Civil War and Reconstruction in AlabamaFleming, Walter L. (Walter Lynwood)
History
Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama
Fleming, Walter L. (Walter Lynwood)
Alabama -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865; Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877) -- Alabama
David P. Lewis of Madison County voted against secession but signed the
ordinance, and was elected to the Provisional Congress by the convention,
and in 1863 was appointed circuit judge by the governor. This position he
held for a few months, and then deserted to the Federals. During the
remainder of the war he lived quietly at Nashville.[288]
Another prominent citizen of Madison County, Judge D. C. Humphreys, joined
the Federals late in the war. Humphreys had been in the Confederate army
and had resigned. He was arrested by General Roddy on the charge of
disloyalty. It is not known that he was ever tried or put into prison, but
in January, 1865, Hon. C. C. Clay, Sr., and other prominent citizens of
Huntsville, of southern sympathies, all old men, were arrested and carried
to prison in Nashville as hostages for the safety of Humphreys, who had
been released by order of the Confederate War Department as soon as the
rumor of his arrest reached Richmond.[289] In April, 1864, General
Clanton, commanding in north Alabama, sent Governor Watts a Nashville
paper in which Jeremiah Clemens, "the arch traitor," and that "crazy man,"
Humphreys, figured as advisers to their fellow-citizens of Alabama in
recommending submission.[290] There are indications that several such
addresses were issued by Clemens, Humphreys, Lane, and others from the
safety of the Federal lines, but the text of none of them has been found
except those written and published when the war was nearly ended.
Of the men of position and influence who were found in the ranks of
opposition to the Confederate government after 1861, Judge Lane is the
only one whose course can command respect. He was faithful to the Union
from first to last, while the others were erratic persons who changed
sides because of personal spites and disappointments. They had little or
no influence over, and nothing in common with, the dissatisfied mountain
people and the tories and deserters.[291]
Numbers of the Disaffected
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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