September 1861

The day dawns, just as it always does, the fog rolling in off the 
mountains, the morning air has a crisp scent,  a slight nip of the 
coming of fall.  I have always loved getting up and watching the 
sun rise up over the mountains.  Watching the fog burn off the tops 
of the trees.  Sometimes the fog is so thick that you can not tell 
where the mountains end and the heavens begin.  It is kind of like 
the times that lie ahead of us, so cloudy, so uncertain.  Nothing is 
as it should be or once was.  This War, it was suppose to last only 
a few months, has now carried over into the fall.  We have been most 
thankful here in Tennessee.  

The feelings here in Tennessee are very mixed indeed on this War. The 
first time that a vote was called for secession, it was soundly defeated 
by a vote, I am told of 91,803 to 24,749. This was not long after South 
Carolina seceded in December of 1860.  There is a saying that is going 
around the County as well as the State, that "Tennessee never seceded;  
Isham G. Harris seceded and carried Tennessee along with him."  Our 
Governor Harris is a very dominate personality here in the State and he 
was probably our most aggressive and determined secessionist.  The vote 
to seceded was over whelmingly carried with a vote of 108,511 to 47,338.  
I would say that the sentiment of the State was turning in favor of the 
Confederacy.    

The Governor had first placed in command of the troops here in Tennessee, 
General Gideon J. Pillow, a graduate of West Point and veteran of the Mexican 
War.  He was in Memphis, I would assume to guard the much prized Mississippi 
River.  But now the news is that he has been replaced by orders of the 
Confederate President Jefferson Davis, by General Leonidas Polk of the 
Confederate Army, he also beginning a graduate of West Point, but at the same 
time he is a Bishop of the Episcopal Church of Louisiana.  

This may sound heartless to some, but most of the War has been fought, not 
here in Tennessee, but in the State of Virginia and I thank God that it has 
not happened here.  Not long ago, towards the end of July, an engagement 
occurred, a stunning Victory for the Confederacy at a place called Manassas.  
Actually not far from the Yankee Capitol of Washington.  Oh the tragedies 
that must have befallen that town, the devastation, that no one can possibly 
describe.  I hope and pray that it all ends soon and that these beautiful 
Mountains that I gaze upon every morning, should not hear the sounds of cannons 
echoing through her valleys.  

Catherine Quarles Buck