Letter from Knoxville.
the home of Brounlow — the journey from Virginia to this place — the fate of bridge Burners — illness of Parson Brownlow — incidents of the Journcy.[special Dispatch to the Richmond Dispatch.]
Knoxville, Tenn., Jan. 7, 1862.
Being ensconsed for the night, in ‘"No. 7"’ of the Lamar House, having been born on the ‘"7th"’ of the month, and it being the ‘"7th"’ day of the new year, I cannot resist the temptation to write you from the home of Brownlow, although wearied with a trip of one hundred and nineteen miles, which consumed twelve hours on the rail.
As I entered my roos a number of books was observable on the mantle piece.
Not having seen anything of the sort for more than a month, I laid violent hands on one, and, to my great surprise, found it to be the ‘"Life and Works of Thomas Cole."’ Struck with the coincidence of name, I opened the volume hasfily, and made the discovery, that Thomas Cole was an English artist, who came to America in 1819, and obtained some celebrity in his professon.
He delighted in visiting the Catskill mountains, and in a letter to a friend, he calls them the ‘"gray-headed mountains."’ This expression reminds me of the mountains I have passed to-day, and ‘"gray-headed"’ describes them to a dot. As the cars came slowly along by them, one's thoughts were inevitably turned to the traitors, who had scudded away in their fastnesses, and to the netarious acts of recent vandalism which caused the cars to move so cantiously.
The running on the East Tennessee road is confined to day-light and then is performed with much circumspection.
All the bridges burned have been rebuilt, with the exception of the one across the Holston at Union.--This will be up within twenty days. A detachment of Stovall's (Middle Georgia) Battalion is stationed at Union.
Georgia troops guard the bridge over Lick Creek, and are stationed at Greenville, the former place of residence of Andy Arnold!
Several North Carollna companies are at Marristown.
The Government has stationed a competent force at all important points.
It is a most pleasing reflection that some of the incendiaries have paid the penalty of their treason by dancing on nothing, and that those who have escaped to the mountains are being pursued with the sharpest sort of a stick!
The place where I am penning this letter is known the world over as the home of Parson Brownlow, and his hitheric inseparable adjunct, ‘"the Knoxville Whig. "’ But Brownlow has fallen into the sear and yellow leaf.
Knoxville is at once the scene of his glory and his degradation.
There is no one so poor as to do him reverence now. The yials of wrath which he has persistently poured on the heads of others through years of licentions journalism are now commended to his own wicked pate, and the miserable man, lashed by his conscience no less than by the community in which he lives, has been released from prison, and lies in his house here sick unto death.
The policy of permitting Brownlow to be escorted without our lines into the enemy's country, is freely discussed, and intelligent persons deprecate it as fraught with incalculable mischief.
He knows every hog path, every distillery, every secret cave in Eastern Tennessee, and could give Lincoln a better map of the country than all his engineers put together.
And this is not all. Tabooed in the South, stung to desparation by the low estimation in which he is held by every true Southron, and flattered and frowned upon, as he would be by the Yankees, there is no telling the pitch of phrenzy to which he would carry the already morbid fanaticism of the North.
Should the Parson quit his hold on this world, his best friend here would say Amea to his exit.
The 56th Virginia Regiment left Abingdon on Friday last, commanded by Capt; Thos. T. Boswell.
The field officers were necessarily absent.
The ladies everywhere on the road manifested their patriotism by waving their handkerchiefs.
Even the negroes, one of whom was a little fellow about a foot high, took their caps off, and tossed them in the air as the regiment assed.
At Bristol a negro was observed with a black flag flung to the breeze.
This caused great cheering.
Captain Boswell is working vigorously, and will soon have his command at Howling Green, where, when the fight taken place, the boys crave a plage in the picture ‘"nearest to the firing of the guns."’
Occarichs. 