After the intense excitement created by the bridge-burning had somewhat subsided, the Confederate and State authorities again manifested a desire to win over, or at least conciliate, the Union element. The commander at Knoxville issued a proclamation to the “Disaffected People of East Tennessee,” and assured “all those interested who have fled to the enemy’s lines, and who are actually in their army, that he will welcome their return to their homes and their friends; they are offered amnesty and protection, if they come to lay down their arms, and act as loyal citizens.” But these conciliatory measures again met with failure, as it soon became necessary to enforce the military drafts, which aroused the greatest opposition. In the summer of 1863, East Tennessee became the theatre of active war. Its history for the next three years is to be found in the military annals of the State. [7] Hume’s, _Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee_. [8] See Everett’s “Account of the Fund for the Relief of East Tennessee.” CHAPTER IV THE RESTORATION OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT While Tennessee escaped both executive and congressional reconstruction, it did not follow in the restoration of its civil government the plan laid down by President Lincoln. The most distinctive feature of Lincoln’s reconstruction policy lay in the fact that it made the old political people in each of the Southern States self-acting nuclei, which were to bring order out of chaos. According to this theory, neither the President nor Congress had the power to reconstruct a State government. The people within a State alone had the right to initiate and carry into effect measures for the rehabilitation of the deranged governmental machinery. It was the duty of the President under Article IV, Section 4, of the Constitution, to see that their efforts in this direction did not prove abortive by reason of domestic violence.