For a considerable time, including that in which these trials, imprisonments and executions occurred, there was a reign of terror over Union people. The vigilance of the party in power subjected even citizens of better social position to arraignment for slight or insufficient reasons. To have been born in a Northern State was _prima facie_ a ground of suspicion, unless the person were a pronounced friend of the rebellion. Equally so was the fact that one had been a conspicuous Unionist before the secession of Tennessee, more especially if his position in reference to public affairs generally, was prominent. Dr. R. H. Hodsden, of Sevier, and Representative of that county and Knox, was hunted for, but evaded the search until he was induced to believe that he would not be harshly treated. He then surrendered himself to his pursuers, and upon giving security for his good conduct and declaring his submission to the Confederate Government, he was released from custody. Col. Connelly F. Trigg, chairman of the chief committee in the Union Convention at Knoxville and Greeneville, of May and June, feared with good reason that he would be arrested. He therefore made his escape speedily but with difficulty through the mountains into Kentucky. Other lawyers, known to have been friends of the Union, were admitted to the practice of their profession before Judge Humphreys, upon their submission to the Confederate Government. [Illustration: HON. C. F. TRIGG.] During this time, General Zolicoffer, whose camp was on the Kentucky border, made a visit to Knoxville, and by his direction, as it was understood, the soldiers who guarded the town and also the requirement of an oath of allegiance for ingress and egress, were withdrawn. The general condition of things, however, was so disturbing and offensive to Union men throughout East Tennessee that their departure from the country became more frequent. Among their leaders who had not yet gone away, the person most obnoxious to the Confederate authorities was the Rev. Wm. G. Brownlow. He had been from the beginning of their _de facto_ government in the State a thorn in their flesh. Through his weekly journal, the _Whig_, he had annoyed them with complaints of acts of oppression and violence, and a bold use of the freedom of the press, which left no room for doubt of his loyalty at heart to the United States, yet gave no occasion for his arrest and punishment. These ills threatened him so strongly about the middle of October, that he felt compelled to suspend the publication of his newspaper. In the number issued on the 21st of that month, he informed its readers of the indictment impending over him before the grand jury of the Confederate court at Nashville, and that he could probably “go free by taking the oath” which the authorities were “administering to other Union men,” but his “settled purpose” was “not to do any such thing.” He spoke of “the wanton outrages upon right and liberty” suffered by the people