacksboro circuit, Knoxville district, 1848 Reed, William Elected deacon from Jonesborough circuit, Abingdon district, 1847 Reid, William O. Elected elder from Grayson circuit, Wytheville district, 1855 Reneau, Russell Elected deacon from Maryville circuit, Knoxville district, 1833; elected elder, 1837 Renn, Joel Elected deacon from Newport circuit, 1851 Reynolds, George A. Elected deacon from Jeffersonville circuit, Abingdon district, 1857 Reynolds, William C. Elected deacon from Carter Valley circuit, Greeneville district, 1829; elected elder, 1835 Rhea, Anthony A colored man, elected deacon, 1825 164

Local Preachers Elected to Deacon’s or Elder’s Orders

Rice, Henry Elected deacon from Athens circuit, Athens district, 1855 Richardson, Ansel Elected elder, 1825 Richardson, Sampson Elected deacon from Kingsport circuit, Rogersville district, 1855 Roberts, James Elected deacon from Lewee circuit, Lewee district, 1858 Roberts, Snelson Elected deacon from Washington circuit, Cumberland district, 1848; elected elder from Kingston circuit, Cumberland district, 1854 Roberts, William Elected deacon from Jonesborough circuit, Greeneville district, 1829 Robertson, Alexander Elected deacon from French Broad circuit, Asheville district, 1829; elected deacon from French Broad circuit, Asheville district, 1832; elected elder from Asheville circuit, Asheville district, 1849 Robertson, James Elected deacon from Gass River circuit, Abingdon district, 1853 Robey, William M. Elected deacon from Jefferson circuit, 1859 Rodgers, P. Elected deacon, 1837 Rogers, Douswell Elected elder, 1837 Rogers, Emmanual Elected deacon from Sequatchie circuit, 1831 Rose, William W. Elected deacon from Sulphur Springs circuit, Cumberland district, 1845; elected elder from Washington circuit, Cumberland district, 1854 Rowley, Erastus Elected elder from Asheville station, 1850 Rowley, Milton Elected deacon from Greeneville circuit, Asheville district, 1843 Rule, Henry Elected deacon from Benton circuit, Athens district, 1845 Russum, John Elected deacon, 1825 Rutherford, Isaac Elected deacon, 1838; elected deacon from Spring Place circuit, New Town district, 1840 Rutter, John Elected deacon, 1838 Scates, Zebulon Elected deacon from Marion circuit, Wytheville district, 1853 Scott, Andrew P. Elected deacon from Marion circuit, Wytheville district, 1853; elected elder from Marion circuit, Wytheville district, 1857 165

Appendix B

Segraves, Joel C. Elected deacon from Pikeville circuit, Cumberland district, 1854 Self, Josiah M. Elected deacon from Harrison circuit, Athens district, 1854 Senter, William L. Elected elder, 1834 Sewell, James Elected deacon, 1837; elected elder from Philadelphia circuit, Athens district, 1841 Shell, Aaron Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, 1839; elected deacon from Blountville circuit, Abingdon district, 1841 Shell, Andrew Elected elder from Blountville circuit, Abingdon district, 1843 Sheritz, Stephen Elected deacon from Athens circuit, 1850 Sherman, Nathaniel E. Elected deacon from Abingdon circuit, 1832 Shields, Enos D. Elected deacon from Madisonville circuit, Athens district, 1848; elected elder from Tellico mission, Athens district, 1852 Shockley, Amos Elected deacon from Grayson circuit, Wytheville district, 1841; elected deacon from Grayson circuit, Wytheville district, 1843 Siler, Leonidas F. Elected deacon, 1860 Simms, James Elected deacon, 1837 Singletary, John Elected deacon from Elizabethton circuit, Abingdon district, 1847 Smith, Anthony Elected deacon from Cleveland circuit, Athens district, 1848 Smith, George W. Elected deacon from Rutledge circuit, Rogersville district, 1855; elected elder from Tazewell circuit, 1859 Smith, John C. Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, Abingdon district, 1855; elected elder, 1860 (with the middle initial (G.) Smith, John Y. Elected deacon from Kingston circuit, Cumberland district, 1856 Smith, Noah R. Elected deacon from Cleveland circuit, Athens district, 1848; elected elder from Charleston circuit, Athens district, 1854 Smith, W. D. Elected deacon, 1860 Smith, William W. Elected deacon from Elizabethton circuit, 1850 Snodgrass, John S. Elected deacon, 1860 Soby, Jas. Elected deacon, 1860

166

Local Preachers Elected to Deacon’s or Elder’s Orders

Southard, Micajah Elected elder from Athens circuit, 1851 Spenser, Robert T. Elected deacon from Estilville circuit, Abingdon district, 1847; elected elder from Jonesville circuit, Rogersville district, 1857 (spelled Robert P. Spencer) Spillman, William Elected deacon, 1834 Stamper, Asa Elected deacon from Benton circuit, Athens district, 1849; elected elder from Benton circuit, Athens district, 1854 Steele, Daniel Elected deacon from Abingdon station, 1831; elected deacon from Abingdon circuit, Abingdon district, 1833 Steele, Reuben Elected deacon from Green circuit, Greeneville district, 1841 Stevens, Balaam L. Elected elder from Jamestown mission, Cumberland district, 1854 Stevens, Samuel Elected deacon from Blountville circuit, Abingdon district, 1847; elected elder from Blountville circuit, Abingdon district, 1855 Stewart, George Elected deacon from Princeton circuit, 1851; elected elder from Parrisburg circuit, Wytheville district, 1855 Stradley, John R. Elected deacon from Burnsville circuit, Asheville district, 1856 Strong, Abraham Elected deacon from Tellico circuit, 1827 Strong, John Elected deacon from Green circuit, Greenville district, 1833; elected elder from Estilville circuit, Abingdon district, 1849 Sturges, William Elected elder from Marion circuit, Wytheville district, 1840 Sutton, P. S. Elected deacon from Harrison circuit, Athens district, 1855 Swafford, Naasson Elected deacon from Pikeville circuit, Washington district, 1840 Swafford, Peter Elected deacon from Charleston circuit, Athens district, 1856 Swisher, Henry Elected deacon from Cleveland circuit, Athens district, 1849 Taylor, Nathaniel G. Elected deacon from Elizabethton circuit and Johnson mission, 1849; elected deacon from Elizabethton circuit, 1850; elected elder from Elizabethton circuit, 1859

167

Appendix B

Taylor, William Elected deacon from Cumberland circuit, Cumberland district, 1857 Templeton, Amos Elected deacon from Estiville circuit, Abingdon district, 1843 Thomas, Samuel W. Elected deacon from Chattanooga circuit, Athens district, 1854 Thomas, Thaddeus T. Elected deacon from Lebanon circuit, 1859 Thompson, James Elected deacon from Dandridge circuit, 1831; elected deacon, 1834 Thompson, Samuel Elected deacon from New Market circuit, Greeneville district, 1841 Thompson, William Elected deacon from Rutledge circuit, Knoxville district 1833; elected elder from Hillsville circuit, Wytheville district, 1853 Thompson, William Elected deacon from St. Clair circuit, Jonesboro district, 1855 Thurman, John Elected deacon from Pikeville circuit, Cumberland district, 1845 Tilliott, James Elected deacon from Dandridge circuit, 1831; elected deacon from Dandridge circuit, Knoxville district, 1833 Trim, Anderson Elected deacon, 1834; elected deacon, 1837 Trower, Thomas Elected elder, 1837 Truell, John Elected deacon from Hendersonville circuit, Asheville district, 1847; elected deacon from Hendersonville circuit, Asheville district, 1848; elected elder from Waynesville circuit, Asheville district, 1852 Turner, Barrister Elected deacon, 1836 Turner, Willis Elected deacon from Clinton circuit, 1839 Vandyke, C. P. Elected deacon from Athens circuit, 1851 Vaughn, John Elected deacon from New River circuit, 1828; elected elder, Grayson circuit, Abingdon district, 1832 Vaughn, Nathaniel W. Elected deacon from Kingsport circuit, 1859 Venable, Lewis Elected deacon from Johnson mission, Abingdon district, 1848 Wagg, James Elected deacon from Jefferson circuit, Wytheville district, 1841; elected deacon from Jefferson circuit, Wytheville district, 1843; elected elder from Jefferson circuit, Wytheville district, 1847

168

Local Preachers Elected to Deacon’s or Elder’s Orders

Walker, George W. Elected deacon from Pikeville circuit, Washington district, 1833 Walker, James C. Elected deacon from Wytheville circuit, Wytheville district, 1845 Walker, William Elected deacon, 1837 Washam, John S. Elected deacon, 1834 Wear, Jacob Elected deacon, 1829 Weaver, Hyram Elected deacon from Jefferson circuit, Wytheville district, 1857 Weaver, Montraville Elected deacon, 1836 Whaley, John Elected deacon from Washington circuit, 1851; elected elder from Washington circuit, Cumberland district, 1854 Wheeler, John E. Elected deacon from Jacksboro circuit, Knoxville district, 1848 Wheeler, Samuel R. Elected deacon from Grayson circuit, Wytheville district, 1846; elected elder from Hillsville circuit, 1850; elected elder from Wytheville circuit, Wytheville district, 1853 Whitcher, William J. Elected deacon from Newport circuit, Knoxville district, 1833 White, George Elected deacon, 1824 White, Lemuel C. Elected deacon from Rogersville circuit, Rogersville district, 1849 Williams, Benjamin Elected deacon from Green circuit, Greeneville district, 1841 Williams, Robert Elected elder from Kingston circuit, Washington district, 1832 Williams, Samuel Elected deacon from Montgomery mission, Cumberland district, 1849 Willis, John Elected deacon, 1825 Wills, Lewis Elected deacon from Johnson and Watauga mission, 1850 Wilson, Robert J. Elected deacon from French Broad district, 1828 Witcher, W. J. Elected elder from Cleveland circuit, Athens district, 1848 Witten, John H. Elected elder, 1834 Witten, W. A. Elected deacon from Sulphur Springs circuit, Cumberland district, 1845 (but only after reconsideration)

169

Appendix B

Wood, John Elected elder, 1829 Woods, Samuel W. Elected deacon from Decatur circuit, 1851 Woodward, Valentine A. Elected deacon from Jonesville circuit, Rogersville district, 1847; elected elder from Jonesville circuit, Rogersville district, 1855 Wright, A. B. Elected deacon from Jamestown mission, Cumberland district, 1854 Wright, Josiah Elected deacon from Madisonville circuit, Athens district, 1848; elected elder from Madisonville circuit, Athens district, 1854 Wright, William B. Elected elder, 1838 Wyatt, Lorenzo D. Elected deacon from Newport circuit, Greeneville district, 1841 Wyatt, Solomon Elected elder from Dandridge circuit, 1831 Wyatt, William Elected deacon from Pattonville circuit, Rogersville district, 1852 Wynn, Robert W. Elected deacon, 1825; elected elder from Jonesville circuit, Greeneville district, 1841 Vanpelt, Joseph Elected elder from Maryville circuit, 1831 Yost, Casper Elected elder from Wythe circuit, Abingdon district, 1832 Source: Taken from Manuscript Holston Conference Minutes, 1824–1860. Note: This list of local preachers ordained as deacons or elders between 1824 and 1860 remains very incomplete. The handwritten minutes contain numerous misspellings of names of both individual local preachers and districts or circuits. This incomplete list should be compared with Recommendation Orders in the Holston Conference Archives, Emory and Henry College. Nevertheless, this list contains many names of local preachers that are simply not available from any other source, given the destruction of so many Quarterly Conference minutes. The printed minutes of Holston Conference did not begin listing local preachers until 1858, and did not list either the circuit or district where they lived.

170

Appendix C Membership in the Holston Conference, 1824−1860 Year White African American Indian Total 1824 1825 1826 1827 1828 1829 1830 1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845

13,444 15,098 15,847 17,375 17,952 18,270 18,560 18,959 20,847 22,359 19,517 21,301 19,487 20,238 20,511 23,539 25,949 27,637 35,164 35,953 35,494 34,705

1,491 (9.98%) 1,485 (8.95%) 1,620 (9.27%) 1,864 (9.69%) 2,012 (10.08%) 2,182 (10.67%) 2,212 (10.65%) 2,319 (10.9%) 2,339 (10.09%) 2,591 (10.38%) 2,195 (10.11%) 2,264 (9.40%) 521 1,955 (8.81%) 752 2,129 (9.32%) 480 1,817 (7.98%) 440 1,904 (7.48%) 2,420 (8.53%) 2,832 (9.27%) 80 3,845 (9.86%) 3,999 (9.98%) 109 3,985 (10.09%) 3,455 (9.02%) 155

14,935 16,583 17,467 19,239 19,964 20,452 20,772 21,278 23,186 24,950 21,712 24,086 22,194 22,847 22,768 25,443 28,369 30,549 39,009 40,061 39,479 38,315

Appendix C

Year White African American Indian Total 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860

34,002 34,346 36,695 33,111 35,831 36,657 37,626 38,573 39,565 39,636 41,351 43,087 45,083 45,110 47,251

4,069 (10.66%) 108 3,917 (10.24%) 3,931 (9.68%) 3,466 (9.44%) 158 3,645 (9.2%) 140 3,796 (9.38%) 3,869 (9.32%) 3,885 (9.15%) 4,031 (9.20%) 200 4,006 (9.18%) 4,365 (9.55%) 4,220 (8.92%) 4,385 (8.83%) 200 4,875 (9.71%) 200 4,826 (9.24%) 150

Source: Price, Holston Methodism, vols. 1–5.

172

38,179 38,263 40,626 36,735 39,616 40,453 41,495 42,458 43,796 43,642 45,716 47,307 49,668 50,185 52,227

Notes 1. Holston Methodism

1. Ware, Sketches, 134–35. Ware was assigned to the Nolichucky circuit, where he successfully organized societies, raised log chapels, and accepted three hundred members into the church. Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 103–4. 2. Ware, Sketches, 132–50. Bishop Francis Asbury visited the disputing factions in April 1788, preached a pacifist sermon to them, and had a calming effect on warring factions in this dispute. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee, 417. For the traditional history of this dispute between East Tennesseans and North Carolina, see Williams, Lost State of Franklin. A recent superior study is Barksdale, Lost State of Franklin. 3. Ware, Sketches, 135–41. Not until 1834 did the Holston Conference establish three missions for Native Americans (Clinch River, Hiwassee, and Cherokee), although Cherokees had been included on circuits previously. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 282. By the 1850s there were some Cherokee local preachers, but most itinerants seemed to have regarded them primarily as anachronistic curiosities. This condescending attitude was clearly reflected in names assigned to Cherokee preachers, such as Old Charley and Black Fox. Sullins, Recollections, 119–20. 4. Ware, Sketches, 138–43; McAnally, William Patton, 22–27; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 27–46; Heyrman, Southern Cross, 3–27; Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 56–59; McFerrin, Methodism in Tennessee, 1: 525–28. 5. Andrews, Methodists and Revolutionary America, 32–39, 40–47, 132–33; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 11–13, 26, 97, 100, 124, 167; Tucker, American Methodist Worship, 62–63, 93, 140. 6. Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 15–20; Andrews, Methodists and Revolutionary America, 21–47; Maddox, Responsible Grace, 36–47.

Notes to Pages 4–9

7. Maddox, Responsible Grace, 159–61, 228–29, 245–46; Mathews, Religion, 30–32; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 29–30, 64–65; Andrews, Methodists and Revolutionary America, 24–25, 91–92, 237–39. 8. Andrews, Methodists and Revolutionary America, 47–72; Lyerly, Methodism, 174–75; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 3–20. 9. Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 21–29; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 26; Andrews, Methodists and Revolutionary America, 196–207; Hatch, Democratization, 81–91; Wigger, American Saint, 87–137. 10. Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 21–79; Butler, Awash, 237–41; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 82–101; Wigger, American Saint, 139–84. 11. Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 25–112. For an excellent summary and analysis of the geography and changing districts of Holston, see Howard, Districts of Holston. 1 2. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee, 92–444. See also Barksdale, Lost State of Franklin, 19–117. 13. Folmsbee, Sectionalism, 8–9; Ware, Sketches, 132–50. 14. Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 12, 25–29; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 12. 15. Andrews, Methodists and Revolutionary America, 69–72; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 20–34; Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 86–427. 16. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 342–48; McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels, 11–26. 17. Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 35–43; Posey, Methodism in Old Southwest, 35–47; Finley, Sketches of Western Methodism, 180–81. As late as 1838, David Rice McAnally, then an itinerant in Holston, complained bitterly about the arduous labor, extremely low pay, and guilt over insufficiently supporting his family. Hilliard, Stepping Stones, 32–33. 18. Posey, Methodism in Old Southwest, 23–24, 28; Brooks, Life and Times, 9–10; Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 1–19, 39–73; Finley, Sketches of Western Methodism, 288–96; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 81–82; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 108–10. 19. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 304–37. 2 0. Ibid.; McFerrin, Methodism in Tennessee, 2: 37–59. 21. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 304–37; McFerrin, Methodism in Tennessee, 2: 37–59; Finley, Sketches of Western Methodism, 231–46. Axley was finally able to get a rule passed in the 1816 General Conference forbidding preachers to retail spirituous liquors but failed to get a resolution passed in the 1820 General Conference making the distilling of spirits 174

Notes to Pages 9–13

cause for forfeiture of church membership. Farish, Circuit Rider Dismounts, 307–8; Posey, Methodism in Old Southwest, 104–5; MEC, Journals of General Conferences, 1812: 106–7, 168, 239. 22. Lenoir, History of Sweetwater Valley, 51–67. Axley was one of the very few local preachers permitted by vote to attend the sessions of the 1829 Holston Annual Conference. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 245. See also Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, 25–461. 23. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 421–50; Ekin, undated memorandum, in diary, 1851; Hsiung, ed., Mountaineer in Motion, 3. 24. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 432–34; Holston Annual Conference (MECS), Minutes, 1845. 25. Ekin received many letters from other Holston Methodists regarding the separation of the church in 1844. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 433–38; Ekin Papers, Miscellaneous Letters, 1844–46. 26. Andrews, Methodists and Revolutionary America, 7, 93; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 14–15, 51, 101, 105, 107; Heyrman, Southern Cross, 21–22, 81, 89, 159; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 23–25, 80–97, 157–59. 27. Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 45–46; Sullins, Recollections, 66–68; Posey, Methodism in Old Southwest, 109, 117–18; Brooks, Life and Times, 22–23. 28. Gannaway, Sketches of Former Days, 35; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 81–82; Rosser, Class Meetings, 47–59, 112–31; Watson, Early Methodist Class Meeting, 93–152; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 28. 29. Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 130–34; 2: 131–64, 197–205; 3: 1–49, 50–77, 89–91, 181–95. For the importance of family prayer to early Methodists, see Schneider, Way of the Cross, 139–43. For the role of one Holston wife in bringing her husband and family into a knowledge of experimental religion by means of family prayer, see Sullins, Recollections, 24–27. 30. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 343, 352, 355–59; Quarterly Conference Minutes (hereafter cited as QCM), Carter’s Valley–Rogersville Circuit, 1826. See also Finley, Sketches of Western Methodism, 531–39. 31. Posey, Methodism in Old Southwest, 118–19; Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 304; McTyeire, History of Methodism, 200–201. The section on band societies was removed from the Discipline in 1856. Emory, History of the Discipline, 203. 32. Richey, Early American Methodism, 25–27; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 81–92; Posey, Methodism in Old Southwest, 116–19; Tucker, American Methodist Worship, 60–65, 71–73, 77–80; Andrews, Methodists and 175

Notes to Pages 14–18

Revolutionary America, 20, 26; Heyrman, Southern Cross, 21–22; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 14, 90, 105. 33. QCM, Carter’s Valley–Rogersville Circuit, 1808–51; Jonesboro Circuit, 1847–63; Little River Circuit, 1845–49, 1849–58; Morristown Circuit, 1854–90; Sevierville Circuit, 1840–44; Tellico Circuit, 1830–51. 34. QCM, Little River Circuit, Mar. 18, 1854; June 16, 1855; Nov. 15, 1845. 35. Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 94–97; Richey, Early American Methodism, 21–32; Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 355–58, 365; 2: 124; 4: 152; 5: 4, 124–63; McAnally, Rev. S. Patton, 214–15. 3 6. Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 355–58, 365; 2: 124; 4: 152; 5: 4, 124–63. Many prominent churches in Holston trace their origins to camp meetings. See Peacock, Circuit Rider, 126, 236–37. See also Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 176, 181; Tucker, American Methodist Worship, 49–50, 55. 37. Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 39; Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 205–6, 219–22; 4: 304–5; Tippy, Frontier Bishop, 137–67. 3 8. McAnally, William Patton, 68–69, 82–85. MEC/MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1824–65. 39. MECS Discipline (1858 ed.), 75, 124–34; Gannaway, Sketches of Former Days, 4; Brooks, Life and Times, 22–23; McAnally, Rev. S. Patton, 33; MEC/MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1824–65. 40. MEC Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1842. After his expulsion, Manson went west and became a minister in the Methodist Protestant Church, which had split from the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1830 over episcopal governance and lay rights. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 81–83; Drinkhouse, Methodist Protestant Church, 2: 192–293. 41. MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1848, 1852. Adams was subsequently principal of the Burnsville High School in North Carolina and died in 1854. R. N. Price described Stephen D. Adams as a man “of high order of intellect,” an “accurate scholar,” and a man of “prodigious genius” with a “trace of severity in his composition.” Fond of controversy, “especially of the personal sort,” he “made enemies and involved himself in serious troubles.” An admirer of William G. Brownlow, Adams often was led into error by following “Brownlow’s example,” according to Price. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 159, 177–78. 42. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 178–80; MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1853. David Sullins, afterwards a prominent leader in the Holston Conference, says in his autobiography that the charge was

176

Notes to Pages 18–21

false and that the brother-in-law of the young lady in question went before the committee and completely exonerated him. Sullins, Recollections, 134. See also Stewart, Moonshiners and Prohibitionists, 9–30. 43. Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 16; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 98–102; Shannon, Journal, 123. The first Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church was published in 1785 under the title Minutes of Several Conversations. By 1787 it had been revised and “Methodized” by John Dickens into the basic form used ever since. Pilkington, Methodist Publishing House, 1: 74. 4 4. McAnally, Rev. S. Patton, 179–82; Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 109–12. McAnally was credited with doing more to build up Methodism in Missouri and the surrounding states than any other itinerant, according to Price. See also Hilliard, Stepping Stones, 16–62. 45. McAnally, Rev. S. Patton, 180–81; MEC Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1835. McAnally maintained there was a falling off of book sales after 1844 because of the split in Methodism in that year and the subsequent declining membership of Holston in the new MECS. Even in the remaining Northern church, however, distribution of materials from the Methodist Book Concern showed signs of collapse by the late 1840s. The larger the church grew, the less time preachers could spend distributing books and periodicals among church members. Pilkington, Methodist Publishing House, 1: 340. 46. Posey, Methodism in Old Southwest, 121–22; Emory, History of the Discipline, 179–89; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 31–32. 47. Heyrman, Southern Cross, 101–4; Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 304–37; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 31–32, 91–92. 4 8. Emory, History of the Discipline, 179–90; MEC Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1827; Sasnett, Progress, 272. 49. Sasnett, Progress, 270–74. Bitter criticism of the position of local preachers within Methodism also came from contemporaries outside the church, who argued that they were equally qualified with itinerants yet were forbidden to fully function as pastors. “Can the local preacher submit, intelligently, to this oppression, without guilt?” one critic asked rhetorically, urging them to rebel against the Methodist hierarchy and organizational structure. South, Objections to Methodism, 39–40. 50. Deems, Annals of Southern Methodism, 1: 383–85. The original article appeared in the Nashville Christian Advocate on October 18, 1850. How

