Tennessee politician John Bell opposed Secession until he didn’t. He discovered, however, that other men were made of sterner stuff. And also, his old friend William “Parson” Brownlow was evidently made from spite and vinegar. Secession and the summer of 1861 divided the two, as it divided Tennessee. And no matter what happened in politics or the papers, other men quietly gathered guns and torches, dead-set on fighting the Confederacy by any means.
