“One other incident of this stormy and eventful part of his life, forcibly illustrates his fearless character. In 1861, happening one day to step into the Court-house, he found a meeting of citizens called to devise means for raising troops for the rebel army. A person in the audience, unfriendly to him, and desiring to provoke him to talk in the presence of soldiers, suggested that perhaps Colonel Baxter would make them a speech. He did so, and made quite a different speech from what they wanted to hear. He compared the resources of the North and South--told them that superior numbers and wealth and advantages in arming and equipping forces were sure to give the North success; and that the war, if prosecuted long, would end in the liberation of their slaves, loss of life and treasure and final defeat. He also argued against the policy of conscripting Union men for the Confederate army, and advised the soldiers present, that such men would be of no service or aid to them. A garbled report of the speech was published in a Confederate paper, making it even more obnoxious than it was as delivered. A Georgia regiment stopped a few days afterwards, on the way to Virginia, and a few personal enemies of Baxter supplied them with drink and copies of the paper containing the garbled speech and suggested that he ought to be hanged. They proceeded to the Court-house where, it was reported, that Colonel Baxter was engaged in the trial of a case. His friends, learning of the danger that threatened him, reached the Court-house in advance of the soldiers and advised him to flee for his life. Instead of doing so, he walked out of the Court-house in the midst of the soldiers and inquired if they were looking for him. One of the leaders thrust a copy of the rebel paper into his hands and asked him if he was the man who made that speech? He told them in a cool, deliberate, fearless manner of the circumstances under which he had made a speech and of the character of the one actually delivered--of the spirit that actuated the men in calling on him for the speech, and of the motive that prompted the publication of it in a garbled form; and then portrayed the cowardice of those who had incited them through drink to come by hundreds to take the life of an unarmed and unprotected man. He asked them if they proposed to be the tools of such men, who dared not confront him personally? His manner, his tact, his manly courage, first startled them, then arrested their attention to his defence and finally won their admiration. Instead of hanging him, they applauded his pluck and approved his denunciation of his enemies. And it is believed that he could easily have turned their fury against his assailants, if he had made the attempt.” APPENDIX: NOTE T: Page 251. [The Topography of Knoxville and Its Vicinity.]