Children of the Storm

I have been reading Jeff Shaara’s novel, A Blaze of Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh. His book reminded me that the east versus west disagreement that occurred in Virginia as described in my book, Storm Coming: A Novel of the Civil War in Western Virginia , also occurred in Tennessee. Except in Tennessee it was the eastern counties that wanted to secede and form a new state. Before South Carolina attacked Fort Sumter on April 2, 1861, most Tennesseans had wanted to stay with the Union. In the 1860 Presidential election t hey had voted by a slim margin for the Constitutional Unionist John Bell, a native son and moderate who wanted to find a way out of the crisis that led to the southern states seceding from the union. The following map shows the 1860 election results: 1860 Presidential Election Results Unlike Virginia’s Governor Letcher, Tennessee’s Governor Harris did not believe he had the authority to call a State Convention without a vote of the people. In Februa...