177

Notes to Pages 21–25

important it was to the editor is indicated by its repeated printing on August 23, 1855, and August 21, 1856, in this same paper. 51. Deems, Annals of Southern Methodism, 1: 383–85; Nashville Christian Advocate, Oct. 18, 1850; Schneider, Way of the Cross, 136, 143–48. Jeremiads against locating abound in the various church newspapers. For an excellent example, see “The Worse [sic] Place to Locate,” which ironically turned out to be at the annual conference, the only place one could officially locate, where a retiring itinerant was forced to confront myriad disapproving friends. “I shall never locate until I locate in the grave,” declared one elderly minister. “The Worse Place to Locate,” Nashville and Louisville Christian Advocate, June 5, 1851. 5 2. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 140–41, 195–97; 1: 56–59; McAnally, Rev. S. Patton, 168; McAnally, William Patton, 22–23. 53. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 155–65, 195–98; 3: 295; 4: 69, 168–69; 5: 153. Throughout the 1850s, church newspapers frequently discussed the problems and shortcomings of local ministers. For a lengthy discussion on how to reform and improve the local ministry, see Nashville and Louisville Christian Advocate, Mar. 16, 1854. 54. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 293–94. I have relied on Price for the numbers of local preachers between 1838 and 1860 because he served as conference secretary and often corrected erroneous counts. The names of local deacons and elders were copied from the MEC Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1824–60. 55. Emory, History of the Discipline, 179–90; MEC Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1824–60. R. N. Price reported that any local preacher who did not preach frequently got a “hackling” from the presiding elder at the next quarterly meeting. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 94. A very specific distribution of labor among local preachers was often recorded in the quarterly conference minutes. See, for example, QCM, Little River Circuit, Feb. 17, 1856. 56. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 386–87, 406; Brownlow, Helps to the Study, 286. 57. Emory, History of the Discipline, 179–90; QCM, Jonesboro Circuit, Little River Circuit, Morristown Circuit, Sevierville Circuit, Tellico Circuit. 58. QCM, Little River Circuit, Aug. 2, 1851. Christy Huffaker was suspended until the next quarterly meeting, on December 6, 1851. This verdict was then given: “Resolved that Bro. C. Huffaker is guilty of using highly improper language in reference to the ministry and gov178

Notes to Pages 25–28

ernment of the church, but in view of all the circumstances in his case, and the punishment already inflicted in his suspension from the functions of his office for some time past which we judge to be equal to the offence, resolved that his character now pass in the light of Christian forbearance.” 59. Price, “Methodism in East Tennessee,” 294. 60. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 430–39; Gannaway, Sketches of Former Days, 97. See also Ekin Papers, Miscellaneous Letters, 1844–47. 61. Francis Asbury, “A Valedictory Address to William McKendree,” in Clark, Potts, and Payton, eds., Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury, 3: 474–92; Mulder, Controversial Spirit, 3–4; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 73–89; Emory, History of the Discipline, 194; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 173–75. Asbury noted, paraphrasing John Wesley, that it was “rare—a mere miracle, for a Methodist to increase in wealth and not decrease in grace.” Quoted in Andrews, Methodists and Revolutionary America, 155–61, 173–77. 62. Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 286, 334–35. 63. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 11–14, 65, 211, 246, 280–87, 305, 390, 432; 4: 53, 62, 91, 114, 116, 203, 210, 213, 220, 224, 260, 263, 348, 365, 400, 431, 487; Corgan, “History of Higher Education,” 41, 57–58; Sullins, Recollections, 73–91; Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 75–92; Wood, Hitch Hiking, 71–87; Hilten, Hiwassee Story, 15–42. For a discussion of why Holston College at New Market, Jefferson County, Tennessee, ultimately failed, see McAnally, William Patton, 119–23. 6 4. Price, Holston Methodism, 5: 477–81; Stevenson, Increase in Excellence, 71, 85–100; and Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Wiley, Ephraim Emerson.” See also Wiley, “Contributions.” 65. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 304; 4: 259; MEC/MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1835–60. 6 6. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 169; 5: 257–59; Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 236–38. David Sullins, another classmate of Price’s and Richardson’s, later prominent in the Holston hierarchy, noted that camp meetings, class meetings, and love feasts had served their purpose “in their season!” Sullins, Recollections, 46. A later historian of Holston Methodism states explicitly what Price, Sullins, and Richardson only strongly hinted at: “The class-meeting talked itself to death because the church did not train its members to work, as it had trained them to talk of their religious experiences.” Martin, Methodism in Holston, 29. 179

Notes to Pages 29–32

67. Posey, Methodism in Old Southwest, 119; Holston Messenger 3 (1828): 81–82; Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1836, 1837; Hilliard, Stepping Stones, 37; Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 21–22; Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 208–16; Gannaway, Sketches of Former Days, 35. The 1858 edition of the Discipline of the MECS still denounced dancing and attending circuses and theatres (p. 101). Yet R. N. Price remarked that the “puritanic spirit” and “narrowness” of early Methodism’s “indiscriminate condemnation of all shows was not wise. It drove the screw too tight and split the plank.” It was not the church’s duty “to condemn any public exhibition,” he further argued, “simply because it was called a show.” Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 290–91. 68. Shannon, Journal, entries for 1848–49; Ekin, Diary, Jan. 19, 1854, and throughout 1854–55. 69. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 304; 4: 200; MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1845.

2. Slavery and Free Blacks

1. “The noticeable decline of the class meeting in the last twenty-five years may be due to the growing modesty and intelligence of our people and to a change simply in the type and not in the degree of the piety of our membership; but we have reason to suspect that one cause of this decline has been a falling off in zeal and spirituality. The Church was at white heat when class meetings and band meetings prevailed, and we fear that the cooling process has left an incrustation of worldliness and formality. Where our people have old-fashioned Wesleyan and Pauline piety an old-fashioned class meeting seems to work as well as in former days.” Price, Holston Methodism, 5: 258. See also Holsclaw, “Demise”; Rosser, Class Meetings; and Emory, History of the Discipline. 2. Spring Creek MECS Class Books, 1860, pp. 138–47. At the third quarterly conference of the Decatur circuit, 1859, which met at Walnut Grove Church, “Joseph Collville (colored) local preacher and Anthony Collville (colored) the exhorter” were listed. Lillard, Meigs County, Tennessee, 131. The will of George Colville, executed on August 10, 1853, states that “my two faithful slaves Joshua and Anthony [are] both to be freed or live with either of [my] children or grandchildren if they choose that in preference to being colonized in Liberia.” Will Book E, 421–22, in Boyer, Wills and Estate Records, 35. “Sarah Colvil (A Person of Colour)” (b. Jan. 6, 1792, d. Mar. 29, 1857) is listed among the cemetery records of the Spring Creek Camp Ground MEC cemetery. There 180

Notes to Pages 32–34

were 183 unmarked graves, so other members of the Colville family are likely buried here. U.S. Works Progress Administration, Historical Records Survey, 2: 215. Fifty-seven names are listed as being on the Spring Creek class book on November 13, 1845, in a history of Methodist churches organized before 1860 in the Chattanooga area, but there is no indication that many of these members are African Americans. Included among these names, however, are George Colville, Catherine Colville, and Sarah Colville. Peacock, Circuit Rider, 224. 3. “Father had his own notions about slavery. He never would own a Negro. But whether these notions grew out of any convictions that slavery as it existed among us was in itself wrong, or out of other and very different considerations, is not quite clear. I think the latter is true. Somehow he never seemed to think that Negroes in the family were to be desired. They had to be hectored to make them worth their keep, and he did not like to boss.” Sullins, Recollections, 48–49; Dunn, Abolitionist, 194, 245, 263–65. Historian Cynthia Lynn Lyerly has also noted how earlier memoirs and histories published by the church obscured attacks on slavery. Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 6. 4. Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 97–108; Humphrey, That D——d Brownlow, 121, 124, 201; Dunn, Abolitionist, 14–16, 20; Chesebrough, Clergy Dissent, 52–24; Tennessee Legislative Petitions, no. 38, 1834, Tennessee State Library and Archives; Ought American Slavery to Be Perpetuated? 5. MEC/MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), esp. 1825, 1835, 1850; Brownlow’s Whig, Oct. 12, 1850. R. N. Price gave a detailed account of the actions of this 1850 annual conference, but nothing was noted about the case Brownlow describes. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 83–91. The General Conference of 1824 moved “that our coloured preachers and official members have all the privileges in the district and quarterly meeting conferences which the usages of the country in different sections will justify.” It was further specifically stated “that any of the annual conferences may employ coloured preachers to travel,” so provision had clearly been made to allow African American itinerating preachers. MEC, Journals of General Conferences, 1824: 294. See also Emory, History of the Discipline, 331–33. 6. Mathews, Slavery and Methodism, 3–61; Richey, Early American Methodism, 58–60; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 123; Andrews, Methodists and Revolutionary America, 125–32; Wigger, American Saint, 122–25. 7. Soule, “Methodist Church and Slavery,” 637–50. See also Wigger, American Saint, 122–25, 148–57, 242–43, 292–98; Mathews, Slavery and 181

Notes to Pages 35–38

Methodism, 3–61; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 47–72; and Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 140. For older accounts, see Matlack, American Slavery and Methodism, 9–37; Myers, Disruption, 17–40; Swaney, Episcopal Methodism and Slavery, 1–116; and Norwood, Schism, 11–57. 8. Mathews, Slavery and Methodism, 47–51; Bray, Peter Cartwright, 75–81; McFerrin, Methodism in Tennessee, 2: 461–68; Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 240–45; MEC, Journals of General Conferences, 1820: 179–80, 228–29. In the 1820 MEC General Conference, the provision leaving it to the annual conferences “to form their own regulations about buying and selling slaves” was struck out. Emory, History of the Discipline, 331. 9. Mathews, Slavery and Methodism, 50–54; Martin, “Anti-Slavery Societies,” 261–81; Martin, “Anti-Slavery Activities,” 98–109; Dunn, Abolitionist, 3–25; Genius of Universal Emancipation, Dec. 22, 1827. 10. MEC Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1825, 1827, 1828. 11. MEC Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1829, 1835. The presiding bishop at this 1835 annual conference, James O. Andrew, would be the slaveholding bishop who occasioned the split in the Methodist Episcopal Church and the formation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1844. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 40–41. See also Elliott, History of the Great Secession, 317–26; and more recently, Auslander, Accidental Slaveowner. 12. MEC Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1835, 1836. Between 1837 and 1843 there were no more specific cases in Holston annual conferences involving local or itinerating ministers owning slaves. In the 1843 annual conference, Holston clergy voted 39–4 against concurring with a resolution from the Genesee and New York conferences to change the general rules on slavery. Ibid., 1837–43. 13. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 312; McFerrin, Methodism in Tennessee, 2: 243, 495; Posey, Methodism in Old Southwest, 104; MEC, Journals of General Conferences, 1812: 106; 1816: 168; 1820: 228. As Posey points out, Axley lost the first vote in 1812 but won in 1816 by removing the term “malt liquors.” The successful motion in 1816 simply said that “no preacher should distil or retail spirituous liquors without forfeiting his license.” See also Martin, “Anti-Slavery Activities”; Mathews, Slavery and Methodism; Finley, Sketches of Western Methodism, 231–46; Farish, Circuit Rider Dismounts, 307–308; and Sweet, Religion, 4: 728–30. 14. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 393–99; McFerrin, Methodism in Tennessee, 2: 144–47, 514–15. Bowman’s obituary was published in MECS Holston 182

Notes to Pages 38–39

Conference, Minutes, 1847. McAnally, Rev. S. Patton, 217–18; MEC, Journals of General Conferences, 1832: 367. For a description of John Bowman as an itinerating preacher, see McAnally, William Patton, 77–89. For David Rice McAnally’s career, beginning in Holston, see Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 109–12. McAnally was arrested by Union authorities and placed in a military prison for publishing treasonable material in his paper, which was suppressed by Union officials in 1862. Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), Apr. 24, 1862. 15. Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 92–134; Schneider, Way of the Cross, 59–77; Heyrman, Southern Cross, 17–26; Hatch, Democratization, 3–16, 56–93; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 110–74; Mathews, Religion, 185–236; Richey, Early American Methodism, 25–27; Andrews, Methodists and Revolutionary America, 123–54. Statistics on membership in the Holston Conference are taken from MEC/MECS Holston Conference, Minutes, 1824–60. Daily, Journal, May 8, 1859, p. 127. 16. Deems, Annals of Southern Methodism, 1: 223; Sullins, Recollections, 327; Shannon, Journal, 13, 24, 27; Ekin, Autobiography, 18. Ekin was sent to assist “Br. Scott” on this occasion. Scott went back to get some books but never returned. Shannon said, “I never preach to the Blacks, but what the Lord seemed to be in the midst. I am always amply repaid for my labour. I intend to pay more attention to the Blacks than some of the Bro. Preachers have done, [as] they are and have been to[o] much neglected by the Church.” Shannon, Journal, 13. 17. This 1824 change in the MEC Discipline also indicated that “the presiding elder may hold for them a separate district conference, where the number of coloured local preachers would justify it.” Some indication of the numbers, or anticipated numbers, of African American local preachers may be inferred from this statement. However, as Emory notes, these provisions for separate district conferences for black local preachers were retained until 1836, when all district conferences were abolished. Emory, History of the Discipline, 332. See also MEC/MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1825, 1846; Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 211. Aaron Griffith’s name does appear on a Holston Conference Recommendation Order form as having been recommended on August 1, 1846, for ordination as a local deacon by his quarterly conference. Holston Conference Recommendation Orders, 1826–78. 18. MEC/MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1824–60. For the critical importance of Methodist quarterly conference meetings, see Richey, Early American Methodism, 21–32. John Wigger argues 183

Notes to Pages 40–41

that class meetings were “the foundation of both Methodist finances and Methodist corporate piety and discipline,” and without the class meeting neither the “itinerancy nor the Methodist brand of piety could have long survived the movement’s rapid, predominantly rural-based expansion.” Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 81. The 1858 Discipline further specified that “no person shall be licensed to preach, or to exhort, without the recommendation of the church of which he is a member, or of the leaders’ meeting of the circuit, station, or mission to which he belongs. Nor shall any one be licensed to preach, or recommended to the Annual Conference for admission on trial, or for ordination, without first being examined in the Quarterly Conference on the subject of doctrines and discipline; nor shall any license be valid unless signed by the president and countersigned by the secretary of the Conference.” MECS Discipline (1858 ed.), 56–57. 19. McFerrin, Methodism in Tennessee, 2: 523–24. R. N. Price simply repeated without further comment what Garrett had written in McFerrin’s work about these three outstanding African American local preachers in East Tennessee. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 378–80. None of these names appears in the Holston Conference Recommendation Orders, 1826–78. Colonel William Garrett, who wrote the article on Methodism in East Tennessee, was the son of William Garrett (1774–1853), a slave owner who was kept out of the itinerating ministry by his presiding elder, fiercely antislavery James Axley. The senior Garrett nevertheless served as a local preacher for ten years in the counties of Cocke, Sevier, Jefferson, Greene, Washington, Blount, Knox, Monroe, and McMinn. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 161–65. 20. Richey, Early American Methodism, 1–64; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 30, 80–95, 131–32; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 47–72; Posey, Methodism in the Old Southwest, 91–99, 112–22; Sasnett, “Theory of Methodist Class Meetings,” 265–84; Emory, History of the Discipline, 132–33, 182–84, 269–70. In the quarterly conference minutes of Carter’s Valley–Rogersville, the venerable Samuel Patton on January. 27, 1831, resolved “that the stewards be admonished to attend to their duty as printed out in our discipline.” Quarterly conferences were frequently thus admonished by either the presiding elder or the preacher in charge. “Indeed, if a local preacher did not make it appear at the fourth quarterly conference that he had preached much during the year, he usually got a hacking from the presiding elder.” Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 94. 184

Notes to Pages 41–43

21. The seven Holston Conference circuits whose quarterly conference minutes I have minutely examined are the Carter’s Valley–Rogersville circuit (1808–51), the Jonesboro circuit (1847–63), the Louisville Circuit (1858–63), the Maryville circuit (MEC; 1864–69), the Morristown circuit (1854–90), the Sevierville circuit (1840–44), and the Tellico Circuit (1830– 51). Only rarely are numbers of new members broken down by race given in these quarterly conference minutes. For example, the QCM of Little River circuit listed forty-seven whites and nine “coloreds” having joined the church on probation in March 1858; in July of the same year, twenty-four whites and fourteen “colored” were “received into full connection.” QCM Little River Circuit, Mar. 20, July 26, 1858. 22. QCM Sevierville Circuit, Oct. 10, 1840; Sept. 6, 1842; Sept. 9, 1843; Feb. 10, Aug. 19, 1844. On Feb. 10, 1844, Charles Bogle, a “colored” exhorter, was recommended to the quarterly conference by the class at Logan’s Chapel for promotion to local preacher. The quarterly conference “are of the opinion he not be licensed.” For Orange, see QCM of Carter’s Valley–Rogersville Circuit, Sept. 15, 1827; Oct. 15, 1828; Nov. 21, 1829. A listing of black exhorters occurred on June 9, 1849, and again on August 11, 1851, when John Hamblin, a local preacher, was added to the list, but on September 10, 1852, the names of the local preachers Charles Mays, John Hamblin, Wood Carmichael, Hector Hale, and Wiley Haynes were all listed without any designation of “colored.” QCM Carter’s Valley–Rogersville Circuit, June 9, 1849; Aug. 11, 1851; Sept. 10, 1852. 23. QCM Carter’s Valley–Rogersville Circuit, Apr. 6, 1850; QCM Morristown Circuit, July 7, 1855; Lillard, Meigs County, Tennessee, 131; Boyer, Wills and Estate Records, 35; Boyer, Chancery Court Records, 154. For other specific examples of black local preachers and exhorters, see QCM Little River Circuit, Apr. 5, Aug. 16, 1845; Aug. 8, 1846; Aug. 27, 1847; Sept. 16, 1848; Sept. 15, 1849; Aug. 7, 1852; Aug. 26, 1854; Sept. 1, 1855; Aug. 30, 1856; Sept. 18, 1858. 24. QCM Carter’s Valley–Rogersville Circuit, Sept. 30, 1815; June 22, 1817; Mar. 11, 1820; Sept. 14, 1822; Mar. 29, 1823; May 2, 1829; Feb. 13, 1830. For other specific examples of black local preachers and exhorters, see QCM, Jonesboro Circuit, Sept. 28, 1850; July 17, Sept. 20, Dec. 13, 1851; Mar. 20, Sept. 23, 1852; Oct. 4, 1853; June 12, 1854; Dec. 29, 1855; Aug. 9, 1856; Oct. 9, 1861; Oct. 6, 1862. 25. QCM Tellico Circuit, Aug. 15, 1835; Sept. 3, 1836; Oct. 2, 1837; Apr. 6, Oct. 7, 1839; Sept. 7, 1840; Aug. 27, 1841; Aug. 6, 1842; Sept. 14, 1844;

185

Notes to Pages 44–45

Aug. 1, 1846; Aug. 3, 1849; Aug. 27, Sept. 14, 1850. MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1846; Holston Conference Recommendation Orders, 1846; Boyer, Monroe County, Tennessee, Records, 2: 69. For other specific examples of black preachers and exhorters, see QCM Morristown Circuit, Oct. 7, 1854; July 7, Sept. 22, 1855; Oct. 4, 1856; Sept. 26, 1857; Aug. 28, 1858; Sept. 17, 1859. 2 6. MECS, Journals of General Conferences, 1858: 388, 405, 423, 439, 449, 461, 547, 562, 590–91; “Class Meetings,” Quarterly Review, MECS, 507–35; Rosser, Class Meetings. 27. “Class Meetings,” Quarterly Review, MECS, 511–29; “Report of the Proceedings of the General Conference,” Nashville Christian Advocate, June 3, 1858. Historian David F. Holsclaw argues that the Southern bishops rightly judged that the proposed rule change making class meetings optional would virtually destroy class meetings. But these Southern bishops “either misjudged or understated the seriousness of the situation”: most Methodists, according to Holsclaw, regarded class attendance as no longer a necessity for membership, and the “class meeting was virtually dead already.” Holsclaw, “Demise,” 164–69. The committee on class meetings was composed of D. R. McAnally (formerly of Holston), J. E. Evans, W. A. McSwain, W. Barringer, and G. Shaeffer. MECS, Journals of General Conferences, 1858: 405. Charles F. Deems (1820–93), a graduate of Dickinson College in 1839, college professor, and president of Greenboro Female College, 1850–54, entered the MECS North Carolina Conference in 1840. A reformer and prolific writer, he settled in 1865 in New York City, where he founded a nondenominational Church of Strangers, in which he served as pastor until his death in 1893. Simpson, Cyclopedia of Methodism, 282. 28. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 195–97. In 1855 Leonidas Rosser published an almost desperate defense of class meetings that was also something of a jeremiad, warning Methodists of dire consequences should the institution die. “Once you were happy––alas, how cold, and dead, and worldly, and miserable now! Why is this so? . . . And the answer to your inquiry is, you have neglected to meet your class, which, as you believe, and we have shown, is connected with so many and so great advantages. With the first omission of this duty commenced your spiritual depression, which increased with repeated neglects, till you are now the subject of the most painful doubts, and fears, and self-rebuke.” Rosser, Class Meetings, 292.

186

Notes to Pages 45–47

29. MECS Holston Conference, Minutes, 1850–60; Daily, Journal, May 8, 1859, p. 127; Ekin, Diary, May 16, Aug. 12, 28, 1854. For the popularity of class meetings with blacks in other sections of the South, see Cornelius, Slave Missions, 60–65; and Purifoy, “Methodist Episcopal Church, South,” 145–49. The article condemning ordaining African Americans also pointed out that “the social and civil status of Negroes, bond or free, unfits them for the discharge of some of those duties belonging to ordained ministers, and would vitiate their acts, and introduce scandalous confusion, if they attempt to perform them.” Clergy were both “religious and civil officers,” especially “when they marry a man and woman,” for “they sanctify the union by a religious blessing, and they legalize it by the authority of the State.” Because slave marriages were not legally recognized in the South, this particular objection strikes at the very heart of racist objections to black local preachers. Nashville Christian Advocate, Sept. 27, 1860. 30. In 1855, the Knoxville “colored mission” had 402 members, as well as 100 children being instructed. Deems, Annals of Southern Methodism, 1: 223. Pope’s patronizing and self-congratulatory tone does not quite conceal the other purpose of separate black missions in urban areas: segregating the African American congregants and keeping them out of the fashionable city churches being constructed during the 1840s and 1850s. Nashville Christian Advocate, June 19, 1856. For the best analysis of Southern Methodism’s “compromise of conscience,” the mission to the slaves and colonization, see Mathews, Slavery and Methodism, 62–110. At the Holston annual conference of 1835, a resolution was passed stating, “[W]e highly approve the object and design of the American Colonization Society, believing it to be philanthropic and well worthy of our patronage and cooperation.” Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 286. 31. Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 334; 2: 115, 209–13, 240–45, 253; 3: 286, 407, 412–16. For the proslavery argument, see Tise, Proslavery; Daly, When Slavery Was Called Freedom; McKivigan and Snay, Religion; Young, Proslavery and Sectional Thought; Chesebrough, Clergy Dissent; Snay, Gospel of Disunion; and Mathews, Religion. 3 2. Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 334; 2: 209–13, 240–45; 3: 412–16; Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 92, 122–34; Andrews, Methodists and Revolutionary America, 155–61, 173–77; Bray, Peter Cartwright, 27–28; Posey, Methodism in Old Southwest, 123–27; Mathews, Slavery and Methodism, 41–50. See also Wigger, American Saint, 173–84.

