William Gannaway Brownlow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William Gannaway Brownlow (August 29, 1805 – April 29, 1877) was Governor of Tennessee from 1865 to 1869 and a Senator from Tennessee from 1869 to 1875. Serving during Reconstruction following the American Civil War, Brownlow was strongly pro-Union. He was admired by many Tennesseans and despised by still more. He was most highly respected in the North for his devotion to the Union.

Brownlow was born in Wythe County, Virginia and orphaned at the age of ten. He endured an adolescence of abusive backbreaking labor. At age 21, he began his career as a circuit-riding (itinerant) Methodist minister and became known as "Parson" Brownlow or "The Fighting Parson". Traveling from town to town, he gave fire and brimstone speeches to great crowds in South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee, helping to establish the Methodist presence in that part of the United States. Brownlow ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1842.

In 1839, Brownlow started a newspaper, the Tennessee Whig, in Elizabethton, Tennessee. He moved it to Jonesboro, Tennessee in 1840 and thence to Knoxville, Tennessee in 1849, renaming it the Knoxville Whig The newspaper became known for its strong pro-Whig, pro-Methodist, nativist, pro-Union, pro-slavery and an anti-secession stances, all expressed in Brownlow's vituperative but effective style.

Brownlow was more closely attuned to and representative of East Tennesseans than his contemporary or later critics were willing to admit. In East Tennessee, 69% of voters opposed secession in the statewide referendum of June 1861 even as 86% of voters elsewhere supported secession. Hardly the traitor to his community that his opponents made him out to be, he was more accurately a spokesman and leader for the strongly pro-Union inhabitants of East Tennessee. Brownlow and many of his supporters were pro-slavery but willing to consider scrapping slavery if necessary to save the Union. Brownlow himself owned house slaves as servants at various times.

Brownlow's passionately articulate stances and dramatic (if sometimes mean-spirited) writing also attracted thousands of subscribers from beyond Knoxville. At one point, the Knoxville Whig had over three times as many subscribers across the country as there were residents in Knoxville. The newspaper's two masthead slogans: "Cry Aloud and Spare Not," and "Independent in All Things, Neutral in Nothing" captured the spirit of the publication and its publisher. As the Civil War approached, Brownlow worked tirelessly to dissuade any of his readers from supporting secession.

Once Tennessee seceded, Brownlow shifted to attacking the Confederate government. In October 1861 he was forced to cease publishing and flee Knoxville, hiding in Cades Cove. Offered a safe conduct pass to Union lines, he returned to Knoxville that winter only to be arrested and imprisoned. Union prisoners in Knoxville endured physical abuse and starvation for several months as part of an extortion ring involving a corrupt magistrate and jailor. Brownlow and many other prisoners were freed after Confederate authorities learned of the abuse, however Brownlow's health never fully recovered. After being escorted to Union lines in March 1862, Brownlow toured the North, stirring up support for East Tennessee Unionists and publishing books and articles. In November 1863, Brownlow returned to Knoxville after its liberation from Confederate occupation by General Ambrose Burnside. He resumed publishing his newspaper under the new name of the "Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator".

Brownlow's election after the Civil War as governor survived his opponents' attempts to rig the vote. The Confederacy had just surrendered, and much of the state had required Union military occupation. Certain ex-Confederate officers were barred from voting, and a strong showing came from the eastern part of the state, a center of Union loyalty where there had never been much slavery practiced and secession was generally opposed.

Tennessee was not officially readmitted to the union until July 2, 1866; even then it was the first ex-Confederate state to be officially readmitted. Brownlow was re-elected by a greatly expanded electorate (with the inclusion of Blacks) in 1867; he resigned in February 1869 to accept election to the United States Senate by the state legislature, the method used prior to the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment.

Brownlow is considered to be responsible for the current seal of Tennessee, which meets the requirements outlined in the legal description for the original state seal but is considerably more modern and streamlined-looking than its predecessor.