The loyalists were encouraged in their cause by the devotion of Hon. Andrew Johnson, U. S. Senator, and Hon. Horace Maynard, M. C., for Tennessee, whose eloquent and powerful appeals, and confident assurances of aid, cheered the hearts of the people. Thousands of East Tennesseeans escaped by night, wandering along unfrequented roads, until they reached Kentucky, where they organized regiments, under the direction of the Federal commanders. Their cherished desire was to return to their own State, with a powerful army, and redeem their soil. The atrocity of the rebel guerrillas drove them almost to a passion of revenge, and when disappointed at the announcement that their time had not come, and that they must await a more favorable condition of the army, hundreds of them, when ordered to retreat from the border lines of their State, strayed from the ranks, despairing and heart-sick, and falling down by the way, wept bitterly. Several of them, exhausted by hard labor and forced marches, never rose again, but were afterwards found dead on the road to Mount Vernon. On the 26th of November the house of a gentleman named Bell was attacked by an armed party of the enemy and set on fire. The inmates, a large family of nine persons, were consigned to the flames. Two alone of the whole household escaped this horrible fate. On the 29th a band of twenty-one Union prisoners at Nashville were compelled to take the oath of allegiance, and enter a company in the rebel army. Leadbetter, the secession commander in East Tennessee, had his headquarters at Greenville, and on the 30th of November issued a proclamation promising protection and pardon to all who would lay down their arms and submit to the Confederate government. From this clemency he excepted bridge-burners and destroyers of railroad tracks. He closed his proclamation with the assurance that “they will be tried by drumhead court-martial, and be hung on the spot.” This terrible order was put into execution a few days afterward. Jacob M. Hemslier and Henry Fry, two Unionists, being tried and pronounced guilty of these offences, were hung. The days of hope for the Unionists were weary and prolonged, but deliverance was drawing nigh. The loyal men of the western part of the State organized to oppose the measures of the leaders, and early in January a bold resistance was made in Carroll, Weakly, McNairy, and other counties, against the conscription act. Rebel troops were sent into these counties to compel submission, and enforce obedience.