187

Notes to Pages 47–51

33. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 115, 181–82, 209–13, 240–45; 3: 412–16. For the appraisal of recent scholarship on treatment of slaves and the African American family under slavery, see Stampp, Peculiar Institution; Gutman, Black Family; Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll; Berlin, Many Thousands Gone; Blassingame, Slave Community; Rawick, From Sundown to Sunup; Stevenson, Life in Black and White; and Kolchin, American Slavery. 34. Stevenson, Increase in Excellence, 71–100; Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 85; Price, Holston Methodism, 5: 477–81. 35. Even after the Civil War, Wiley continued to attempt to justify both his racism and his continuing support of Southern nationalism. In a particularly frank correspondence with his former professor at Wesleyan University, Daniel D. Whedon, one of the outstanding leaders of Northern Methodism, he so offended Whedon that the latter replied with an excoriating analysis of Wiley’s attitudes, point by point. Wiley, “Contributions,” 32–54, 68–69, 73–116, 122–31. 36. Mathews, Slavery and Methodism, 177–282; Purifoy, “Methodist Episcopal Church, South,” 23–65; Swaney, Episcopal Methodism and Slavery, 117–202; Norwood, Schism, 58–101; Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 412–30. See Auslander’s Accidental Slaveowner for the most recent examination of Bishop Andrew and his family. 37. Snay, Gospel of Disunion, 126–34; Mathews, Slavery and Methodism, 246– 82. For the debates over slavery in the 1844 General Conference, see West, Report of Debates. A summary of the organization of the MECS, printed in 1845 in Nashville, argued that “Southern Methodists have ever been more rigid in their adherence to what they understand to be original Methodism, than any other portion of the American Church.” Redford, History of the Organization, 253. For older accounts of the 1844 split in Methodism, see Elliott, History; and Myers, Disruption. 38. MEC/MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1844, 1845. See also Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 433–36; Norwood, Schism, 92–93; and Cameron, Methodism and Society, 173–83. For an analysis of the relative merits of the thesis that extremists on both sides forced the split, see Purifoy, “Methodist Episcopal Church, South,” 53–65. 39. MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1845. R. N. Price argues disingenuously that Ekin was “not a man of great intellect” and that he was persuaded by Reverend William Hicks, as well as by “common sense, the grace of God, and the continuous and affectionate interposition of his brethren,” not to remain in the MEC but to join the new Southern Methodist church. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 421–50. 188

Notes to Pages 52–54

40. Eli K. Hutsell to George Ekin, July 21, 1845; James St. Clair to George Ekin, Sept. 2, 1845, in Ekin Papers. Ekin’s letter to his grandson, George Eakin Naff, Dec. 5, 1844, is quoted along with the letters from Hutsell and St. Clair in Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 433–36. James C. Walker and Absalom Fisher were both local preachers. Holston Conference Recommendation Orders, 1843, 1845. Price asserted that both Fisher and St. Clair were ultimately “swept by the irresistible tide into the warm bosom of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.” Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 436. Absalom Fisher, the local preacher dissatisfied with the separation of the MEC, was expelled from the Holston Conference in 1846. No reason for his being expelled is given, but his parchments were turned back in to the conference in 1850. MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1850. 41. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 434; Gannaway, Sketches of Former Days, 97. Absalom B. Wright was typical of the majority of Holston local preachers inasmuch as he considered slavery “the sum of all villainies,” venerated class meetings as “essential to the being and prosperity of Methodism,” and would in 1861 oppose Tennessee’s secession from the Union. Wright, Autobiography, 24–26, 55–56. 42. MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1849, 1860. Rogers, Cumming, and Daily were all expelled from the MECS for Union sympathies between 1862 and 1864. Augustine F. Shannon had located, becoming a local preacher in 1854, thereby escaping scrutiny from the 1862 annual conference. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 71, 177, 299–304. 43. MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1859. Montraville M. Weaver (1808–82), born on Reems Creek, Buncombe County, North Carolina, was licensed to preach as a local preacher in 1829 and afterwards was ordained as a local deacon. A wealthy, public-spirited man, he gave money and land to found Weaverville College. Price notes that Weaver, “a remarkably pious and useful man,” was also “a large contributor of money to the enterprises of his Church and to charitable purposes.” Price duly reports Coleman Campbell’s expulsion for “immorality” but does not reveal that his purported victim was an African American woman. Campbell had appealed his Holston conviction to the General Conference of 1862, but the papers of this case were lost during the war. The MECS General Conference of 1866 remanded the case back to Holston, but that conference dismissed the charges because the records had been lost. Subsequently restored to the ministry, Campbell served the Murphy circuit in 1867 and 1868 and the Madisonville circuit in 1869. On this last circuit, rumors about 189

Notes to Pages 55–59

his moral character were circulated, and he resigned from the ministry. Price praised him as “a natural orator, a man with extraordinary imagination” who had “remarkable influence over a popular audience.” Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 410–11; 4: 426–27. 44. MECS, Journals of General Conferences, 1858: 584–86; Shannon, Journal, 29; Holston Christian Advocate, Jan. 14, 1851; Ekin, Diary, Apr. 30, 1855.

3. Identity through Dissent

1. Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist, 179–506; McPherson, Ordeal by Fire, 114–17, 121, 131–32, 149, 265. See also Oates, To Purge This Land; Potter, Impending Crisis; Peterson, John Brown; and Boyer, Legend of John Brown. 2. Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 283–84; 3: 237, 282; McFerrin, Methodism in Tennessee, 2: 516. Bewley moved to Missouri in 1837 with his wife, Jane Winton, and father-in-law, W. Winton. He entered the Missouri Conference in 1843 and served on the Neosho circuit and in 1844 on the Sarcoxie circuit. According to Missouri conference records, he was “a small, dark complected, nervous, restless, roving man, but a very good and an exceedingly earnest preacher.” He refused to remain in the MECS in Missouri after the 1844 split, because he “conscientiously believed it was his duty to secure the freedom of slaves.” Woodard, Methodism in Missouri, 207–8. 3. In Missouri, Bewley experienced persecution from various proslavery activists after 1850. For example, a high school at Ebenezer operated by the Southern Methodists refused to allow him to preach or to enroll his children. On another occasion he was presented with a petition signed by several hundred people asking him to cease preaching at that place. Elliott, South-Western Methodism, 24–148, 176–78; Brownlow’s Whig, Sept. 29, 1860. 4. Reynolds, Texas Terror, 69, 119–67; Elliott, South-Western Methodism, 125–80; Norton, “Methodist Episcopal Church,” 317–41; Elliott, “Martyrdom of Bewley,” 626–45. In the aftermath of the slave insurrection panic in northern Texas in 1860, at least thirty men, black and white, were lynched in the belief that they were coconspirators. See Davidson, “Mediating Race and Class,” 50–51. 5. Elliott, South-Western Methodism, 149–226; Reynolds, Texas Terror, 1–196; “Hanging of Anthony Bewley,” Dallas Herald, Oct. 31, 1860. Bewley’s murder caused Thomas M. Eddy, editor of the Northwestern Christian Advocate (Chicago), to write a highly publicized letter to President 190

Notes to Pages 60–61

Buchanan demanding government protection of Northern Methodist ministers in slave states. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics, 288, 291, 298. 6. Carwardine argues persuasively that in certain critical respects, Bewley’s martyrdom aggravated sectional tensions more than Brown’s death, because they clearly perceived Bewley, in contrast to Brown, to be a modest, peaceful minister whose means were constitutional and Christian. Carwardine, “Methodists, Politics,” 606–8. Editor William G. Brownlow, a former colleague of Bewley’s, reported in his paper on November 17, 1860, that the rumors of abolitionist plots in Texas were unfounded, false, and evidently designed by scheming Southern secessionists to inflame public opinion against the North. “A citizen of our own state, of high standing, writes to a gentleman in this city, that they were not able to learn of a single case in which abolition emissaries participated” (Brownlow’s Whig, Nov. 17, 1860). This report may have been intended to support Unionism in East Tennessee by casting doubt on the abolitionist plot rumors that formed the predominant justification behind Bewley’s hanging. 7. Williams, Lost State of Franklin; Barksdale, Lost State of Franklin; Folmsbee, Sectionalism, 70–267; Dunn, Abolitionist, 3–25; Atkins, Parties, Politics, 54–141; and McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels, 11–26. The single best scholarly treatment of East Tennessee’s regional self-image as shaped by its declining status in comparison to middle Tennessee is Inscoe, Race, War, and Remembrance, 103–23. 8. Brownlow’s Whig, Dec. 15, 1841; Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 431–32; Bryan, “Civil War,” 22. According to the 1860 census, East Tennessee’s aggregate wealth (real plus personal property) per capita was only $454, in comparison to $934 for Middle Tennessee and $1,243 for West Tennessee. Fisher, War at Every Door, 20. 9. Brownlow continued that “our brave mountain boys are not willing to be disfranchised because of their poverty, and it is now a settled point that a property qualification will be required under ‘King Cotton,’ while a man neither owning land or Negroes, will be disqualified for any office of honor or profit.” Brownlow’s Whig, Jan. 26, 1861. Richey, Early American Methodism, 33–46; Carwardine, “Methodists, Politics,” 578–85; MEC Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1839, 1840. David Rice McAnally believed (as did Samuel Patton and Brownlow) that religious, social, and economic improvements were intertwined. He supported Whig economic programs to promote railroads and credit facilities for 191

Notes to Pages 62–64

western North Carolina and also argued for temperance societies and publicly funded education. Highland Messenger, June 5, 1840. McAnally justified his paper in his diary by pointing out that his congregations were between 50 and 100 percent larger after publication, “more attentive, and the religious prospects of the district in every way, more favorable.” He continued his paper and was subsequently approved at the next annual conference in 1841. Hilliard, Stepping Stones, 56–61. 10. Brownlow’s Whig, Feb. 26, 1853. See also Carwardine, “Methodists, Politics,” 581–609; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 173–95; Hatch, Democratization, 193–209; and Schneider, Way of the Cross, 111–208. 11. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 4–6. A widely reported account of Stringfield’s meeting with Andrew Jackson just twenty days before his death has Jackson proclaiming, “Ah, Mr. Stringfield, what times have been since we first met! You were a boy in camp at Emucfaw, and your head was bleeding from Indian bullets.” “General Jackson and the Methodist Minister,” Newark (Ohio) Advocate, Mar. 9, 1859. 12. R. N. Price points out that the Holston Conference organ was not a lucrative enterprise, in Stringfield’s time or afterwards, and that the conference “wisely but cruelly unloaded on Thomas Stringfield,” leaving him heavily in debt. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 16–20. The Western Arminian was published in Huntsville, Alabama, from 1823 to October 1824; the Western Arminian and Christian Instructor was published at Knoxville, between 1824 and December 1826; the Holston Conference Messenger was published in 1827 at Knoxville; and the Holston Messenger was published from 1827 to December 1829 at Knoxville. Batsel and Batsel, Union List, 44, 129. 13. R. N. Price argued that Stringfield was “a born logician and polemic. His critical mind had a keen perception of the distinctions between truth and error, right and wrong; he had a conscience, and he hated error and wrong with a perfect hatred.” Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 21–33; Stringfield, Mr. Gallaher Again, 1–64. 14. R. N. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 33–38; Holston Messenger, 1828–29; Stringfield, Strictures on the Controversy, 1–19; Stringfield, Substance of a Sermon, 1–18. For the articles that particularly provoked Stringfield, see “A Dialogue between a Methodist and a Calvinist,” Calvinistic Magazine (May 1827): 145–49; “Pastoral Letter of the Presbytery of Lexington, Virginia,” Calvinistic Magazine (Feb. 1828): 5–46; and “Dialogues on Church Government between a Citizen and a Methodist Circuit-Rider, Dialogue I,” Calvinistic Magazine (Apr. 1828): 108–17. 192

Notes to Pages 65–69

15. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 38–49. See also “Dialogues on Church Government between a Citizen and a Methodist Circuit-Rider, Dialogue II,” Calvinistic Magazine (May 1828): 129–44; “Dialogues on Church Government between a Citizen and a Methodist Circuit-Rider, Dialogue III,” Calvinistic Magazine (June 1828): 170–79; “Dialogues on Church Government between a Citizen and a Methodist Circuit-Rider, Dialogue IV,” Calvinistic Magazine (July 1828): 201–8; and “Methodist Discipline,” Calvinistic Magazine (Nov. 1828): 848–51. 16. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 131–43; McAnally, Rev. S. Patton, 185–91. Frederick Augustus Ross (1796–1882) was born in Maryland but moved to Tennessee after the death of his wealthy father to attend to property he had inherited. After being converted by a sermon preached in 1820 by Reverend James Gallaher, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1825 at Rogersville, Tennessee. As one of the editors of the Calvinistic Magazine, he waged war against both Brownlow and Samuel Patton in its pages with relentless zeal. Alexander, Brief History, 62–63, 120–22. 17. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 143–46; McAnally, Rev. S. Patton, 190–94. Frederick Augustus Ross became the chief spokesman for the proslavery group of New School Presbyterians in the South. Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, 1: 542–43. Ross published in 1857 in Philadelphia a book expressing his proslavery views entitled Slavery Ordained of God. Ross was also a leader in the formation of a new United Synod of the Presbyterian church in 1858 organized for the purpose of “giving the sanction and support of Christianity to southern slavery.” Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics, 290. 18. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 147–58; McAnally, Rev. S. Patton, 230–48. For the Methodist Protestant Church, see Paris, History; and Drinkhouse, Methodist Protestant Church. 19. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 158–64; McAnally, Rev. S. Patton, 193–292; Brownlow, Great Iron Wheel Examined, 108. See Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 35–83; Methodist Episcopalian, 1846–50; Holston Christian Advocate, 1850–54. See also Brownlow’s Jonesborough Monthly Review, 1847–49; and Ross’s revived Calvinistic Magazine, 1845–50. This latter periodical would become the Knoxville Presbyterian Witness in 1850. 20. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 159, 216, 235, 257–58, 278, 309, 314–62; 4: 209, 281; 5: 459; Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 1–52; Humphrey, That D——d Brownlow, 1–27; and Brownlow, Helps to the Study, 241–94. 21. Price, Holston Methodism, 5: 111–16; Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 36–48; Humphrey, That D——d Brownlow, 18–32, 35, 40, 42, 45–50, 59, 193

Notes to Pages 69–72

63–66, 110, 124, 164, 170. Landon Carter Haynes (1816–75) was born in Elizabethon, Carter County, son of David and Rhoda (Taylor) Haynes. He attended Washington College, read law under T.A.R. Nelson, and was admitted to the bar of Jonesboro, Washington County, in 1841. He served in both the Tennessee House and the Tennessee Senate between 1845 and 1851, was a presidential elector in 1844 and 1860, and served as a Confederate senator from 1861 to 1865. McBride et al., Biographical Directory, 1: 348–49. 2 2. Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 41–42; Humphrey, That D——d Brownlow, 46, 47, 97. A typed transcript of this trial on the Jonesboro circuit, Abingdon district, 1843–44, is in the Fink Papers. 2 3. Alexander, Brief History, 62–63; Calvinistic Magazine, 1846–50; Ross, Doctrine. Brownlow quoted long passages from Ross’s attacks against Methodism in both the revived Calvinistic Magazine (1846–50), and the Doctrine of the Direct Witness to rebut specific points. Brownlow, Great Iron Wheel Examined, 101–62. 24. Brownlow also claimed to have spoken against Ross at thirty places to an estimated 21,000 people. Brownlow’s Whig, Oct. 6, 1847. The first issue of the periodical devoted to denouncing Ross was entitled the Jonesborough Quarterly Review, but in a few months Brownlow changed the title to the Jonesborough Monthly Review. Most of the outrageous and slanderous attacks against Ross and his family are reprinted from this periodical in Brownlow’s 1856 attack on the Baptist editor J. R. Graves. Brownlow, Great Iron Wheel Examined, 101–62. See also Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 65; and Conklin and Wittig, “Religious Warfare,” 48–50. 25. Graves, Great Iron Wheel, 378–88, 266–75. Graves also launched a bitter attack against John B. McFerrin, editor of the Nashville Christian Advocate, for his acquiescence in Brownlow’s attacks against Graves’s character. Graves, Little Iron Wheel, 249–63. Brownlow in his book contemptuously dismissed most of the substantive charges against Methodism brought by Graves as plagiarism of Ross’s previous writings in the Calvinistic Magazine. Brownlow, Great Iron Wheel Examined, 101. 2 6. Graves, Great Iron Wheel, 225–33. 27. Brownlow, Great Iron Wheel Examined, 243–53. For articles on local preachers and exhorters in the Nashville Christian Advocate, see Dec. 11, 1846; “Local Preachers,” Sept. 17, 1847; “An Expose” and “Exhorters,” Nov. 26, 1847; “The Worst Place to Locate,” “Local Preachers,” July 8, 1852; June 5, 1851; Sept. 8, 1853; and “Suggestions from a Local Preacher in McMinn County,” Apr. 22, 1858. 194

Notes to Pages 72–78

28. Graves, Great Iron Wheel, 225–33; Brownlow, Great Iron Wheel Examined, 244–53. Graves concluded on a dramatic note, arguing what “chapters of the lives and wrongs of local preachers might be written! The iron has pierced through the soul of hundreds, and they, who have been the faithful servants of their society through the vigor of youth and strength of manhood, are going down to their graves dishonored and oppressed by its unfeeling unkindness and tyranny.” Graves, Great Iron Wheel, 233. 29. Graves, Great Iron Wheel, 225–33, 266–75, 378–83; Brownlow, Great Iron Wheel Examined, 96–100, 243–53, 278–79. 30. Brownlow, Helps to the Study, 21–43. Carter Trim, John Key, and Nathan Carter were local preachers; James Smith was listed as an exhorter. The minutes for 1831 are missing, but John W. Johnston and Reuben Stone were probably class leaders or exhorters. Their names do not appear in the 1833 or 1834 minutes of the Tellico circuit quarterly conference. QCM Tellico Circuit, 1830–34. See also Holston Conference Recommendation Orders, 1834. 31. Brownlow, Helps to the Study, 71–86; Howard, Conscience and Slavery, 4–28. 3 2. Brownlow, Helps to the Study, 58–154. Ironically, the tactic of describing a target area as “morally destitute” was evidently standard operating procedure among benevolent societies in the nineteenth century. The prominent itinerant (and a friend of Brownlow’s) Thomas Stringfield, as an agent of the American Bible Society, for example, made almost identical claims regarding Morgan County and most of East Tennessee in 1846. Liberator, Apr. 8, 1846. 33. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 18, 40; Pilkington, Methodist Publishing House, 1: 242–48, 253; Fitzgerald, John B. McFerrin, 118–28; Barksdale, Lost State of Franklin, 175–79; Dunn, Abolitionist, 18–19, 197–98. 34. MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1845, 1846; Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 22–24, 37–41. 35. Nashville Christian Advocate, Jan. 5, Feb. 2, 16, 23, 1849. 36. Nashville Christian Advocate, Feb. 2, 1849. Of course, the “facilities” shortly to come to the aid of East Tennessee that McFerrin mentions are railroads, notably, the completion of the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad in 1855 to Knoxville and the final completion of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad to Bristol in the fall of 1856, finally completed to Virginia in 1858. For the economic impact of these railroads on East Tennessee, see Hsiung, Two Worlds; Groce, Mountain 195

Notes to Pages 78–81

Rebels; Noe, Southwest Virginia’s Railroad; and McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels. 37. Nashville Christian Advocate, Jan. 5, Feb. 2, 16, 23, Mar. 30, Sept. 1, 1849; Mar. 2, 1854. See also Fitzgerald, John B. McFerrin, 232. 38. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 175–76. McFerrin admitted getting Holston’s approval had come only after a “tremendous struggle.” Fitzgerald, John B. McFerrin, 247. 39. Brownlow’s Whig, Apr. 9, 1864; McAnally, Rev. S. Patton, 256–92; Brownlow’s Whig, Sept. 29, Dec. 1, 1849. McFerrin was circumspect in his biography about his former friend, concluding only that “in many respects he has led a life very ill suited to the calling of a minister of the gospel of Christ.” Fitzgerald, John B. McFerrin, 255–56. 4 0. Nashville Christian Advocate, Mar. 1, 1855; Jan. 31, Apr. 10, 1856; July 22, 1858; June 9, 1859. One other conference paper was published in Holston, this one—the Religious Intelligencer—by William C. Graves in Morristown between 1858 and 1861. It was never an official organ of the conference, however, and evidently did not threaten the Nashville Christian Advocate. R. N. Price argued that there was always a demand for a local Methodist paper that no paper published outside Holston could satisfy. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 176. 41. Hicks argued in 1859 that the western North Carolina counties embraced by the Holston Conference included parts of Cherokee, Macon, Jackson, Haywood, Buncombe, Madison, Yancey, and Henderson counties, and a very small part of McDowell County. His argument that Methodism’s weakness in this area was “owing to the fact, measurably, that Churches which have not so much use for prayer as Methodism, had spread their influence widely over all this region before our church got hold of the masses” seems questionable in light of Baptist and Presbyterian practices. Nashville Christian Advocate, Sept. 8, 1859. For the listing of districts and circuits within the districts, see MECS Holston Conference, Minutes, 1859, 1860. If Hicks’s contention that western North Carolina Methodists “try to be like others, at least in practice, though they are Methodist in doctrine” is valid, it might explain why a much larger proportion of these Holston Methodists supported the Confederacy than did their compatriots in East Tennessee. See McKinney, “Layers of Loyalty,” 5–22; Inscoe and McKinney, Heart of Confederate Appalachia, 12–58; and Inscoe, Mountain Masters, 177–257. This tendency on the part of western North Carolina Methodists to be heavily influenced

196

Notes to Pages 81–84

by their neighbors is given further validity by the experience of Augustine F. Shannon, a Holston itinerant in Haywood County during the 1840s who bitterly complained about the determination of distillers to justify their production of alcoholic beverages despite Methodist hostility to such practices. Shannon, Journal, 48. See also Stewart, Moonshiners and Prohibitionists, 56–57. 42. “Why not import an editor? All admit that our Conference has raised up several men who are now occupying prominent positions elsewhere, and is it never to come our time to receive help from abroad? ‘X’ thinks our brethren have never developed their talents. Well, let us employ one from some other Conference who has. He would create a literary atmosphere that would be advantageous to our undeveloped brethren.” Nashville Christian Advocate, Sept. 23, 1858; June 9, 1859.

