the civil war in tennessee
On June 8, 1861, despite efforts by many Unionists, Tennessee ratified with about 70 percent of the vote - 108,418 to 46,996 - for the Legislature's ordinance of secession. In East Tennessee, 69 percent opposed it.
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The war left much of Middle Tennessee in ruins, with the other two sections bearing deep scars as well, but it also brought enormous changes. Many Tennessee women, for example, had assumed new roles during the war, running plantations and farms, managing businesses, serving as nurses, and spying on the enemy. The war ended slavery, and with its demise came a new era of race relations and a future for the state's African Americans that, despite the promise of freedom, contained much uncertainty and hardship. Economically, it would take the state years to achieve the level of prosperity that it had enjoyed before the war. Tennessee sent over 120,000 soldiers to fight for the Confederacy and over 31,000 to aid the Union and had had more battles fought within its borders than any other state except Virginia. Civilian violence had taken a heavy toll as well. Families across the state had lost husbands, fathers, and sons. Nothing before and nothing afterwards would have such an impact on the state as did the Civil War.
http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=265 |
Approx 120,000 Tennesseans fought for the Confederacy - approx 3000 died
Approx 50,000 Tennesseans fought for the Union - approx 7000 died
Approx 50,000 Tennesseans fought for the Union - approx 7000 died
Lincoln's 2nd inaugural address (on reconciliation):
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."