The fall of Fort Donelson on February 1, 1862, had been followed by a panic at Nashville that was ludicrous in some of its scenes and incidents. It spread, feebler and with less extravagant display, to other places in Tennessee. The small migration of families to Georgia from Knoxville immediately on the heels of the disaster was really needless, for the Fort was more than two hundred miles distant, with the Cumberland Mountains intervening. Governor Isham G. Harris and the Legislature felt compelled to flee from Nashville. He took up his residence at Memphis and assembled there a quorum of the Legislature, which passed an act calling the State militia between the ages of eighteen and forty-five into active military service. The Governor took steps promptly to enforce the law, but in East Tennessee the preliminary measures were not very effective. In many instances the people refused to attend muster at their regimental parade grounds, where, indeed, they had not been used for many years to assemble for military training. It was not long before many men sought refuge in Kentucky from the conscription. They left their homes in companies of ten, fifty or a hundred, starting at night, sometimes concealing themselves during the day and resuming their journey under cover of the darkness, and at length passed over the border, rejoicing that they were free from the strong hand that would force them to fight against the United States. With the joy they felt at their deliverance was mingled an earnest purpose to return, attended by powerful friends, to their beloved land and restore it to the nation.