4. Confederate Ascendancy

1. Brownlow’s Whig, Apr. 27, 1861; Neely, Southern Rights, 99–117; McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels, 75. For an analysis of East Tennessee’s Unionism, Bryan’s “Civil War in East Tennessee” remains in many respects the most comprehensive. See also Fisher, War at Every Door; Crofts, Reluctant Confederates; Groce, Mountain Rebels; Fowler, Mountaineers in Gray; and Noe, Southwest Virginia’s Railroad. Nineteenthcentury accounts of the war in East Tennessee that largely framed and to some degree distorted the future debate are Oliver P. Temple’s East Tennessee and the Civil War and Thomas William Humes’s Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee. The designation of the valley of East Tennessee as the “Switzerland of America” occurred frequently in Brownlow’s editorials. Brownlow’s Whig, June 23, 1855; Apr. 17, 1858. See also Parson Brownlow’s Book, 211. 2. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 314–62; Knoxville Register, Feb. 9, 1862. See also Humphrey, That D——d Brownlow, 259, and Parson Brownlow’s Book, 242–45 for the full version of Sperry’s famous editorial on Brownlow’s release from prison and permission from the Confederate authorities to travel to the North. 3. Fisher, War at Every Door, 22–40; Bryan, “Civil War,” 36–53; McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels, 27–82; and Campbell, Attitude of Tennesseans, 180–212. How East Tennessee’s response to the secession crisis was both similar to and yet fundamentally different from other Upper South states is carefully analyzed in Crofts, Reluctant Confederates. Also

197

Notes to Pages 85–86

especially instructive in comparing East Tennessee’s patterns of response to the secession crisis is neighboring western North Carolina’s response, superbly analyzed in Inscoe and McKinney, Heart of Confederate Appalachia. 4. McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels, 50–82; Knoxville Register, July 27, 1862; Bryan, “‘Tories’ Amidst Rebels,” 3–22; Fisher, War at Every Door, 22–40; Brownlow’s Whig, Jan. 26, Apr. 20, 27, 1861; “Proceedings of the East Tennessee Convention, Held at Knoxville, May 30 and 31, 1861”; “Proceedings of the East Tennessee Convention, Held at Greeneville”; Alexander, T. A. R. Nelson, 76–83; Temple, East Tennessee, 179–204; Humes, Loyal Mountaineers, 90–119; Campbell, Attitude of Tennesseans, 198–212. For an analysis of the movement for separate statehood in East Tennessee during the 1840s, see Dunn, Abolitionist, 17–19, 96; Folmsbee, Sectionalism, 228–29; and Barksdale, Lost State of Franklin, 175–80. Brownlow wrote glowing editorials in favor of East Tennessee’s separation from the rest of the state in 1841–42. Brownlow’s Whig, Dec. 8, 15, 1841; Aug. 3, 24, 1842. 5. Bryan, “Civil War,” 74–117; Fisher, War at Every Door, 41–121; Groce, Mountain Rebels, 68–108; McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels, 89–104. An example of an early confrontation between secessionists and Unionists was the brutal murder in Hawkins County on December 7, 1861, of an elderly loyal militia captain, William K. Byrd, who after being wounded “was dragged from his hiding place, and being unable to stand on account of his wounds, was set up against a stump and shot to death for the amusement of those patriotic volunteers in the cause of treason.” The brutal nature of this murder caused outrage among Unionists in Tennessee and led to the formation of Union militias in Carter and Johnson counties. Byrd, Unionist in East Tennessee, 14–70. See also Hall, Threescore Years and Ten, 143; and Fain, Sanctified Trial, 31, 39, 361, 364–65. 6. Fisher, War at Every Door, 6–121; Bryan, “Civil War,” 6–117; McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels, 11–110; Neely, Southern Rights, 99–117. To what extent antislavery sentiment lingered in East Tennessee into the 1850s is difficult to determine, because most citizens of the section feared at that point being labeled with the pejorative term abolitionist if they expressed any public indication of opposition to slavery. It is very revealing that Mark Neely has identified the greatest concentration of East Tennessee political prisoners arrested for loyalty to the Union as being in Greene County and the circle of counties surrounding it—186 198

Notes to Pages 87–88

arrests out of 436 prisoners whose place of arrest was identified. This disproportionate number—42.7 percent—occurred in precisely the locations where organized antislavery activity was greatest during the 1820s and 1830s in East Tennessee. Neely, Southern Rights, 108, 195; Martin, “Anti-Slavery Societies,” 261–81; Dunn, Abolitionist, 3–43. 7. McKenzie, “Contesting Secession,” 298–312; Brownlow’s Whig, Feb. 25, Aug. 25, Sept. 8, 22, Oct. 10, 13, 20, Nov. 17, 24, 1860; Jan. 9, 26, Feb. 2, 16, 23, Mar. 23, May 25, 1861. See also Fisher, War at Every Door, 41–121; Humphrey, That D——d Brownlow, 218–64; and Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 178–234. Brownlow gave a detailed description of his ordeal in a Knoxville jail in Parson Brownlow’s Book, 256–380. His subsequent triumphal speaking tour of the North and the publication of this widely read book gave Brownlow instant popularity as a martyr to Southern barbarism and highlighted the plight of East Tennessee under Confederate occupation. At a minimum, Brownlow’s efforts resulted in much of the Northern public and many Union officers and soldiers becoming familiar with East Tennessee’s loyalist resistance. Fisher, War at Every Door, 124. 8. Silver, Confederate Morale, 20; Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 144–45; Brownlow’s Whig, July 6, 1861; Parson Brownlow’s Book, 111–12, 141–47, 189–90, 392. One Holston itinerant remembered a bitter battle between Brownlow and McFerrin in the 1854 annual conference over the issue of whether McFerrin’s Nashville Christian Advocate should take over as the official organ for the Holston Conference. “It was Greek meeting Greek. The atmosphere was surcharged with sarcasm, wit, repartee. It was a match of buffoonery, a war of wags; but McFerrin gained the victory. He beat Brownlow at his own game, and carried off our paper, very much to the detriment of our work, in my opinion.” Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 105. Nevertheless, the following year, in October 1855, McFerrin visited Knoxville to give a temperance speech and was warmly received and hospitably entertained by Brownlow at his home. Fitzgerald, John B. McFerrin, 255. 9. Mann, Critical Review, 13; Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 286–87; and Price, “Methodism in East Tennessee,” 294. Early in the conflict, William Hicks, a former itinerant minister in Holston, claimed that western North Carolina was “as true to the South as any portion of the Confederate states.” Another prominent Holston itinerant, James S. Kennedy, stated that southwestern Virginia was “solidly Confederate.” Nashville Christian Advocate, Aug. 22, 29, 1861. Despite some internal 199

Notes to Pages 89–90

divisions over secession, both these parts of Holston were far more unanimously Confederate in sympathy than East Tennessee. See Inscoe, Mountain Masters, 211–57; and Noe, Southwest Virginia’s Railroad, 85–108. 10. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 297–315. Bishop Early surrounded the 1862 annual conference with Confederate soldiers and threatened to turn over any itinerant or local minister disloyal to the Confederacy to them. During this conference, a few Union men were elected to deacon’s and elder’s orders, “whereupon Bishop Early raised his hands in holy horror, and exclaimed, ‘God forbid that these hands should be laid upon the head of any man disloyal to the Southern Confederacy!’” Mann, Critical Review, 19, 26. Corroboration of these charges was offered by Spencer Henry, then a local minister, who later became an itinerating minister in the MEC. Brownlow’s Whig, Nov. 15, 1865; May 6, 1868. 11. General Conference members initially admitted the validity of the complaints against Early, and in view of his “age and declining strength,” they recommended that “he be released from taking any part of the regular Episcopal work in future.” After further deliberation, however, they allowed his character to pass because the complaints “do not impeach the purity of his character, nor his fealty to the Church, but refer to the manner of his administration.” MECS, Journals of General Conferences, 1858: 406, 462, 465–66, 472–74. John Early (1786–1873) was admitted on trial in 1807 in the Virginia Conference and rose to become book agent in 1846 in the newly formed MECS, which at that time had no book concern or books or money to make the project materialize. Through sheer determination and effort of will, Early overcame these obstacles to create a creditable book agency for the new church, an accomplishment on which his reputation largely rested. Elected to the episcopacy by the 1854 General Conference, he was voted a superannuated relation at the 1866 General Conference. Simpson, Cyclopedia of Methodism, 320–21; Pilkington, Methodist Publishing House, 1: 306–7, 310, 315, 319–20, 336, 385. 12. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 304–8; 5: 477–81; Wiley, “Contributions,” 19– 48, 73–78, 117–31; Stevenson, Increase in Excellence, 79–98; Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 79–87; Sullins, Recollections, 82–91; and Emory and Henry College, Semi-Centennial Catalogue. For a more recent analysis of the conjunction of religion and Southern nationalism, see Rable, God’s Almost Chosen Peoples, 11–277. See also Goen, Broken Churches, Bro200

Notes to Pages 91–92

ken Nation, 1–139; Silver, Confederate Morale, 13–81; Chesebrough, Clergy Dissent, 1–100; and Wyatt-Brown, Shaping of Southern Culture, 83–174. 13. James K. Stringfield Diary, Apr. 27, June 18, May 9, 1861, in Stringfield Papers. James King Stringfield (1839–70) was the son of Thomas Stringfield (1797–1858), one of Holston’s most outstanding itinerants. Educated at Strawberry Plains College, James was admitted to Holston in 1858 and subsequently served as a chaplain for the Confederate army, First Tennessee Cavalry, General Vaughan’s brigade, for three years. According to Price, young Stringfield was a scholar who “never wasted his time in social frivolities or in idleness.” Appointed professor at Asheville Female College in 1869, he died the following year of pneumonia. Price, Holston Methodism, 5: 33–5. His brother, Willie (William W. Stringfield), was appointed provost marshal in Carter County for the Confederacy. Fisher, War at Every Door, 70, 117, 160, 164. 14. Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 285–86, 334–35. For modern interpretations of Asbury’s reaction over time to slavery, see Lyerly, Methodism and Southern Mind, 119–45; Wigger, American Saint, 295–98, 384–5; and Richey, Early American Methodism, 47–64. For a fascinating contradiction in the advocacy of Southern civilization and its values by Ephraim E. Wiley, Price’s mentor, see a sermon Wiley published in 1859 entitled “The Word of God: The Only Safeguard Amid the Perils of Youth,” in Smithson, Methodist Pulpit South, 351. In this sermon, Wiley pointedly remarked that the Southern code of honor in regard to the practice of dueling actually undermined rather than protected Southern society. “The ‘code of honor,’ in its teachings, in its spirit, in its practical results, is so abhorrent to humanity, so bold a contradiction of Christianity, and so surely a remnant of a barbarous age, that we could hardly suppose that it would not flee before the march of Civilization, and wither in the light of the Gospel.” See also Carney, Ministers and Masters, 13. 15. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 304; 4: 259; 5: 257–60; Wigger, American Saint, 170–84; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 173–95; Lyerly, Methodism, 73–93; and Carwardine, “Methodists, Politics,” 578–609. For the increasing role in national politics played by the Methodists, both the MEC and the MECS, through their publications after 1844, see Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics, 1–198. 16. “Where in Holston is there a parsonage built for a parsonage,” Dickey rhetorically demanded. “Rather, are there not three to one bought when old already, and gone through a dozen hands, in some out-of-the201

Notes to Pages 93–94

way place, and dubbed ‘the parsonage?’ Think of a parsonage having for nearest neighbor ‘the poor-house!’” Nashville Christian Advocate, Mar. 28, 1861; Marion Ensign, Oct. 11, 1864. James Wesley Dickey (1829–76) was intensely pro-Confederate during the war—and a great favorite, as a consequence, with Bishop Early. He was especially noted for his cooperation in handling Union preachers with severity. Price, Holston Methodism, 5: 169–70. 17. Leonidas C. Delashmit (1834–1921) had two years at Hiwassee College; Samuel S. Grant (1839–80) attended Emory and Henry two years; Milton Maupin (1829–71) also had two years at Emory and Henry; Richard N. Price (1830–1923) was a graduate of Emory and Henry; James K. Stringfield (1839–70) was a graduate of Strawberry Plains College; David Sullins (1827–1918) was a graduate of Emory and Henry; and Ephraim E. Wiley (1814–93) was a graduate of Wesleyan University. The other Holston itinerants who served as chaplains in the Confederate army were William C. Bowman, George W. Callahan, William H. Cooper (1835–1913), Thomas F. Glenn, (1838–1935), William Montgomery Kerr (1820–95); Philip S. Sutton (1827–96); Henry P. Waugh (1824–98); and Joseph A. Wiggins (1832–1920). Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 264, 266, 280, 303; 5: 34, 248, 266, 426; Brinsfield et al., Faith in the Fight, 215, 224, 229, 233, 244, 249, 250, 253, 254; Mann, Critical Review, 42–46. George W. Callahan was appointed chaplain of the Sixteenth Tennessee Battalion and became known as a “fighting parson.” Allen, Rhea and Meigs Counties, 63. Richard N. Price served as chaplain for the Twenty-First North Carolina Infantry from October 2, 1861, to February 3, 1862. Manarin and Jordan, North Carolina Troops, 464. For Hezekiah West (born in 1831) and Thomas’s North Carolina Legion of Cherokees, see Finger, Eastern Band, 86–87; Brinsfield et al., Faith in the Fight, 253; Godbold and Russell, Confederate Colonel, 110–28; and Crow, Storm in the Mountains, 151. Ambrose Gaines Worley (1828–1907) left Holston after the war and joined the Georgia Conference, later the North Georgia Conference, where he ended his career. Knight, Standard History of Georgia, 2661. For Thomas F. Glenn’s later career in the Western North Carolina Conference, see Allen, Annals of Haywood County, 216–27. 18. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 228, 264, 267, 276–78, 349, 361, 432, 436; 5: 267–67; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 318, 324–25, 363, 424; Mann, Critical Review, 42–5. William Hicks (1811–82) served in the Sixteenth North Carolina Regiment. Brinsfield et al., Faith in the Fight, 229. Holston itin202

Notes to Pages 94–95

erant Frank Richardson argued that “the older members on both sides were the wildest fanatics, and that what conservatism there was was among the younger members” of Holston during the war. Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 125. While individuals such as Bishop John Early, Ephraim Wiley, and William Hicks do indicate extremism in some of the older leaders, the youth of so many of Holston’s itinerants who fought for the Confederacy makes this generalization highly questionable. Three leading older presiding elders in Holston, George W. Alexander (b. 1813), William C. Daily (1818–97), and Francis M. Fanning (1812–81), were sympathetic to the Union cause throughout the war, yet remained silent and held their peace until after the war. Fanning and Daily transferred after the war to the MEC, but they seemed to retain the respect of their former colleagues in Holston. Fanning and Daily were both privately opposed to slavery all their lives. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 314–16; Bumgarner, Methodist Episcopal Church in North Carolina, 30–32. Even Frank Richardson spoke very highly of Francis M. Fanning after he joined the MEC, arguing that he “acted in all good conscience in the matter.” Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 140–42. 19. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 317–26; 5: 217–20; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 396, 382. Neal “edited a rebel sheet during most of the war, in which he did a vast deal of hard and dirty lying for the Confederacy,” according to his critic, Jonathan L. Mann. This same critic accused Long of saying on one occasion that “it would be better for every man, woman, and child, to be murdered, in one heap, than for the Southern confederacy to fail.” Mann, Critical Review, 43, 46–47. See also Parson Brownlow’s Book, 141–46, 183, 392; and Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 144–45. 20. R. N. Price stated that “the irregularities which occurred at this and the two succeeding Conferences attracted the attention of the General Conference of 1866,” at which time Bishop Early was informally censured and prematurely retired. All Holston ministers expelled by Bishop Early were restored to the church and the ministry, but “this restoration was only virtual, and never became actual.” As Price explained the situation in 1866, the “mischief had been done, and could only be confessed, but could not be repaired.” Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 304–13. For an analysis of this 1862 conference from the point of view of the expelled ministers, see Mann, Critical Review, 18–30. 21. The author of this revealing preamble, James S. Kennedy (1826–1905), received an A.B. and A.M. from Emory and Henry College and was 203

Notes to Pages 97–98

reputed to be one of the most scholarly men in Holston. He transferred to Holston from the Virginia Conference in 1857 to assume the presidency of Strawberry Plains College, which closed in 1859. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 308–13; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 376–77. 22. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 307–8, 311–12. Jonathan L. Mann argued that Wiley was an especially “hateful rebel” but that perhaps “he was insincere in much that he did and said, and acted the hypocrite in order to make the rebels believe that a ‘Yankee’ could be a ‘good’ rebel. If such men as Wiley were rebels, in any sense, it was not necessary for them to make any great demonstrations of their faith, to convince us that they were the meanest and most contemptible of all rebels.” Mann, Critical Review, 43. 23. To an amazing degree, Stringfield accurately predicted the loyalties of the itinerants he rated, a fact that underscores the intricate knowledge the Holston brethren had of their fellow itinerants. The only mistake he made was identifying George W. Callahan as Unionist in sympathy. James K. Stringfield Diary, Aug. 21, 1861. See also Martin, Methodism in Holston, 390–91; Mann, Critical Review, 27; Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 300, 304, 344. William Milburn (1797–1877) joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1825 and was licensed to preach in 1827. After being expelled from the MECS Holston Conference during the war, he joined the newly organized MEC in 1865 and continued in active work until stricken with paralysis in 1875. Obituary of William Milburn, Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1877. 24. John Spears (1832–1906) applied for admission to the MEC Indiana Conference in 1866. Because he had been expelled from the MECS Holston Conference, he possessed no recommendation. When he explained his situation regarding expulsion from Holston because he had refused to pray for Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy and showed his honorable discharge as a chaplain in the Union army, the bishop remarked, “[T]hat is recommendation enough,” and he was admitted. In 1892 because of ill health he superannuated after twenty-six years of faithful service to the Indiana Conference. Obituary of John Spears, MEC Indiana Conference, Minutes, 1906. See also Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 177, 267, 300, 301, 314; Brinsfield et al., Faith in the Fight, 196. 25. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 300–304; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 340–41, 370, 407–8, 413–14. Almost all of these Holston itinerants accused of disloyalty to the Confederacy would eventually be expelled from the MECS. Thomas H. Russell (1834–1902), James Cumming 204

Notes to Pages 99–102

(1787–1869), William C. Daily (1818–97), Patrick H. Reed (1829–1904), Jesse A. Hyden (d. 1909), and Thomas P. Rutherford were all founding members of the newly organized MEC Holston Conference in 1865. Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1865. 26. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 300–304; Mann, Critical Review, 25. For more specific information on Duggan’s previous appointments, see Howard, Reverend Duggan, 17–27. 27. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 303; Mann, Critical Review, 29; Wilhite, Reverend William Hurd Rogers, 33–34. In 1842 Rogers told Ezekiel Birdseye, a Connecticut abolitionist living in East Tennessee during the 1840s, that both he and his father were strongly antislavery. Dunn, Abolitionist, 227. In his obituary, it was noted that Rogers (1813–91) had served as a missionary to the Cherokees and Choctaws early in his ministry and had preached at a mission station that later became the city of Chattanooga. He also served as chaplain of the Fifth Regiment of Tennessee Volunteers in the war with Mexico. While in Confederate prisons, Rogers routinely defied the order by the provost marshal not to read the Bible or hold prayer services with the other prisoners. Obituary of William Hurd Rogers, Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1891. 2 8. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 242–43. Frank Richardson, fellow itinerant and Price’s good friend, attempted to support him regarding his defense of Dr. W.G.E. Cunnyngham, the MECS’s missionary in China who had been detained behind Union lines. Richardson reported that so extreme was the bias engendered by Bishop Early in the Cunnyngham case, “so strong and unreasoning the prejudice,” that some of the leading brethren requested that because of his support for Price’s position, Richardson should not be given an appointment to preach. Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 125–26. 29. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 304–6, 345–46. Ephraim E. Wiley’s excessive sycophancy toward Bishop Early during the annual conferences held during the Civil War may be partially explained by the fact that as a member of the committee investigating Early’s misbehavior in the 1858 General Conference, he had strongly recommended that Early “be affectionately requested to take a superannuated relation.” The irascible and vengeful bishop would have taken great umbrage to any suggestion that he retire, and so Wiley may have been subsequently threatened by him. MECS, Journals of General Conferences, 1858: 462. 30. “When asked what kind of charges would be preferred, the reply was, ‘I can’t touch your moral character, but I intend to prefer charges against you 205

Notes to Pages 102–3

because you didn’t pray as I wanted you, or as I DICTATED, as you are pleased to term it, and I’ll see that you don’t get an appointment.’” True to his word, Worley had Mann expelled because the young itinerant refused to pray for Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy. Mann, Critical Review, 28–29; Brinsfield et al., Faith in the Fight, 174. Ambrose Gaines Worley left Holston in 1866 to join the MECS Georgia Conference. Even Price was forced to admit, however reluctantly, that Worley “was not the most agreeable speaker.” Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 433, 436. 31. Mann, Critical Review, 27; Parson Brownlow’s Book, 135–36. A graphic illustration of Duggan’s ordeal is given in Parson Brownlow’s Book, opposite page 145, with the caption “Brutal treatment of Rev. W. H. H. Duggan by the Rebels.” See also Humphrey, That D——d Brownlow, 228–29; and Brownlow’s Whig, Oct. 12, 1861, which includes a story of twenty-five persons being arrested in McMinn County, including Duggan, suspected of loyalty to the United States government. R. N. Price argued that a few irresponsible “unwise representatives” were to blame for Duggan’s arrest and ill-treatment. “Against this policy the better class” protested, according to Price, who includes a letter protesting Duggan’s arrest from Robertson Topp, a high-ranking Confederate official, to Jefferson Davis. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 352–53. The exact sequence of Duggan’s arrest is analyzed by Roy L. Howard in Reverend Duggan, 20–27. Duggan’s ordeal was repeated in two widely circulated accounts of the war in East Tennessee: see Temple, East Tennessee, 416–17; Hume, Loyal Mountaineers, 144–45. 32. Brownlow’s Whig, Feb. 14, Mar. 7, Aug. 22, Sept. 12, 1857. Itinerant Frank Richardson pointed out the connection between politics and denominationalism, noting that when he was on the Clinton circuit in 1854, Southern Methodists were often strongly Whig, but the Baptists gravitated toward the Democrats. So divided were the people by denominational prejudice that there were Methodist and Baptist churches, schools, taverns, stores, blacksmith shops, and ferries crossing the river. “Like the Jews and Samaritans, they had no dealings with each other whatever. The rivalry became so great at one time that both ferries were made free, and the people went across the river without cost.” Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 107–8. Similar conditions existed in the Sweetwater Valley, where W. H. H. Duggan’s difficulties occurred during the same decade. For an astute analysis of the connection between politics and denominationalism in this period, see Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics, 97–132. 206

