Clergyman and journalist; born in
Wythe county, Va., Aug. 29, 1805; was left an orphan at eleven years of age, and, by means of wages as a carpenter in his youth, acquired a fair English education.
At the age of twenty-four years he entered
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the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was an itinerant for ten years. While on his circuit in
South Carolina he opposed the nullification movement in that State (see
nullification), which excited strong opposition to him. About 1837 he began the publication of the Knoxville
Whig, a political newspaper, which soon circulated widely, and, for its vigorous polemics, obtained for
Brownlow the name of the “Fighting Parson.”
In 1858 he engaged in a public debate in
Philadelphia on the question, “Ought American slavery to be perpetuated?”
in which he took the affirmative.
When the secession movement began, he boldly opposed it, taking the ground that the preservation of the
Union would furnish the best safeguard of Southern institutions, and especially of slavery.
So outspoken and influential was
Mr. Brownlow that, in December, 1861, he was arrested, by order of the
Confederate authorities, on a charge of treason against the
Confederacy, and confined in
Knoxville jail, where he suffered much until released in March, 1862.
Then he was sent within the
Union lines at
Nashville.
Afterwards he made a tour in the
Northern States, delivering speeches in the principal cities.
At
Philadelphia he was joined by his family, who had been expelled from
Knoxville, where he published
Sketches of the rise, progress, and decline of secession, with a narrative of personal adventures among the rebels.
Brownlow was governor of
Tennessee in 1865-69, and
United States Senator from 1869 until his death in
Knoxville, April 29, 1877.
He was a man of fearless spirit, held such a caustic pen, and maintained such influential social and political relations that he was intensely hated and feared by the
Confederates.
The latter longed for an occasion to silence him, and finally they made the false charge that he was accessory to the firing of several railway bridges in
eastern Tennessee to cut off communication between
Virginia and that region.
His life had been frequently menaced by Confederate soldiers, and, at the urgent solicitation of his family, he left home in the autumn (1861). and went into another district.
While he was absent several bridges were burned.
Believing him to have been concerned in the burning, the
Confederate Colonel Wood--a Methodist preacher from
Alabama--was sent out, with some cavalry, with orders, publicly given at
Knoxville, not to take him prisoner, but to shoot him at once.
Informed of his peril,
Brownlow, with other loyal men, secreted himself in the
Smoky Mountains, on the borders of
North Carolina, where they were fed by loyalists.
The Confederates finally resolved to get rid of this “dangerous citizen” by giving him a pass to go into
Kentucky under a military escort.
He received such a pass at
Knoxville.
and was about to depart for the
Union lines, when he was arrested for treason.
By the assurance of safety he had gone to
Knoxville for his pass, and so put himself in the hands of his enemies.
He and some of the best men in
eastern Tennessee were cast into the county jail, where they suffered intensely.
Deprived of every comfort, they were subjected to the vile ribaldry of the guards, and constantly threatened with death by hanging.
Acting upon the suggestions of
Benjamin, men
charged with bridge-burning, and confined with
Brownlow, were hanged, and their bodies were left suspended as a warning.
In the midst of these fiery trials
Brownlow remained firm, and exercised great boldness of speech.
They dared not hang
him without a legal trial and conviction.
They offered him life and liberty if he would take the oath of allegiance to the
Confederacy.
He refused with scorn.
To
Benjamin he wrote: “You are reported
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to have said to a gentleman in
Richmond that I am a bad man, and dangerous to the
Confederacy, and that you desire me out of it. Just give me my passport, and I will do for your Confederacy more than the devil has ever done — I will quit the country.”
Benjamin soon afterwards indicated a wish that
Brownlow should be sent out of the
Confederacy, “only,” he said, “because color is given to the suspicion that he has been entrapped.”
He was finally released, and sent to
Nashville (then in possession of National troops) early in March, 1862.
