CONFEDERATE VETERAN
April 1909
Vol. XXVII, Page 170
Link to Article at Archive.org
SECESSION IN PUTNAM COUNTY, TENN.
BY J. M. MORGAN, GAINESBORO.
At a public meeting of the citizens of Putnam County, Tenn., held in Cookeville April 22, 1861, HON. E. L. GARDENHIRE was unanimously chosen chairman and WILLIAM J. REAGAN and B. B. WASHBURN secretaries of the meeting. Enthusiastic speeches were made by HON. JOHN H. SAVAGE, HON. S. S. STANTON, HON. E. L. GARDENHIRE, COL. S. H. COMBS, COL. T. B. MURRAY, JUDGE JAMES T. QUARLES, W. H. BOTTS, and others to a large and eagerly listening audience. The subject discussed was about the crisis in our government and the course to be assumed by the slave States.
The chairman appointed H. H. DILLARD, COL. JOHN P. MURRAY, BENTON MARCHBANKS, W. Q. HUGHES, HOLLAND DENTON, TIM H. WILLIAMS, and J. C. APPLE a committee on resolutions. It was perhaps the largest meeting ever held in Putnam County, and there was great enthusiasm. Only three persons in the assembly voted against the resolutions. The preamble stated:
"The antislavery party is the enemy of the Union and the Constitution, advocating the equality of the negro and the white races and the abolition of slavery. To accomplish this the antislavery party has been organized and now constitutes the dominant party in all the free States. And now, having possession of the Federal government in all its departments, it is attempting by conquest and coercion to carry out its damnable heresies entertained for many years toward the South and its institutions. The North has turned a listless ear to all supplication of the South in behalf of their cherished constitutional rights and treated with contempt every proposition for the honorable pacification of our difficulties. A civil war, with its untold horrors and consequences, is now commenced by the sending of an armed fleet by the Federal government to enforce its will upon the Southern Confederacy. Counsel and reason having been in vain exhausted in an honorable effort to secure our rights under the Constitution, we are now driven to the deplorable necessity of appealing for the defense of our homes and our institutions to the stern arbitrament of the sword and that God who rules the battles; therefore
"Resolved:
1. That we endorse every effort that has been made by convention and otherwise to bring about a peaceable settlement of our existing difficulties, and thereby preserve the Union intact; but having failed and all reasonable hopes of pacification being extinct, we do now deem it the wisest policy in Tennessee to unite her future destiny with the Southern Confederacy.
2. That we regard the war now waged upon the Southern Confederacy by the administration as unnational, unwise, and unholy, without authority under the Constitution; that we look upon this act of the President of the United States in calling out troops and making war without the sanction of Congress as an unjustifiable assumption of power.
3. That the position assumed by our Representatives in the State Legislature to use all means to speedily get Tennessee from under the tyrannical rule of Abraham Lincoln meets our unqualified approbation, and they are hereby directed to use all means in their power to dissolve the connection of this State with the general government and unite her fortunes with the Confederate States, and that we will ratify their action when submitted to us for approval.
4. That the duplicity of Lincoln has our contempt; we detest his tyranny and defy his power.
5. That we will resist his usurpation unto death; that we have no compromise with tyranny or with the tyrant who has trampled our Constitution and now seeks to enslave us.
6. That we are opposed to Andrew Johnson for any place or position, and think him unworthy the position he now occupies, and we hereby request our Senators in Washington to no longer attempt to represent us in the Lincoln Congress."
The foregoing is a copy of the preamble and resolutions read at Cookeville April 22, 1861, copied then by me.
In a personal letter Mr. Morgan writes : "I was one of the three who voted 'no' on the passage of the resolutions. I was then a law student, and had an office in Gainesboro, Jackson County, Tenn. I had been contending earnestly for the Union for months, and was sorely mortified at the firing on Fort Sumter. I thought it premature; but when coercion came calling for Tennesseans to fight the Gulf States of the South, I gave down and volunteered for the South and went as a private soldier in the first company that left Jackson County, leaving home on the 14th of May, 1861, and returning at the end of the war, May 22, 1865."