Notes to Pages 104–5

33. R. N. Price, preeminent authority on Holston Methodism of the MECS, stated explicitly that a “very considerable number of local preachers” sympathized with the Union during the war. Price, “Methodism in East Tennessee,” 294. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Jonathan L. Mann, expelled Unionist itinerant in Holston, states explicitly that “the local ministry and laity . . . were under all the circumstances, more than moderately true to their government.” Mann, Critical Review, 13. One contemporary observer, writing in 1866 just after the war, listed the names of twelve Unionist local preachers in Bradley County, Tennessee: Anderson Trim, John Brower, Elijah Still, A. F. Shannon, W. D. Smith, Asa Stamper, Isham Julian, W. W. Hames, P. H. Reed, Peter Swafford, Wm. B. Ballenger, and G. Blackman. He listed only one local preacher loyal to the Confederacy: A. L. Brooks. Hurlburt, History of the Rebellion, 278. 34. Price, Holston Methodism, 1: 56–57; 2: 195–97; 3: 386–87, 406, 414. An anonymous Holston local preacher from McMinn County, Tennessee, who had previously been an itinerant for eight years, wrote a telling indictment of local preachers in 1858, blaming their failures on a lack of basic theological education required of them. These local preachers did not even subscribe to a religious newspaper, and many of them had never even seen the commentaries and sermons that were required reading for itinerants. Yet these local preachers in their ignorance “murmur[ed] at those in authority for not giving them more important appointments.” Nashville Christian Advocate, Apr. 22, 1858. After the war, the Holston Conference in 1877 passed a resolution seeking the General Conference to require a course of study for local preachers applying for ordination. The object of this legislation was “to raise to higher respectability and usefulness” the local ministry, whose reputation had evidently fallen into further disrepair. Price, Holston Methodism, 5: 174–75. 35. Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 31–33, 65, 80, 89, 115, 192; Heyrman, Southern Cross, 87, 101–4; Andrews, Methodists and Revolutionary America, 139–54, 174–75, 193, 201, 207, 215, 217, 335; Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 195–98; 3: 283; and MEC/MECS Holston Conference, Minutes (manuscript), 1827. Brownlow argued that a “local traveling ministry” represented a “miserable system of ‘accommodations,’ whose whole course for several years past, has tended to anarchy and destruction, in a moral point of view.” Brownlow, Helps to the Study, 286. For opposition among the local preachers to Holston’s leaving the MEC in 1845 to 207

Notes to Pages 106–7

form the MECS, see Gannaway, Sketches of Former Days, 97. One local preacher, Absalom B. Wright, stated explicitly that he was “strongly opposed to the division of the Methodist Church in 1844” and vowed he would rejoin that church if ever offered the opportunity. He in fact did join the newly organized MEC Holston Conference in 1866. Wright, Autobiography, 56. 3 6. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 301, 306. Michael H. B. Burkett (1811–75) was ordained a local deacon in the MECS in 1856 by Bishop Andrew. Forced to leave East Tennessee because of his strong Unionist sentiments, he made his way through the lines to Kentucky, where he was appointed chaplain in the Twenty-third Regiment of Kentucky Volunteers, serving in the battle of Chickamauga, battles around Chattanooga, and in the Georgia campaign. In January 1864 he was admitted on trial to the MEC Kentucky Conference and transferred to the newly organized MEC Holston Conference in June 1865. He also taught school at various locations, and he died at his home in Bradley County, Tennessee, on November 12, 1875. Brinsfield et al., Faith in the Fight, 139; Obituary of Rev. M. H. B. Burket[t], Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1875. 37. Dunn, Abolitionist, 218, 242, 245, 263–65; Humes, Loyal Mountaineers, 343; Dawson, Our East Tennessee Kinsmen, 47–48. Spencer Henry (1805–83) remained a local preacher in the Holston Conference from 1832 until 1864. He was active politically in his native Blount County, serving as a justice of the peace, member of the County Court, tax collector, and county court clerk (1853–54). Burns, History of Blount County, 41, 45, 112, 14, 115, 117, 148, 330. He joined the MEC Holston Conference in 1868, when he was sixty-four, and served for six years as an active itinerate before superannuating in 1874. Martin, Methodism in Holston, 363; Obituary of Spencer Henry, Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1883. For Absalom B. Wright’s career, see Wright, Autobiography, 41–56. 38. McCall was also a physician, and he used his medical skills to assist other soldiers wounded in his regiment. Scott and Angel, History, 153– 54; Brinsfield et al., Faith in the Fight, 175; Mann, Critical Review, vii, 27– 28; Shannon, Journal, entries for 1848–49; Brownlow’s Whig, Aug. 1, 1866; Hurlburt, History of the Rebellion, 278. Augustine F. Shannon (1801–66) located in 1854 from the MECS Holston Conference to become a local preacher but subsequently joined the newly organized

208

Notes to Pages 108–9

MEC, Holston Conference, in 1865. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 177; Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1865. 39. Hurlburt’s account of these brutal murders was supported by written and very specific, detailed affidavits of Emily Grissom, Matilda McUen, and Mary McUen, of Bradley County, sworn before Justice of the Peace John Stanfield on April 15, 1864. Hurlburt, History of the Rebellion, 245– 56. Confederate general Braxton Bragg had assigned General Joseph Wheeler to command all the cavalry in the Army of Tennessee on September 26, 1863. For a detailed account of Wheeler’s raid through Bradley County, see Murray, Bradley Divided, 133–69. 40. These statistics on church membership are taken exclusively from R. N. Price, who frequently corrected mistakes in the printed minutes, and are as accurate as possible considering problems in reporting from many circuits and districts in the conference. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 264. Price’s letter is quoted in Southern Virginia and Tennessee Advocate, Apr. 17, 1862. Jonathan L. Mann (1839–93) joined the newly organized MEC Holston Conference in 1864 and served as an active itinerant and represented Holston in the General Conference of the MEC in 1872. He transferred to the MEC California Conference in 1875 and remained there until his death. Brinsfield et al., Faith in the Fight, 174; Anthony, Fifty Years of Methodism, 354–55. 41. Southern Virginia and Tennessee Advocate, Aug. 7, 28, Sept. 25, 1862. William Wiley Neal (1824–78), coeditor with Martin L. Comman of this paper, was an ardent Confederate supporter and served as an itinerant in the MECS, Holston Conference from 1846 until his death in 1878. He also served as editor of the Bristol Advocate, Marion Sentinel and Soldiers’ Friend, Morristown Gazette, and Rhea Springs News. Price says that Neal was more a promoter than an editor, starting newspapers and selling them to advantage. Price, Holston Methodism, 5: 107, 216, 219–20. The Southern Virginia and Tennessee Advocate published its first issue on March 27, 1862. It failed in the late winter of 1863, due largely to the financial troubles of its owners. The last issue was dated March 12, 1863. Phillips, Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia, 205. 42. When the correspondent who signed himself “Old Preacher” argued that the older circuit system “keeps down castes and keeps out jealousies among ministers; but stations foster them,” he was referring exclusively to itinerating ministers. Southern Virginia and Tennessee Advocate, Aug. 7, 28, Sept. 25, 1862. In the 1860 annual conference, R. N.

209

Notes to Pages 110–12

Price pointed out that the average salary paid to itinerants was $251.77 on an average claim of $348.30. Efforts at reform were clearly motivated in large part by the lack of support for the itinerant ministers in Holston, and strong resolutions were adopted urging greater support. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 264. An anonymous itinerant complained in August 1860, that a new plan in Holston of distribution of salaries by consolidating quarterage claims and traveling expenses and apportioning the available amounts among the itinerants and presiding elder on any given circuit were grossly unfair and overly complicated. Likewise, criticism was offered over the option of cash settlements versus payment to the preachers in produce. Nashville Christian Advocate, Aug. 23, 1860. For an even more acerbic analysis of this argument about the lack of adequate funding for Holston itinerants, see James W. Dickey’s article in the Nashville Christian Advocate, Mar. 28, 1861. 43. Southern Virginia and Tennessee Advocate, Mar. 27, 1862; Price, Holston Methodism, 2: 39–73. For the exact quotation, see Dow, History of Cosmopolite, 332.

5. Union Triumphant

1. Knoxville Register, Feb. 9, 1862. Somewhat characteristically, Brownlow was evidently flattered by Sperry’s article, especially the assertion that he “was the best judge of human nature within the bounds of the Southern Confederacy.” Brownlow was also probably amused at Sperry’s assertion that he was “now laughing like the king’s fool in his sleeve.” Subsequently, Brownlow would include this full editorial in his own book. Parson Brownlow’s Book, 342–45. Jacob Austin Sperry (1823– 96) had been installed as editor to counter Brownlow in 1861 when a group of prominent Knoxville secessionists purchased the Register. A fire-eating rebel, he consistently urged the Confederate military authorities to deal more harshly with area Unionists. Finally captured by Union forces in December 1864, he was forced to wear a ball and chain as he labored in prison. “Let such imps of Hell die the death of traitors,” Brownlow gleefully retorted. Brownlow’s Whig, Jan. 11, Mar. 1, 1865. See also Parson Brownlow’s Book, 214–16; McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels, 53, 86, 99, 120, 197–98, 275n6; Humphrey, That D——d Brownlow, 223–24; and Brownlow’s Whig, Aug. 24, 1861. 2. Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 178–234; Humphrey, That D——d Brownlow, 255–77; Parson Brownlow’s Book, 5–10; Temple, Notable Men of Tennessee, 316. Even before his book was published, many of 210

Notes to Pages 113–14

Brownlow’s speeches were individually printed in the North. Included in these speeches are frequent notations of the audience response—always overwhelmingly favorable. See Brownlow, Speech, May 15, 1862, 1–8. Historian Noel Fisher points out that Brownlow’s Northern tour not only ensured public support for him but also familiarized large numbers of Union officers and soldiers with East Tennessee’s loyalist resistance. Fisher, War at Every Door, 124–25. 3. Brownlow’s Whig, Jan. 30, Apr. 9, 1864; Parson Brownlow’s Book, 141–47; Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 144–45, 294–96. See also Rable, God’s Almost Chosen Peoples, 1–89, 185–316; Sweet, Methodist Episcopal Church, 96–160, 211–18; and Wyatt-Brown, Shaping of Southern Culture, 106–295. In the 1865 Holston annual conference, with no apparent sense of irony, a resolution was passed belatedly renouncing political actions or activities within the MECS. “A minister of this gospel must be a man of one vocation. He can be neither a politician nor an agent for a government. Having received his commission from God, he can neither seek nor accept another from Caesar. . . . He attempts neither to set up nor to pull down governments, imbibes not the spirit of the revolutionist, nor assumes the uniform of the warrior.” Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 407. For the role of religion in Confederate nationalism, see Mathews, Religion; Faust, Creation of Confederate Nationalism; Snay, Gospel of Disunion; Silver, Confederate Morale; Chesebrough, Clergy Dissent; Goen, Broken Churches, Broken Nation; and Carney, Ministers and Masters. 4. Brownlow’s Whig, Aug. 17, 1864; Dunn, Abolitionist, 19–20; Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 97–108; Humphrey, That D——d Brownlow, 121, 201; Tennessee Legislative Petitions, 1834, Jefferson County. The best analysis of Brownlow’s hatred of abolitionists yet resentment of Southern defenses of slavery in terms of its benefits to nonslaveholders is in McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels, 30–45. For an analysis of the antislavery activity in East Tennessee during the 1820s, see Martin, “Antislavery Activities,” 98–109; Martin, “Anti-Slavery Societies,” 261–81; and Finnie, “Antislavery Movement,” 319–42. 5. Brownlow’s Whig, Aug. 17, 1864. Actually, Brownlow had changed his arguments, rather disingenuously, about which Methodist church had been political before the war. In 1861, he accused the Northern Methodists of assuming a “political attitude” over the institution of slavery that led directly to the formation of the MECS in 1844. Secession of the Southern church, however, “by taking away the irritation and controversy, contributed to preserve the Union longer, in peace and quiet, 211

Notes to Pages 115–16

than would have otherwise have continued.” At that point he was arguing against the idea promulgated in the Southern Methodist press that political secession of the South from the federal Union in 1861 was a logical consequence to ecclesiastical secession from the MEC in 1844. Brownlow’s Whig, Mar. 30, 1861. 6. Brownlow’s Whig, Jan. 23, 30, 1864. Brownlow’s anger toward Southern Methodist ministers who had supported the Confederacy seemed unrelenting in its vindictiveness. “We hope, for the honor of the Federal cause, that the military authorities at this point will have these oppressive hypocrites arrested, and at once sent North, and held in close confinement until the war ends,” he wrote in April 1864 about these disloyal itinerants. Brownlow’s Whig, Apr. 9, 1864. Yet, paradoxically, Brownlow could be kind and generous to former friends who had supported the Confederacy. R. N. Price argued that he never refused to help these itinerants when they applied to him personally after the war for assistance. Such was the case when John B. McFerrin, former editor of the Nashville Christian Advocate, applied to Brownlow for a pardon. Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 331–32; Fitzgerald, John B. McFerrin, 286. 7. Brownlow’s Whig, Apr. 9, Sept. 28, 1864; Apr. 16, 1865; May 23, Dec. 19, 1866; Jan. 16, Oct. 30, Dec. 25, 1867; Apr. 1, 8, May 6, Sept. 9, 1868; Parson Brownlow’s Book, 135–36. When asked if he would not interfere in the session of the Holston Conference held in Marion, Virginia, in October 1865, Brownlow replied that “a man of the bad temper, known impudence, and rebel bitterness of Bishop Early, could not hold a Conference of rebel ministers within Federal lines, without being molested. I am for letting them alone at their meetings, if they ease their treasonable speeches, sermons and prayers, but if they attempt to revive a rebellious spirit among the people, let them be arrested and imprisoned.” Brownlow’s Whig, Aug. 16, 1865. 8. Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 33–41, 73, 86; MEC, Journals of General Conferences, 1864: 226, 253, 279, 387–39; Zion’s Herald, Jan. 20, 1864; Farish, Circuit Rider Dismounts, 23, 25, 30; McTyeire, History of Methodism, 672–73; Rable, God’s Almost Chosen Peoples, 330–34. The melding of the MEC and American nationalism is nowhere made more explicit than in Sweet, Methodist Episcopal Church, 80–176. 9. Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 29–95; Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 294–303; Brownlow’s Whig, Jan. 23, 30, Apr. 9 July 2, 1864; Jan. 25, July 26, Sept. 13, 1865. Brownlow was advised in his course by MEC bishops on several occasions. While attending the Baltimore 212

Notes to Pages 117–19

convention of the Republican Party in 1864, he discussed with Bishops Matthew Simpson, Calvin Kingsley, and Davis W. Clark the problem of expanding the MEC into the South. Although Brownlow urged immediate organization of the MEC Holston Conference, Kingsley privately thought that it would be better to await the outcome of Sherman’s Georgia campaign. Hesseltine, “Methodism and Reconstruction,” 50–51; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 81; Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1865. 10. Brownlow’s Whig, Jan. 30, 1864; Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 42–43; Hesseltine, “Methodism and Reconstruction,” 47–53. Bishop Edward R. Ames of the MEC tried to commit Abraham Lincoln to the seizure of Southern church property, but the president stated that he did not intend “to run the churches” and evaded any overt approval of this policy. Crooks, Bishop Matthew Simpson, 395. The proceedings of the Knoxville Convention, July 7, 1864, specifically stated that “Dr. Brownlow having recently visited Bishop Simpson at Philadelphia and Bishop Kingsley at Cincinnati, bore a warm and earnest greeting from the latter to the Convention and to the disconsolate and wondering membership.” Brownlow’s Whig, July 23, 1864. 11. Bryan, “Civil War,” 130–33; Fisher, War at Every Door, 122–53; McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels, 153–78; Brownlow’s Whig, Sept. 28, 1864; Price, Holston Methodist, 4: 401–4; Sullins, Recollections, 195, 267–68. Frank Richardson recalled that in “East Tennessee, when the Confederates wanted to prey on a fellow, they cursed him for a Lincolnite; and when the Federals wanted to use his goods, they cursed him for a rebel.” Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 131–32. 12. Price admitted that in this reversal of Holston’s previous attitude, it was a case “where considerations of policy compelled men to do what was right and what should have been done if those considerations had not existed.” Although he was tolerant of the fanaticism displayed by his brethren in the 1862, 1863, and 1864 annual conferences, he remained contemptuous of the previously tyrannical Bishop Early’s complete change of heart and was especially suspicious of the bishop’s belated efforts to befriend him. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 404–10; Mann, Critical Review, 38–39. 13. Minutes of the Knoxville Convention stated that fifty-five delegates were present, twenty-seven of whom were preachers, the remaining number laymen. A critical comparison of the names of these loyal attendees, however, excluding former MECS itinerants who had been 213

Notes to Pages 120–21

expelled from the Holston Conference, indicates that a very high percentage of them were local preachers. Some of these local preachers became itinerants in the newly organized MEC Holston Conference, but many turned up on the rolls of the new conference in later years as local preachers. Brownlow’s Whig, May 28, July 23, 1864. See also Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1865–80. 14. Green, Life and Papers, 512. A. L. P. Green (1807–74), one of the dominant personalities of Southern Methodism, a large landholder and railroad financier who took no salary for his services to the church, served as itinerant, author, and member of the MECS Book Committee; he was chiefly instrumental in conducting the suit against the MEC after division in 1844 to secure funds for the Book Concern. He served as treasurer for Vanderbilt University after it was founded in 1875 by the MECS. Pilkington, Methodist Publishing House, 1: 327, 475n; Simpson, Cyclopedia of Methodism, 418. See also Shannon, Journal, 13, 24, 27; and Burns, History of Blount County, 41, 45, 112n, 114, 115, 117, and 148; Obituary of Spencer Henry, Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1883. Spencer Henry was also a delegate at the famous Knoxville Convention, held May 30, 1861, to consider seceding from Tennessee. Humes, Loyal Mountaineers, 348. 15. Brownlow’s Whig, July 23, 1864; Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1865, 1866, 1867; Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 411–14. Richardson retained the highest regard for Fanning, despite his defection to the MEC, but subsequently debated with him the advantages of joining the MEC in the Asheville News. Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 139–42, 150–51. Although the first principal of the Morristown Seminary was Judson S. Hill, an MEC minister from New Jersey, William C. Graves was given credit in his obituary for founding this school in 1881. Graves was listed in the minutes of the organizational meeting of the East Tennessee conference in 1880 as a member. Obituary of William C. Graves, Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1896; East Tennessee Conference, Minutes, 1880. See also Bryan and Wells, “Morristown College,” 61–77. 16. Brownlow’s Whig, Jan. 23, 30, Apr. 9, May 28, July 23, Oct. 26, 1864; Jan. 25, July 26, Aug. 16, 30, Sept. 13, 20, Nov. 8, Dec. 20, 1865; Jan. 3, May 2, 23, 30, Oct. 17, Dec. 19, 1866. 17. Daily after locating from the Holston Conference in 1862 joined the Kentucky Conference, MEC, and transferred to the new MEC Holston Conference in 1865. Obituary of William C. Daily, Holston Annual 214

Notes to Pages 122–23

Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1897; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 341. Patrick Henry Reed (1829–1904) also joined the MEC Holston Conference in 1865. See also Brownlow’s Whig, Oct. 26, 1864; Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 354, 357, 462, 476; Hesseltine, “Methodism and Reconstruction,” 52–53; Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 42–43; and Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 396–400. 18. Green, Life and Papers, 11–12; Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 392. Brownlow continued to publish lengthy extracts from the proceedings of the 1862 Holston Conference regarding the elaborate justification for expelling itinerants without trial for suspected loyalty to the Union. These proceedings were excellent propaganda against the MECS Holston Conference, in effect damning them in their own words. See, for example, the lengthy excerpt and commentary in Brownlow’s Whig, Jan. 16, 1867. 19. Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1865, 1866; Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 391–95; Brownlow’s Whig, May 30, 1866. These membership numbers should be viewed with great caution, because Price indicated a total MEC Holston Conference membership of 6,404 in 1865. The rapid growth in membership for the new conference is undeniable, however. By 1871, the total numbers in the MEC Holston Conference had grown to 23,549. Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1871. Robert H. Guthrie (1820–81), like William C. Daily, was a former Holston itinerant who superannuated in 1856 but joined the MEC Holston Conference in 1865. Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1881. The other transfer from the Kentucky Conference, George A. Gowin (whose name was misspelled in the 1865 minutes but later corrected in the 1872 minutes) was ordained a Holston local elder in 1858. MECS Holston Conference, Minutes, 1858. Because Gowin, Daily, and Guthrie were listed as being members of the Kentucky Conference, MEC, who were transferring, I strongly suspect that they were three of the four former Southern Methodist pastors sent in February 1864 to Kentucky by Calvin Holman, agent for Bishop Simpson, to be ordained and then sent back to their native East Tennessee as missionaries. Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 42. 20. The assertion that rebel ministers had “forfeited all rights, privileges, and immunities” and loyal Methodists were “entitled in law to all property belonging to said ecclesiastical organization” was repeated in the 1864 Knoxville convention and the 1865 organization of the MEC Holston Conference, as well as being repeated frequently in Brownlow’s newspaper. Brownlow’s Whig, Jan. 20, Apr. 9, May 28, July 23, 1864; 215

Notes to Pages 124–25

Jan. 25, July 26, Sept. 13, 1865. See also Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1865; and Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 356–58. 21. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 431–32; Akins and Wiggins, Keeping the Faith, 1–8; Erastus Rowley v. Athens Female College, State of Tennessee, Chancery Court at Athens, 1865–68; Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1866, 1867; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 94–96. Rev. Nelson E. Cobleigh (1814–74), editor of Zion’s Herald between 1863 and 1867, came in 1867 to assume the presidency of East Tennessee Wesleyan University. He left that position in 1872 to become editor of the Methodist Advocate, published in Atlanta by the MEC. Simpson, Cyclopedia of Methodism, 232–33. It is interesting to note that Edwin A. Atlee was previously an MECS local preacher whose name is listed as one of the members attending the Knoxville convention to organize the new MEC Holston Conference in July 1864. Brownlow’s Whig, July 23, 1864. 2 2. Brownlow’s Whig, Aug. 1, 1866. Attacks against Rowley’s selling the Athens Female College property continued in the Episcopal Methodist (Richmond, Va.), the Nashville Christian Advocate, and the St. Louis Christian Advocate for years, alleging blatant fraud and misappropriation of MECS property by the MEC Holston Conference. Rowley himself silenced a personal attack against him by David Rice McAnally, a former Holston itinerant, by actually producing and reprinting a very complimentary letter from McAnally to him in 1860, begging him to assume the presidency of St. Charles College, a Methodist college in St. Louis. Thomas H. Pearne tried to explain the whole episode yet again in March 1867, but bitterness over this sale continued for years thereafter. Brownlow’s Whig, Mar. 13, 1867. See also Price, “Methodism in East Tennessee,” 299. 23. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 433; Brownlow’s Whig, Dec. 19, 1866; Jan. 16, Feb. 27, 1867; Apr. 1, 5, May 6, Aug. 8, 19, 1868; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 99–107; Cobleigh, “Church Property,” 614–41; Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 29–91; Hesseltine, “Methodism and Reconstruction,” 57–61. Interestingly, some Northern Methodists debated the issue of the seizure of MECS church property with some degree of sympathy. Southern bitterness toward the Northern invasion and destruction of their church seemed indeed “cruel and despotic,” but Northern Methodists insisted on their right to send missionaries to the South. The MEC was not a sectional church, they argued. Editorial, “Methodist Churches, North and South,” MEC Methodist Quarterly Review 47 (Oct. 1865): 629–36. 216

