Raynors HCA 2020-02
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/27/2020
Confederate Broadside, 5-1/2' x 8", field-printed on lined paper with decollated right edge, light strike, and exceptionally scarce. In full, "Proclamation, To the Citizens of East Tennessee. So long as the question of Union or Disunion was debatable, so long you did well to debate it and vote on it. You had a clear right to vote for the Union, but when secession was established by the voice of the people you did ill to distract the country by angry words and insurrectionary tumult. In doing this you commit the highest crime known to the laws. Out of the Southern Confederacy no people possess such elements of prosperity and happiness as those of East Tennessee. The Southern market which you have hitherto enjoyed only in competition with a host of eager Northern rivals, will now be shared with a few States of the Confederacy, equally fortunate, politically and geographically. Every product of your agriculture and workshops will now find a prompt sale at high prices, and, so long as cotton grows on Confederate soil, so long will the money which it brings flow from the South through all your channels of trade. At this moment you might be at war with the United States, or any foreign nation, and yet not suffer a tenth part of the evils which pursue you in this domestic strife. No man's life or property is safe, no woman or child can sleep in quiet. You are deluded by selfish demagogues, who take care for their own personal safety. You are citizens of Tennessee, and your State one of the Confederate States. So long as you are up in arms against these States, can you look for any thing but the invasion of your homes and the wasting of your substance? This condition of things must be ended. The Government commands the peace, and sends troops to enforce the order. I proclaim that every man who comes in promptly and delivers up his arms, will be pardoned on taking the oath of allegiance. All men taken in arms against the Government, will be transported to the military prison at Tuscaloosa, and be confined there during the war. Bridge burners and destroyers of railroad tracks are excepted from among those pardonable. They will be tried by drumhead court-martial, and be hung on the spot. D. LEADBETTER, Colonel Commanding. Headquarters, Greenville E. Tenn. Nove. 30th, 1861." The same day as Leadbetter's proclamation, the Confederate authorities hanged Jacob Hensie and Henry Fry, who were in the group that burned the Lick Creek Bridge, and left their bodies on display on the railroad at Greenville as a warning to the Unionists.
Click on a thumbnail above to display a larger image below
Hold down the mouse button and slide side to side to see more thumbnails(if available).
Click above for larger image.