AUTHOR
Job Meekly Morgan
Born: 11 November 1833 Gainesboro, Jackson County, Tennessee
Died: 05 February 1922 Gainesboro, Jackson County, Tennessee
Married: Paulina McDaniel Gore on 14 October 1862 Gainesboro, Tennnessee
Children: Andrew Gore, Eliza Jane "Sissy", Perry Franklin, Ann Arthur, Daniel Crawford, Ella, Job Meekly, Jr.
Parents: Daniel M. and Susannah M. (Smith) Morgan
Served: 28th Tennessee Infantry, 13th Tennessee (Gore's) Cavalry
Obituary in Confederate Veteran, Vol. XXX, 1922, p. 309
Job M. Morgan, Sr.
At the age of eighty-eight years, Job M. Morgan, Sr., died at his home on Roaring River, three miles north of Gainesboro, Jackson County, Tenn., on Sunday afternoon, February 5, 1922. He was born November 4, 1833, and was educated at Burritt College in Van Buren County, Tenn. Upon the organization of the first company from Jackson County, on May 6, 1861, he volunteered as a soldier of the Confederacy. He and a younger brother, Perry T. Morgan, who was killed at the battle of Atlanta, Ga., went out as privates, another brother, Judge George H. Morgan, also going out later.
After serving as private for several months, Job M. Morgan was appointed captain and assistant quartermaster of the 28th Tennessee Infantry, in December, 1862; and on April 29, 1863, he was appointed transportation quartermaster by command of Lieutenant General Polk. He served faithfully throughout the war, and was paroled at Washington, Ga., on May 11, 1865.
Comrade Morgan was a long-time subscriber to the Veteran, and he and his aged wife, who survives him, looked forward each month to its coming and never tired of reading it. His illness had been of several years' duration, but he ever maintained a cheerful spirit.
Obituary in the Gainesboro, Sentinel, 9 February 1922, Page 2
J. M. Morgan, Sr., Answers Last Roll Call.
Job M. Morgan, Sr., age 88 years, four months and one day, one of the oldest and most highly esteemed citizens of the upper Cumberland section, died at his home on Roaring river, three miles northeast of Gainesboro Sunday afternoon Feb. 5th, at 5 p. m., following a paralytic stroke which he suffered two or three days preceding his death.
Funeral service was held at the home OMonday afternoon conducted by the Rev. K. A. Early. Interment took place in the Gore Cemetery near the home.
Mr. Morgan was born near Gainesboro, November 11, 1833, and had spent the most of his long and useful life in and near this place. He was a veteran of the civil war. He volunteered in the army, 1861, and was a memember (sic) of the Eighth Tennessee Infantry, which was organized by Wm Gore, it being the first company that was made up in Jackson County, After serving as a private several months he was transferred and promoted to Captain of A. Q. M. of the 8th Tenn., Infantry, and was afterward appointed Transportation Quartermaster. He served faithful throughout the war and war paroled at Washington, Ga., May 11, 1865.
He was Clerk and Master here for one term, having been appointed to the office in 1891. Prior to this, he was engaged in the practice of law and was considered one of the ablest of the local bar. He was a consistent member of the Christian, and was devoted to his family. Everybody who knew him liked him.
Besides his wife, who was Miss Pine Gore before her marriage, and wo is now passed her 87th birthday, he is survived by the following children: Mrs. W. H. Haile of Cookeville, Mrs. W. F. Sadler, D. C., and Miss Ella Morgan of Gainesboro, and Job M. Jr. of Aberdeen, Miss. He is also survived by a brother, Sam Morgan, of Cookeville, and two sisters, Mrs. Nan Richmond and Mrs. Lucinda Ballard, who reside in California.
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