Notes to Pages 125–28

24. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 409–10; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 90–124; Brownlow’s Whig, Jan. 30, Apr. 9, May 28, Oct. 26, 1864; July 26, Sept. 13, Nov. 8, 1865; Dec. 19, 1866; Jan. 16, Feb. 17, 1867; Apr. 8, May 6, 1868. Cobleigh wisely pointed out that “it is fair and charitable to presume that both parties in this unhappy controversy are honest in their convictions of right, and that each holds the property in dispute under what seems to it just claims either in equity or law.” Cobleigh, “Church Property,” 615. 25. Martin, Methodism in Holston, 79–107. Nelson E. Cobleigh analyzes the complexity of the varieties of ownership involving Holston churches. Some churches were in the hands of Unionist trustees; another class of church property had not been deeded at all but was still held in the hands of individuals who might be Union or Confederate in sympathy; some churches were deeded to the Methodist Episcopal Church before the 1844 split; and finally, some churches were deeded to the MECS after 1845 but contained congregations and trustees who were currently loyal to the Union. Cobleigh, “Church Property Questions in the South,” 626–30. 26. Brownlow’s Whig, Jan. 23, 1867. Lemuel F. Drake (1822–75) was presiding elder of the Jonesborough district of the MEC. A chaplain with the 17th, 31st, and 121st Ohio Infantry during the war, he was outspoken in his condemnation of slavery and rebellion. Brinsfield et al., Faith in the Fight, 149; Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1865–69. J. D. Tadlock was one of the local ministers “who were much sought for funeral services. A prominent educator, he served as president of King College 1867–1885.” Phillips, Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia, 314, 349, 351, 437, 443. For disputed church property cases, see Hesseltine, “Methodism and Reconstruction,” 55–61; Cobleigh, “Church Property,” 614–41; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 79–107. 27. Athens Republican, Mar. 16, 1868; Akins and Langley, Torn Apart, 123. Interestingly, many of the older members of the Wesleyana church claimed that they still belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church, having joined before 1844. At one of the MEC pastor’s appointments, he received notice that he would not be allowed to hold services in that church any longer. At the close of the service, he took the letter out of his pocket and asked the congregation about it. He heard no more about the matter and continued to hold services in this church. Coleman, Life and Addresses, 36–37. 28. Athens Republican, Mar. 16, 1868. George W. Coleman (1835–1930) was born in Pennsylvania and joined the South Illinois Conference in 1853. 217

Notes to Pages 128–29

At the close of the Civil War he came South and was transferred to the Holston Conference, MEC, in 1866. He served seventeen charges and located in 1880 but was readmitted in 1883. He transferred to the South Kansas Conference in 1886 but then transferred back to Holston in 1889. Martin, Methodism in Holston, 335; Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1866–89. Eventually, the Wesleyana church ended up back in that control of the Southern Holston Conference. The Northern Methodist congregation established its own church two miles southwest of the Wesleyana church in 1874. Akins and Langley, Torn Apart, 123. 29. Previous to the assault on Henry C. Neal, several far less serious indignities had been inflicted on MECS itinerants. For example, Carroll Long, presiding elder, and J. G. Swisher had gone to Decatur, Tennessee, to hold a quarterly conference meeting. There they were seized by an angry mob, taken to Athens, and forced to carry a pole on their shoulders amid the taunts and jeers of their oppressors. Jacob Brillhart, another elderly itinerant, was seized by a mob at Cedar Springs, not far from Athens, and forced to ride on a raid without a saddle. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 459–60. Martin says that Jesse G. Swisher (1803– 66) died two months later, on July 22, 1866, at Decatur, Tennessee. Martin, Methodism in Holston, 121–22, 429. 30. Price included personal testimonies about these attacks from both Neal and Smith and also extensively reprinted the rather elaborate exchange in the Knoxville Daily Press and Herald. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 459–75, 489–509. In early 1867, the Union League of Maryville had begun a crusade against Southern Methodists, targeting “rebel” preachers themselves. The League subsequently told MECS Reverend Levi K. Haynes that he should leave Blount County and never return. At the end of April, the Union League organized a posse to “thrash” Haynes, who evidently caught wind of this imminent attack and fled the county unharmed. Burns, History of Blount County, 66, 117; Minutes of the Union League of Maryville, Apr. 8, 11, and 25, 1867; Knoxville Daily Press and Herald, Feb. 16, 1868; Brownlow’s Whig, Feb. 19, 26, 1868; Severance, “Loyalty’s Political Vanguard,” 40–43. 31. Thanks to the “withering public sentiment of condemnation and the terrible philippics” of Col. John Fleming, editor of the Knoxville Daily Press and Herald, Jacob Smith (1835–1921) was offered the services of four prominent lawyers when his suit against his attackers was tried in federal court. He received a settlement of $1,800 in the verdict, but the 218

Notes to Pages 130–31

widespread publicity given to this trial certainly helped the Southern Methodist cause, as Price maintained. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 477–79, 506–9. See also Martin, Methodism in Holston, 123–24. Thomas H. Pearne, presiding elder of the Knoxville district of the MEC Holston Conference, however, bitterly complained, “I fell under the disapprobation of many loyalist people in East Tennessee, and I came near losing my life because of false statements appearing in public papers incriminating me . . . for my alleged complicity with the molestation of Southern Methodist preachers.” Pearne, Sixty-One Years, 318. 32. The entire memorial is given in Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 455–59. Regarding Wiley’s central arguments, the best rebuttal came from East Tennessean J. S. Hurlburt, who wrote in 1866 a history of the rebellion in Bradley County, Tennessee. He pointed out succinctly that the clergy of the South “never allowed themselves to doubt for a moment that the cause of the rebels was a child of special Providence,” which must inevitably triumph in the end. The loss of the war occasioned enormous cognitive dissonance among these clergy, but they sought to rationalize their defeat by separating Confederate nationalism from their brand of Christianity after the war. Hurlburt, History of the Rebellion, 20–28. See also Rable, God’s Almost Chosen Peoples, 370–97; and Wilson, Baptized in Blood. 33. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 483–87; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 139– 41. In summing up these difficult negotiations, Nelson E. Cobleigh pointed out in 1871 that the Southern Methodists intensely and persistently opposed the entrance of MEC ministers into the South after the war. They predicted failure, and when that did not occur, they redoubled their opposition by demanding immediate surrender of all the churches they claimed in the South. Finally, the MECS clergy tried a more diplomatic operation to divide Northern sentiment, holding out the illusion of reunion of the Methodist denominations. Cobleigh actually feared that also underlying opposition by the MECS was a hope of “yet securing an independent Southern Confederacy.” Cobleigh, “Church Property,” 639–41. 34. For Spencer Henry’s lengthy articles, see Brownlow’s Whig, Apr. 1, May 6, Aug. 19, 1868. The 1866 MECS General Conference also extended the term of service for itinerants from two to four years, another reform favoring churches in towns as opposed to larger circuits. MECS, Journals of General Conferences, 1866: 96–100, 104. One historian argued that the General Conference of 1866 did not intend to abolish 219

Notes to Pages 130–33

class meetings by making attendance voluntary, but such indeed was the practical result, to the great regret of many bishops and itinerants. Alexander et al., History of the Methodist Church, South, 81. 35. MECS, Journals of General Conferences, 1866: 108–10, 43, 49, 62; 1870: 192, 209, 212, 339; Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 424–26; McTyeire, History of Methodism, 667–68. One earlier historian argued that lay representation was intended to bring into the church a more talented pool of lawyers, educators, statesmen, and businessmen. It was “a voluntary relinquishment of power unprecedented in any important ecclesiastical body.” Farish, Circuit Rider Dismounts, 65. More recently, historian Daniel W. Stowell has argued that the 1866 MECS General Conference’s decision to include lay representation was intended to ensure that the church would reflect the social attitudes of all white Southerners more closely than it had before the war. Stowell, Rebuilding Zion, 107. 36. Wilson, “Local Preachers,” 705–12. There are surprisingly few references to local preachers in the MECS General Conference records between 1866 and 1878. However, a very curious rule was proposed in the 1866 MECS General Conference by Ephraim E. Wiley of Holston and J. C. Keener of the Louisiana Conference “interdicting the appointment of preachers who have not traveled one year to the charge of a circuit or station.” Although their motion failed, they apparently were protesting either against the existing practice of allowing a newly licensed itinerant to be so elevated or, more probably, against allowing local preachers to substitute because of wartime limitations. Other practices deviating from the MECS Discipline due to “necessity growing out of the state of the Church under the pressures and disabilities of the war” had been accepted by this General Conference. MECS, Journals of General Conferences, 1866: 76, 123. 37. Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1865–70; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 87–89; Simpson, Cyclopedia of Methodism, 223–24, 232–33, 827, 790–91; Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 392–95. Ralph E. Morrow was emphatic about the disproportionate amount of power that Northern transfers had in Holston, despite the fact that in East Tennessee the MEC had the highest caliber of native itinerants transferring to the new conference of anywhere in the South. Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 48–50. See also Wright, Autobiography, 226–27. 38. Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 149–51; Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 414–15; Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 49–53. Brownlow’s newspaper reported in 1866 that the new MEC Holston 220

Notes to Pages 134–35

Conference had received $15,000 from the Missionary Board and $10,000 from the Church Extension Society. Brownlow’s Whig, May 30, 1866. Coleman later recalled that his motion was “like throwing an explosive into a crowded room, so great was the excitement.” Although ordered by his presiding elder to “withdraw that motion at once,” he stood his ground, despite threats, and prevailed. In the final analysis, he was punished by being assigned to the remote Maynardville circuit in Union County, Tennessee, sixteen miles from the railroad on the Clinch River in the Cumberland Mountains. Coleman, Life and Addresses, 37–39. See also Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1865–70. 39. Price states that for thirty years, Wiley “was indisputably the foremost man of the Conference.” Price, Holston Methodism, 3: 387; 4: 304–8; 5: 279, 290, 435, 476, 477–81; Stevenson, Increase in Excellence, 71, 79, 100–107, 155. See also E. Embree Hoss’s obituary, “Ephraim Emerson Wiley—A Master in Israel,” Nashville Christian Advocate, Mar. 23, 1893; Richardson, From Sunrise to Sunset, 84–85; and Sullins, Recollections, 82–91. Another famous student of Wiley at Emory and Henry College was MECS Bishop Elijah Embree Hoss. Hoss began college at Ohio Wesleyan in 1866 but withdrew during his second year when some African American students were admitted to that college. Subsequently he enrolled at Emory and Henry College. Martin, Elijah Embree Hoss, 42–47. 40. Whedon wrote in 1866 that from his own experience, “reasoning appeals, made as a reasonable Christian man, to Southern Methodism do meet with a cheering response.” Although their major mission was to former slaves in the South, they had “just as true a mission to the white South as to the black—a mission of kindly development, elevation, and union.” North-western Christian Advocate, July 25, 1866. This article was approvingly reprinted in the Nashville Christian Advocate, Aug. 9, 1866. See Pilkington, Methodist Publishing House, 1: 452–54; and Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 66–67. Wiley had written two letters to Whedon after the Civil War, copies of which have not been preserved. However, copies of two unpublished letters from Whedon to Wiley were kept by his family and were in the possession of a direct descendant, Edward Emerson Wiley, Jr. He copied both of these letters in his 1934 Duke thesis for the B.D. D. D. Whedon to Ephraim Emerson Wiley, Jan. 30, Feb. 15, 1866. Wiley, “Contributions,” 90–97. 41. Whedon’s second letter to Wiley is angry in tone and opens with the lament, “I do not see that the correspondence between us ancient friends tends to good.” He concluded this second letter with an impassioned 221

Notes to Pages 135–37

plea to his former student, asking him, “[W]hat interest have you in favor of that despotism which oppressed you, demoralized you, and finally precipitated you into the rebellion. Were they not traitors to you? Have you not reason to curse their memory? Why not, then, take your stand for freedom for all; for education, equal laws, for franchises upon principles regardless of complexion, for all? Place yourself on the basis of eternal Right.” D. D. Whedon to Ephraim Emerson Wiley, Feb. 1, 1866. Wiley, “Contributions,” 93–97. 42. D. D. Whedon to Ephraim Emerson Wiley, Jan. 30, Feb. 1, 1866. Wiley, “Contributions,” 90–102. Wiley subsequently sent a long article on his controversy with Whedon to the Richmond Christian Advocate, in which he quoted parts of Whedon’s letter to him verbatim, especially the quotation “If this is Southern Methodism it may go to the Devil, where it belongs.” Ephraim Emerson Wiley, “Wiley on Whedon,” Richmond Christian Advocate, Jan. 9, 1879. 43. MECS, Journals of General Conferences, 1866: 38, 39, 58, 59, 65, 66, 73, 123; 1870: 160, 171,182, 183, 204, 217, 252, 343, 346; Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 125–80; Walker, Rock in a Weary Land, 82–139; Farish, Circuit Rider Dismounts, 163–233. 4 4. Price, Holston Methodism, 4: 264, 309–10, 433; Sullins, Recollections, 327. Whedon had replied to Wiley’s comment that the South no longer held themselves accountable for the Negro with unabated fury. “Southern (white) Christianity after having for two or three centuries enslaved, and bought and sold the Negro, whipped him to work and stolen his wages, so as now to be rich by his toil, maintains that if she can buy, sell, whip and rob him no longer she is not responsible for him.” D. D. Whedon to Ephraim Emerson Wiley, Feb. 15, 1866. Wiley, “Contributions,” 94. 45. Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 125–52; Stowell, Rebuilding Zion, 144–45, 169, 182; Walker, Rock in a Weary Land, 89–91; Brownlow’s Whig, Nov. 6, 1867. At a meeting of the Logan’s Chapel, Tennessee, Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the membership rejected union of that denomination with the Methodist Episcopal Church “as injurious to the advancement and progress of the colored people to this State and community but also detrimental to the cause and kingdom of our Divine Master.” They further argued, “[I]n taking this step we are not actuated by unkind feeling but believing and knowing that our action will advance and further [the] cause of our Divine Master, and materially enhance the progress 222

Notes to Pages 138–40

and elevation of our people satisfied that while friendly counsel and aid is never to be scorned and lightly treated but always should be kindly considered and thankfully received, a people can only rise and elevate themselves, by relying upon their own exertions, and by the help and grace of God, this we mean to do.” Brownlow’s Whig, July 28, 1868. 46. Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1865–80. In the 1874 Minutes, a resolution signed by two white itinerants, John F. Spence and John F. Woodfin, and one black presiding elder, John C. Tate, stating that “when the growth of this work shall make it desirable on their part, to organize for the benefit of this people, we will cheerfully give our influence in favor of such a measure.” This resolution might be read as a clear indication that the African American members of the Holston Conference, MEC, wanted a separate denomination, but it is not at all clear from the evidence that this was indeed the case. There is simply too much orchestrating of this resolution by prominent members of the Holston hierarchy to persuade a skeptical reader that it was entirely the wishes of the black MEC members. 47. Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1875–80; East Tennessee Annual Conference, Minutes, 1880. Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 182–85, 193–94, 205; Farish, Circuit Rider Dismounts, 116, 118, 135–38, 141–42, 152, 159, 189, 198, 211–20; Gravely, Gilbert Haven, Methodist Abolitionist, 151, 205–7, 210, 212, 219, 231, 246. William C. Graves, an MEC Holston itinerant who had left the MECS Holston Conference, feared that Haven’s views on racial equality would invite attacks from his former conference. Yet “we acknowledge that he is at least fifty years ahead of the age in which he lives,” Graves argued, “at least so far as the South is concerned.” Methodist Advocate, Mar. 19, Apr. 9, May 21, 1873. 48. Holston Methodist, Apr. 13, 1872; Apr. 19, May 3, June 21, July 5, 12, Aug. 2, 9, 30, Sept. 6, 13, 20, Oct. 4, 11, 18, 25, Nov. 22, Dec. 13, 1873. Haven especially appreciated Brother Tate’s “cool, biting tone of sarcasm,” which “Disraeli would envy.” He even asserted that “the superior color [African American] is injured” by mixing with the inferior white blood. “Behind their backs he laughs heartily at the prejudices of his brethren, but no one knows better than he how to nurse them, and stab their pet at the same time. He is a rare specimen of genius.” Prentice, Life of Gilbert Haven, 402. 49. John Montgomery McTeer wrote a series of letters critical of Price’s articles as editor of the Holston Methodist for the Religious Herald, edited 223

Notes to Pages 142–44

by Price’s old rival, William Hicks. Price responded with a long list of endorsements from prominent members of the MECS, including one from Dr. Thomas O. Summers, book editor for the MECS. Price also quoted Bishop John Keener of that church, who wrote that “the holston methodist is doing a work here that other Church Papers do not seem equal to. It is full of live issues, and the editor is not afraid to call things by their right names, which, to me, is always a comfort.” Holston Methodist, Dec. 13, 1873. For more detail on Bishop Haven’s views on slavery and equality, see Haven, Speeches and Letters.

Epilogue: Unreconstructed

1. Dunn, Abolitionist, 218, 242, 245, 263–65; Humes, Loyal Mountaineers, 343; Dawson, Our East Tennessee Kinsmen, 47–48; Burns, History of Blount County, 41, 45, 112, 114, 115, 117, 148, 330; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 363; and Obituary of Spencer Henry, Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1883. Brownlow first introduced Henry in 1864 as a Methodist local preacher “who is loyal, and a plain, practical, common sense man.” He published Henry’s correspondence with the wife of a rebel preacher. In this correspondence, Henry said that “my motto, from the commencement of this rebellion, was let everything in the South be reduced to ashes, rather than give up the Government.” Brownlow’s Whig, Sept. 7, 1864. 2. Brownlow’s Whig, Apr. 1, May 6, Aug. 19, 1868. 3. Henry demonstrated an almost encyclopedic knowledge of specific actions of various MECS Holston Conference itinerants loyal to the Confederacy and offered specific examples to illustrate their nefarious exploits in East Tennessee during the Civil War. Of one, he wrote, “And yet another, the Rev. Mr. Callahan, who, during the rebellion, ‘forced’ himself (with a company of rebel soldiers) into the French neighborhood in Knox County, mounted, booted, spurred and whiskered, pursuing conscripts, riding rough-shod over the very people who had fed and clothed him. This is the game played by many of the preachers of the M.E. Church South during the rebellion.” Brownlow’s Whig, Apr. 1, 1868. 4. Henry also excoriated another MECS itinerant, Wiley F. Parker, “for ‘forcing’ loyal young men out of the country, and ‘forcing’ their horses from them, hens from their roosts, bee gums from their stands, and other valuables from their houses.” Brownlow’s Whig, Apr. 1, 1868.

224

Notes to Pages 145–47

Parker was likewise characterized by Jonathan L. Mann as “one of the first and also one of the worst rebels of the conference. He espoused the cause ab initio, and delivered the most vile, wicked, and inflammatory harangues, in favor of rebellion and treason, of any other man in all the region where he lived.” Mann, Critical Review, 44. 5. MEC East Tennessee Conference, Minutes, 1880; Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 153–250. R. N. Price wrote in a 1908 article that the MECS “would not again be entangled in the yoke of bondage of African slavery, and is glad that she is rid of its vexations and responsibilities” to the former slaves. Price, “Methodism in East Tennessee,” 302. 6. Graves, New Great Iron Wheel, 84–212. 7. Brunner’s book is a curious amalgam of anecdotes, both positive and negative, about relations between the two competing Holston Conferences, a very distorted interpretation of the 1844 split in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and a very paternalistic and condescending series of articles on African Americans. Brunner, Union of the Churches; Hilten, Hiwassee Story, 60; Hoss, Methodist Fraternity and Federation, 123–33. 8. John Hamilton Brunner (1825–1914) was admitted as an itinerant into the MECS in 1847 and served six circuits before being appointed to Hiwassee College in 1853. He was president of that institution for thirtythree years, although not continuously. Martin, Methodism in Holston, 125–281, 324–25. 9. Holston Annual Conference (MEC), Minutes, 1885, 1890, 1895; Price, Holston Methodism, 5: 302, 413, 511; Martin, Methodism in Holston, 268–69, 276. 10. Brownlow had subsequently changed his mind and opposed East Tennessee’s secession. “If the measure were left to the people at the ballotbox, they would carry it by as great a majority as they voted down secession in 1861.” Brownlow’s Whig, May 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, 1866. Yet the agitation for separate statehood was destined never to die; it erupted again in 1869 when Radical Tennesseans saw their power begin to diminish. They had waited too long, however. Coulter, William G. Brownlow, 304–5.

