[705] it was enforced by those even who had torn the Constitution to pieces in the name of local sovereignty. Indeed, Mr. Davis' government was no longer afraid to contradict its own theories. It caused all the principal inhabitants of East Tennessee suspected of sympathizing with the North to be arrested and conveyed to Tuscaloosa, in Alabama, as prisoners of war. All persons taken with arms in hand, or in whose houses arms were found concealed, experienced the same fate. The refractory portion of the community, feeling exasperated, organized into bands at the end of 1861, and began a counter-revolution in the hope of being able to join the Unionists of Kentucky. Unable to fight in the usual way, they undertook to thwart the operations of the Confederates by destroying the bridges of the important railroad line which traverses that region. They were hunted down like malefactors. The Secretary of War ordered all persons concerned in the destruction of railways to be summarily tried and hanged; he especially recommended, with a view of intimidating their comrades, that their bodies should remain suspended near the bridges they had burnt. These orders were most rigorously executed. They did not succeed, however, in entirely putting down the resistance, which was continued during the remainder of the war.
[The monetary amounts throughout the foregoing chapter have been changed from the francs in which they were expressed in the French edition to dollars, and the figures verified by the authorities as far as was practicable. A few slight errors in terms and figures have been corrected without the formality of a note. The kind assistance in this chapter of Professor R. E. Thompson, of the University of Pennsylvania, is acknowledged with thanks.—Ed.]
