While this wise management on the part of Governor Brown did not change the sentiments of the Union men of North Georgia, it prevented any serious outbreak, and kept them soothed and quieted throughout the war. Matters were managed differently in East Tennessee; and the result was, that the Union men of that section went into the business of bushwhacking, and created a great deal of trouble. While Governor Brown exercised authority without regard for precedent, the time and the occasion being without precedent, he was very wise and very prudent in meeting such emergencies as those that arose in North Georgia. By the time the election for governor came on, Joe Brown had aroused a good deal of opposition. He had had a controversy with the Confederate authorities because the latter had enrolled troops from Georgia without first making a requisition on the governor. He had seized several cargoes of salt which the speculators had been holding for higher prices. There was at that early day, and all during the war, a salt famine in the South. The farmers found it difficult to save their meat, owing to the scarcity of salt. It is a curious fact, that, when the famine was at its height, a pound of salt was worth a pound of silver. Foreseeing this famine, a great many shrewd business men had laid in large stocks of salt, storing it about in large warehouses in different parts of the State. They were about to realize immense fortunes out of the sufferings of the people, when Governor Brown stepped in and seized all the salt the State authorities could lay hands on, and prohibited the shipment of the article out of the State. The Legislature afterwards came to the support of the governor; but if the matter had been discussed in the Legislature in advance of the action of the executive, the speculators would have had timely notice, and the State authorities would have found no salt to seize. [Illustration: The Salt Famine 284] This salt famine was almost as serious as any result of the war, and it hung over the State until the close of the contest. In thousands of instances the planters who had been prodigal of salt before the war, dug up the dirt floors of their smokehouses, and managed to extract a small supply of the costly article. The Legislature was compelled to organize a salt bureau, and for that purpose half a million dollars was appropriated. The State, in self-defense, took into its own hands the monopoly of manufacturing salt and of distributing it to the people.