225

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Articles Bryan, Charles F., Jr. “A Gathering of Tories: The East Tennessee Convention of 1861.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 39 (Spring 1980): 27–48. 246

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248

Index Page numbers in boldface indicate photographs. All locations are in Tennessee unless otherwise specified. abolitionism and abolitionists: John Brown’s raid, 57, 191n6; and Methodist view of slavery, 33–34, 48, 50, 52, 60, 91; opposition to, 32, 35, 36–37, 88; in Texas, 58–59, 190n4, 191n6 Adams, David, 12 Adams, Stephen D., adultery charge against, 17, 176–77n42 adultery, expulsions for, 11, 17, 24, 54, 189–90n43 African Americans, 5, 120, 128; at camp meetings, 38, 144; churches for, 38, 40, 136, 137; as class leaders, 39, 42, 44, 45, 55, 107, 108; at class meetings, 11, 31–32, 41–44, 55, 107, 144; in Holston Conference, 32–33, 38–44, 54–55, 108, 136, 144–45, 223n46; as itinerating preachers, 33, 44, 181n5; Methodist membership, 38–44, 45, 181n5, 185n21; ordaining, 33, 45, 187n29; preaching to, 45, 54–55, 183n16, 187n30; as presiding elders, 138. See also American Methodism, racial equality emphasized in; exhorters, African American; free blacks; local preachers, African American; mulattos; slaves African Methodist Episcopal Church, Zion, 136, 222–23n45

Alexander, George W., 202–3n18 American Bible Society, 74, 195n32 American Colonization Society, 74, 187n30 American Education Society, 74 American Home Missionary Society, 74–75, 116 American Methodism: African American membership in, 38–44, 45, 181n5, 185n21; Baptists’ battles with, 68–71, 145; features of, 2–4; growth of, 4, 5, 92, 104; internal civil war in, 103–10, 112–19, 145–47, 225n7; modernity in, 48, 91–92; Presbyterians’ battles with, 27, 63–70, 145; racial equality emphasized in, 38–39, 43–44, 45, 47, 138–39, 140; record-keeping by, 126–27; religious controversies, 60–63, 64, 65, 67–79; reunion of, 119, 145, 146; schisms in, 20, 50; separation from British Methodism, 4, 34; slavery and, 31–38, 42–43, 48–55; Southern nationalism melded with, 91, 94–96, 116, 121, 125, 135, 219n32. See also Asbury, Francis; Methodist Episcopal Church; Methodist Episcopal Church, 1844 split in; Methodist Episcopal Church, North (MEC); Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS); Methodist Protestant Church American Sunday School Union, 73–74 American Temperance Society, 74 American Tract Society, 74

Index Ames, Edward R., 116, 213n10 Anderson, Isaac, 40, 69 Andrew, James Osgood, 49; and 1844 MEC split, 48–49, 50, 51, 88, 182n11 annual conferences, 17, 23, 30, 138; Athens of 1862, 48, 94–96, 98, 101, 115, 122; Christmas of 1784, 4, 34; itinerating preachers at, 4, 5, 15, 16–18; lay representation at, 67, 131; local preachers not allowed to vote at, 20, 39, 53, 72, 105, 175n22; ordination of deacons and elders at, 20, 23, 39; procedural due process at, 16–17, 23–24, 48, 101; and slavery question, 34–35, 182n8 Arianism and Arians, 65–67 Arminianism and Arminians, 62, 63–64 Asbury, Francis, 7, 26, 61, 173n2; antislavery stance of, 33–34, 43–44, 91; as architect of American Methodism, 4–5, 6; caution against wealth, 47, 92, 179n61. See also American Methodism Athens Female College, 27; sale to MEC, 123–24, 216n22 Atkin, George, 63 Atkins, James, 48 Atlee, Edwin A., 124, 216n21 atonement, limited, doctrine of, 3 autonomy, local, episcopal control balanced with, 4, 5, 13, 18, 19 Axley, James, 7–9, 8; antislavery stance of, 34, 35, 37, 46, 140, 142, 184n19; becoming local preacher, 20, 104, 175n22; on prohibition against distilling and selling liquor, 174– 75n21, 182n13; tomb of, 143 Ballenger, Wm. B., 207n33 band meetings, 13, 180n1 band societies, 13, 28, 29, 175n31 Baptists, 196–97n41, 206n32; Brownlow’s attacks on, 68–71, 73, 87 Barker, Elizabeth, 13

250

Barker, John S., 127 Bates, William H., 93, 95, 137 Bewley, Anthony, 190n2, 190n3; hanging of, 57–60, 190–91n5, 191n6 Bewley, John (father of Anthony), 58 Biggers, Rebecca, 17, 176–77n42 Birdseye, Ezekiel, 32, 60, 205n27 bishops: Holston Conference, 88–90, 132–33; presiding elders appointed by, 14, 15; proslavery, 48, 55, 182n11; Southern, 186n27. See also episcopal control Blackman, G., 207n33 blacks. See African Americans; free blacks; slaves Blount County, 121, 129 Bluford, William, 138 Boardman, Richard, 3 Bogle, Charles, 41, 185n22 Bogle, Jessie, 41 books, circulation of, 19. See also Methodist Book Concern Bowman, John, 29, 36, 37–38, 42, 182–83n14 Bowman, William C., 202n17 Bradford, Margaret, 32 Bradley County, 121, 207n33 Bragg, Braxton, 209n39 Brillhart, Jacob, attack on, 218n29 British Methodism, American Methodism’s separation from, 4, 34 Brooks, A. L., 207n33 Brower, John, 207n33 Brown, John, raid on Harper’s Ferry, 57, 191n6 Brownlow, James P. (son of William), 89 Brownlow, William G. “Parson,” 33, 113, 140, 176n41, 213n10; on Anthony Bewley’s hanging, 58–59, 60, 191n6; antisecessionist rhetoric of, 85, 86, 87, 94, 99, 225n10; campaign against MECS, 87, 110, 112–17, 119–21, 125, 129, 211–12n5, 212n6, 212–13n9, 215n18; changing views on slavery,

Index 32, 113–14, 143, 191–92n9; and college for reorganized MEC Holston Conference, 123–24; on Duggan’s brutal treatment, 102–3; Early attacked by, 112, 212n7; as East Tennessee spokesman, 83–84, 198n4; as governor of Tennessee, 125, 147; Graves’ battles with, 70–71, 145, 194nn24–25; Henry’s friendship with, 142, 224n1; on itinerating preachers, 212n6, 215n8; jailing of, 87, 199n7; as Jonesborough Monthly Review editor, 70, 194n24; as Jonesborough Whig editor, 61, 67, 70, 194n24; as Knoxville Whig editor, 32, 61–63, 79, 83, 85, 87; Landon Haynes’ battles with, 68–69; on local preachers, 24, 72, 105, 207–8n35, 212n6; McFerrin and, 196n38, 199n7, 212n6; Parson Brownlow’s Book, 102, 112, 115; and religious controversies, 67–75, 79; Ross’s battles with, 67, 193n16, 194n24; speeches by, 210–11n2; Sperry’s battles with, 84, 111–12, 210n1 Brownlow’s Whig and Rebel Ventilator (newspaper), 110 Brunner, John Hamilton, 93, 145–46, 225nn7–8 Burham, Paschal, 43 Burkett, M. H. B., 105, 208n36 Burnside, Ambrose, 117 bushwhackers, 102, 107–8. See also guerrilla warfare Byrd, William K., murder of, 198n5 Cabe, Zachariah, 18 Callahan, George W., 202n17, 204n23 Calvinism and Calvinists, 3, 4, 65, 66, 74. See also Presbyterianism and Presbyterians Calvinistic Magazine, 64, 67, 69, 193n16 Campbell, Coleman, expulsion of, 54, 189–90n43

Campbell, David, 36 camp meetings, 15, 30, 70, 131, 176n36; African American participation in, 38, 144; decline of, 28–29, 92, 105–6, 109, 179n66 Carden, Joseph, slave ownership by, 42 Carmichael, Wood, 185n22 Carter, Joseph, 40 Carter, Levi, murder of, 107, 108 Carter, Nathan, 74, 195n30 Carter, Robert (son of Levi), murder of, 107–8 Carter County, 198n5 Carter’s Valley-Rogersville circuit, African American members of, 41–42 Cartwright, Peter, 34, 58 Carwardine, Richard, 59–60, 92, 191n6 Chattanooga, mission station at, 205n27 Cherokee Indians, 2, 93, 173n3 churches: Arian nondenominational, 65–66; Calvinist, 74. See also separation of church and state churches, Methodist, 180–81n2; African American participation in, 38, 40, 136, 137; growth of established, 15, 22; in Holston, 74, 124, 176n36, 217n25; with parsonages, 45, 92, 116, 124, 129, 130, 201–2n16; pew sale or rental in, 29–30; stationing itinerant preachers at, 108–9, 219–20n34; welcoming Southern aristocracy into, 26, 28–29, 187n30. See also Methodist Episcopal Church, North (MEC), MECS church properties seized by; and individual churches Church Extension Society, 116, 122, 133, 220–21n38 Church Street church (Knoxville), 126 circuit riders. See itinerating preachers circuits, 18, 209–10n42; end of, 109, 132; Holston Conference, MEC, 122, 124, 133; itinerating preachers’ assignments, 12, 125–26; size of, 22, 104, 108. See also individual circuits

251

Index Civil War. See Confederacy; secession; Unionism Clark, Davis W., 122, 132 class books, 11, 31–32, 39 class leaders, 12, 19, 106, 195n30; African American, 39, 42, 44, 45, 55, 107, 108; declining need for, 45, 109; local preachers controlled by, 71, 72; at quarterly conferences, 14, 40, 41; women as, 13 class meetings, 11–12, 13, 30, 183–84n18; African American participation in, 11, 31–32, 41, 42, 107, 144; attacks on, 16, 65, 70, 73, 186n28; attendance at, 44, 71, 131, 145, 186n27, 219–20n34; decline of, 28–29, 31, 92, 105–6, 109, 179n66, 180n1; in Holston Conference, 31, 44–45; itinerating preachers at, 11–12, 29, 44; local autonomy of, 18, 19; local preachers at, 12, 71; in MECS, 44, 219–20n34; white-black interaction at, 40, 43–44, 45, 55 clergy: African American, 187n29; and Civil War, 112, 117, 219n32; Discipline outlines role of, 18; and divisions in Methodism, 129–30, 137, 219n33; friction between laity and, 34, 67, 92; owning slaves, 182n12; and temperance movement, 61–62. See also bishops; itinerating preachers; local preachers; presiding elders Cleveland district, 138 Clinch River mission, 173n3 clothing, women’s, rules against fancy, 9, 28, 29 Cobleigh, Nelson E., 125, 132, 139, 216n21, 219n33; on ownership of Holston churches, 217nn24–25 Coleman, George W., 127–28, 133, 217– 18n28, 220–21n38 colleges, 27, 123–24. See also Emory and Henry College (Virginia); Morristown Normal Seminary 252

Collins, Charles, 76 Collville, Joseph, 180–81n2 colonization movement, 45, 74, 187n30 Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, 136 Colvil, Sarah, 180–81n2 Colvile, Robert, 41 Colville, Anthony, 31, 42, 180–81n2 Colville, Catherine, 180–81n2 Colville, Eliza, 32 Colville, George, 180–81n2 Colville, Harriet, 31 Colville, Joshua, 31, 42, 180–81n2 Comman, Martin L., 209n41 Confederacy: conscription act of, 144; East Tennessee’s uprising against, 85–86; Holston Conference’s support for, 196–97n41; local preachers’ support for, 106, 212n6; presiding elders’ support for, 101. See also itinerating preachers, Confederacy supported by; secession conferences. See annual conferences; district conferences; General Conferences; quarterly conferences Cooper, William H., 202n17 Crittenden, George B., 87 Cross, Will K., 22 Cumming, James, 53, 120; expulsion of, 98, 189n42, 204–5n25 Cunningham, Bennett K., 22 Cunnyngham, W. G. E., 101, 205n28 Daily, William C., 38, 53, 202–3n18; expulsion of, 98, 189n42, 204–5n25; joining Holston Conference, MEC, 120, 121, 122, 133, 214–15n17, 215n19 deacons, 178n54; African American, 33, 39; Holston Conference, MEC, 178n54; ordination of, 20, 23, 103 death, happy, doctrine of, 21–22, 28 Deems, Charles F., 38, 44, 186n27 Delashmit, Leonidas C., 93, 202n17 Democratic Party, 68, 102–3, 206n32

Index depravity, total, doctrine of, 3 Dickens, John, revision of Discipline by, 177n43 Dickey, James W., 92 Discipline, 18–19, 175n31, 180n67; cautions against wealth in, 9, 26; on class meeting attendance, 44, 186n27; due process outlined in, 23, 95, 101, 112; expulsion rules outlined in, 40, 51; first edition of, 177n43; regarding itinerant preachers, 16–17, 29, 96; liquor distilling and selling prohibited by, 18, 23, 24; regarding slave ownership, 23, 46–47, 49, 50, 53, 54, 142; violations of, 24, 94–95, 220n36 district conferences, 20, 131–32, 181n5, 183n17. See also individual districts Dodson, Samuel, slave ownership by, 42 Dow, Lorenzo, 7; prophetic dream of, 109–10 Drake, Lemuel F., 126, 217n26; joining Holston Conference, MEC, 122, 132 due process, 23, 51, 58, 59; ignoring, 24, 48, 57, 101, 112, 215n18. See also expulsions Duggan, William Henry Harrison: brutal treatment of, 102–3, 103, 115, 129, 205–6n30, 206n32; expulsion for disloyalty, 98–99, 100; joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 120 Early, John, 16, 100, 200n11, 201–2n16; postwar tolerance shown by, 118, 119, 213n12; punishing disloyalty to Confederacy, 94, 97–101, 115, 143–44, 200n10, 202–3n18, 203n20, 205n28; on Southern nationalism, 88–89, 121; Wiley’s support for, 89–90, 101, 205n29; William Brownlow’s attacks on, 112, 212n7 Easterly, John, 42 East Tennessee, 15, 140, 213n11; antislavery tradition of, 35, 60–63, 114,

143, 198–99n6; class meetings in, 44–45; Confederate occupation of, 85–86, 199n7; early settlement of, 1, 6; economic conditions in, 75, 86, 92, 117, 191n8, 195n32; efforts to separate from Tennessee, 198n4, 225n10; feeling inferior to Middle Tennessee, 76–81; guerrilla warfare in, 86, 102, 125, 141, 147; in Holston Conference, 5, 34, 64–65; itinerating preachers in, 117, 220n37; Methodist internal war in, 124–25, 144, 147; missionaries in, 28, 74–75, 215n19; secession votes in, 84, 142, 197–98n3; sectionalism in, 60, 133, 146, 147; as Switzerland of America, 83, 197n1; Unionism in, 25, 83–86, 88, 91, 112, 117, 144, 191n6, 199n7, 199–200n9, 210–11n2; uprising against Confederacy, 85–86; William Brownlow as spokesman for, 83–84, 143. See also Frankland, state of, efforts to establish; Franklin, state of, efforts to establish; Holston Conference; Knoxville; and individual counties East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad, 195–96n36 East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, 85 East Tennessee Conference for African American Methodists, 120, 138, 144–45 East Tennessee Convention, 85 East Tennessee Wesleyan College, 124 Eblen, William H., 93 Eddy, Thomas M., 190–91n5 Edmondson, Newton C., 18 education. See colleges; Sunday schools Ekin, George, 7, 9–11, 29, 35, 52, 61; antislavery stance of, 55, 140; and 1844 split, 51–52, 53, 175n25; joining MECS, 25, 188n39; preaching to African Americans, 38–39 elders, ordination of, 20, 23, 39. See also deacons; presiding elders 253

Index Elliott, Charles, 58 Emory, Robert, 183n17 Emory and Henry College (Virginia): as Confederate hospital, 28, 89, 93; new Holston leadership educated at, 27–28, 30, 48, 90, 91–92, 123 English Methodism. See British Methodism, American Methodism’s separation from episcopal control, 15–16, 73, 176n40; local autonomy balanced with, 5, 13, 18, 19; rebellion of local preachers against, 24–25, 55 exhorters, 12, 106, 195n30; African American, 39, 41–42, 44–45, 55, 107–8, 144, 180–81n2, 185n22; declining need for, 28, 45, 109; licensing of, 19, 183–84n18; at quarterly conferences, 14, 40, 41; women as, 13 experience, religious. See religious feeling, doctrine of expulsions: for adultery, 11, 17, 24, 54, 189–90n43; for disloyalty to Confederacy, 97–98, 100–102, 110, 115, 118–19, 120, 122, 189n42, 203n20, 204–5n25, 215n18; for distilling and selling liquor, 14, 18, 23, 174–75n21; of local preachers, 23, 129, 213– 14n13; rules regarding, 40, 51; for slave-owning, 34, 42–43; without due process, 48, 101, 112, 215n18 family worship, 12, 28 Fanning, Francis M., 130, 202–3n18; joining Holston Conference, MEC, 120, 133, 214n15 Farley, Francis A., 93 feeling, religious. See religious feeling, doctrine of Fighting Parson. See Brownlow, William G. “Parson” Fisher, Absalom, 52, 189n40 Fisher, Noel, 210–11n2 Fleming, David, 36 254

Fleming, John, 218–19n31 Frankland, state of, efforts to establish, 60, 75, 85. See also East Tennessee Franklin, state of, efforts to establish, 1, 5, 60, 147, 225n10. See also East Tennessee free blacks: participation in Methodism by, 32, 42; treatment of, 134, 135–40, 144–45, 221n40, 225n5 free will, doctrine of. See self-determination, doctrine of Fulton, Creed, 12 Gallaher, James, 64, 69, 193n16 Gannaway, Robertson, 26, 53 Garrett, Lewis, 75 Garrett, William, 22, 39–40, 58, 184n19 Gass, Andrew, 17 General Conferences, 18, 34–35, 67, 131, 219–20n34 Georgia, northern, in Holston Conference, 5, 34, 88 Gilenwaters, Joel and Thomas, Jr., and slave ownership, 43 Glenn, Thomas F., 202n17 Gowin, George A., joining Holston Conference, MEC, 122, 215n19 grace, 3–4, 13–14, 47, 179n61 Granade, John, 7 Grant, Samuel S., 93, 202n17 Graves, James Robinson: attacks on Methodism, 70–71, 72, 73, 145, 195n28; Brownlow’s battles with, 70–71, 145, 194nn24–25 Graves, William C., 223n47; and founding of Morristown Seminary, 214n15; joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 120, 122; on racial equality, 138, 223n47; Religious Intelligencer published by, 196n40 Gray, George Thomas, 129 Green, A. L. P., 119–20, 122, 214n14 Greene County, 114, 198–99n6 Greeneville Convention, 85. See also Knoxville Convention(s)

Index Griffith, Aaron, 39, 43, 183n17 Grissom, Emily, affidavit of, 209n39 Gudger, Jeremiah, 138 guerrilla warfare, 86, 102, 125, 141, 147. See also bushwhackers Guthrie, Robert H., joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 122, 215n19 Hale, Hector, 41, 185n22 Hamblin, John, 185n22 Hames, W. W., 207n33 Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, Brown’s raid on, 57, 191n6 Harris, John E., 91 Harris, S. J., 138 Harris, W. C., 69 Hatcher, Reuben, 14 Haven, Gilbert: Price’s disagreements with, 139–40; on racial equality, 138, 144, 223n47, 223n48 Hawk, Madison C., punishment for slave trading, 36–37 Haynes, Landon Carter, 68–69, 193–94n21 Haynes, Levi K., 218n30 Haynes, Wiley, 41, 185n22 Heck, Barbara, 3 Henninger, John, slave ownership by, 35, 36 Henry, Spencer: antislavery stance of, 32, 106; joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 131, 208n37; testimony of, 141–44, 224n3; Union supported by, 120; William Brownlow’s friendship with, 142, 224n1 Herald of Truth (newspaper), 80, 81, 94 Hicks, William, 188n39, 223–24n49; as Herald of Truth publisher, 80, 81, 94; service to Confederacy, 93, 94, 196–97n41, 199–200n9, 202–3n18 Hieronymus, Julia Ann, 12–13 Highland Messenger (newspaper), 61, 191–92n9 Hill, Judson S., 214n15 Hiwassee College, 27

Hiwassee mission, 173n3 holiness, doctrine of, 3 Holman, Calvin, 116, 215n19 Holsclaw, David F., 186n27 Holston, Stephen, 6 Holston Christian Advocate (newspaper), 67, 72, 75, 76–79, 80, 196n38 Holston Conference: affiliation with MECS, 10, 25–27, 88, 105, 110, 125, 147, 207–8n35; African American members, 32–33, 38–44, 54–55, 108, 136, 144–45, 223n46; alienation from Tennessee Conference, 61, 76–81; bishops in, 88–90, 132–33; churches in, 74, 124, 176n36, 217n25; class meetings in, 31, 44–45; colleges in, 27, 123–24; economic conditions in, 75, 92; and 1844 split, 50–55, 225n7; formation of, 6, 26, 34, 61, 204–5n25; geographic territory of, 5, 6, 34, 71, 73, 74–75, 88, 196–97n41; growth of, 7, 19, 26, 30; internal civil war in, 103–10, 112–19, 145–47, 225n7; itinerating preachers in, 3, 6, 25, 72, 78, 90, 120, 142, 213–14n13, 219–20n34, 220n37; local preachers in, 22–23, 25–26, 78, 119– 20, 189n41, 213–14n13; membership of, 6, 124, 137–38, 147, 215n19; Native American missions, 173n3, 205n27; new leadership, 26–27, 28, 29, 30, 91–92; newspapers for, 63, 75–80, 192n12, 196n38, 196n40, 199n8; polemicists in, 62, 63–71; punishing itinerating preachers for disloyalty to Confederacy, 72, 94–95, 97–103; racism in, 54–55, 135, 137, 139–40; religious controversies in, 60–63, 64, 65, 67–79; reorganized under new MEC, 119–40, 147, 212– 13n9, 215n19, 215–16n20, 216n21, 220–21n38; slavery and, 10, 30, 31–38, 54–55, 134–35, 143, 182n12; William Brownlow’s campaign against, 112–17, 119–21, 125 255

Index Holston Conference Female College, 27 Holston Conference Messenger (newspaper), 63, 192n12 Holston Messenger (newspaper), 63, 192n12 Hoss, Elijah Embree, 48, 146, 221n39 Huffaker, Christy, 24–25, 178–79n58 Hurlburt, J. S., 209n39, 219n32 Huston, Harrison, 138 Hutsell, E. K., 51 Hyden, Jesse Albert: expulsion of, 98, 204–5n25; joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 120, 122, 130

Jackson, Andrew, Thomas Stringfield’s service under, 63, 192n11 Jagoe, A., slave ownership by, 42–43 Jobe, Abraham, 10 Johnson, Andrew, 85 Johnson County, 198n5 Johnston, John W., 74, 195n30 Jonesborough Monthly Review (periodical), 70, 194n24 Jonesborough Whig (newspaper), 61, 67, 194n24 Julian, Isham, 207n33 justification, doctrine of, 3

itinerating preachers, 7–12; African American, 33, 44, 181n5; at annual conferences, 4, 5, 15, 16–18; antislavery, 34, 35–38, 53, 55, 120, 140; appointments of, 15, 220n36; attacks on, 73, 128–30, 218n29; books distributed by, 19, 177n45; circuits assigned to, 12, 125–26; class meetings and, 11–12, 29, 44; college-educated, 22, 26–27, 28, 48, 90, 91–92, 93, 132; Confederacy supported by, 25, 61, 72, 87–88, 90–91, 93–94, 104, 202n17; liquor distilling and sales by prohibited, 9, 37; local preachers controlled by, 20, 21, 23–25, 30, 54, 71–72, 104–5; locating, 21–22, 71, 72, 104, 178n51, 189n42; as missionaries in East Tennessee, 117; progressive, 105–6, 109, 131; proslavery, 46, 61; punishment for disloyalty to Confederacy, 72, 94–95, 97–103, 112, 118–20, 122, 143–44, 215n18; at quarterly conferences, 14, 16–17, 29; salaries of, 7, 20, 22, 92, 104, 109, 133, 174n17, 209–10n42; slave-owning, 35–36, 37, 42–43, 142, 182n12, 184n19; stationing debate, 108–9; superannuating, 71, 94, 120, 215n19. See also expulsions; Holston Conference, itinerating preachers in; missionaries and missions

Keener, John C., 220n36, 223–24n49 Kennedy, James S., 90, 95, 199–200n9, 203–4n21 Kerr, William Montgomery, 202n17 Key, John, 22, 73, 195n30 King, James, 69 Kingsley, Calvin, 117, 132, 212–13n9 Knox County, 114 Knoxville: as center of Holston Methodism, 6, 74, 195n12, 218–19n31; Church Street church in, 126; colored missions in, 45, 187n30; Confederate authorities in, 99, 101, 144; railroad running through, 195n36; temperance meetings at, 61, 79; Union occupation of, 100, 112, 117, 210n1; William Brownlow jailed in, 87, 199n7. See also East Tennessee Knoxville Convention(s): of 1861, 85, 106, 141–42; of 1864, 120, 121, 123, 213n10, 213–14n13, 215–16n20, 216n21 Knoxville Enquirer (newspaper), 63 Knoxville Female Academy, 27 Knoxville Register (newspaper), 78, 79, 84, 210n1 Knoxville Whig (newspaper), 32, 61–63, 79, 83, 85, 87 Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator (newspaper), 112, 115, 116

256

Index laity, 3, 51, 78, 92; Discipline outlines roles of, 18; friction between clergy and, 34, 67, 92; leadership roles of, 4–5; representation of, 67, 73, 131, 145, 220n35; rights of, 20, 176n40; Union supported by, 25, 88, 104, 207n33 Lambert, Jeremiah, 6 Lambuth, Walter R., 48 Lawton, D. B., 138 liquor, distilling and selling, prohibition against, 9, 24, 37, 182n13, 196–97n41; expulsions for, 14, 23, 174–75n21 Little River circuit, 185n21 local preachers, 3, 19–26, 41, 141, 178n53, 195n30, 207n34; African American, 33, 39–42, 44–46, 55, 107–8, 138, 144, 180–81n2, 181n5, 184n19, 185n22, 187n29; antislavery, 107, 135; Cherokee, 173n3; at class meetings, 12, 73; Confederacy supported by, 106, 212n6; and 1844 split, 51, 53; expulsion of, 23, 129, 213–14n13; Holston Conference, 22–23, 25–26, 72, 78, 119–20, 189n41, 213–14n13; itinerating preachers’ control of, 20, 21, 23–25, 30, 54, 71–72, 104–5; lack of voting privileges at annual conferences, 20, 53, 72, 105, 175n22; liquor distilling and sales by prohibited, 9, 23, 24, 37, 174–75n21, 182n13, 196– 97n41; and Methodist internal civil war, 131–32, 141–42; powerlessness of, 73, 109, 177n49; presiding elders’ control over, 23–25, 26, 71, 72, 105; proslavery, 34, 55; slave-owning, 9, 23, 182n12, 184n19; Union supported by, 25, 48, 72, 88, 104–6, 109, 119–20, 132, 134, 141, 207n33. See also quarterly conferences, local preachers licensed at Long, Carroll, 94, 95, 203n19, 218n29 Longstreet, James, 117

love feasts: decline of, 28–29, 92, 105–6, 109, 131, 179n66; limited to members, 13, 16 Lyerly, Cynthia Lynn, 33, 181n3 Maffitt, John Newland, 75 Mann, Jonathan L., 108, 204n22; expulsion for disloyalty to Confederacy, 100, 101–2, 119, 205–6n30, 207n33; joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 120, 122, 209n40; on Long, 94, 203n19; on Parker, 93, 224–25n4 Mansfield, John, 17 Manson, William S., 17, 176n40 Manumission Society of Tennessee, 35, 114 Marion Sentinel and Soldiers’ Friend (newspaper), 94 Martin, Isaac Patton, 125, 147 Mathews, Donald, 33, 35 Maupin, Milton, 93, 202n17 Maynard, Horace, 85 Mays, Charles K., 42, 138, 185n22 McAnally, David Rice, 29, 66; arrested for treason, 182–83n14; on book sales, 19, 177n45; on Bowman, 37–38; as Highland Messenger editor, 61, 191–92n9; on itinerating preachers, 22, 174n17; Rowley attacked by, 124, 216n22 McCall, Bovell, 208–9n38; murder of, 107 McChain, James, 69 McDaniel, Jacob, punishment for slave trading, 36–37 McFerrin, John Berry, 40, 77, 184n19, 194n25; Brownlow and, 196n39, 199n8, 212n6; as Nashville Christian Advocate editor, 72, 75, 76–79, 80, 196n38 McKendree, William, 34 McKenzie, Robert Tracy, 86 McKinney, Joseph, 17 McTeer, John Montgomery, 94–95, 99, 140, 223–24n49 257

Index McTyeire, Holland N., 127, 131–32, 217n27 McUen, Mary and Matilda, affidavits of, 209n39 meetings. See band meetings; camp meetings; class meetings; love feasts; revivals Melton, A. P., 138 Memphis Christian Advocate (newspaper), merger of, 79 Methodism and Methodists: African American membership in, 38–44; fundamentals of, 3, 8; organizational structure, 11–12; polity and economy of, 67, 101, 140, 142, 144, 145; prayer’s importance in, 196– 97n41; puritanic spirit of early, 29, 180n67; Southern Methodists’ adherence to original, 188n37. See also American Methodism; Discipline Methodist Book Concern, 19, 177n45, 214n14 Methodist Episcopal Church: formation of, 4, 6, 34; Holston Conference withdrawal from, 10, 207–8n35; radicals’ attacks on, 67. See also American Methodism Methodist Episcopal Church, 1844 split in, 6, 91, 127, 175n25, 177n45; sectionalism resulting from, 92, 211–12n5; slavery as main cause of, 25–26, 33–35, 48–55, 88, 95, 113, 142, 182n11. See also American Methodism, internal civil war in Methodist Episcopal Church, North (MEC), 6, 112, 119, 147; colleges for, 120, 123–24; establishment of, 6, 26, 48, 49–50; fundamental differences with MECS, 133–40; MECS church properties seized by, 116, 121, 123–27, 129–30, 132–34, 140, 213n10, 215–16n20, 216n23; Southern Methodism seen as mission field for, 115–17, 134, 135, 136,

258

146, 216n23; treatment of African American members, 135–40, 142–45 Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS), 30, 89, 215n19, 219n33; class meetings, 44, 219–20n34; establishment of, 10, 48, 49–50, 182n11, 211–12n5; fundamental differences with MEC, 133–40; internal civil war in, 117–19, 124–40; joining, 58, 188n39; laity’s representation in, 67, 145; membership of, 125, 147, 177n5; mission to slaves and former slaves, 95, 221n40; Northern Methodists’ mission to, 115–17, 134, 135, 136, 146, 216n23; political activities in, 206n32, 211n3; proslavery stance of, 53–54, 142–44; publishing house for, 79–80; reunion with other Methodist churches, 146; secession from Methodist Episcopal Church, 10, 50–51, 211–12n5; segregation in, 135–40, 144–45, 225n5; slave owners welcomed to, 26–27, 30, 33–34, 46–47, 55, 91–92. See also Brownlow, William G. “Parson,” campaign against MECS; Holston Conference, affiliation with MECS Methodist Episcopalian (newspaper), 67, 75–78 Methodist Episcopalian/Holston Christian Advocate (newspaper), 69 Methodist Protestant Church, 67, 146, 176n40 Methodist Quarterly Review, 134 Methodist Wheels, 71, 73 Middle Tennessee: East Tennessee’s feelings of inferiority to, 61, 76–81, 114; economic conditions in, 75, 86, 191n8; secession votes in, 84; in Tennessee Conference, 6, 34. See also Nashville Milburn, Joseph, 120

Index Milburn, William: expelled for loyalty to Union, 97, 98, 100, 102; joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 120, 204n23 Miller, Oliver L., 22 ministers. See itinerating preachers; local preachers minutes. See records Minutes of Several Conversations. See Discipline, first edition of miscegenation, Haven’s promotion of, 139. See also mulattos missionaries and missions: to African Americans, 45, 54–55, 183n16, 187n30, 205n27; in East Tennessee, 28, 74–75, 215n19; to Native Americans, 173n3, 205n27; Northern to Southern Methodists, 115–17, 134, 135, 136, 146, 216n23. See also itinerating preachers Missionary Board, 122, 133, 220–21n38 Missouri Conference, vote to join Southern church, 58 modernity, 48, 91–92 Morgan County, 195n32 Morris, Thomas A., 9 Morristown Normal Seminary, 120, 214n15 Morrow, John, 144–45 Morrow, Ralph E., 220n37 mulattos, 139, 140, 223n48 Myers, E. H., 79 Nashville: economic conditions in, 60; as MECS publishing headquarters, 79–80; Tennessee Conference in, 76. See also Middle Tennessee Nashville Christian Advocate (newspaper), 63; as Holston Conference newspaper, 196n40, 199n8; McFerrin as editor of, 72, 75, 76–79, 80, 87, 196n38 nationalism, Southern: Early on, 88–89, 112; Methodism blended with, 91, 94–96, 116, 121, 125, 135, 219n32;

modernity identified with, 91–92; proslavery ideology blended with, 27, 35, 45, 48, 55, 60; Wiley’s support for, 97, 188n35. See also patriarchy, Southern Native Americans, Holston Conference’s missions for, 173n3, 205n27. See also Cherokee Indians Neal, Henry C., 128–29, 218nn29–30 Neal, William W., 94, 110, 203n19, 209n41 Neely, Mark E., Jr., 86, 198–99n6 Nelson, David, 69 Nelson, Thomas A. R., 85 New Lights. See Arianism and Arians New School Presbyterians, 74, 193n17 newspapers. See individual newspapers Nicolas, John, 14 Nolichucky circuit, 6, 173n1 North Carolina, secession votes in, 197–98n3 North Carolina, western: Confederate loyalty of, 199–200n9; economic improvements in, 191–92n9; in Holston Conference, 5, 6, 34, 80–81, 88, 196–97n41; Methodist internal war in, 124–25, 147 Northern Methodists. See Methodist Episcopal Church, North (MEC) O’Brien, Eliza Ann, 68 Ohio Conference, 6 ordination: of African Americans, 33, 45, 187n29; of deacons and elders, 10, 20, 23, 39; local preachers applying for, 23, 43, 103, 183n17, 183–84n18, 207n34 pacifism, Methodist, 4 pardon, doctrine of, 3 Parker, Wiley F., 93, 224–25n4 patriarchy, Southern, 11, 30, 47; code of honor in, 9, 27, 30, 201n14. See also nationalism, Southern

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Index Patterson, Samuel, 138 Patton, Samuel, 36, 66, 81, 191–92n9, 193n16; and Arian controversy, 65–67; death of, 78, 80; as Holston Christian Advocate editor, 67, 76; as itinerating preachers, 12, 15; Knoxville Register’s attacks on, 78, 79; as Methodist Episcopalian editor, 75–78; as presiding elder, 69, 184n20 Patton, William, 145 Pearne, Thomas Hall, 126, 137; joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 122, 132; on Neal’s beating, 129, 218–19n31; on sale of Athens Female College, 124, 216n22 Pearson, Edmund, as slave owner, 35 peculiar institution. See slavery Penley, George W., 93 periodicals, circulation of, 19. See also individual newspapers and journals Pilmore, Joseph, 3 Pitchford, H. P., 79 politics, religion melded with, 25–26, 59, 61–63, 67–69, 92, 112–13, 191–92n9, 211n3. See also Democratic Party; Methodism and Methodists, polity and economy of; nationalism, Southern, Methodism blended with; Republican Party; separation of church and state; Whig Party Pope, Thomas J., 45–46, 187n30 Posey, Walter Brownlow, 182n13 preachers. See itinerating preachers; local preachers predestination, doctrine of, 3 Presbyterianism and Presbyterians: Arminian controversy, 63–64; Brownlow’s battles with, 68–71, 74–75, 87; Methodists’ battles with, 27, 63–70, 145; New School, 74, 193n17. See also Calvinism and Calvinists presiding elders: African American, 138; bishops’ appointment of, 14, 15; Confederacy supported by, 101; in

260

Holston Conference, MEC, 132–33; local preachers controlled by, 23–25, 26, 71, 72, 105; at quarterly conferences, 14, 16–17, 40, 184n20; salaries of, 133; slave-owning, 142; Union supported by, 202–3n18 Price, Richard Nye, 90; on Arianism, 67; on Axley, 37; on camp meetings, 15, 179n66; on clergy’s salaries, 117, 209–10n42; Confederacy supported by, 25, 88, 93; Cunnyngham defended by, 205n28; and disputes over church properties, 130; on district conferences, 131; on Dow’s dream, 110; on Duggan’s forced march, 206n31; on Early, 203n20, 213n12; on Edmondson charges, 18; educated at Emory and Henry College, 27, 30, 202n17; and 1844 split, 53–54; on expulsions, 24, 100, 189–90n43; Haven’s disagreements with, 139–40; on Holston Conference, 23, 109, 121, 196n40; on itinerating preachers, 22, 92, 218n30; on local preachers, 45, 104, 184n19, 207n33; McTeer’s comments on, 223–24n49; on Methodist puritanical spirit, 29, 180n67; on Neal, 209n41; on Patton, 65; proslavery stance of, 26–27, 28, 46–48, 91, 108, 134, 139, 143; on Rowley, 124; on segregated conferences, 139, 225n5; on Soule, 15–16; statistics kept by, 178n54, 215n19; on Stephen Adams, 176n41; on Thomas Stringfield, 63–64, 192nn12–13; on Wiley, 90, 96–97, 135, 221n39; on William Brownlow, 140, 212n6; on women in Methodist churches, 12–13; on Worley, 205–6n30 Pryne, Abram, 32 quarterly conferences, 13–14; African American participation in, 40–41,

Index 42, 144, 181n5; declining attendance at, 109; exhorters licensed by, 40; itinerating preachers at, 14, 16–17, 29; local preachers licensed at, 14, 20, 39–40, 71, 105, 131–32, 178n55, 183–84n18, 184n20; minutes of, 14, 31, 39, 41; of new Holston Conference, MEC, 121; presiding elders at, 14, 16–17, 40, 184n20 racism: regarding African American local preachers, 187n29; in Holston Conference, 54–55, 135, 137, 139–40; Price’s, 47, 139 radical controversy, 65, 67 Radical Tennesseans, 225n10 records: of band societies, 13; lack of African American, 32–33; loss or destruction of, 127, 140; of quarterly conferences, 14, 31, 39, 41. See also class books Reed, Patrick Henry: expulsion of, 98, 204–5n25; joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 121, 214–15n17; Union supported by, 207n33 religion. See politics, religion melded with; and individual religions religious feeling, doctrine of, 3 Religious Intelligencer (newspaper), 196n40 Republican Party, 132, 212–13n9 revivals, 73, 109, 140 Rhea, Anthony, ordained as deacon, 33, 39 Richardson, Frank, 90, 118, 179n66, 205n28, 206n32, 213n11; Confederacy supported by, 117, 120; educated at Emory and Henry College, 27, 28, 30, 48, 90; on Fanning, 202–3n18, 214n15 Richey, Russell, 13, 15, 33 Richland Institute (North Carolina), 27 Roberts, Robert R., 15 Rockhold, Mary, 12

Rodgers, Simon, 40 Rogers, Julia Ann, 17 Rogers, William Hurd, 53, 138, 205n27; expulsion for disloyalty, 99, 100, 189n42; joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 120, 121, 122 Rogersville controversy, 64 Ross, Frederick A.: attacks on Methodism, 64, 65, 68–71; Brownlow’s battles with, 67, 193n16, 194n24; as Calvinistic Magazine editor, 69, 193n16; proslavery stance of, 193n17 Ross controversy, 65 Rosser, Leonidas, 186n28 Rowley, Erastus, 123–24, 216n22 Russell, Elisabeth, 12 Russell, Thomas H.: expulsion of, 98, 204–5n25; joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 120, 122 Russellville district, 138 Rutherford, Thomas P.: expulsion of, 98, 115, 204–5n25; joining MEC Holston Conference, new, 120, 122 salvation, doctrine of, 3–4 Sasnett, William Jacob, 21 Schismatics. See Arianism and Arians Schneider, A. Gregory, 21 schools. See colleges; Sunday schools Scott, D. W., 132 scripture, doctrine based on, 3 secession, 198n5, 211–12n5; East Tennessee’s votes on, 75, 84, 142, 197–98n3; Tennessee’s votes on, 79, 81, 84–85, 91. See also Confederacy segregation, 136–40, 144–45 self-determination, doctrine of, 4, 38 separation of church and state, 62, 71, 130 Sevier, Elbert F., 12, 17, 76 Shannon, Augustine F., 29, 53; becoming local preacher, 189n42, 208– 9n38; on liquor distilling and sales by local preachers, 18, 196–97n41;

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Index Shannon, Augustine F. (cont.) preaching to African Americans, 38, 54–55, 107, 183n16; Union supported by, 120, 207n33 Sharp, Amanda, 32 Sharp, Darthula, 32 Shaw, Clem, 138 Simpson, Matthew, 116, 132 sin, doctrine of, 3 slave owners, 61, 114; expulsions of, 34, 42–43; itinerating and local preachers as, 9, 23, 35–36, 37, 42–43, 142, 182n12, 184n19; welcoming into MECS, 26–27, 30, 33–34, 46–47, 55, 91–92. See also wealth slavery: Holston Conference’s divisions over, 10, 30, 134–35; Methodism’s relationship to, 31–38, 48–55, 60, 181n3, 182n8, 182nn11–12. See also abolitionism and abolitionists; Methodist Episcopal Church, 1844 split in, slavery as main cause of slaves: marriages of, 47, 187n29; membership in Holston Conference, 31–32; Methodist missions to, 45–46, 95, 187n30; ownership of, 9, 23, 35–36, 42–43; Texas panic over insurrection by, 58–59, 190n4, 191n6. See also African Americans; free blacks Smith, Conaro Drayton, 94 Smith, Jacob, 218–19n31; beating of, 129, 218n30 Smith, James, 74, 195n30 Smith, W. D., 207n33 Smith, William, 68 societies, 12, 18, 19. See also band societies; tract societies son of Thunder. See Asbury, Francis Sons of Temperance, 25. See also temperance movement Soule, Joshua, 15–16, 34 South, the. See Confederacy; nationalism, Southern; patriarchy, Southern 262

Southern Methodists. See Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS) Southern Virginia and Tennessee Advocate (newspaper), 94 Southwestern Christian Advocate (newspaper), 63, 75 Spears, John, expelled for loyalty to Union, 97–98, 102, 204n24 Speers, Daniel, 42 Spence, John F., 132, 223n46; joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 122 Sperry, Jacob Austin, William Brownlow’s battles with, 84, 111–12, 210n1 Spirit, direct witness of, 67, 70 Spring Creek Church, 31–32 St. Clair, James, 51–52 Stamper, Asa, 207n33 Stanton, Edwin M., 116 stations: growth of, 22, 104, 109; in Holston Conference, MEC, 124, 133; internal conflict over, 125–26, 209–10n42. See also circuits Stevens, Walter H., 93 stewards, 12, 14, 40, 42, 109, 184n20. See also trustees Still, Elijah, 207n33 Stivers, T. S., 122 Stone, Reuben, 73, 195n30 Stowell, Daniel W., 220n35 Stradley, John Ryland, 93 Strawberry Plains College, 27, 123 Strawbridge, Robert, 3 Stringfield, James K. (son of Thomas), 90–91, 93, 97, 201n13, 202n17, 204n23 Stringfield, Thomas, 12, 62, 63–65, 76, 145, 192n13, 195n32; battles with Presbyterians, 67; as editor and publisher, 63, 75, 192n12; service under Andrew Jackson, 63, 192n11; as slave owner, 35–36, 88 Stringfield, William (son of Thomas), 91, 201n13 Stuart, J. E. B., 89

Index Sullins, David, 90, 93, 117, 179n66; charge of immorality against, 18, 176–77n42; educated at Emory and Henry College, 27, 30, 48, 90, 207n17; on slave owning, 32, 181n3; on treatment of African American Methodists, 38, 136–37 Sullins, Nathan, 32, 181n3 Summers, Thomas Osmond, 223–24n49 Sunday schools, 28, 45, 73–74 Sutton, Philip S., 202n17 Swafford, Peter, 207n33 Sweetwater Valley, 206n32 Swisher, J. G., attack on, 218n29 Tadlock, James Doak, 126, 217n26 Tate, John C., 138, 139, 223n46, 223n48 Taylor, Nathaniel Greene, 138 Tellico circuit, 43, 74, 195n30 temperance movement, 9, 25, 61–62, 74, 79, 191–92n9, 199n8 Temple, Oliver P., 85 Tennessee, 42, 198n5; secession votes in, 79, 81, 84–85, 91. See also East Tennessee; Middle Tennessee; West Tennessee Tennessee Baptist (newspaper), 70 Tennessee Conference: Holston Conference formed out of, 6, 34, 61; Holston Conference’s alienation from, 76–81, 143; slavery battles within, 34–35. See also Nashville Christian Advocate (newspaper) Teves, John, 42 Texas, panic over slave insurrection, 58–59, 190n4, 191n6 Toryism, Methodism labeled as, 4, 70 tract societies, 28, 74 traveling preachers. See itinerating preachers Trewhitt, D. C., 123–24 Trim, Anderson, 107, 207n33 Trim, Carter, 73, 195n30 Trotter, Amos, 14

trustees, 12, 42, 123, 217n25. See also stewards Tuckaleechee Cove, 147 Turk, Elizabeth, 31 Unionism, 114–15, 121, 198n5, 202–3n18. See also East Tennessee, Unionism in; local preachers, Union supported by Union League, 128, 129, 218n30 United Synod of the Presbyterian church, 193n17 Upper South States, 84, 89, 197–98n3 Virginia, southwestern, 39, 199–200n9; in Holston Conference, 5, 6, 34, 36, 88; Methodist internal war in, 124–25, 147 Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, 195–96n36 Virginia controversy, 64 Walker, James C., 52, 189n40 Ware, Thomas, 1–3, 2, 5, 147, 173n1 Watauga Association, 5 Waterhouse, Richard G., 48 Waugh, Henry P., 202n17 wealth: cautions against, 9, 47, 61, 92, 179n61; growing acceptance of, 26–27, 28, 30, 91–92. See also slave owners Weaver, Montraville M., 54, 189–90n43 Weaverville College, 189–90n43 Wesley, John, 28, 70; antislavery stance, 33, 113; cautions against wealth, 47, 179n61; equality emphasized by, 43–44; Methodism founded by, 3–4 Wesleyana Church, 127–28, 217n27, 217–18n28 Wesleyan Methodist Connection, 50 West, Hezekiah, 93 Western Arminian and Christian Instructor (magazine), 63, 192n12 Western Conference, 6 Western Methodist (newspaper), 75 263

Index West Tennessee, 84, 86, 114, 191n8 Wexler, Edwin C., 93 Whedon, Daniel D. Wiley’s disagreements with, 134–35, 188n35, 221n40, 221–22n41, 222n42, 222n44 Wheeler, Joseph, 209n39 Whig Party, 86, 206n32 White, George, 42 Wigger, John H., 4, 183–84n18 Wiggins, Joseph A., 202n17 Wiley, Ephraim Emerson, 27–28, 79, 96, 202n17, 220n36; Confederacy supported by, 28, 89–90, 93, 96–97, 118; on disloyalty to Confederacy, 98, 105, 202–3n18, 204n22; Early supported by, 89–90, 101, 205n29; indoctrination of students by, 30, 48, 90, 91–92, 133–34, 135; memorial on recovering church property, 129–30, 134, 135, 219n32; Price’s comments on, 90, 96–97, 135, 221n39; Southern nationalism supported by, 188n35, 201n14; Whedon’s disagreements with,

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134–35, 188n35, 221n40, 221–22n41, 222n42, 222n44. See also Emory and Henry College (Virginia) Wilson, David, 132 Winchester controversy, 64 Winton, Jane (wife of Anthony Bewley), 58, 190n2 Winton, W. (father-in-law of Anthony Bewley), 190n2 women: in class meetings, 11, 13; leadership roles open to, 4, 12–13; rules against fancy clothing, 9, 28, 29 Woodfin, John F., 223n46 Worley, Ambrose Gaines, 95, 117; as Confederate chaplain, 93, 202n17; Mann expelled by, 101–2, 205–6n30 Wright, Absalom B., 106, 189n41; 1844 split opposed by, 53, 107, 207–8n35; joining new Holston Conference, MEC, 131, 133 Wynn, Robert W., 22 Yarnell, James, 138 Zollicoffer, Felix K., 85